11/16/14 – Gareth Porter – The Scott Horton Show

For Pacifica Radio, November 16th, 2014.
I'm Scott Horton.
This is Anti-War Radio.
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This morning's guest is our friend, Gareth Porter.
Independent historian and journalist primarily for Interpress Service as well as truthout.org.
And he's the author of the book, Manufactured Crisis, the untold story of the Iran nuclear scare.
And that's the subject of his most recent article here as well at truthout.org.
U.S. sanctions relief fails, threatening nuclear talks.
Welcome back to the show, Gareth.
How are you doing?
I'm fine.
Thanks for having me on again, Scott.
Very happy to have you here and especially on this most important subject.
So the background is, and you wrote the book on it, Iran never did have a nuclear weapons program, not a secret nuclear weapons program.
And their civilian nuclear program is not cover for a nuclear weapons program.
They just never had one.
Even when the CIA says that they halted their nuclear weapons program in 2003, as you report in your book, Gareth, they halted something in 2003, but it wasn't a nuclear weapons program.
And the case is proved in this book and in previous interviews and the rest of your journalism, of course, and we can go back over some of that.
But point being that right now we are almost at the deadline.
November the 24th is the deadline, which I suppose could be extended.
But for the Iran nuclear talks where the Obama administration is negotiating with the Iranians to put this giant fake outstanding issue between our two countries to bed once and for all, so that then presumably we could continue to pursue a bit of a detente, a rapprochement with Iran.
We don't have to necessarily be allies with them again, but at least ratchet down the tension against Iran, this Cold War that's been waged against them virtually my whole lifetime.
And we're right at the cusp of this.
And then as you report here, things are looking pretty grim or at least pretty iffy for the chances of this final nuclear deal to be achieved.
So I guess, first of all, verify for the people that what I said was right.
That's what you report in your book Manufactured Crisis.
There never really was a nuclear weapons program.
Maybe now they're trying to negotiate to keep this program from ever becoming one, the civilian nuclear program.
But they never really were making weapons, were they?
Absolutely not.
I mean, not only were they not making weapons, but as I point out in the book, the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran going back to the Iran-Iraq War is very clear on one point that the supreme leader, the first supreme leader of Iran, that is Ayatollah Khomeini, absolutely would not tolerate the existence of any weapons of mass destruction because he considered them to be illegal under Islam, just unacceptable from the point of view of Islam.
And he insisted that Iran could not possess, let alone use, any chemical weapons during the war against Iraq, despite the fact that Iran was subject to a constant series of chemical weapons attacks by the Iraqi forces.
And so that makes the point.
It convinced me in the process of doing my research that there are serious Islamic objections to and constraints on Iran's policy toward all weapons of mass destruction.
And this clearly has made a very decisive difference in regard to Iran's policy toward nuclear weapons as well.
And with regard to what happened between 2001 and 2003, I make the case in the book that there were undoubtedly people probably in the IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who wanted to do some work related to nuclear weapons on the argument that, well, in the case of chemical weapons, we did try to deter the other side by showing that we knew how to make them, so let's do the same thing on nuclear weapons.
And they were undoubtedly doing some kind of work, but whether it reached the level of field tests or even having actual technology, that's another question entirely.
I think that's very, very doubtful.
And I think that the case that was made by the CIA and the intelligence community in its 2007 NIE that there was a nuclear weapons program is extremely suspect, to say the least.
So I would urge people to take a look at my book, because I do present a much more detailed case for that argument.
Right.
And yeah, it's very important to note so that people understand.
I saw a former government official on Fox News say outright, and of course without being contradicted by the anchor, that Obama is negotiating Iran's right to nuclear weapons.
And it's just as simple as that.
And since, hey, nuclear on its face means complicated and mathematical and scientific, and I don't want to hear it because I don't know anything about that.
And so people tune out.
If the experts on TV say this is a danger, then it must be a danger.
And if they say Obama's putting us in danger, then, hey, that sounds pretty plausible.
You put the word nuclear next to it.
