On the Iran deal the self-styled deal maker is a deal breaker when it comes to the historic agreement limiting Iranian uranium enrichment in return for the lifting of sanctions Trump refused to certify Iranian compliance and pass the ball to Congress which now must decide but the u.n. Monitoring agency has determined that terrine on is a hearing to the conditions agreed to does the United States have evidence indicating otherwise why is Trump now abrogating the deal and insulting Iran as a rogue state Iran once in Washington's hip pocket under the Shah broke away with its 1979 Islamic revolution the u.s. Has been hostile Ever since if the deal collapses Why would any country say North Korea enter into an agreement with Washington it changes what has been negotiated post facto in this case the old saw applies if it ain't broke don't fix it our guest today is Trita Parsi he's president of the National Iranian American Council and is the author of several books on u.s. Iranian relations including losing an enemy Obama Iran and the triumph of diplomacy I talked with him in Denver Welcome to the program thank you so much. J c p o a a awkward acronym for the joint comprehensive plan of action the nucular deal 5 permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany signed it after long negotiations in Vienna on Bastille Day actually July 14th 2015 the i.a.e.a. The International Atomic Energy agency conducts inspections of Iranian sites u.s. Ambassador to the u.n. Nikki Haley former governor of South Carolina was in Vienna apparently pushing or interrogating the staff there as to what's happening with these inspections and the big question is Iran in compliance so you're putting your finger on something that is really important 1st of all the Iranians are in compliance they are 8 reports by the i.a.e.a. Their Tomic Energy Agency in Vienna who's been tasked to oversee the implementation of this deal they are to referee on matters of violation and they have 8 times in a row now certify that the Iranians are living up to the deal and in some cases they're actually living up to beyond the deal the trumpet in a stray ssion has been seeking ways to kill the deal and while the president himself seems to have preferred just walking out. Even though it would be very costly to the United States he doesn't seem to care because he doesn't seem to understand other people in his administration is reporting a different approach same goal killed the but a different approach and one of those approaches was to use a mechanism within the deal in which one can request access for the inspectors to visit non nuclear sites inside of Iraq this is a mechanism that is in place in order to make sure that if the Iranians secretly are doing something elsewhere the I should be able to go there and look what is required however is that you present the i.a.e.a. Where the credible evidence if the i.a.e.a. Doesn't have credible evidence but but is pushed into doing this the result will be that they won't find anything and after a 3rd time of doing this and not finding anything it's the credibility of the I that gets killed. So the i.a.e.a. Has a reason to resist but the Trump instructions calculation was if we strong armed I and pushed them to request access to sites where we don't have any evidence that something fishy is going on the Iranians will see no and once the Iranians say no we can say aha the Iranians are in violation and that way you can get out of the deal while passing the blame and the cost on to Tehran Nikki Haley went to I She got a very firm response by the i.a.e.a. Saying that they have no reason to do this she had no new evidence that she presented to them she was only trying to strong arm them into doing something and it failed it failed quite miserably and ever since we have not heard the trumpet instruction seeking that path towards killing that they will instead they're seeking other paths the Defense Secretary Mabus says the deal is quoting in our best interests and apparently the secretary of state to loosen national security advisor McMaster and other government officials as well as scores of disown meant experts have said that this is a good deal. Without a doubt I just published my book on Dio I was in a unique position throughout these negotiations because I was on the one hand advising the Obama administration ministration and on the other hand I also had access to the Iranians so it wasn't unusual I could be at the White House and early in the week and at the end of the week during the talks I would have a 2 hour private session with the Iranian foreign minister and gave me a chance to see things up front very close and get both sides perspectives their calculations their fears terror tactics and strategies I also interacted a lot with the scientific community as part of the research for the deal and within the scientific community the value of this deal is as established as climate changes questioning the deal on scientific basis is as silly. As is to question whether climate change exist this is not a scientific question this is a political question dissonance of this is absolutely solid the Iranians essentially have no chance of being able to find the path to a nuclear bomb but as long as this deal survives if Trump kills the deal of course then that's a completely different matter but this is the toughest inspections regime that ever has been put into place and there's no alternative to this that in any way shape or form would measure up to the science that is the foundation of this deal and incidentally part of the reason why the science was so much part of this is because Ernest money's the Secretary of Energy was the lead negotiator he is a nuclear physicist from mit his counterpart on the Iranian side was another mit ph d. Or saw that he they were actually at mit at the same time both of them nuclear physicists whenever he noted States tested a model or made a proposal to the Iranians and the Iran has made some revisions to it the u.s. Signed would take that revised version back to the scientific community they actually modeled it they tested it is there a way for the Iranians to cheat if we do