04/02/15 – Gareth Porter – The Scott Horton Show

Phone records, financial and location data, PRISM, Tempora, X-Key Score, Boundless Informant.
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All right, guys.
Welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
It's my show, The Scott Horton Show.
And I think I got some good news here, man.
I'm just glued to Laura Rosen's Twitter feed.
She's there reporting from Switzerland, says that they're going to give a press conference at 7 o'clock Swiss time tonight, which is I don't know when, in another hour and a half maybe, something like that.
I'm trying to guess my time zones.
London is five hours ahead of New York, so whatever.
Anyway, I also got Gareth Porter on the line, and he's got a source on the Iranian side, says the same thing.
They're going to give a joint statement tonight, but the way Gareth puts it, on substantial progress, major understandings, but unresolved issues.
His latest piece at MiddleEastEye.net is called Iran Demands Lifting of Sanctions for Irreversible Moves.
Now, says insider, and again on the Iranian side, Gareth, please break it down.
What is the dang deal, man?
Well, the latest that I got just this morning about an hour or so ago is that, yes, there will be a statement tonight.
It will do what this political framework, quote-unquote, was supposed to do, except that there won't be the announcement of an agreement per se.
There's not an agreement on all the issues.
That's going to be made clear.
So this is ultimately still going to go down as a failure of the talks, at least insofar as the original aim was concerned.
I mean, I think that is the right way to read it.
So they changed it from a framework agreement to a framework understanding, huh?
Is that right?
Well, I mean, it's going to be a joint statement of here's what we've agreed to so far in principle.
We've made a lot of progress.
We have major understandings, but there's still these issues, which I assume will be identified that have eluded agreement between the two sides.
But, now, is that really different than the goal going into this?
Because I thought that pretty much they were going to only put out a two- or three-page, or maybe not put it out, but agree to a two- to three-page sort of outline, and then the final nitty-gritty details were still going to be put off to July all along, no?
Well, I think there's one.
Perhaps you could say there's an ambiguity about one of the aspects of the so-called political framework, which is whether it would, in fact, reflect agreement on all issues in substance or not.
I would have thought that a political framework would assume that all the key issues have, in fact, been agreed to with only technical matters still to be decided or to be determined.
And so, I mean, that's the main point about it.
But I also think that the main thing is that there was not going to be what they anticipated, what the United States wanted.
Let me put it that way.
What the United States wanted very badly was that this political framework would include details of what had been agreed to in quantitative terms by the Iranians on limitations on their nuclear program.
I don't think they're going to get anything close to that.
I think that the Iranians are not going to give them numbers that they can take back to Congress.
And, of course, they can tell Congress whatever they want, but it's not going to be in a formal statement that they've agreed to X number of centrifuges, a specific timetable for the drawdown of their low-enriched uranium stockpile, a timetable for redesigning the Arak nuclear reactor with the following specifications, etc., etc.
I don't think they're going to get that kind of detail at all.
And I think that's a loss in terms of the Obama administration's aims.
Right.
Okay.
Now, so, in other words, they've really dumbed down their goals here in order to be able to declare victory.
Yeah, I don't even know if they will declare victory in any sense at all.
I think that they will declare that we have reached substantive agreement on a lot of things.
So it's like another victory on the level of the interim deal that they scored back in November of 2013.
Right.
We're winning.
We haven't won yet, but we are getting things done here.
That's the best that they're going to be able to do.
But, of course, if you look at the political context over the last several days in particular and you see that the Obama administration has stepped up what they consider to be diplomatic political pressure on Iran, in various ways, and I include in that not just the statement by Josh Earnest on the 31st that, you know, if the Iranians don't agree, this is not exact wording, but the substance of it was, if the Iranians don't agree to our terms, to our demands, then we will have to take other steps.
We'll have to take other measures.