So I just say, hey, but wait, first read Gareth Porter and inoculate yourself a little bit from this fear propaganda that they keep putting out here.
I've made the case, Scott, that the entire history of U.S. intelligence analysis on the Iranian nuclear program is fundamentally shot through with mistakes, with essentially a wrong appreciation of what was going on based on political incentives or personal incentives that analysts and intelligence officials had for many years, which was essentially that they didn't want to get out of line with the policy of both the Clinton administration and the Bush administration that wanted to accuse the Iranians of having nuclear weapons ambitions.
So I think there's a fundamental problem there with the whole history of U.S. intelligence, which is really at the bottom of this problem.
Right.
In other words, the government, they're a bunch of conspiracy theorists.
Conclusion first.
And then they cherry pick and assemble their evidence after the fact so that they look right.
Absolutely right.
I mean, it was a conspiracy theory based on, you know, what what fit into the policy and political interests of the administration.
Simple as that.
All right.
So now let's talk about these talks, because we got an interim deal a year ago and the IAEA has reported that, yeah, everything's going swimmingly.
The Iranians have implemented every bit of it that they're supposed to implement under the interim agreement as they hammer out the final details.
And as you reported, I think, first and best, the Iranians and the Russians were working on, I guess, sort of a side deal that would take care of something that was a real worry, a real outstanding issue.
What are we going to do with this stockpile of enriched uranium so that the crybabies can't pretend that someday it's going to be a nuclear weapons threat to us?
And you're reporting here that they have solved that issue.
They are going to send that stockpile to Russia.
They're not even going to have a stockpile.
They're going to send it all to Russia as they enrich so that the Russians will manufacture the fuel rods for them to use.
And there won't be anything for the prime minister of Israel or anybody else to point and cry about.
It just won't be there.
Just thin air.
Sounds like the last major sticking point resolved.
Gareth, what's the problem?
Right.
What's been happening the last several weeks is apparently that the two sides, the United States and Iran, have in fact been negotiating actively on the question of enrichment capability, including, of course, the stockpile of low-enriched uranium.
And as you said, that stockpile problem is now apparently resolved in principle.
I don't think they've decided precisely the mathematical terms on which it will be resolved.
But they're now essentially arguing over whether Iran will have 900 or 600 or something, obviously, in between the two numbers in terms of centrifuges.
And I clearly do not believe that the two sides are going to refuse to sign an agreement based on that difference.
So that means that the only remaining major issue, as far as I can see, and this has been just confirmed today in a report from Tehran that Fars News Agency has published, a senior Fars official has suggested that, in fact, it is now – the only issue remaining is the U.S. policy on removing the economic sanctions against Iran.
That's the only thing that stands between the two sides and a final deal.
But as I've said in my latest piece, it is by no means clear that it's going to be possible to reach an agreement on that because the United States is so far away from meeting the minimum requirements here that the Iranians have put forward as a red line.
And that means, first of all, that all of the sanctions have to be included in the deal, that the United States can't say, well, we're not going to talk about removing the sanctions on trade, that is the trade sanctions that were put in place in the mid-1990s because that was not related to the nuclear issue.
Well, that's not going to pass muster.
I mean, the Iranians have been using essentially the nuclear program in part as negotiating chips to get the United States to end what they obviously regard as a fundamental insult to Iran's political status, to its sovereignty and a sign of hostility toward Iran that has been in place now for 20-some years almost.
So that's got to be a part of the deal.
And the United States thus far has not shown a willingness to change its policy on that.
It's going to have to do so in the next week or so in order to get a deal.
And that's, I think, a fundamental problem.
Wait, stop there for a second, because now when it comes to these sanctions, now some of this Obama and Kerry can do themselves, they can waive them, but they can't really repeal any of them without the cooperation of the Congress, right?
Can't repeal them, but they can, in fact, suspend those sanctions.
They can suspend them, but then when Jeb comes or when Hillary comes, same difference, the whole deal is off.
So that's problematic, right?
It's absolutely right.
It is problematic.
So Lindsey Graham is saying, well, I want to participate in this and I want to vote up or down or whatever, but he already has a vote up or down on this, really.
