All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
It's Anti-War Radio.
I'm looking at lobeblog.com.
That's the blog of Jim Loeb, the Washington Bureau Chief of Interpret Service.
And he's got a posse at the Loeb blog.
Eli Clifton and Ali Gharib and Marsha B. Cohen and Daniel Lubon, of course.
And anyway, Eli Clifton is here.
He often writes, I think he and Ali Gharib write the Iran talking points on a daily basis there at the Loeb blog, reprinted at the blog at antiwar.com.
And that's not so much...
First of all, welcome to the show.
How's it going, Eli?
It's going well.
Thanks for having me, Scott.
Well, I appreciate you joining us.
That Iran talking points, that's not telling us what to say.
That's you telling us what their talking points are every day, right?
Well, yeah, definitely.
The war parties talking points.
Exactly.
It's a point to summarize what the hawks are saying on a daily basis, what talking points they're hitting in terms of trying to escalate tensions with Iran.
Well, speaking of war hawks, David Sanger has a job writing news articles at the New York Times.
That he does.
That he does.
And so what are his talking points?
Well, I mean, the talking points that he was certainly hitting in the WikiLeaks cables, which I'm sure we've all heard of by now, were basically his attempts to frame it as the Arab leadership is pushing for a U.S. strike on Iranian nuclear facilities.
As hard, if not harder, than the Israelis have been.
Now, I think there's a number of problems with the article so far that he's written, but I think it's gotten an amazing amount of play, this version of reading the tea leaves of WikiLeaks.
Well, why don't you delve into that a little bit further?
You know, I saw the King was saying, yeah, you know, you've got to do something about Iran's nuclear program, but then there was one that had the foreign minister saying, don't bomb Iran, whatever you do.
Exactly.
And I think that when you delve into the WikiLeaks cables, look a little more closely at them, as we've attempted to do, you start to see that there's a number of divergent messages, and that the messages aren't quite as clear as Sanger and a number of people have portrayed them as being.
The first being that there's this notion that, as Brett Stephens says, that there are Arab Likudniks who are pushing hard for a U.S. military strike on Iran.
And a couple things come to mind with that.
One is that we're only talking about the leadership here, who have even said these things, and the comments they have made are not that clear.
As Chas Freeman told Oligarchy Blast Week, this is the type of language which actually is fairly common coming from the Arab leadership when speaking to U.S. diplomats.
And it's sort of a language of, first of all, expressing frustration.
No doubt, a rising Iran is a frustration point for them.
But also, sort of looking to the U.S. to resolve problems in a rather unclear fashion, of saying, you know, we have this problem, hey, fix it for us.
When the reality is, once again, far more complicated than that.
So there's sort of that element.
And I think that if you look at polling in the Middle East, you start to see, as the Arab public opinion poll, the 2010 Arab public opinion poll, which was conducted by Brookings, showed, it found that the number of, when an opinion poll was done in the Middle East, of mainly Arab countries, the finding was that the percentage supporting an Iranian nuclear program has actually gone up, from 53% to 77% this year.
So the reality might be, in terms of Arab support or opposition to an Iranian nuclear program, may not be quite accurately reflected by the comments that the leadership have made.
And the other important takeaway, I think, from this is linkage.
You know, the notion that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will help in isolating and weakening Iran's rising strength in the region.
And that, I think, is something that you see as a recurring message in these cables.
Well, and they always switch it around back and forth, right, the linkage.
We can't solve Palestine until we solve Iran, and we can't solve Iran until we solve Palestine.
So we just have a perpetual low-intensity, well, from our point of view anyway, low-intensity warfare against both forever.
Right.
And I think what actually you see is that, okay, maybe there is some language in there that sounds rather harsh against Iran.
But the clearest language in these cables, especially from the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, that's Mohammed bin Zayed, who made a comment, I believe, once comparing Ahmadinejad to Hitler, which was widely distributed.
