09/25/13 – Ali Gharib – The Scott Horton Show

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Hey, I'm Scott Horton.
Thanks, everybody, for listening.
Our first guest today is Ali Gharib.
And last I checked, he's writing for the Daily Beast.
But here he is at Al Jazeera, America.
AlJazeera.com, U.S. and Iran, the art of the nuclear deal.
Welcome back to the show.
How are you doing?
I'm well, thanks.
It's a pleasure to be here, Scott.
Yeah, it's been way too long since we've talked.
I don't know whatever happened to you coming on the show and me talking to you all the time.
But anyway.
Yeah, it has been a while.
I've just been busy.
But here I am.
All right.
Well, hey, thanks for writing good stuff all the time.
I still read you all the time, even if I don't ask you questions about it all the time.
U.S. and Iran, the art of the nuclear deal.
As you say here, the diplomatic solution requires concessions from both sides.
But making them may be tougher for Obama.
Why is that?
Well, they both have a lot of pockets of domestic opposition to what they're trying to do, both being Obama and the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, and to the extent that he's behind Rouhani, Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.
They're hardliners in both countries.
And, you know, if Rouhani can manage to get the supreme leader behind him in any concessions he wants to make, then that's sort of a done deal.
Khamenei has the final say on matters of state, including and especially the nuclear program.
Now, Rouhani says that he's been delegated the authority to cut a deal on this stuff.
And if that's the case and he does cut a deal, then imposing it is as simple as Khamenei saying, okay, these are the changes we must make to our nuclear program.
You know, we're talking about a one-man show here.
Now, there are some legitimate questions about whether that will happen, because Khamenei is shrewd and fickle, and we don't know if he'll actually back down on some of the concessions that would be that I outlined that would be required of Iran.
Now, all that said, Obama is facing a different thing, because the Iranians' key concerns revolve around the sanctions program that's leveled against their country.
The International Crisis Group did a study of the sanctions.
There's 31 different measures in effect.
And only eight of them are imposed by executive order and have not been codified by the Congress.
And then there's a host of other institutions that have made these sanctions programs against Iran that have taken these measures.
One would be the European Union, and another is the UN Security Council.
Those sanctions, the ones codified by Congress, the ones from the EU, and the ones from the UN Security Council will be much, much harder to permanently reverse, because they take more than just one man's vote.
In the case of the EU, it needs to be agreed by consensus that the sanctions should be reversed.
The UN Security Council would need to issue more resolutions to undo the old ones, and that Congress, likewise, will need to legislate away the sanctions that exist.
Now, in some of those congressionally legislated sanctions, there are opportunities for Obama to use waivers, but the Iranians aren't going to view that as a very concrete concession.
You know, anything that can be that easily reversed, just as a matter of Obama not taking a waiver on a certain set of sanctions, they're not going to view those as the sort of concessions for which they should really open up their nuclear program to the world.
And you know, as we all know, Congress is not exactly a very friendly place to Iran, and it's entirely possible that many members of Congress will balk at the prospect of legislating any kind of sanctions relief.
In fact, Congress is going full steam ahead right now to try and pile on more measures against Iran, even amid this sort of very striking thaw that's happening.
Well, now, in your article you draw the distinction between Obama's position and Netanyahu's position that really, the Democrats, since Obama took power, they have at least implicitly, I think you quote Hillary Clinton pretty directly, but they have at least implicitly all along accepted continued Iranian enrichment, just at this level, not that, and just here, not there, and that kind of thing.
Whereas the Israeli position has been no nuclear anything at all, because it all might as well be an H-bomb hanging over Tel Aviv.
Yeah, the Israelis want every bit of nuclear infrastructure inside Iran to be dismantled, they want all the nuclear material to be quarantined and shipped out of the country, they want to basically erase Iran's nuclear program from the pages of history, to borrow a phrase.
But then, so you're saying that that's Congress's position, and that's what Obama's up against, is if he wants to make a deal where he concedes, okay, 3.6% enrichment at Natanz, but please close Fordow and cease any enrichment up to 20%, whatever.
That's not going to be good enough for Congress.
He's not going to be able to say to Congress, we won, we got what we want, because Netanyahu's their president, not him.
Yeah, I mean, I think that there's a constellation of Iran hawks with various interests, and no doubt many of those interests are tied up with the interest of Israel via Israel's proxy in D.C., which is the sort of constellation of pro-Israel groups, especially AIPAC, which exerts a tremendous amount of influence on the Hill, although that has faltered recently too.
I wouldn't be surprised if AIPAC made a play to get congressional support for Obama's resolution to strike Syria.