He has all the power in the world right now, the Republican War Party and the Senate, to kill this deal by refusing to repeal the sanctions.
I think the only kind of fix that one could have for this is that the Obama administration would have to pledge that it will go to Congress to make the case that it is necessary to the U.S. national interest to have these sanctions be removed as part of the deal.
Otherwise, we will be faced with a national security crisis.
And I have to tell you that there is a – that in the negotiations on the Vietnam peace deal, which I'm certainly one of the world's experts on because I wrote the first book on it, on the Paris peace agreement, there was a secret deal between the United States and North Vietnam in which the Nixon administration pledged that it would use constitutional mechanism to seek a 3.5 – or I've forgotten the exact – the 3.2 to 3.5 billion dollar program of assistance to North Vietnam.
So that is a precedent for essentially making that part of the deal.
I would be surprised if the Iranians aren't demanding that that be one of the parts of the deal as it's being negotiated.
All right.
Now, as far as the so-called smoking laptop, the alleged studies documents, which you have done the work to debunk as probably Israeli forgeries, and that's capital P probably, Israeli forgeries there, they're still playing a role in these negotiations and could still cause trouble, no?
That's absolutely right.
I mean, you know, one of the linkages here between the laptop and the negotiations, the main linkage here is that – a very direct one – that the Obama administration has said and as far as I know to this day still is demanding that Iran must explain or, you know, come to terms with the charges that have been made in the laptop documents and in later documents that the Israelis we know turned over to the IAEA from 2008 and later, which alleged these – that the Iranians did this nuclear weapons work.
And so, in effect, what the administration appears to be saying is the Iranians have to somehow confess to having done nuclear weapons work in order to make a deal with us, in order to get sanctions relief.
I mean, they're ready to go ahead with the deal, but they're saying that they won't get sanctions relief until and unless they satisfy the IAEA on the so-called possible military dimensions issue.
And, of course, that's impossible because the Iranians didn't do what they're being accused of and they're never going to agree that they did it.
But I'm not at all confident that this administration is capable of grasping that reality.
And so they are, in effect, setting themselves up again for failure of the talks by taking that position.
And that's another thing that they will have to change in the next few days if they want to get an agreement.
All right.
Now, so here's my thing.
It seems within the realm of possibility Obama could make this happen if he's willing to play hard and play his politics right.
But then the Wall Street Journal found out that Obama wrote a letter to the Supreme Leader saying something along the lines of, hey, let's get this nuclear deal done.
But then these Democrats, Garrett, that's not good enough for them.
He says, yeah, then we can work together against the Islamic State.
Now, if we're talking simple manpower, then, yes, I guess on the face of it, it makes sense for America to again ally with the Iranians and their pet militias in Iraq among the Shiites to go and try to rouse the Islamic State out of Mosul or something like that.
However, I don't think anyone's going to pretend that we're going to be greeted with rose petals and candy this time when we're bringing the Bata Brigade and their power drills to come and occupy the people of Mosul.
The power drills is a reference to how they like to torture people to death for fun.
The guys in the Bata Brigade.
And so isn't that the stupidest freaking thing you ever heard in the world?
We can't just have peace with Iran.
Now we've got to lie with them at war and and make everything that much worse.
Well, I mean, of course, the issue there is is a little bit ambiguous in terms of what it is that the United States would be pledging to do or operating with Iran.
So I'm not you know, I'm not sure about that.
This remains to be seen.
But I just want to point out that the most interesting thing about that letter is the fact that it ostensibly, if it's an accurate report, which, you know, I assume up to now, I've been assuming that it is reasonably accurate, that what Obama did was to indicate that we value and want the that Obama wants a deal on the nuclear issue with Iran even more than it wants cooperation of Iran on the ISIS problem.
Now, that's very interesting.
I mean, it suggests to me that, in fact, Obama is acknowledging that Iran has a stronger bargaining position in relation to the to the nuclear deal than we do, because we want it more than they do.
So it's a very interesting, you know, aspect.
