All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
I'm Scott Horton and our next guest on the show is Reza Marashi from the National Iranian American Council.
He joined NIAC in 2010 as the organization's first research director.
Came to NIAC after four years in the Office of Iranian Affairs at the U.S.
Department of State.
Prior to his tenure at the State Department, he was an analyst at the Institute for National Strategic Studies covering China and Middle East issues.
He writes for the Huffington Post and of course, you can find him at NIAC's website, niac.org.
Welcome to the show.
Reza, how are you doing?
I'm doing good.
Thanks for having me.
Well, I really appreciate you joining us this morning.
I called Trita Parsi and he couldn't do the show, but he said, I have an expert for you on the trial of Shane Bauer and his friend, the American hikers prosecuted by the Iranians, and I think now sentenced to eight years in prison.
He said that he thought anyway, that you actually had worked this case at the State Department.
Is that right?
Yeah, well, Trita's right time in calling me an expert.
I personally think there's no such thing.
I'm a student of Iran and I did have the good fortune of working at the State Department for four years and having the opportunity to work on this issue.
And, uh, you know, it's been something that's dragged on far longer than it ever should have.
Um, and, and, and that's why we're seeing what we're seeing today.
All right.
Well, um, I have a affinity for this case because I've talked to Shane Bauer just one time, I interviewed him about a piece that he wrote for the nation about the Bata Brigade in Iraq.
And, uh, seemed to me like that article alone would probably be reason enough for the Iranians, uh, to want to, you know, punish him for it, but, uh, I was hoping that you could just give us the lowdown, everything you can tell us about this case, where they truly just hiking up there in the woods, I guess.
You wouldn't tell us if he, if you knew he was a spy, right?
Do these, these kids aren't spies, you know, quite frankly, it's a puzzle to me what Iran wants to achieve with this drama, uh, in a logical world, the Iranian court would find Shane and Josh for a legal injury and send them home.
And if relations between the United States and Iran had been halfway normal, this whole incident would have been resolved long ago by consular officials from both sides.
Um, they're not spies, uh, they got caught in a bad situation and the Iranian government has made it worse.
And, uh, the longer that this situation gets caught up, uh, as a domestic political football inside the Islamic Republic, uh, the more Iranian government digs itself into a hole and the more that they need a face savings solution.
All right.
Now, um, let me just say, you know, from what I could tell from what the man's written, uh, I don't know about his friend, but, uh, from what Shane Bauer has written, uh, it doesn't seem like the kind of thing a CIA agent would write to me whatsoever.
In fact, I read somewhere too, that he had been a longtime activist for Palestinian rights and so forth.
Uh, it doesn't, it doesn't really sound like a spy to me.
And certainly when I talked to him, it was about America and Iran's joint project, the Iraqi army transferring the Bata brigade of the Supreme Islamic council into the monopoly power in Iraq.
That's right.
I mean, it's no secret that the United States and Iran have a significant overlapping interest inside of Iraq right now.
And, you know, you just touched upon on one thing that they could be working on together.
Instead, uh, the relationship continues to, uh, to be toxic and it continues to fuel, uh, this institutionalized enmity that we've seen over the last 30 plus years, and instead of working together to try to put Iraq back together, so to speak, uh, they're continuing to engage in this cold war type scenario that, that further, uh, dissolve the situation in Iraq.
Right.
Well, and I hope maybe we can get back to some of that in the second segment, but back to the story of the, of the hikers, it was Shane, uh, Bauer, his fiance and two friends, and they were arrested, uh, for supposedly crossing the Iranian border while hiking in the mountains up in Kurdistan, correct?
That's right.
And the interesting thing is when, when Wikileaks came about and some of the cables that pertain to this particular issue, uh, became publicly available.
We, we saw that they in fact didn't cross into Iranian territory.
And then while they were close to the border, uh, anybody that's been to that border area can tell you that it's not demarcated.
Uh, you could step over the line and have absolutely no idea that you did in fact step over the line.
And, uh, the rumor has it, I can't confirm this personally, but rumor has it is that, uh, they were swooped up by this quasi military, quasi paramilitary type entity that, uh, doesn't have official relationship with the Iranian government, but you know, collect these folks, turn them over to the Iranians and then get some kind of bounty or benefit on the back end.
Now, again, I can't confirm this, but you know, people on the know, this is what they've told me.
And even if that's not the case, even if it was just the Iranian government saying you crossed the border and, and we're going to detain you, there's no justification for what's caused this situation to become what it has.