it this way and once everything was solidly on scientific grounds that's when it was okayed. It's kind of ironic that the 3 states that have nuclear weapons and the ballistic missile delivery systems capabilities are Israel India and Pakistan none is a signatory to the nonproliferation treaty I've been to Iran several times and people bring this up in terms of there's a double standard for Israel India and Pakistan and another special standard for Iran is Iran being held to special unique criteria I think Benny ways yes obviously all of this is happening in a political context and in this specific case is happening in a geo political context in which the main driving sort of force behind pushing this onto the top of the international agenda was Israel who itself has weapons and is not as signatory but there was also a risk incidentally that instead of a double standard this could have led to a quadruple standard that may explain why during the negotiations it was critical for the Iranians to make sure that there would be a deal that yes it would punish them for what they have done in the past but it would give a path so that the Iranians would end up being able to once again be a full n.p.t. Partner signatory which means that within the n.p.t. There are countries that have weapons and there are countries that don't have weapons and then there's a 3rd category there are countries that are not within the n.p.t. And have weapons Israel Pakistan India now of course North Korea since they walked out of them Beaty. This was essential because some on the western side wanted the punishment to be permanent which meant that Iran would have become a 4th category a country that would be part of the n.p.t. Would live up to the n.p.t. Requirements eventually but would permanently be treated differently this was absolutely unacceptable to the Iranians that's why you have a scenario in which certain aspects of the restrictions on the Iranians are going to be lifted on a year or 10 on year 15 granted that the Iranians have lived up to the deal by that meaning that they have restored international confidence that Iran's program is sorely peaceful once that confidence is there Iran should be able to be no different from Sweden Belgium Japan but there are some who are pushing to make sure that that's not the case and there are some right now there are pushing that Benyamin Netanyahu when he was giving his reasons talk on this was insisting that Iran that. This should be no sunset as he called that this really is no sunset but what he's referring to is that some restrictions would be lifted once Steven years have lived up to the test that is to turn Iran into a 4th category nation the only country that would be part of the n.p.t. But not enjoy the rights of the n.p.t. . Netanyahu the Israeli prime minister who incidentally is under investigation for various or transgressions he says it's $938.00 and Iran is Germany so that's and you know who has more than any Israeli leader in the last 20 years pushed to make Iran an existential threat or define it as a nexus to ensure through. It's funny because by doing this of course his calculation was that he would eliminate the status quo option meaning the idea that the United States could just contain the Iranian nuclear program and kick the can down the road or let it be the headache of the next administration he did so because he thought that by eliminating the status quo option he would force the United States to take action military action because if you have an existential threat that is growing ever ensure the United States would have to take military action in particular since the Israelis were constantly pushing to make sure that there could not be any compromise on this issue but in a bizarre way this deal may have come about not in spite of methane you know but because of Netanya because you see by eliminating the status quo option he forced in as he is to take action he thought that he could force in our cities to take military action and he underestimated Obama and he misread America in the sense that the public was so adamantly against another war they were so tired of war that actually pushed Obama into the diplomatic that action had that on Yahoo not done this had he not eliminated the status quo option I'm personally convinced the chances are that President Obama would not have made that immense and very costly and very risky investment in going down that 2 year long deployment more than 2 year long diplomatic path with the Iranians so. In some ways Bizarrely we may have to have Netanyahu to thank for getting this to. APAC is universally acknowledged as one of the most influential and most powerful and well funded a lobby what kind of influence does the Israeli lobby have a policy the influence of the right wing Israeli lobby meaning the groups that tend to be very close to the Likud view a pack of course is the leading one are quite powerful but I would say that over the course of the last 10 years while still powerful there's strong position of dominance has really reduced and and shrunk significantly You see they spent between $20.00 and $40000000.00 the summer of 2015 and they lost they had been on advertisements denouncing the deals and everything else trying to kill the deal not only did they lose they end up getting less Democrats on their side at the end of the process than they had in the beginning of the process I think what we saw here as well as what we saw in August 2013 when there was a vote on whether to authorize military force against Syria was that these groups that have earned the reputation of being a hedge a monic and dominant on their issues are dominant as long as the American public is absent but once you have mass mobilization by the American public which only can happen on very very few issues in very very specific moments when the constellation is such that they can. You know to now at Paris Hilton and the Kurdish as for a quick moment and focus on something more important and they massively mobilize then we see that these groups as powerful as they are are no longer dominant and they oftentimes lose that's exactly what happened in 2013 