And I think it's the really important story in that whole tale about the about the letter.
But I just also want to point out that I think Obama does want a deal pretty badly.
But, you know, it's it's another case of the old problem that I've talked about with regard to Iran.
I've talked about with regard to Afghanistan on your show and and written about this elsewhere, that, you know, the interests of the president and the interests of the national security state are two very different things.
And Obama is still embedded.
His presidency is embedded in a national security state that has a very different set of interests from the president himself.
And from their point of view, it's not at all clear that we want to make those those concessions to Iran to get a deal.
You know, that's my reading of it.
I think that there's a tension there that makes this.
That's what makes this so uncertain as to whether the United States is going to go in the end for a deal by making the concessions that are necessary.
Yeah.
A little bit of a wild card in this, too, is still, I think, Israel.
And it would sound crazy except for the president, Gareth, back in 2009, right around this time.
It was October, actually, 2009, when Obama was not trying quite as hard, but still kind of had a proposal out there toward the Iranians.
The Israelis had their sock puppets in Jandala in Iran, murder some Iranian military officers, kidnap and murder them.
And we found out later it was Mossad posing as CIA that recruited these guys and put them up to it.
And that was what completely scotched Obama's first attempt at a deal in the fall of 2009.
I mean, that is hugely brazen on the part of the government of Israel.
They are apparently, Gareth, willing to do anything to stop this from happening.
And, you know, I guess you could call it still late October here, if you want.
Right.
Yeah.
Brazen is is the least of it.
I think that this this Israeli government is capable of doing just about anything, including assassinations and and other acts of violence to to try to destroy this, the chances for this agreement.
But, of course, I mean, their main instrument is the U.S. Congress.
And that is that is the the fight that we are going to see happen if there is no deal.
If even even if there isn't a deal, there's no question that the Congress will act to maybe especially if there isn't a deal.
The Congress will act to try to pass legislation that will make it impossible for any deal to be reached in the future.
So there's going to be an all out fight here.
This is going to be the culmination of this drama coming in December and later.
Yeah, well, and of course, looking back, though, the excuse for all the sanctions always was so that we can force them to the table and make them negotiate.
But, of course, that's only half true.
Maybe some of them meant that.
But for the rest of them, it's all just a method to make sure we stay at Cold War forever to make it all that's that's repealable as possible.
That's where the interests of the national security state come in.
I mean, the the sanctions become an end in themselves.
That is, as has been argued by more than one observer.
Sure.
You know, it becomes their sort of symbol of power influence, once again, showing the United States is in control.
They don't want to get rid of that.
They want to hold on to it.
And that's where there is a coincidence of interest or at least a connection between the interests of the Israelis and of the national security state.
Right.
And, of course, the way the Republicans put it, and this is the it comes from the Israelis, from the prime minister of Israel and and his people.
And that is about a bad deal.
It's a bad deal.
Let's call it bad.
We won't explain, but it's just bad.
But when they ever do explain bad means any deal where the Iranians continue enriching uranium at all anywhere in Persia.
And, of course.
And this is a reflection, Scott, of the very longstanding historically Israeli position, a policy that Israel will not tolerate any other power in the Middle East having the military wherewithal to balance in any sense the the power of the Israelis.
And so they cannot abide a threshold state just as they cannot abide a nuclear state in the region.
And that's why they will not willingly stand for for Iran being able to enrich uranium.
Now, you know that whether whether Israel is ever going to attack Iran is an entirely different question.
And I've made the case in my book, as you know, that that was never going to happen, that they do not, in fact, have the ability to succeed in that and that the risks and costs are just too high.
The Israeli military and intelligence establishment is unalterably opposed to it, I believe.
Right.
Yeah, I mean, that is the good news here that people ought to take heart, that since there is actually no crisis, but this fake manufactured crisis, that the failure of these talks, if they do indeed fail, doesn't necessarily mean war.
It just means more of the same horrible status quo.
But there is no nuclear race for a nuclear weapon that we have to preempt or anything like that, even if you accept the premise that it would be OK to do so.