Now, Congress is well aware that Iran is a much bigger deal to AIPAC, and it's a much bigger deal to Israel, so they may still go along with it, full tilt, as they have in the past, but there's always a chance that Obama could peel away enough Democrats to sort of start a movement to try and repeal some of these sanctions.
But basically you're right, that Congress is unlikely to go along with concessions that leave any sort of Iranian enrichment capacity in place.
And there's also another issue, which is that, you know, the issue of even starting negotiations with the Iranians, or coming to a final agreement without having the Iranians suspend their program.
The Security Council mandates that Iran should suspend its enrichment for an undisclosed period.
This is not the same as the Israeli demand that everything be dismantled and shipped out of the country, but it's still a demand that is, you know, enshrined in international law by the Security Council.
Even under President Bush, when the U.S. joined the P5-plus-1, the P5-plus-1, this group of world powers that includes Russia, China, Germany, the U.K., and the U.S., and France, sent proposals to the Iranians that, you know, left open the possibility that Iran would be allowed to enrich at a later date.
Since Obama's come to power, they've been much more explicit about it.
But what Obama really changed, the most significant change that he made, was to eliminate preconditions.
That is, Bush was unwilling to even negotiate with Iran, to sit at a table with them.
The P5-plus-1 is floating these proposals for negotiations, but they never happened.
Bush was always and was never willing to sit down at a table with the Iranians unless they first complied with suspending enrichment.
Now, that was lifted by Obama, and his administration has been much more explicit about the possibility for later Iranian enrichment.
And that brought about a change in focus, where what happened was that the focus of the P5-plus-1 countries went not just to, you know, getting direct Iranian obedience of the Security Council resolution, but sort of working on what would be a final deal and how is the best way to get there, irrespective of whether the Iranians were to suspend enrichment at the outset or at any point in the process.
And the reason for that, partly, is because the Iranians have become more obstinate on that point, and they refuse to suspend enrichment.
It's a non-starter for them.
So to say that we're waiting for Iran to suspend enrichment, or insisting on it as a sticking point in negotiations, would be to basically swear off any deal at all.
And that is not a path, certainly, the Obama administration wants to go down.
Yeah.
Well, listen, I'm happy to see any government just acknowledging reality and trying to work with it at all.
I mean, like you're saying, the Bush policy was, it wasn't getting them anywhere from, you know, judging from their own goals, never mind my goals of peace, you know.
But also on the question whether...
Right, and it'd be nice...
Oh, sorry.
No, no.
Well, go ahead.
I was just going to say, it'd be nice to have the Iranians comply with international law.
You know, that would be a great thing, I think, for everybody.
You mean in terms of freezing the enrichment at all?
Yeah, suspending it.
Suspending it in accordance with the U.N. Security Council resolution.
That, it would be a nice thing to have, but as you say, it just doesn't, it's not a realistic prospect.
Yeah, I mean, look...
I mean, it's choosing between the realistic, the realistic prospect of making a deal with Iran without them suspending enrichment, or going to war in order to delay Iran and create chaos in the Middle East, and likely spur the Iranians into actual production of a nuclear weapon, which they're not now doing.
I mean, I would say it's preferable to say, listen, we can kind of wink and nod at this one requirement of the U.N. Security Council resolution that we don't think it's realistic for us to set as a hard and fast condition for any negotiations.
Sure, because, I mean, after all, and look, I'm not the expert on international law, that's the other Scott, but it seems to me like the U.N. can go and screw itself.
They don't have, the Security Council doesn't have the right to tell Iran that they have to freeze enrichment, any more than they got the right to tell you or me what to do either.
They voluntarily signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and voluntarily signed a safeguards agreement under that Non-Proliferation Treaty, and I don't know, you know, what subsection chapter heading this, that, the other thing, the Americans and the Brits, and in this case, even the Russians and the Chinese, think that they have the right to tell them that they have to freeze all enrichment, but if the U.N. Security Council, you know, lest the United States try to tell us that we have to freeze all enrichment, we would say no.
In fact, we don't even live up to our obligations under the NPT to get rid of our nuclear weapons.
Not to mention that we shield Israel from any scrutiny at all over its nuclear weapons program, which, by the way, includes the right of the Iranians, and we don't respect the right of the Iranians like we sworn to do, too.
Well, yes, that's true, Scott, but I have to say that, you know, the right that the U.N. Security Council has to do those things is by majority votes, just like any, I mean, you know, what you're saying, I think, you know, I think this is probably the difference between you and me politically, while we agree on some things, you know, I'm a, I am sort of a progressive who believes in the international system, believes these things are important, and that sometimes sovereignty must take a back seat to them, and I agree with you that the U.S. doesn't live up to all its expectations, and certainly not in terms of Israel, but that being said, that when the U.N. Security Council made this pronouncement in 2006 precisely because Iran had violated the terms of the safeguards agreement, that's what got Iran in this mess in the first place, now, I think you can make an argument that, that, uh...
