06/04/09 – Philip Giraldi – The Scott Horton Show

Philip Giraldi is on the line.
He is a former DIA and CIA counterterrorism officer, is a contributing editor, senior contributing editor, I guess, at the American Conservative Magazine, and of course writes the weekly column Smoke and Mirrors for us at antiwar.com.
That's original.antiwar.com slash Giraldi.
Welcome back to the show, Phil.
How are you?
I'm fine, Scott.
How are you?
I'm doing just great.
Thanks for joining us today.
Glad to be here.
All right.
Now, this is a subject we've talked about before, but it's been a little while, and, you know, I guess I could have got Raimondo on here to talk about his column, but you're a former CIA counterterrorism officer.
It's probably better to interview you about what he wrote.
What do you think?
Well, I guess you're talking about recent activity in Iran, and I do have some insights into it, although Justin's article, which I would recommend to anyone interested in the subject, was very, very good.
And that, right now, is at original.antiwar.com slash Justin.
It's War with Iran.
Has it already begun?
And the topic here, in a nutshell, is Obama says he wants to play nice, and he wants to have negotiations, wants to have talks.
He's a much better man than George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, obviously, and yet there's covert action going on inside Iran, presumably backed by, I guess, the DOD or the CIA, killing people inside Iran, undermining any chance for us to make peace with them.
Well, that's certainly an issue.
I mean, the fact is, as Justin lays out in some detail, the United States government, and I think, in this case, probably special operations of the military, are running operations inside Iran, most particularly in terms of the Baluchi area, which is a distinct tribal group inside Iran, that has a terrorist separatist group that is operating there inside the country, and has recently killed a number of people.
But also, there's involvement in the Arabic areas of southern Iran, the areas of budding Iraq, where the United States has been apparently supporting, and the British, supporting some terrorist operations.
And also, there is up in the Kurdish region, there have been, of course, reports that the U.S. has been active there, and also the Israelis.
So, there's a whole group of destabilization operations, I think you could call it, going on inside Iran, even as we speak.
Now, when Ahmadinejad goes on TV and says, oh, all these bombings and attacks and things going on there in the last week or so, all of it is basically the responsibility of the Americans and the Israelis, that basically sounds right to you, huh?
It basically sounds right, and you always talk about blowback and things happening and unintended consequences, and I think that's what we're seeing too, because these operations only support Ahmadinejad in his attempt to get re-elected president, because this makes the hardliners look right.
And you know, this is something else we've talked about before, you know, in general and in specific, if anybody wants to dial back the calendar to July of 2005, I'm sure we can all remember that George Bush got Ahmadinejad elected then.
He came out on, I guess, the 24th or something, or the day before the election, and said, you Iranians better not vote right wing, and so they all did.
And it seems like on the eve of the upcoming Iranian election, all this is timed perfectly to marginalize the moderates and secure the position of the hardliners inside Iran.
It's not like they're going to have a regime change between now and then by some terrorist attacks.
Well, I think the big question becomes, to what extent is the United States controlling this process?
And, you know, I really don't have an answer to that one.
I don't know to what extent when, for example, the most recent attack was a suicide bomber against a mosque that killed 30 people.
To what extent is the US directing this, or have we kind of armed and funded these groups, and these groups are going ahead and doing what they want to do?
I don't have a good answer to that.
There's been a theory that the US is trying to destabilize Iran by playing the ethnic minority card inside Iran by supporting all these people in an attempt kind of to break up the country.
I don't know how reasonable that is.
That seems to be another one of these absurd neocon fantasies.
I remember Seymour Hersh comparing that to, well, what if the situation was reversed and the Iranian CIA came and started financing some pro-Confederate flag group in the south, as though they're not the most patriotic, nationalistic people in this country, you know what I mean?
But supporting them and thinking, well, maybe we can encourage them to be separatists or something is totally illogical.
Well, there's always this kind of problem for Americans, and Obama alluded to this in his speech today in Cairo, saying that we have difficulty in seeing ourselves as others see us, and we do indeed.
Indeed, Obama's speech was a testament to the fact that we have difficulty, and he has difficulty in seeing some other people as they see themselves, because he was addressing all Muslims as if they are one unified block, which they ain't.
But anyway, that aside, I mean, we do have difficulty in seeing these sorts of things, and when we create mechanisms to support insurgencies in other countries, you have to ask yourself, is this a sound policy, or is this something that we've really thought through, and is it something that we really want to encourage around the world, because this kind of stuff has a way of coming back and biting you on the behind?