But he also has made comments, for instance, from this cable on, this is a December 17, 2009 cable, where he says, they abbreviate his name as MBZ, and it says, MBZ agreed and emphasized the strategic importance of creating a Palestinian state, i.e. resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the way to create genuine Middle Eastern unity on the question of Iran's nuclear program and regional ambitions.
That's a very clear statement of linkage right there, and one which I don't think has gotten as much attention as it could.
Now he makes that comment in a couple of, at least one other cable.
And then we also see similar comments coming from Egyptian leadership as well as Jordanians.
Well, what do you think about that?
Do you need to solve one before you can get to the other?
I mean, I think in the broadest sense, the concept of linkage is soundly grounded in realist thinking and is accepted by the higher ranks of the U.S. military.
And I think there's a lot of truth to it.
That being that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will help further U.S. strategic objectives in the Middle East.
And the top objectives right now are stabilizing and withdrawing from both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Well, the inverse of that is Netanyahu's point of view, right?
Which is, how can we ever have peace in Palestine as long as the evil Iranians control Gaza and the West?
He can frame it however he wants, and so until something's done about Iran, we'll never deal in Palestine.
Exactly.
And that's an argument that we've sort of defined as being the reverse linkage argument.
Which roughly uses the argument of the road to peace runs through, fill in the Arab capital, Arab or Middle Eastern capital.
And this was an argument that was used...
We just need three more, four more regime changes and then we'll be ready to give up the West Bank.
Exactly.
And you know what, I think we gave that strategy certainly a thorough try in fleshing out with the invasion of Iraq.
The argument was very publicly made that the road to peace runs through Baghdad.
And there's very little to indicate that Israel has found greater peace with its neighbors since that was accomplished.
So it's a little hard to really believe that, well, you know, hey, once it didn't work out so hot, let's give it another shot.
Alright, well now, so the talks begin today.
So what's Hillary Clinton saying on the way into the renewed nuclear talks?
I mean, this after all is something George Bush would never do, sit down and talk about nuclear issues.
You talk to them about, you know, let's help the same factions in Iraq occasionally.
So, hard work, but we're making progress here or what?
Well, I think it'll be very interesting to see what happens in the next couple of days.
The language going into the talks from Hillary Clinton has been, you know, I'd say for the most part pretty good.
But in some ways, you know, continues to be confrontational at some levels.
The good stuff has been that she has very publicly stated that, you know, pretty much everything is on the table of issues of mutual concern to both the U.S. and Iran, which brings more sort of a sense, I guess, of equality coming into these talks than perhaps previously there have been.
You know, at the same time, there still is the talk about that certainly Iran has a right to enrichment, which I think is an important one that she's emphasized and has not necessarily been received well by hawks in Washington.
At the same time, she's also said, you know, that they only have that right to enrichment once it's been established that their intentions are not for military use.
So, I mean, there's a coming into it with both messages.
I think overall, you know, her language has been more tempered than going into talks in the past.
And as you pointed out, certainly this is vastly different than what the Bush administration would have done.
Well, I kind of wonder if it is, though.
You know, it doesn't seem like the position staked out by the Americans is any real position other than, you know, whatever it is we fear you might do.
You can't do that.
But if they're willing to concede enrichment of uranium at Natanz and they're willing to concede the operation of the light water reactor at Bruchere, then what is there to fight about anymore?
Insist that they don't make nuclear weapons means stop enriching uranium.
And back and forth, it's nonsense in a way.
I'm sorry.
I was supposed to end in a question, but now we're up at the time wall.
But hang on just one second.
Everybody, we'll be right back with Eli Clifton from lowblog.com, antiwar.com/blog.
All right.
It's Antiwar Radio.
I'm Scott Horton.
I'm talking with Eli Clifton from Interpress Service, lowblog.com.
And we're talking about Iran, what the war party's saying and what the diplomats are saying, what the peacemongers are saying.
So I'm confused.