And that same day, I would point out, in the Washington Post, the court journalist of whatever administration happens to be in power, but particularly Democratic administration, David Ignatius of the Washington Post, had a column in which he talked about the fact that Obama, within days of reaching the Oval Office, approved a cyber attack against Iran, a cyber offensive against Iran, and then made the rather obvious implication, the obvious hint, shall we say, that the Iranians, who knows what the Iranians may find in their cyber mailbox if they don't reach agreement.
Yeah, and then this sick freak, the Secretary of Defense, said, hey, even if we get a deal, all options remain on the table.
What?
Yeah, right, so that's not exactly on message, I would have said, but anyway.
Well, actually, let me ask you, but wait, wait, wait, on that particular point, is he off message there, trying to undermine the President's diplomacy here?
It certainly undermines the diplomacy.
If you say it doesn't matter what the Iranians do, we will still have the same options on the table.
But do you think he was talking out of school when he said that?
I have no idea what was going on there.
I don't have any answer to you on that.
That's a good question.
I ain't like this guy.
All right, so tell me about, well, let's get to the sanctions side of it in a minute, but on the Iranian side and what all they must agree to, et cetera, do you think that even after the deal, the secondary interim deal, or whatever the hell we want to call the thing that they're going to announce today, that this still leaves room for, plenty of room for failure before July?
Or, I mean, I'm trying to think, I mean, you know me, I'm sorry for being an optimist.
I mean, if you take my source at his word, then the Iranians have not gone along with the key demand by the United States and its allies, which is that they must agree to allow the architecture of sanctions to remain in place.
I'm sorry, I'm skipping to the sanctions issue, but this is absolutely central to answer your question.
They have to agree to leave the sanctions architecture in place for the entire duration, at least of the initial 10 years of this agreement, and possibly beyond.
And part of the mechanism that the United States is demanding will be included in the agreement is that the IAEA would have to give a clean bill of health to Iran, not just on the PMD, not just having the Iranians provide the information that would induce our friend Yukiya Amano to say, yes, we agree that your program was always peaceful and you never had any intention of having nuclear weapons and you didn't have a covert nuclear weapons program, but also that Amano would certify that Iran has absolutely no other nuclear material or nuclear sites and that its program is entirely peaceful based on an exhaustive examination of everything, which could take 10 years or longer, and that's the problem for the Iranians.
Well, I see a silver lining in that, though, which is that they've agreed to cooperate on anything real.
It's only the make-believe stuff that still remains outstanding on their side.
But I'm sorry, we've got to take this break.
We'll be right back with the heroic Gareth Porter in just a sec, y'all.
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All right, guys, welcome back.
I'm talking with the great Gareth Porter about the Iran talks.
They're going to have an announcement here that they've come to some form of a framework agreement, this, that, the other thing.
Something short of total failure and quite a bit short of victory as well on the Iran talks, but I guess I'll take it.
Now, a couple of points to clarify here.
That's the possible military dimensions, a.k.a. the alleged studies, a.k.a. a bunch of ridiculous, already debunked by Gareth Porter years ago, Israeli forgeries pretending to expose an Iranian nuclear weapons program that never existed, as per his great book, Manufactured Crisis.
Why the Israelis are lying to you all day about Iran's nuclear program or something like that.
I always forget the subtitle.
That's the one thing.
But secondly, you're saying, so what the Iranians, the sticking point on the Iranian side is that part of the problem here is that they'll have to prove a negative in such a way.
Never mind that they've proved the negative four or five times a year, every year for more than a decade now with the IAEA continuing to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran, which is all of it.
And not even, you're saying, it's not even good enough that they'll put the PMD issue to bed, that they're going to have to take as much as 10 years to turn over every boulder in Iran to make sure that there's not a secret uranium enrichment factory beneath it.
That's it.
That's it exactly.
That's what I was told by my source.
And it does jibe with what I've read from various sources about the U.S. negotiating position, that they, in fact, intend to justify, that they have justified keeping the sanctions in place by saying that it's necessary to ensure not just that Iran carries out all of the explicit parts of the agreement that they've taken on, the commitments under the agreement, but that the IAEA has been able to verify that their declarations are complete and accurate, just as they did in the case of South Africa, which I understand took well over 10 years.