Well, you know, there are a few different groups, and we can go around the map here and talk about the different groups that the Bush-Cheney-Obama administration has been backing around here, but two of them really stand out to me.
That's Jandala, who are taking the blame for what's been going on in Iran in the last week or so, and also Fatah al-Islam in Lebanon, which apparently also is a radical Sunni Salafist group that, according to Hersh's sources at least, is being supported to help check the power of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
And, you know, what the hell, this goes right to, you know, all the 9-11 conspiracy theories and stuff.
Look how close the American government is to groups that are basically al-Qaeda-like groups.
They say that this group Jandala in Balochistan, however you pronounce it, that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed used to be the head of it, and this is the guy that did the 9-11 attack, and now this group is friends with the DoD.
You know, why not believe that they always have been, and the whole damn thing is a setup, Phil?
Well, I think to a certain extent all these groups are exploiting the reality, the reality being that the United States will throw money and weapons and political support to anyone that they see as working against the main enemy, whoever that is.
In Lebanon, as you correctly point out, that would be Hezbollah.
In the Middle East, more generally speaking, it would be Iran.
So, you know, we kind of look at these situations, we throw money at these people, and you know, it's funny.
I noticed that with Jandala, the leadership is now, I think, calling for a United States of Balochistan or something like that, and so they're taking on the protective coloration of what their paymasters are telling them they want, but as soon as they get what they want, they get the money, they get the weapons, they're going to revert the type, and these people originally were calling for an Islamic republic of their own in this area, which would comprise part of Iran and part of Pakistan.
And, you know, so they're going to go back to what they want, and it's our mistake in thinking that just because we're giving money to people and we're, in a sense, you know, supporting their objectives, that they're in love with us.
They're not.
Well, and what about the idea that the whole thing is really, well, obviously, as you said before, there's a question.
We don't know exactly whether the DOD is behind what's been going on in Iran, you know, just in the last couple of weeks or so, but what about the idea in general that the moderates in Iran are the enemy?
People like Larjani and Rafsanjani and Qatani that the American establishment is more comfortable dealing with, they stand in the way of a war, and so really it's better to have a bunch of right-wing kooks that you can point at on TV and call them the boogeyman, so that to have an excuse to go ahead and carry out that policy, Dick Cheney never got a chance to.
Well, I think that that's a plausible argument, that there are people certainly in the U.S. government that have long been urging that we go to war with Iran, and of course the Israel lobby and Israel itself are urging the same thing, so there are a lot of people that would like to see us go to war with Iran, and their agenda certainly is going to be supported by having crazies in charge in Iran instead of reasonable people like Rafsanjani, who actually might seek to lower the tensions.
So yeah, unfortunately in these crazy times, that's a plausible argument.
Well, let's talk about the Leveretts.
There's this couple, I'm sure you're familiar, you may even know them, Flint Leverett and his wife Hillary Mann Leverett, both of them worked in the Bush administration, but were not neocon types, and there's been a couple of very important pieces by them recently.
We've known their story, part of their story, for quite a while now, but there was a recent piece that they did for the New York Times, where they talked about how this covert activity is still going on, and therefore undermining any chance to have real talks, and you know, it's already a lost opportunity, I guess is their point in that.
And then also there was something at CQ Politics, where they really went in depth about just how much the Iranian regime was trying to help the United States after September 11th.
Yeah, those are obviously two separate issues.
The Leveretts are arguing that as long as you have a major covert action operation running inside Iran that is attempting to destabilize the country, it's pointless to be talking about other things.
Yeah, that's a good point, and I think what essentially is needed is for the United States to stop supporting these kinds of activities, particularly vis-a-vis Iran, and to repudiate the activity, to officially say, you know, whatever the Bush administration policies were, we are not going to engage that anymore because we don't feel it's productive.
And that would be a good enough reason, and it'd be a good way to package it.
And then the other article was, you were talking about the CQ article on Iranian support of the United States after 2001, is that it?
Yeah.
Yeah, well, that's a fact, too.
The Iranians were very forward-leaning after 9-11.
Well, very forward-leaning.
Why don't you go ahead and elaborate there a little bit, Phil?
Well, they actually provided a lot of intelligence information on al-Qaeda, for one thing, and then when the United States moved militarily against Afghanistan, the Iranians continued to provide intelligence and also were willing to provide political support and also assistance to help stabilize Afghanistan.