rightly or wrongly there was mass mobilization to push back against Congress authorizing military force in Syria APAC lobbied in favor of military action the defense industry lobby in favor of military action President Obama lobbied in favor of military action yet most members of Congress that we've spoken to said that they got 97 phone calls against military action 23 in favor. Same thing happened during the summer of 2015 the calls in favor or to cause against a deal were larger in number but the cause in favor of war still so numerous so strong quite unprecedented that it was sufficient to be able to win the case. Now the conventional wisdom about the deal and how it evolved is that the sanctions were really hurting Iran they were desperate to get out of them and the that's what brought them to the table you say that Obama made a diplomatic move that was quite a dramatic explain what happened this narrative in Washington that sanctions is what brought the Iranians to the table and they were so desperate so that they caved. Is really not true and it's very dangerous for us to lull ourselves into believing that drinking our own Kool-Aid because that will give us a false understanding of what actually made this deal work this deal that no one thought could be achieved and then we will apply the wrong model the false model on future cases such as North Korea today in order to understand what went right we have to be honest with ourselves what actually did go right here and when you see what happened in the secret negotiations in Oman that no one knew about at the time . You see a very different picture let me start here January 2012 Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta publicly says that Iran's breakout capability is 12 months meaning the moment they will decide to build the material for a bomb to them having the material would take 12 months January 2013 a new sense of urgency dawns on the White House because it turns out that Iran's breakout capability had shrunk to 8 to 12 weeks this is as a result of the u.s. Imposing sanctions on Iran and the Iranians responding deliberately by doubling down on their nuclear program and the question then was which clock ticks to fast us is it the sanctions clock or is it the nuclear clock with the u.s. Be able to cripple the Iranian economy 1st or will the Iranians be able to present the United States with a nuclear fetter complete 1st it was a race but generally 2013 the president understands that the nuclear clock was not ticking faster if nothing else changed the United States would be faced with only 2 options either accepting that Iran is becoming at the fact a nuclear power or go to war. The thing that could change is if the United States finally for the very 1st time made a diplomatic play that Obama had planned to do but he had planned to do it at the end of a negotiation not in the beginning of the negotiation and that is to go to the Iranians and say we accept your red line we accept that you can have and Richmond on your soil which was the absolute red line of the Iranians they would never compromise on this regardless of how much pressure and sanctions they were put on and you know I interviewed tons of the negotiators from all sides on this and I got their own quotes and their stories of what actually happened in the secret talks I also spoke to folks on the Omani side about this so March 2013 Ahmadinejad is still president we're not talking about the Rouhani years or Bamma allows a senior the Legation of diplomats to go to Amman this would be the 2nd meeting the 1st meeting was in July of 2012 it was a very bad meeting nothing good came out of it but this time around he sends a senior delegation including the number 2 at the State Department investor Bill Burns and for the very very 1st time he allows the American diplomats to happen instrument in their hands that they were not allowed to have $24.00 which was a carefully worded statement on how and when and on the what circumstances the United States would be willing to concede the issue of enrichment to the Iranians this happened during the Ahmadinejad years and thus the breakthrough that then led to the negotiations that eventually got this deal of everyone that I've interviewed in the White House Europeans Russians Iranians had this not been made has this concession not be made we would not be seeing. A deal right now and in reverse if this concession. Had been made 10 years earlier we could have had a deal 10 years earlier that would have been better than the deal the United States got now because during those 10 years when the u.s. Was pursuing sanctions the Iranians were advancing their program as the sanctions gave the United States more leverage in a negotiation so did the new number of centrifuges that the Iranians were constantly adding. And the knowledge that the amassed about the fuel cycle so we could have gotten a deal 10 years ago without the sanctions with the Iranians keeping much less centrifuges and having much less knowledge about the fuel cycle if we had adopted a more realistic position back then instead of waiting this long and then conceding this in 2013 and the story that is we could have gotten a better deal 10 years before we started imposing these sanctions but goes I think back to the whole context of u.s. Iranian relations which have been more than murky since the overthrow of the Shah in the $197879.00 and the introduction of the Islamic regime of Ayatollah Khomeini. That relationship once very close became quickly strange to to the point where when Iraq invaded Iran a clear violation of international law and treaties the United States not only did not impose sanctions on Iraq but in fact gave it billions of dollars of credits and the weapons absolutely the history of the United States in Iran is rather sad one in the last 37 years and there's been plenty of offenses committed by both sides the list is very very long and this is one of the main achievements of this deal. That the both sides recognize they will never be able to sort out the past but they can sort out the future and they were willing to be able to set aside some of the grievances of