All right y'all, welcome back to the show.
It's Anti-War Radio.
I'm Scott Horton and our next guest is Phil Giraldi.
He's the Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest Foundation.
That's councilforthenationalinterest.org.
And he also is a contributing editor to the American Conservative Magazine and a regular contributor to antiwar.com.
Welcome back to the show, Phil.
How are you doing?
I'm fine, Scott.
How are you?
I'm doing good.
Appreciate you joining us today.
Two articles at issue, Proxy War with Iran at the American Conservative and what I guess is a longer version of the same thing at antiwar.com today.
It's right there at the top of the page in the highlights, Washington's Secret Wars.
And if I'm reading between the lines right here, what you're saying is you're breaking the story.
You know that a new finding has been signed by the President of the United States.
Is that correct?
Yeah, a finding is an authorization by the White House to proceed with an intelligence operation that's highly sensitive.
And you know this how?
Well, I know it from my contacts here in Washington who are knowledgeable of what's going on in terms of Iran and also Syria.
They're both being subjected to basically a covert series of operations that are intended to weaken the governments in both cases.
OK, so right now let's rewind a little bit to Bush's finding, because this scandal about American backing of Jandala, the MEK and the PJAC terrorist groups against Iran goes back a couple of years.
And maybe you can update us on, you know, who all's been blowing up what since then?
Are they still supporting Jandala and PJAC, for example?
Yeah, well, it's basically it's always been suspected that the United States and possibly Israel were involved in supporting Jandala, which is a Baluchi separatist group with Arab separatists inside Iran, and also with PJAC, which is the Kurdish separatist group that operates inside Iran.
So in other words, the common factor here is that these are all groups that have a separatist agenda inside Iran, and basically they're being supported by the U.S. government because under the theory that my enemy's enemy is my friend, which is not always a smart way to do things, but nevertheless, that's what it is.
And now, so in other words, what we're talking about is all this string of assassinations and bombings.
Can you give us the short list of what all's been going on inside Iran and if you can connect the dots specifically between which groups are doing which attacks and what?
Yeah, well, I can't really, you know, name names and name groups except that all the groups are involved insofar as their capabilities are being exploited.
But the thing is, as has been reported in the media, a number of Iranian scientists have been assassinated inside Iran.
There have been a number of mysterious explosions.
There have been officials of the Revolutionary Guard, the Pazdaran, who've been attacked with bombs in various locations inside Iran.
So there's been a constant wave of pressure.
You know, there's no serious intention of overthrowing the regime or anything like that.
This kind of stuff is not going to do that.
But the fact is, it creates instability in the country, and I think it's kind of an intelligence way of operating to create uncertainty, to create distrust with the leadership.
It does a number of things, but that's essentially what it's intended to do.
And more recently, the interesting aspect is that one of the probably the biggest minority group inside Iran is the Azeris.
And the Azeris, of course, have their own country right next door, Azerbaijan.
And it seems that these people are being courted now as possible surrogates to be further destabilizing Iran.
Well, and I'm not sure if I saw this in your, I think it's the same thing in both articles, certainly at the American conservative version of this, you talk about how there's really no indication, though, that the Azeri population of Iran, which is very well assimilated into Iranian society would be militant enough to take up arms over the grievances that they do have.
Right.
The Grand Ayatollah is, in fact, half Azeri.
The Azeris are not necessarily noted for being, you know, separatists or wanting to have their own state separate from Iran.
But, you know, everyone in Iran, basically everyone in Iran is somewhat disgruntled now because the economy is not doing very well.
There's a lot of unemployment.
People are very unhappy with the government.
So it's there's a lot of discontent.
But that doesn't mean that it's going to be rebellion or people necessarily out in the streets and their thousands.
I'm reminded of Seymour Hersh back when Andrew Coburn and he were writing about the finding from, I forget if it was 2007 or eight, authorizing this very same kind of thing.