So, you know, these were people that we should, I mean, this was an embrace we should have gotten into.
And instead of that, the Bush administration, for various reasons, went the other way.
And as you, of course, also know, in 2003, after we invaded Iraq, the Iranians kind of repeated this, that they were willing to put all outstanding issues on the table, and the Bush administration yet again turned it down.
And apparently Cheney was the major player, I think, in both these decisions.
Well, and of course, there's that whole funny little story, too, about how they even gave the Swiss ambassador a dressing down for daring to try to bring this peace offer to them, which is pretty funny.
Yeah, and of course, you know, the other story that comes out of this is that apparently the Taliban, who, of course, now is the enemy yet again, were kind of willing to talk and had sent some overtures through European embassies in 2001, after 9-11 took place, saying that they were willing to discuss the status of Osama bin Laden.
There's new news about that?
Yeah, this is the kind of report that's been circulating now for a few months, and and apparently some European embassies have confirmed that there were talks going on at that time, but that the U.S. was not interested.
Well, we know that.
All right, so let me make sure I understand the situation as you describe it.
Again, it's Philip Giraldi from the American Conservative Magazine and antiwar.com, former CIA counterterrorism officer.
What you're telling me is that after September 11, the Iranians basically were willing to bend over backwards, do everything they could to help us in the war against bin Laden and friends, to help us against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Again, in 2003, this giant golden offer to even go so far as, you know, halfway recognizing Israel or maybe two thirds of the way recognizing Israel and all these things.
And instead, America is now in bed with al-Qaeda-like groups, not very far removed, apparently, from the bin Ladenites in in Jandala and in Fatah al-Islam in in Lebanon.
We're backing al-Qaeda against Iran instead of Iran against al-Qaeda here.
Well, I think that somebody is making the is coming to the misguided conclusion that that Iran is the greatest threat in the region.
And, you know, this is this is an analysis based on, I think, that you make someone into a threat and then you have to convince everybody that it's true.
Well, Iran never killed 3,000 Americans in one day like al-Qaeda did.
I mean, if that's the measure, if we're counting bodies as the measure of who's a threat to America and who's not.
Yeah, well, I mean, the point is that, you know, because you're willing to to to establish a modus vivendi with various countries like Iran, you don't that doesn't necessarily mean you approve of their government.
It doesn't mean you approve of their human rights record.
It does mean that you accept that there there are good reasons to establish ways to deal with foreign countries to your benefit.
And it seems that the Bush administration never quite got that one right.
And so now we, you know, we're dabbling with these other groups and the what these other groups have in common, even the one that, you know, even those in Lebanon that are dealing with Hezbollah, is that basically the common factor here is Iran.
And Iran has been kind of turned into the enemy for us.
And this has been largely a manipulation.
Iran is not, as you point out, the supporter of terrorism against the United States.
Iran has never attacked the United States.
So, you know, the whole thing is a false construction as far as I'm concerned.
Yeah, well, it's it.
I mean, if we take out our presumption of ignorance on the part of people running this government, this is treason.
How can they be backing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's terrorist group, Phil?
Well, I don't have an answer to that one.
I just think that our whole foreign policy has been out of kilter and misguided for a long time now.
And that I hope that Obama will be able to fix some aspects of it.
But I'm not terribly optimistic.
There is every evidence that there's already unrest in Congress at many of the steps that Obama is taking, particularly in the Middle East.
There was a I mean, I'm sure you're aware of that letter that was signed a week ago that Steny Hoyer and Eric Cantor that was written by AIPAC, in fact, that they were promoting.
It was signed by three quarters of the U.S. Congress, basically saying back off on any putting any kind of pressure on Israel.
Yeah, which any kind of pressure, meaning open ended, nice sounding statements about, you know, really, we don't want expansion in the West Bank, but no consequences if you do continue to ignore us and, in fact, insult us in the international press, then you can go right on.
That's about right.
That's the overwhelming pressure that he's being told by Congress to back off from.
Exactly.
Well, I mean, he's basically being told also in the letter, don't even make any comments critical of Israel, because obviously what's in sense, the Israeli lobby is the fact that he's he's has even including the speech in Cairo today.
He has reiterated that the United States opposes the settlement policy.
So, OK, that's, you know, even saying that is not allowed.
Well, you know, I was talking with an Iranian the other day and he was telling me that the Shah Reza Pahlavi was horrible.