I got to admit, Eli, I saw Hillary Clinton on TV say, hey, look, never mind all of the scaremongering about the Bruchere reactor.
It's just a light water reactor that can't really produce weapons-grade plutonium.
And, you know, that's not a big deal.
We recognize that Iran has the right to peaceful nuclear technology.
They just are not allowed to make nuclear weapons.
And yet they're not in violation of their safeguards agreement.
They're not making nuclear weapons.
So what is she talking about?
And I asked Hillary Mann Leverett that.
And she says, well, boy, this lady used to be the hardest against the Bruchere reactor.
No, the Bruchere reactor is the biggest, most terrible threat in the whole wide world.
That's what her husband thought when he was the president, too, and the whole time she was a senator.
Now all of a sudden she doesn't care about Bruchere.
Well, why not just accept they kind of implicitly already accepted enrichment of uranium at Natanz in the offer of a year ago that then they refused to accept Iran's acceptance of?
But what nuclear issue remains outstanding other than just make-believe here?
How do they even keep a straight face at the State Department briefings on this when the details don't even match up at all?
You know what I mean?
It seems very congruent and unrealistic and silly.
It does seem to be that there are some what appear to be some inconsistencies.
I think the question that a number of us have is exactly what concessions are being offered or are being made.
There's a change in rhetoric, that's for sure.
But the question is, is the U.S. willing to make the concessions necessary for a deal?
And it doesn't necessarily come across that way at this point.
And as I think Oleg wrote some very good stuff last week on, I mean the question is, and the leverage approaches as well.
I mean is this outreach disingenuous or is it something else?
Perhaps just incompetence, perhaps indecisiveness.
And I would tend to say that there is certainly an interest in outreach.
Once again, sort of the million-dollar question is, is this really just for sort of domestic political reasons for both Iran and the U.S. to say that they've done their part and are kicking the can down the road?
Or is there actually going to be an attempt to make concessions on both ends?
And so far it's been a little unclear exactly what concessions the administration is willing to make in these talks.
I guess they're kind of so far down the path of this bogus argument about Iran's nuclear program, they're left with just farce, right?
Like when George Bush said that the missiles on the Russian border in Poland were to protect Poland from Iran.
And the whole world just laughed right in his face, right on TV.
I mean even in America I think they were laughing about it.
Come on, you know?
Exactly.
And the administration is in a very tough position because the reality is that they've dragged a fair amount of certainly Europe into sanctions.
And continue to push quite hard for especially the Swiss and the Germans to enforce sanctions even more tightly.
Which I think is certainly taking a political toll.
Whereas at home they're being pushed especially by the new Congress.
If the new Congress hasn't started pushing already, and they have certainly once it goes into session they certainly will.
To take even a harder position on Iran and on pushing American allies to enforce sanctions.
So I mean it's sort of in a bit of a catch-22 here.
On the international sense, yeah there is probably some annoyance and probably some exasperation with the administration's pushing on Iran.
And at home they're being pushed to go even harder.
Yeah, well tell me more about what those crazy old neocons are saying.
Well, as I mentioned earlier, I think there's two very important arguments that are being made and being pushed quite hard right now.
One is that it's not just Likudniks, it's not just Jeffrey Goldberg, it's not just the Wall Street Journal editorial board.
It's Arab leaders that are pushing for a US military action against Iran.
Right, and that's what makes it legitimate is that the king of Bahrain says so or something, right?
Exactly, exactly.
That's like when Bill Clinton and Al Gore and George W. Bush all agree that Saddam has a nuclear weapons program, it must be true.
Right.
These renowned liars have a consensus.
Exactly, and let's remember he's not willing to say it in public.
And he isn't necessarily speaking for his entire government who may or may not support this.
And certainly isn't speaking for his population.
Let alone his population, these are not democratically elected leaders.
So that's a very important point to make.
These are things people say in private.
These are things that are not totally clear always exactly what it is they're saying.