Right.
Well, now, I mean, I guess you got to say it's a pretty stupid place to go hiking right there where, you know, the border's not demarcated, uh, but still that's not a crime that deserves eight years in prison being stupid.
I don't think it's a stupid place to go hiking at all.
I think it's a beautiful area.
I've been to that area before.
Um, you know, and at the end of the day, I wasn't there when they were there, but, uh, you know, the balls in the Iranian government's court here, you know, they, they've apprehended three individuals, one who they let go.
Now they still have two that never should have been apprehended in the first place.
And if they have questions or if there are outstanding issues, or if they say that, uh, you know, there are, uh, Iranians in American prisons, then that issue needs to be resolved, whatever their issue is, they need to make this information and their, and their gripes publicly available so that the issue can be resolved expeditiously.
Now, that being said, Jane and Josh just went through a kangaroo court where they were sentenced to eight years in prison.
Now, uh, you know, the due process inside of Iran for these two individuals is unfortunately, uh, mimicking the lack of due process for a lot of, uh, Iranian nationals who were apprehended after the, uh, after the contentious election in 2009.
So this is a continuation of bad decision-making on the part of the Iranian government, irrespective of where people were hiking.
Yeah.
But what the hell is Hillary Clinton doing about it?
Uh, well, this is a dirty little secret that most folks who are currently serving in government don't like to acknowledge, but, uh, I'll tell you point blank, and quite frankly, when you don't have a diplomatic relationship with a country, you can't do a whole heck of a lot.
And we'll, uh, we at the state department were working during my tenure and my former colleagues there continue to work tirelessly with, uh, with our allies that do have diplomatic presence inside of Iran to try to get this issue resolved expeditiously.
But you are at a significant disadvantage when you don't have that diplomatic presence.
That's just a fact.
Well, I mean, in the case of North Korea and the, the, uh, journalist, a sister of the movie star that was arrested, they sent, she sent Bill Clinton over there to get her and got it done.
I mean, it seems like, you know, this one time, even if they won't take your enrichment swap deal on exactly the offered terms, like, come on, go ahead and send somebody over there to talk to somebody and see if we can get these guys home.
Well, I think you raise a very interesting point.
And I think that, uh, as we continue to see this unfortunate situation move in a direction that none of us want to see it continue moving towards, uh, that's something that could become a viable option.
Now, uh, getting into the modalities of why something like that hasn't happened yet, isn't something that I'm able to freely discuss.
But that being said, uh, you know, these guys that are working on this issue at the state department and the national security council deserve a ton of credit.
Uh, it's not an easy issue to work.
Uh, it's incredibly complex, even though it's incredibly straightforward.
And, uh, you know, they're bending over backwards to try and make sure that, uh, the American citizens that are being held in Iran are taken care of.
But if the Iranian government continues to take the position that it's taking, which isn't founded on any evidence or any facts, this is what the lawyers for Shane and Josh say inside of Iran, no evidence, no facts that the Iranian government is basing its stance upon, then we might start to see those kinds of options that you, uh, very eloquently outlined, you know, become more plausible.
Did they even pretend during the so-called trial over there to have any evidence at all, other than they were on the wrong side of the line, supposedly?
Uh, it's tough.
It's been tough for me to parse through so far.
Um, I haven't seen a lot of information trickling out of Iran when it comes to, uh, the details of, of what they were charged for, you know, they were sentenced to eight years and they were charged for everything that we're all familiar with, but you know, when it comes to the evidence and the details, their own lawyer said, you know, there wasn't any.
And if the own lawyers are saying that when they're going to have far more access and direct access inside the country to this type of information that we'll have on the outside, sitting in Washington, DC or elsewhere, then you know, that there's, there's a problem and you know, that something smells fishy here.
And, um, again, this is a case where the Iranian government is just making the wrong decision and they need to just get this situation over with.
They need to let these kids go back to families and they need to get this burden off of their backs because they're only causing themselves more problems by holding onto these two.
All right.
Now hold it right there.
I got some more questions about this and about America and Iranian relations in general, if we can, uh, right after this, it's Reza Marashi from the national Iranian American council, formerly of the U S state department.
We'll be right back after this.
All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
I'm Scott Horton.
I'm talking with Reza Marashi from the national Iranian American council.
Nyack.org is the website there.
He's a former state department official.