Hersh said that, you know, this would be like if the Iranians came in and they found, oh, well, here's a group of Southerners who, you know, protest for their right to display the Confederate flag or something.
And we're going to use them as our proxy group to help overthrow the Obama administration or some kind of thing like that.
As much as they might hate Obama or I guess then he was talking about Bush.
There's no way that the most patriotic people, the Scotch Irish of the American South, would be the ones to go march on D.C. or betray their country on behalf of a foreign power for that kind of thing, no matter.
And basically he was just saying it reflects that kind of ignorance and misunderstanding of who they're even trying to bankroll there.
They're just trying to basically fund anyone that could be a dissident in any way, I guess.
Yeah, this is all kind of a desperation.
You know, they don't really know what to do about Iran.
I give the White House a tiny bit of credit in that I believe they really do not want a war with Iran.
But, you know, they keep having to play this game.
I mean, if you listen to the Republican candidates over the last couple of days, you know, they're ready to go to war with Iran in a minute.
And obviously this kind of pressure also within the Democratic Party is weighing up in the White House.
And unfortunately, they're having to respond to this.
But this whole idea of a war with Iran is just insanity.
Yeah, well, that's the thing is nobody really has.
I mean, okay, a couple of people have some plausible scenarios where they've done some war games at the Brookings Institution and things like that.
And their plausible scenario is it won't work very well.
And gee, I guess we're the superpower.
So we'll eventually win or something.
But it won't be easy.
And they're not just going to sit there and take it.
Yeah.
And the really, truly dangerous thing is that the only once you start it, the only way to extricate yourself might be to threaten to use nuclear weapons or maybe actually use them.
It's the whole thing really just doesn't make any sense is one of these absurdities of American politics where this is even an issue.
And yet, nevertheless, it is an issue.
And it's, it's quite scary, because we are, as far as I'm concerned, as my article stated, we're already at war with Iran and Syria by by any measure.
I mean, if the Iranians or Syrians to pick up on your Seymour Hersh metaphor, the if they were, if they were arming and giving money to dissident groups inside the United States, how would we act?
And, but that's precisely what we're doing.
And then there's a constant barrage of propaganda about Iran and about Syria.
This whole, the whole story of the Syrian army defecting en masse to fight against their former colleagues is invented.
There's that there's no, no intelligence organization can corroborate these stories.
All right, now, hold on a second, because I want to I want to spend a lot of time in the next segment all about Syria.
But on the on the question of Iran, you say you can't associate groups with attacks.
You can't I mean, the names Mujahideen, Iqalq and Jandala and PJAK.
And now you're saying perhaps some of these Azeri groups may be being brought into it.
But you can't say who's killing the scientists?
What?
Yeah, no, I misunderstood you.
No, I what I'm saying is, I can't say it was Mech that killed Scientist X three weeks ago.
Okay.
But what I'm saying is, these are the groups that are doing it.
Mech is doing probably carrying out most of the stuff because they are Persians, ethnic Persians.
So they have the ability to move around in inside Iran, and to get in the places that the other groups maybe would have some difficulty.
The attacks along the borders are mostly Jandala and Arabic groups and Kurdish groups, because that's the area where they're indigenous and where they have their, their strength.
So it's different groups doing different things.
But they're all doing different things under orders from the United States, and quite possibly also from Israel.
And then can you confirm that at least one of these groups was responsible for the attack that blew up that missile base?
That one I don't know about the Iranians, of course, are claiming that it was it was an accident.
Right.
And that is possible.
I'm not quite sure whether that is, is or is not true.
All right.
Well, we got to hold it right there.
We'll be right back with Phil Giraldi, former CIA, American conservative, Antiwar.com.
All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
It's Antiwar Radio, talking with Phil Giraldi, former CIA and DIA officer, now Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest Foundation and writer at the American Conservative Magazine and Antiwar.com.
His piece at Antiwar.com today is called Washington's Secret Wars.
And I wanted to ask you real quick here, there's this New York Times story, a couple more before we get to Syria, points on Iran, a couple more points on Iran, I'm trying to say.