And that is what really bothers the Iranians, and they're certainly not going to agree to that.
And I have to say that, to me, the great mystery about the U.S. negotiating position is why they are sticking to such an extreme position.
And my answer to that is quite simple and very political, and it is that I believe that the Obama administration thinks that's the only way that they can keep, potentially at least, the swing voters in the Senate, hawkish Democrats and Republicans who have not gone all the way over to the dark side, and completely just agreed to do whatever AIPAC says to do.
For example, Senator Corker, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, they have to keep those people on board.
In order to do that, they feel they have to take this position.
That's the only way I can explain it.
I may be wrong, but that's the only way I can explain it.
Yeah.
Well, and speaking of which, we all know there's no such thing as the rule of law in America whatsoever.
And when the DOJ announces they're going to prosecute a senator for corruption, it's just politics.
Never mind the fact that Menendez is, of course, corrupt.
He's a senator.
That's the same thing, corrupt and senator.
But it looks like, would you agree that at least the appearance is that Obama has decided to get the worst Democratic senator out of the way on this issue by siccing the DOJ on him?
Well, I would take that for granted, sure.
I mean, absolutely.
You'd be naive to believe otherwise.
I love that, man.
I think that's just great.
I mean, he was really like the kingpin of the Democrats on the Republican side on the sanctions issue in the Congress, right?
Yeah.
And, you know, I mean, it could be that – I mean, this situation now, it seems to me, poses a very hard decision on the Obama administration.
I think they have to obviously reevaluate their strategy.
They believed that the Iranians would give way, as I've said, you know, I think a number of times on your show.
They wrongly believed that they had a stranglehold on the Iranians because of the sanctions, because of the terrible state of the Iranian economy, and that they would ultimately swallow these very harsh conditions that they've imposed on the question of the lifting of sanctions, which, you know, I think would make it virtually impossible for Iran to justify this in terms of taking it back home to the Iranian modulus, among other things.
So I think that – That's sort of their house of lords or whatever they're – Yeah.
I mean, I think the Obama administration now has to really ask itself, what is the worst scenario here?
Is it the chance that they will not be able to veto congressional legislation because the majority will be greater than two-thirds, or two-thirds or greater, because the swing vote will not stay with them?
Or is it that the Iranians will go ahead and refuse to go along with this, and the talks will fail, and then there'll be certainty of congressional action, and then if they stand to be blamed for the failure, at least that would be one serious argument to be considered by the administration at this point.
And to be blamed for the failure means that automatically the sanctions regime, the international sanctions regime, is finished immediately.
Right.
Well, and see, that's the thing, right, is this is why the Iranians don't have to bend, is because the EU and UN sanctions are basically going to be up.
I mean, America's even given all of our Asian allies exemptions so that they can go ahead and import Iranian oil anyway, because they insisted – Well, they've given a partial exemption, meaning that they can still import some oil, but at a much lesser level than they had before, so it's a mixed bag.
But the U.S. Congress, supermajority, veto-proof majority or not, they can't dictate to the rest of the world that they have to continue to abide by these sanctions, and especially if it's so obvious that it's America's fault that the thing fell apart because of their unreasonable demands, correct?
Well, I mean, I think there's – I have to say there's some ambiguity about this in terms of – I mean, they can't dictate sanctions in a technical sense that are EU sanctions or UN sanctions.
They can't dictate to countries that they must continue to carry them out after they've been broken down or gotten rid of.
But there is this residual power that the U.S. Treasury Department has to attack – attach conditions – well, I shouldn't say conditions.
They can accuse foreign banks and business entities of doing business with Iran, violating U.S. sanctions even on a trumped-up basis, and more importantly, even if there's no technical basis for accusing a bank or another business entity of violating sanctions, there's a great fear on the part of these business entities and banks of going ahead with business after having observed sanctions simply on the grounds that they just don't – they're uncertain.