Well, in what way?
You mean just making Natanz a secret?
Sorry?
You mean just building the Natanz facility in secret, because they hadn't introduced any nuclear material into it?
What way were they in violation of the safeguards agreement?
Yeah, they had done some, they had done some, uh, some initial uranium processing and building those, uh, facilities.
Well, I mean, it was still, there's BBC pictures that they took the BBC on a tour of it in 2005, it was still a big, empty, uh, space underground.
Yeah, that's right, I mean, enrichment, enrichment wasn't, wasn't happening there yet, but, but they were, they were getting fuel, they were acquiring all the materials and all the fuel to do it, and they were required, and, and, you know, there was, there was, there was clear agreement in the, within the international system, and I don't think, and you know, this was at a time when El Baradei was heading up the, the IAEA, you know, not exactly viewed as friendly by the Bush administration, and, and that was at a time when the, when the Director General's report concluded that Iran was in violation of the safeguards agreement.
That's the grounds on which the, the Security Council passed that resolution, and, uh, and that, that does carry the force of international law, I mean, that's just, that's just the way it is, like, I agree that there should be some flexibility.
I guess my understanding was that they were kind of up to the edge of illegality there in the sense that they had created a nuclear program in secret just because the Americans wouldn't let them create one, you know, we interfered every time the Russians or the Chinese tried to sell them a power plant or anything like that, or give them any equipment, so they had to get it from AQ Khan in the underground, but then they never, you know, the deal in the safeguards agreement is you have to let us know six months before you introduce nuclear material into any machine, this, that, and the other thing, and I thought that they had not been in violation of that, but I guess, maybe I don't remember, we're talking about 2003.
I don't know what the Director General of IAEA said, but, anyway, go ahead, I'm sorry.
I think that there's a point of disagreement here, and, you know, being up to the edge of illegality, of legality rather means that you're up to the edge of illegality, and, uh, and so, you know, I think that there's room for a reasonable degree of disagreement on it, and I think that the Security Council might have been a bit aggressive in demanding suspension as part of its resolution, but that said, they did it, and they did it on, you know, grounds that, you know, whether you disagree with them or not are not completely specious.
There was reason for suspicion of Iran, and Iran was, indeed, building a covert nuclear program at the time that its efforts were revealed by, you know, Iranian dissidents with the help of Israeli intelligence, and so, you know, I just think that it's not a communi- I can see precisely where the UN is coming from, and either way, the Security Council has agreed to that condition on Iran, and once that happens, it carries the force of international law.
You know, there are good laws and there are bad laws, and I'm all for trying to use legal processes to undo bad laws, but laws are still laws, and violating them is still violating them, and there are, you know, the- listen, I break the law sometimes, too.
I speed in my car sometimes.
I enjoy the occasional joint, but that doesn't mean that those things are legal, right?
Like, and so I think we need to recognize what's legal and what's not, and make room for flexibility when it's available.
Sure.
Um, I guess my thing is, is it's so obvious, right, all along, it's been obvious, that they don't really want a nuclear bomb, even one of them, as a deterrent.
They want a breakout capability as a deterrent, and that's written into the NPT, basically, that everybody can have a breakout capability if they want to, and America is bound, and the rest of the UN Security Council, everybody else is bound to respect that, and a lot of people hate that and gnash their teeth about it and whatever, but that's the fact of the thing is, their threat is that, look, if you try to bomb and regime change us, then we could withdraw from the NPT and begin trying to make a nuke, and if we were really working hard at it and digging deep underground enough to do it, you wouldn't be able to stop us from finally coming up with a real nuclear bomb.
And that's basically the position they're working for all this time, right?
Is not a weapon.
I think that's a completely reasonable scenario, but you know, I think actually it might boil down to a little, even sort of a less aggressive posture by Iran.
I think that they, when they set out on this path, they did it because they did think that it would bring them some international prestige and bring them a sort of chit to cash in to gain more international legitimacy.
Now, obviously that backfired and the Iranians stuck with it, and if anybody who's ever met an Iranian in their life will tell you, it's probably because Iranians are about the most damn stubborn people in the world, and they stuck with it, and it actually led to the opposite of what they'd hoped for, but I do think that they do it as a sort of an issue of prestige, to be a craw, to stick in the side of the West, and to be a thorn in the West's shoe, and I don't think it's even necessarily sort of a backup plan to be at the threshold of breakout capability.