But when his guys arrested you, they tortured the hell out of you and then they threw you in your cage and you did your time and then you were out.
The ayatollahs, when they arrest you, they beat the hell out of you the whole time you're in there.
And, you know, if you survive that, then you're free.
And as horrible as it was having the American backed fascist dictator Pahlavi there, the ayatollahs are far, far worse.
And and he just really went on and on about what a police state that place really is, if you dare to stick your neck out.
And and he kind of held out hope in a vague way that America would intervene and give the people of Iran a regime change there, Phil.
Well, I mean, that's nice to say.
And I'm sure I'm sure his evaluation of the secret services of the of the mullahs is probably correct.
But, you know, to a certain extent, it's none of our business.
I mean, that'd be the first thing I would say.
What happens in other countries, it can be deplorable.
But at the same time, it's not the United States role to be intervening in other countries.
And I'll tell you, there's a good practical reason for that, that every time the United States intervenes in a foreign country and does one of these things, does a covert action, it turns out badly.
And it turns out badly for the United States and very often turns out badly for the people who live in that country.
So, you know, there are a lot of good practical reasons to say, no, the United States is not going to play this role anymore.
Well, now, what kind of threat is Iran to Israel in terms of their navy, their air force, their land forces?
Is the threat really just that they might be able to hit Israel with a few missiles that don't have nuclear weapons attached to them if it came down to it?
Right now, that is the threat.
The I think I saw an evaluation of the Iranian army the other day, and it basically said that this is like a National Guard type of outfit.
They have very limited capabilities.
The only elite units are the Revolutionary Guard units.
And even there, by any Western standards, are not very capable.
Iran doesn't have an effective air force that it would be knocked out by either the Israelis or the United States in about 10 minutes.
And it doesn't have an effective navy in any kind of real terms that the U.S. ships and the the ships that the U.S. already has in the Persian Gulf region could deal with it in minutes.
And the Israelis have far more capability.
So, no, there isn't this existential threat that the Israelis keep citing.
As we all know, the whole issue of Iranian nuclear weapons and everything has been hyped beyond belief, that most people who have looked at the issue believe that any kind of weapon program is way over the horizon, and that it all depends on a political decision being made to go ahead with it.
And the political decision will be made if Israel and the United States keep threatening Iran.
That's the crux of the matter.
Well, and the Mujahideen al-Khalq, can you tell us about them?
And do you know what's their status?
The last I read, they were in Iraq, and Maliki was threatening to expel them from the country, from Camp Ashraf there, north of Baghdad.
This is one of the groups that's been alleged, at least, to have been responsible for terrorist attacks inside Iran, and under the auspices of the DoD.
Yeah, well, they were a group that was originally supported by Saddam Hussein, because they were enemies of the Iranian government.
And when Saddam Hussein was removed from power by us, the Pentagon more or less became protectors of them.
And as you noted, they put them in a place called Camp Ashraf, which is north of Baghdad, and put them under U.S. government protection.
MECC, as it's normally referred to by its acronym, has a lot of friends in the U.S. Congress, because MECC is seen as an enemy of Iran.
You know, it all comes around the same argument, the same circle.
And the U.S. has been protecting them, but recently the Iraqis announced that that protection would no longer be allowed, in effect.
The U.S., I understand, no longer is protecting the camp.
And I believe that I'm correct in saying that the camp itself is basically in a situation where it's kind of house arrest, and that they're not allowed to go out and carry out any actions, they're not basically allowed to leave the camp.
So I think that's the situation.
But, you know, I'm willing to be correct on that if someone knows something that's more up to date.
Well, do you know, or is there a likelihood you can place on it or something about MEK involvement in terrorist attacks inside Iran?
I know that Scott Ritter, back in 2005, wrote that I think there were some bus bombings and other things that went on that he, I think, pinned on the MEK.
Yeah, that's basically what I've seen, too, that there were a spate of attacks back in the timeframe 2005-2006 that were credited to the MEK.
And whether that was accurate or not, I don't know.
I have no way of knowing.
Certainly the Pentagon was, at that point, actively protecting them and supporting them because they were seen as an enemy force against Iran.
I remember back at that time, of course, we still had all the neocons in power at the Pentagon, and that kind of policy would have been quite attractive to them.
Well, and now what about PJAC and the PKK?
I know the blogger Mitzkin is going to go crazy here.