We go from, you know, hope back to a status quo, but not to any stage of crisis, which, as Stephen Walt pointed out, it's kind of funny that those of us who are not concerned about Iran's nuclear program at all are the ones who are most concerned that we get this deal.
The ones who the people who claim to be afraid of their nuclear capacity are the ones who don't want a deal.
They rather have a war someday, I guess.
Well, they want the United States, of course, to carry out the war.
They want the United States to have a confrontation militarily with Iran.
That's been the explicit policy all along of the Netanyahu government.
But I do have to say that I think that if there is no deal, you're going to see an inevitable ramping up of tensions, and it's going to be more dangerous.
I don't think we should blink that fact.
It's certainly an undesirable situation, and it's beyond undesirable.
I think it's dangerous.
And the Iranians are going to make sure that we feel it's dangerous because it is in their interest to do so.
Let's face it.
Yeah.
Well, but then again, we're going to be flying as air cover for the Quds Force in Iraq.
Let's face that, too.
And just like during the George W. Bush years, America is Iran's indispensable ally.
Well, I think you're right that there is a de facto alliance that's in effect in Iraq between the United States and the Shia and their Iranian allies.
I don't question that.
And I think that raises very serious issues, as I think you've correctly pointed out, about why is the United States necessarily having any interest in becoming militarily involved, whether it's as air cover, as you say, or otherwise?
I think we should be questioning that, not just questioning it, but opposing it.
No doubt about that.
Yeah.
There's a giant sectarian war that George W. Bush started, more than anything else, led by Saudi Arabia and Iran.
And instead of not taking either side or only taking one side and sticking to it, America is on all sides of this thing still, backing the Iranians in Iraq but opposing them and backing the Saudis against them everywhere else.
And people are getting killed all over the place.
The whole thing is crazy.
Yeah.
I mean, consistency has never been the strong point of U.S. policy in the Middle East, that's for sure.
Yeah.
Even, you know, from day to day, if you're watching CNN where they're saying, you know what, maybe actually the route to ISIS in Syria is through Assad.
We got a regime change, the secular fascist dictator, in the middle of him attempting to put down an Islamist bin Ladenite uprising.
It would be like if Saddam Hussein had been in the middle of putting down a bin Ladenite insurgency at the time that Bush went ahead and overthrew him anyway.
Right?
Everybody says de-Baathifying the government, abolishing the Baathist army.
That was the worst thing that they did in the Iraq war.
Right.
You know, other than just the invasion itself.
Well, now that's their plan, to do that even in the middle of a war against a bunch of bin Ladenites, to do that exact same thing to the Saddam of Syria.
Yeah.
And again, you know, I think one of the elements of this crisis regarding Syria is that you have a very different set of interests here between the president himself personally and the national security state.
I mean, you know, I think that's been pretty well documented, that Obama himself did not see any U.S. interest in becoming militarily involved.
He thought it would be a terrible mistake.
And the military, you know, seemed to be inclined to agree with him.
But I think that there were other parts of the national security state that were Israelis and the Saudis, the Israelis, the Israelis and the Saudis, definitely.
And, of course, they have their friends in the U.S. national security state.
No, no question about that, especially the Saudis and the NSA and the CIA.
I mean, they're very strong alliances there.
But, of course, the Pentagon also, you know, has great linkages with with the Saudis and with UAE because they're selling them a lot of very expensive weaponry.
And that's become an extremely important military interest and Pentagon interest.
So all of this plays into, you know, the situation where in the in the context of domestic political pressures on the president to to do something about Syria and about Assad, the national security states, those people, the national security state that are pushing for more military involvement in Syria have more more purchase, more and more influence over over Obama.
Thank you very much for your time again, Gareth.
Great to talk to you.
My pleasure.
Thanks a lot, Scott.
That's the great Gareth Porter, everybody.
He's the author of the book Manufactured Crisis, wrote the book on it.
Manufactured Crisis, The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare.
Read him at IPSnews.net at Truthout.org and at Original.
Antiwar.com slash Porter.
That's it for Antiwar Radio for this morning.
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