And these are things that don't necessarily represent the views of their people.
So that's an important one.
I'm sure you remember when Norman Podhoretz said that if America attacks Iran, which he hopes and he prays we will, it'll unleash a wave of anti-Americanism around the world that'll make our current situation look like a love fest, he said.
But he didn't care about that, I guess.
And I wonder whether you hear that kind of thing echoed very much.
Do the neocons ever even concede that much is true, but so what very often?
Or do they just pretend like a violent conflict with Iran would just be a cakewalk?
Or what is it?
Because it seems pretty far-fetched the idea of a full-scale war with them coming to any kind of predictable conclusion at all.
Well, I mean this is a very careful dance that they are engaging in, and one they happen to be very good at.
And that is that we're not at the stage yet where there's the totally open discussion of what a war with Iran will look like, or even necessarily an outright endorsement of a unilateral American military strike on Iran.
Instead there's this talk about, well, you've got to have sanctions with peace.
You need to make sure that the military option is on the table, but we don't want to use it.
And so it's a very careful dance they're engaging in, which has to be calibrated.
And you know, Royal Mark Grecht has made maybe some of the closest calls for an American attack on Iran, and has done so consistently.
But I'd say for the most part the real emphasis in the area that I certainly like to focus my interest on is watching those who are pushing for tighter and tighter and tighter sanctions.
Because in many ways those are being set up to fail.
And the question is, what do they say when they see them failing?
Right.
Well, can you explain more specifically what you mean they're being set up to fail?
Well, I mean these sanctions are – I mean a good example is watching the Foundation for Defensive Democracy's fellows and the op-eds that they are consistently writing.
And the articles they are interviewed for.
And some of their favorite topics are European, namely Swiss and German enforcement of sanctions, which they say is consistently falling short of what it should be.
There's always talk about, of course, Russian arms deals, let alone regular trade with Iran, as well as Chinese trade with Iran.
And always the emphasis in these is that they need to tighten these sanctions up.
They need to make them more effective, and that our allies in the region, specifically in Western Europe, are not sort of pulling their own weight on these.
Now it seems highly unrealistic that they will ever get the degree of conformity to sanctions and the economic squeeze on Iran that they talk about being necessary.
Well, I think that's what Hilary Mann-Levert was saying, that this is really just laying the groundwork for a violent conflict later.
That, look, we tried to talk with them.
They are unreasonable.
We tried to sanction them.
They will not bend.
And now we have no choice.
The same script as 2002.
Right.
And I think it's important to put in context, especially right now, there's a lot of – certainly a number of op-eds we've seen have been comparing Iran and North Korea.
And saying that we can't let Iran get to the point that North Korea is at now.
And the reality is that we will never be able to isolate Iran to the degree that North Korea has isolated itself.
Iran has a wide network of trade and political relationships around the world.
When we apply sanctions to them, when Western Europe trades less with them, Iran turns around and trades more in Africa.
They trade more in Asia.
They are a country, for lack of a better term, that's very much a member of a globalized world.
And they have engaged in the world in such a way that it's very, very tough now to say that we are going to squeeze them and cut them off completely from the trade which they look for.
Did you see the WikiLeaks cable there where it's August 2007 and Nicholas Burns is meeting with Mayor Dagan, the head of the Mossad.
And Dagan is saying, if you don't bomb them, we will.
Do you take that seriously?
I mean, because after all, if Israel started the war, America would have to help finish it, right?
Right.
I mean, I think that there's no shortage of stories, which I believe are true.
I've no reason to doubt them, of Israeli leadership saying this.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, we've heard it, but I just wonder, I don't know.
I'm trying to pretend that I don't think it's possible really, but I don't know.
Anyway, I'm sorry we're all out of time.
Thank you very much for your time, Eli.
I really appreciate it.
It's always a pleasure.
Eli Clifton, everybody.
That's loblog.com, interpress service.