They don't know really what the situation is, and they say basically they'd better not do anything under those circumstances.
So there's a serious problem here that extends well beyond the law, which the Iranians have apparently just decided that they can't do anything about at this point.
They're going to have to live with it, and they will settle essentially for the suspension of the sanctions on the U.S. side and lifting of sanctions permanently when they – that is, lifting of UN and EU sanctions permanently when they perform what they call irreversible moves that they assume responsibility for under the agreement.
And that's really the sticking point – that's the main sticking point on the sanctions issue.
That's what the United States has refused to agree to.
Right.
And now can you break down for us a little bit about just how much of these sanctions Obama can suspend or in effect repeal by himself and how much cooperation he needs from the Congress?
And I know that there are also additional sanctions that the Congress is threatening to do, but at least I read one thing that said that Netanyahu pissed off the Congressional Black Caucus so much that there's no way they're going to get a veto-proof majority in the House anyway.
I had not seen that.
That's very interesting.
When was that published?
I didn't see it.
I'd call it a week ago or so.
Okay.
That's a good catch, and I will look that up.
But just in terms of the President's power here, what he can do in the case of I believe all of the Congressional sanctions, regardless of whether they're nuclear sanctions or otherwise, is that he can use the national security waiver in each case to essentially continue or to waive the sanctions, I should say, to waive the sanctions so that the Iranians can take advantage of the economic opportunities that are available that would otherwise be taken away by the sanctions.
And that has to be done, depending on the exact legislation.
It varies, I believe, from one piece of legislation to another.
Every 180 days, I believe that's the general rule.
Some of them might be a little bit more than that, but generally it's 180 days.
So twice a year he has to take formal action to waive those sanctions under the national security waiver.
And as long as he can do that, as long as the President's committed to doing that, and that will be part of the agreement, of course, the Iranians are satisfied that the agreement can be carried out.
Of course, if Congress does use the ultimate nuclear weapon, if you will, on this issue, and pass legislation which removes the presidential waiver on all sanctions, then all bets are off.
There's just no deal.
There's no possibility.
But the politics, I mean, I don't know.
Obviously, all of D.C. is Israeli-occupied territory at this point.
I wouldn't even doubt if they have moles on the National Security Council.
But then again, I mean, it seems like with the announcement today of whatever they call it, pseudo-victory, somewhat progress kind of thing, doesn't that really shift the politics toward the President?
That like, hey, Congress, we're working on a pretty much de facto peace deal here, and I'm the President, and you're the Congress, and it's time for you to sit back and shut up and let me handle this.
Well, that's the argument that I've made in the past, and I think that's absolutely correct, that as long as the President can, in fact, veto and not have it overridden by Congress by two-thirds majority, then it does indeed mean that the President has the ultimate hand in this.
And this should – today's news should make it more possible for him to do that, right?
Well, I don't know if it makes it more possible, but it doesn't remove it certainly yet, at least at this point.
I think that he's still in position to go ahead with that strategy.
And let me add one more point that's relevant on what we've just been discussing, and that is that the Iranians are also insisting that the agreement must include a provision that explicitly defines what a UN Security Council resolution would say, as well as the timing of the resolution.
And, of course, what that means is that the resolution must provide that the sanctions that have been removed under the agreement will not be reimposed unless Iran violates the agreement, and that this is now an international legal commitment undertaken by the parties, meaning that a new President of the United States cannot violate this, cannot tear up the agreement or change the agreement in any way, shape, or form without violating international law, and that this must be passed by the UN Security Council by January 21, 2017, meaning before the new President takes office.
Right.
Man.
All right.
Well, thanks very much for your time again on the show, Gareth.
I sure appreciate having you around.
My pleasure.
Thanks very much, Scott.
All right, y'all.
That's the great Gareth Porter.
He's at Middle East Eye.
His latest is Iran Demands Lifting of Sanctions for Irreversible Moves, and the book is Manufactured Crisis.
The Iranians never were making nuclear weapons.
Quit lying.
We'll be right back.
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