I just think they want to develop that capability in order to use it to build up their own prestige, and we're hoping to use it as a chit to cash in, and it backfired, and that's why we're seeing a more conciliatory tone by them now.
I see, yeah.
What's funny is it sort of goes without saying, though it shouldn't, that nobody, not even Netanyahu, believes that they would ever, you know, that they're on the path to try to build a bomb so they can use it in a first strike against Israel, which is so ridiculous as, you know, we kind of forget to even bring it up to debunk sometimes.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, we can't really take Netanyahu here.
Anybody who makes a lot of noise, and this sort of goes for the pro-Israel groups in Washington as well.
When you're making a lot of noise, you know, the issue we were just talking about, about suspension being part of a UN Security Council resolution, when you're making a lot of noise about that and talking about adherence to the law and the safeguards agreement and the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, you have to remember, as I was saying before, that Israel's the only country in the world that has a covert nuclear arsenal between 100 and 200 missiles.
That's the best estimates we don't really know.
And when it comes to nuclear weapons in the world, Israel is the one who is completely outside the international legal system.
And so, yeah, there's definitely some hypocrisy there.
I mean, you know what?
I'm sort of of a mind that we should be ignoring.
Well, India and Pakistan, too, right?
Sorry?
India and Pakistan, their nukes aren't covert, but they're outside of the rest of the...
They're outside the legal system as well, but they're declared, yeah, you're right, you're right.
I should...
That was a mistake on my part.
They're not the only ones outside of the legal system.
They're the only ones that have a covert arsenal.
And so we should...
You know, I just think that we've got to take a grain of salt, everything that Bibi says.
There's a clear...
There's sort of clear pressure points that he's trying here to try and, you know, I think Paul Pilar wrote a great piece on the national interest today.
I think it's pretty clear that Bibi not only fears an Iranian nuke, but he fears one in connection with his larger fears, that would be a rapprochement between the West and Iran that I don't think would be good strategically for Israel's position, and I think that that's part of...
You know, I don't doubt that some of his fears of an Iranian nuclear weapon, whether well-founded or not, are genuine, but I do think that he also has great concerns about a deal and what it would mean for Israel's strategic position going forward in the region.
Right.
In other words...
I mean, you know, America's Arab allies, and don't get me wrong, I think they're unsavory allies of ours, but America's Arab allies have been enough of a headache for the Israeli right.
You know, imagine what having a rapprochement and a thaw and maybe better relations between the US and Iran would mean.
Right.
Well, it would mean that America doesn't have any more enemies in the region.
And so...
Well, as far as states are concerned, at least.
Well, and it would mean that much more pressure on the Israelis to make friends with the same countries we're friends with.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's true.
Well, and as Netanyahu complained to Jeffrey Goldberg in the Atlantic, Corporal Goldberg, that hey, this could limit their freedom of action a little bit, you know, if the Iranians ever did have a nuke, not that he feared that Iran would nuke Israel, just it might be harder for Israel to invade southern Lebanon again, like they want to do from time to time.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think that's true.
I mean, I think it's sort of a moot point, because I don't think the Iranians will develop nuclear weapons until a time when, um, when...
That's not quite moot, because they tell the rubes on Fox News all day that, oh, you know what they and their 12th Imam will do with a nuke if they get one, which they're trying to do.
And even Obama, in his speech, said, implied that they are, in fact, making nuclear bombs now.
Yeah, no.
Yeah, no, I mean, no doubt Israel's an important player.
I just think that they, that they, uh, you know, I don't know, I'm inclined these days to just sort of, to sort of cast them aside in a way and view them as just a kind of guy on the sidelines screaming, you know, like at football games and at baseball games you always have these guys that sit in the seats close to the field that yell and scream their heads off.
It's like, you know what?
Those guys don't get to play in the game, and the Israelis aren't playing and trying to hash out a nuclear deal with Iran.
They're a factor mostly only because of the hill, and as I was saying, the sanctions that need to be lifted in order to cut some kind of deal.
But that's it.
That's their only avenue of influence is in that way.
And so I just think that we ought to not care that much, frankly, what they say.
I mean, I don't want to say that they're completely unimportant, but they're just not a major player in this thing.
At this point, all they are is a sort of megaphone yelling at Congress, and that our attentions are better directed at what's actually going on between the U.S., the P5-plus-1, and Iran, and what sort of deal can be arrived at.
You get what I'm saying?
Yeah, absolutely.
Well said.
I like the sound of that.
That was good.
All right.
We're all out of time.
Thanks very much for yours.
Ali Gharib at Al Jazeera America.
And you still writing for the Daily Beast, too?
I'm still writing for the Daily Beast.
I'm writing up a piece right now.
All right.
And follow him on Twitter, too.
Be right back.
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