New York Times today says, the Republican lawmakers want the Obama administration to take the Mujahideen off of the terrorist list so that something humane can be done with the M.E.K. terrorists that still remain at Camp Ashraf in Iraq, and that they're remaining on the terrorist list is preventing anything from happening to them other than being kept in complete limbo.
They're maybe at threat from the new power in Iraq.
What do you say to that?
Well, first of all, I would say the M.E.K. killed Americans back in the 70s.
So why are our politicians, our so-called politicians, pleading special case for these people?
And I would argue to you, as we mentioned before the break, that these M.E.K. people are only being looked at in a kind way because they are used as a tool to get against the Iranian regime.
And that's what it's all about.
I was riding around Washington today.
There are huge signs, billboard-sized signs on the sides of Washington City buses pleading for M.E.K. to be taken off the terrorism list, if you can believe that.
There was also a full-page ad in the Washington Post, I think three days ago, making the same case.
These people have tons of money, and it's coming from the usual sources, the people who want war with Iran.
And suddenly this has become their cause.
And all you have to do is look at the people who are pleading the cause, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Joe Lieberman, the usual crowd.
So, I mean, this is kind of a joke.
These people are terrorists.
Okay.
Well, now, do you think that they want them off the list for another reason?
Is it even true that they would have to be taken off the list for something to be done with?
I mean, what is supposed to be done with the guys at Camp Ashraf?
Do you have an idea?
Well, first of all, I don't know who exactly is at Camp Ashraf.
I mean, there are clearly some Iranians that are being held there or basically have nowhere else to go.
I guess that's basically what it comes down to.
But the fact is that's not necessarily our problem.
I mean, we were the occupying power there.
They should have maybe worked out something before we handed over control to the Iraqis.
But I mean, in a sense, I don't understand the anguish.
But the anguish, I believe, is to eliminate legal problems if they go ahead with using these people as agents of the Pentagon or the CIA or whatever.
Because dealing with a terrorist, an actual terrorist group, creates legal issues.
Right.
So we have to legalize them so that we can use them as terrorists.
Exactly.
I think that's precisely what we're looking at.
All right.
Now, I saw this thing where you were interviewed by Iranian press TV the other day.
And you said, well, you know, like you said in the last segment there, there's not going to be a war right now.
These are like, you know, so-called half measures, but they sure are the kind of thing that could lead us into war.
You said what most of this amounts to.
I don't know if you would throw in actual assassinations in Iran or whatever in this.
You know, that would oversimplify it, I guess.
But mostly this is aimed at the American audience to condition them to accept the fact that sooner or later, we're just going to have to do this.
Yeah, that's what bothers me.
A lot of this stuff coming out of Israel every week, a statement from some senior Israeli leaders saying that we have to attack Iran.
There's no other way to deal with it anymore.
And all the stuff you're seeing in the U.S. media, The Washington Post last week had a lead editorial saying that we had to deal militarily with Iran.
And everything that's coming out of, again, the same politicians, the Lindsey Graham's and John McCain's, the Joe Lieberman's, is basically to condition the American public so that when this thing goes down, I am absolutely convinced that sooner or later this thing is going to go down because we've cut off all other channels.
We have no diplomacy.
This new bill in the Senate will ban any kind of contact between a U.S. diplomat and an Iranian diplomat without 15 days prior notice.
So what is that going to do?
So, I mean, the whole point is they're creating conditions where the situation with Iran cannot ever get better.
It can only get worse.
And this is scary.
These people have no concern for the United States.
And I'm talking about our elected officials.
No concern for the United States and no concern for the American people.
I think they should be in jail.
Well, but let's get back to the part about how, for example, the leaders of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or whatever up there, they know that this is fantasy land, that you can't do it, that it's going to come down to threaten them with nukes if they don't just sit there and take it as we bomb their nuclear, civilian nuclear facilities, safeguarded nuclear facilities with conventional bombs or something like that, that this is going to improve Israel's security situation over the long term, et cetera, et cetera.