And we're talking about the eight year prison terms just handed down to Shane Bauer and Joshua Fatal, his friend, uh, in Iran, supposedly for spying, uh, when, uh, they were arrested or at least nabbed for, uh, while hiking up in Northern Iraq, and, uh, we were talking about, uh, you know, what can be done about this.
And, you know, it seems to me like those Iranians are just, I don't know if they're doing this on purpose, but, uh, they sure seem lunkheaded to me at the very least that they're going to do something like this, that is obviously reminiscent of the hostage crisis of 1979.
It makes them look like they don't respect the basic law of nations and all that kind of thing that offends other heads of state everywhere and really angers the American people.
I think you made an excellent point.
I mean, the ghosts of history of my former supervisor and, and my friend, uh, ambassador John Lembert likes to call it, uh, when it comes to US and Iran relations, these ghosts of history constantly rear their ugly head.
And this is perhaps the ugliest scenario where, you know, human life is, is treated as a commodity as opposed to valued as it should be.
And, um, you know, when it comes to what's going to happen going forward, I think it's unlikely that they'll serve a full eight year prison term.
And quite frankly, I'm not sure if the Iranian government knows what their next move is.
I'm trying to predict Iranian politics nowadays is a humbling experience, but since it's our job, I see two scenarios that could potentially play out one a little bit more likely than the other.
Uh, first you have president Ahmedinejad that's going to be coming to New York for the United nations general assembly in September.
He would love to be able to get these two hikers released prior to his arrival or during his arrival.
Uh, so he could, uh, she'd have a dramatic gesture and be shown as a magnanimous leader.
But, uh, given the fractious domestic political scene inside of Iran, I find that scenario to be particularly unlikely, at least right now, because, uh, his conservative domestic political rivals inside Iran won't want to give him a win quote unquote.
So, uh, the more likely scenario, at least right now, uh, given what we know is, uh, the Supreme leader, uh, issuing within the next 20 days or, or maybe even sometime after that, shortly thereafter, the Supreme leader issuing an edict that says that these two hikers should be free.
Uh, it's going to be during the holy month of Ramadan.
Uh, he can come off as the magnanimous leader and it will, uh, it'll be a more of a face saving solution for, uh, for the Iranian government.
Uh, and they won't be in this difficult situation that they're in right now, where they have to figure out some kind of nonsensical, illogical excuse to justify the detention of these two American citizens.
Well, and they've been held over there for almost two years now, right?
That's right.
Well, I mean, uh, I, I certainly would love to see, uh, the president, uh, win his political fight over there or the Supreme leader issue an edict or what have you like that, but I want to get back to what you said before about, it's really hard to negotiate when you don't have an ambassador over there.
And I just wonder, you know, I mean, Hey, you were in the state department when the people with the power talking about this, they even have a coherent argument for why we won't just open an embassy in Tehran and deal with these people.
Well, I think that, uh, you'd be surprised by the amount of people that want to have a diplomatic presence inside of Iran and, uh, the behind the scenes efforts that were taken at the end of the Bush administration and, uh, throughout the course of the Obama administration to try and make that a reality.
Uh, the one complication when it comes to that particular issue that I can share with you is look at how toxic the situation is right now between the United States and Iran.
Uh, Iran is critical to no less than six us national security interests.
Uh, you know, whether it's nonproliferation, Iraq, Afghanistan, terrorism, energy security, and even a solution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict, uh, none of these issues can be resolved.
Uh, for the United States without some kind of agreement tacitly or outright with the Iranian government.
Now, that being said, because things are as toxic as they are right now, and because there's no domestic political space and by extension, domestic political will for the Obama administration to move forward with negotiations on Iran.
Uh, it's very difficult to convince a president who's up for reelection to send American diplomats into a country where they just detained two American nationals for no apparent reason.
Uh, that's a tough sell.
And domestically, uh, president Obama will get absolutely slaughtered for doing it at this time.
So timing actually becomes an issue, but that being said, uh, and again, you know, if you wait for a good time to start negotiating with Iran, if you wait for a good time to try and repair the relationship, that time will never come.
It's always going to be a bad time because that's how bad the relationship has gotten after 32 years of not talking.
Yeah.
Well, as it's so often the case, the only answer to this is Ron Paul, who would get in there and go, I don't care about, you know, whatever Hillary Clinton's problem is or whatever.
We're going to send ambassadors over there.
We're not worried about right-wing attacks, about being weak or whatever.
This is our policy.
We want to deal with everybody and we want to end enmity with everybody and let's get it started.