What do you know about American support for Kurdish rebels?
It seems like the U.S. takes a side of Turkey against the PKK.
But what about the anti-Iranian branch, the PJAC?
Well, of course, the two are kind of mixed in to a certain extent.
The United States, I think, as far as I can tell, has a hands-off policy that basically defers to Turkish interests in that region.
And the Turks, as you know that I've noted, haven't been very active in terms of staging attacks because PKK hasn't been staging attacks.
I think that this was a zero-sum endgame at a certain point, and both sides have kind of backed off.
But whether the United States actively supports PJAC and its operations against Iran has been a question that I don't think anyone has given a good answer to.
There certainly were some signs that there was support, and there were also allegations that the Israelis, obviously operating out of Kurdistan, there was a considerable Israeli presence there, were the ones that really were supporting PJAC more than the U.S.
Oh, boy.
Well, if there's anything that's going to make that blogger Mitzkin go crazy, it's going to be that, that the Israelis are backing the Kurdish separatist factions against the Turks and the Iranians.
Well, you know, from an Israeli point of view, it makes sense.
I mean, if you're doing everything you can to destabilize Iran and to irritate Iran into doing something stupid, you support groups like PJAC.
I don't see why anyone would find that inconsistent in terms of how the Israelis view their neighborhood.
So, let's see.
We've got Fatah al-Islam, PJAC, Jandala, and the Mujahedin Al-Khalq.
Do you know of any other private terrorist groups that the United States is backing against the Iranians?
That's four.
Well, there's also the Arabs in the south.
I think that was basically a British operation, because the British were down in Basra.
But there are definitely Arab separatists that have a presence in the southern part of Iraq and also have carried out operations inside the Arab-dominated areas of Iran.
There haven't been any recently that I know of, but there were a number of attacks in 2004 and 2005, as I recall.
Well, so, if I remember correctly, you had a pretty optimistic appraisal of Obama's speech to the people of Iran, but it seems like he's pretty much gone ahead and taken most of that back now, as far as the official politics posture on the highest level on TV there.
Well, yes and no, but I think at the same time it's important to note that Obama has basically continued to stress that negotiations will take place, even though many people in his own administration are kind of poo-pooing that.
And I don't know.
I remain mildly optimistic that Obama has essentially decided that a military option against Iran is not a good idea.
So that's got to be a plus, because under the Bush administration, I don't think you ever saw quite that kind of decision being made.
Yeah, well, and if it was ever made by Bush, there's no reason to believe it was ever a decision that was more than an inch or two deep, as far as his thought behind it, and therefore it would be easy for him to change his mind if only cornered somehow, you know?
Yeah, he would agree with the last person he spoke to.
If it was Dick Cheney, then we'd be in trouble.
Yeah.
Boy, you know times are bad when you've got to thank God Condoleezza Rice was there to talk him out of some of the stupidest stuff, huh?
Yeah.
I don't know if I would go that far, but you're right.
I mean, you know, it's a question of just how deep you want to go on these issues.
And Condoleezza Rice, to me, in terms of some of her comments out at Stanford University, well, first of all, it's scary that she's back at Stanford University, that the university would have that lowest standard.
But secondly, her comments in defense of the Bush administration are ridiculous.
You know, you say you think Obama's probably decided against having a war with Iran, or thinks it's not a good idea.
Do you think that answer no from him is as good as a veto to prevent Netanyahu from going ahead and starting one anyway?
I mean, really, who's the empire and who's the client state here?
They can't start a war without permission over there, can they, Phil?
Well, they certainly can start a war without permission, but the question comes down to do they have the capability of finishing it?
And I don't think they have that, and I think they realize they don't have that.
But does Netanyahu have the chutzpah to go ahead and try to start the war Dick Cheney style anyway and force the president into it?
I think that Netanyahu does have the nerve to do that, but the question is how do you do it, particularly when Mullen was over there saying, look, we're not going to be fooled by another USS Liberty.
So that was a pretty definite message, I think.
Coming up next, Ray McGovern on the USS Liberty.
Thanks very much for your time on the show today, Phil.
Really appreciate it.
Okay.
Thank you, Scott.
All right.
That's Philip Giraldi, contributing editor to the American Conservative magazine that's at amconmag.com, and you can find him on the blog there, and also write Smoke and Mirrors for us every week at antiwar.com.
That's original.antiwar.com slash Giraldi, and we'll be right back after this.