None of these things are true.
The war would be a complete disaster and everybody already knows it.
So how is it that they have us on a policy that is basically a guaranteed path to war at the same time that nobody has a credible plan for doing anything, even according to the War Party?
Well, best we could do is degrade their capability by a couple of years.
I mean, what are we even talking about?
Yeah, well, the thing is the Pentagon is against this war and they have made that view very clear.
Panetta was in Israel and he was basically telling them, hey, why don't you start talking to the Palestinians as opposed to talking about war constantly because that's not a good option.
And so the Pentagon has made itself, his position, as strong as it possibly can on being opposed to this war.
But apparently when Panetta went to the White House after his latest trip to Israel, he briefed the president on what his view was and what the reaction of the Israeli officials had been.
And Obama's reaction was, well, I can't do anything about Israel.
They're an independent country.
What kind of a response is that?
This is a country where we get $3 billion a year or two.
And basically what it does has a tremendous reaction, a tremendous influence over what is the next phase, what happens with the United States in the next phase of that war and where we get involved.
And and yet, you know, these people are willing to wash their hands of it.
It's an election year.
They don't want to cross the the Israel lobby and they're terrified of rocking the vote on this issue.
So we'll have another war.
All right.
Now, to recap, the breaking news here is that Phil Giraldi, our guest, former CIA officer, has sources in Washington, D.C., telling him Obama signed a new finding allowing for the buildup of more terrorist groups against, you know, for use against Iran and tearing them apart.
And then is it a separate new finding as well about Syria, Phil?
Yeah, the Syrian finding would be a separate one.
And basically it would say that the intelligence agencies are authorized to use their resources and then it would specify exactly what areas they'd be working in.
And my understanding is that the U.S. is helping these so-called rebels with communications, with training, with some equipment, not lethal equipment, but they're getting plenty of lethal equipment, apparently from the Turks.
Yeah.
Well, now, I'm always torn in a situation like this because I always like it when people overthrow their government.
But this is, as Hillary Clinton, I guess, gleefully was predicting the other day, as you note in your article, ultimately a low level civil war.
Now, are we just trying to make it a full scale civil war?
Yeah, I think that's probably what we're trying to do.
I mean, we're obviously, again, supporting these rebel groups that we know nothing about and we're supporting them to do things that basically will weaken the central government and lead us to eventually, since Syria is an artificial creation anyway, to the country splitting up.
Now, if you go back to the neoconservative clean break report that was given to Bibi Netanyahu back in 96, this is precisely what the report suggested, that the best security for Israel will be to have a bunch of weak Arab states surrounding it, in which the central government had been weakened to the extent that regional autonomy meant that these states were no longer a threat.
Yeah.
Well, and there was a companion piece, I forget the exact title of it now, to the clean break where David Wilmser says it would be in our interest to expedite the chaotic collapse.
I guess the only thing we have to be thankful in this situation is that Netanyahu wasn't in office at the same time Dick Cheney was.
Yeah, that would have been something fun to watch.
Otherwise, yeah, this would have all been over already and probably in a really bad way.
Yeah, the world would have ended already, that's for sure.
All right.
So now, I guess, tell me everything you know about what's going on in Syria, because this is a very translucent at best type issue to me.
Yeah, well, I actually don't know a lot.
And to be perfectly honest, I have found the anti-war website coverage of it rather discouraging in that they seem to be reporting everything that the rebels are claiming to be true as true.
I think the fact is that we don't know a lot about it.
And it's another one of these situations where when you intervene, interfere in a situation you don't understand, the result is going to be bad.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, we'll have to leave it there.
We're all out of time for the interview and the show today.
Thanks very much for your time, Phil.
Okay, Scott.
Everybody, that's Phil Giraldi.
He's at the Council for the National Interest dot org, the American Conservative Magazine and antiwar.com.