Simple.
Well, the interesting thing about Ron Paul is, you know, when he was up there on stage with the other Republican presidential hopefuls and he said what he said, everybody laughed.
Uh, but frankly, uh, there was nothing funny about what he said and you don't have to agree with this comprehensive political platform.
In fact, I don't, but I think what he had to say about Iran was by and large intelligent.
And I know a lot of people who are my former government colleagues that think what he said on Iran was incredibly intelligent.
And that's just the fact.
Hey, were you still in the government when the new 2011 national intelligence estimate on Iran's nuclear program came out?
I would not.
Oh, that's too bad.
So, uh, I guess my followup, have you seen the classified version is, uh, no.
Well, the interesting thing about the NIE, whether it's the 2011 version or even, you know, I think it was the 2007 version that came out during the Bush administration is that, uh, it's remarkably consistent.
Uh, it's remarkably consistent in that, uh, a comprehensive assessment issued by all of the intelligence agencies in the U S government said, we don't have to definitive proof that these guys are trying to weaponize their nuclear program.
And that's a big deal because the primary accusation, uh, by a lot of people here in the United States, particularly those who are a bit more hawkish on the Iran issue are saying they are in fact trying to weaponize and they try to fight, uh, various facts.
They tried to fight various developments, but the facts and the developments that they cite run contrary to what us intelligence agencies are saying.
And I don't think that point is echoed enough.
Yeah.
Well, and I guess I want to ask you a little bit about the, the so-called scandal over the comm facility in 2009.
Were you still in the state department then?
I was at the state department in 2009.
Okay.
So that entire thing, best I could tell, uh, went like this.
The Iranians declared that they were making a new facility way out from the six months required that they notify the IAEA and their safeguards agreement.
Uh, there, I think even now they haven't begun introducing nuclear fuel into there, as far as I know.
Um, and then four days after they declared this facility, like in the deal, uh, the president of the United States, along with the president of France and the prime minister of England pretended that they were catching the Iranians red-handed and revealing a brand new secret site.
And then the best coverup they could come up with was to tell David Sanger at the New York times that, well, they only admitted it because they somehow knew we were about to give a speech about it, even though they never made the case of how Iran had a secret agent inside Barack Obama's speech writing team or anything like that, how in the world could they have known they were about to be called out red-handed.
And I just wondered whether you had a comment on any of that.
Do I have it straight or not?
I think what was interesting about that particular scenario that you've outlined is that, uh, they knew in the Bush administration that, uh, that particular facility was being constructed, but the Bush administration didn't blow the whistle.
Uh, now I can't tell you with 100% clarity or veracity why, uh, the senior level Bush administration folks chose not to blow the whistle.
My best guess is because they wanted to see how that particular facility would continue to develop.
Well, and the aforementioned NIE of 07 was published after they knew about it and, uh, they still concluded there was no nuclear weapons program then.
And after Obama called them out for it in 09, this new one came out in 2011 with the same conclusion.
But on that specific point, did they in the state department say that they had any reason to believe really that the Iranian somehow found out, had a secret agent in Obama's speech writing staff or anything else that allowed them, uh, four days heads up that they would pretend to go ahead and declare it open and above board?
Well, I think the, I think when the Iranians, uh, caught, I think the Iranians probably caught wind of the forthcoming announcement through a P5 plus one country because the P5 plus one countries, uh, usually are in close and continuing contact and try to coordinate these measures.
So again, my best guess is that the Chinese or the Russians tipped off the Iranians once they caught wind and that led the Iranians to declare a few days in advance that, uh, that that was in fact a site that was being developed.
Now, the primary issue that we're talking about here, I know we're getting into the weeds a little bit, but I think we need to take a step back and look at the fact that all of these issues become issues because there's a fundamental, huge lack of trust between the United States and Iran.
And both sides can't possibly believe that any kind of agreement or any kind of progress that benefits one side could possibly be good if it benefits the other.
Once they both sides automatically believe, well, we must be losing if the other side's winning.
And that's just not the case.
That's not the way that diplomacy works.
And as both governments continue to see this relationship and the issues that make up the relationship as a zero sum game, we're not going to be able to fill that trust gap and make progress towards a peaceful solution.
Right.
Okay, great.
Thank you so much for your time.
Appreciate it.
Thank you for having me.
Everybody that's Reza Marashi from the National Iranian American Council.
And also he writes for the Huffington Post, former officer in the state department.