the past in order to make sure that there wouldn't be new grievances coming up that's why my book is called Losing an enemy I'm not making the argument that the United States lost an enemy I'm making the argument that there was an opportunity to lose an enemy an opportunity that had to be embraced and built upon an opportunity that now have been squandered by the trumpet ministration because instead of building on this deal he's looking for ways of killing this deal and this is quite sad because we have to ask ourselves when was the last time the United States lost an enemy in the Middle East. Well at the u.n. In late September trumped called the deal an embarrassment to the United States one of the worst and most one sided transactions the u.s. Has ever entered into and Interestingly he also said this on other occasions that under the deal we gave Iran $150000000000.00 And according to him we get nothing in return which is of course completely false there was no $150000000000.00 from the u.s. That went to the Iranians what existed was that as part of the sanctions the money Iran held in foreign banks primarily in Switzerland Japan else elsewhere which they used to pay for their imports from those countries were frozen and the vine is going to have access to the money as part of the deal that money was unfrozen and the Iranians regained access to it it was Iran's own money it wasn't America's money. There is a much smaller amount of money that was transferred which is roughly $1700000000.00 And that was because of a lawsuit between the United States and Iran in which divine Ians had bought weaponry air for airplanes I believe that during the last years of the Shaw the Shah's government had paid United stat money but in between him paying and the Americans being able to deliver that Iranians had a revolution and they took $52.00 American diplomats hostage so the United States did not give the money back nor did it send the airplanes to run the Iranians take the United States to international court and that court case was about to come to a head it was very clear the United States would have lost that original sum was 400000000 but with interest it would be 1.7 it would be a negotiation and the United States decided to negotiate a deal and agreement with the Iranians rather than letting the legal procedures continue chances are that if they had let the legal procedures continue it would probably have led to 5 or $6000000000.00 instead they settle for 1.7 to present even announced as on the very same day that the nuclear deals were was implemented it didn't make much news but then suddenly 6 months later became major news for a very simple reason The Wall Street Journal found out that the money had actually been sent to the Iranians in cash on airplanes. There was nothing new in the story except for the fact that this was handled they were to leave on using cash the reason what was given in cash was because of u.s. Sanctions u.s. Sanctions made it very difficult for any bank to agree to transfer data amount of money from American bank to Iranian So the Us itself was forced to do this through a cash payment. But this is one of many many false words that was spread about the deal during that summer some of it spread of course by Trump himself and he's continued to peddle those lies. The New York Times reports Mr Rouhani the president of Iran a moderate has staked his reputation on sealing the nucular deal and relieving the Iranian economy of debilitating international sanctions how much has Rouhani invested political capital in the success of this deal. This is been quite essential for him to the extent that there's a lot of criticism that he has neglected other issues at the expense of the nuclear deal but I think he from his perspective he recognized that this is such an important agreement it is such an important challenge that was standing in front of the Iranians that unless the resolve this issue so many other problems with continued to exist so in order to get out of the isolation Iran was this issue needed to be resolved he needed to be resolved in a way that he could also defend it at home the main problem now is that not only has a trumpet ministration try to kill the deal but the trumpet instruction itself is actually in violation of the deal because they are actively on their mining what is now illegal trade between Iran and the outside world I mean sanctions that have been lifted are lifted but the trumpet instruction is pressuring countries not to trade with Iran this is an explicit violation of the deal. You listening to treat the Parsee on the Iran deal this is independent alternative radio you can order copies of this program by calling 1800 triple 41977 that's 180-444-1977 or you can order online on our website alternative radio dot org That's alternative radio dot au r g in terms of the political structures in Iran one often hears the term hardliner and reformer what do these terms mean in the Iranian context who's who here. There's different ways of being able to categorize the different factions within Iranian politics none of them are entirely accurate most of them hold a significant amount of truth power what you have right now is a new phenomenon which Rouhani because Rouhani was never a reformist he was a centrist pragmatic pragmatist he was much closer to Russia and Johnny he was on the opposite side of the reformist president Mohammad Hatami back in the late 1990 s. But over the years to me and Rafsanjani managed to spearhead an effort to create another Lions between the pragmatists and the reformist even though they were very strong at odds with each other 20 years ago and it's DOT's coalition that led to the victory of Rouhani Rouhani would not have won had it not been for the reformist votes if they had not been for the votes of the people who were out in the streets only 4 years earlier supporting Mousavi and Karroubi and the green movement that's is ultimately his base of support then of course you have various factions of conservatives they were very skeptical about the deal but it's not because of the deal Prissie it's not even because they are ideologically opposed to a deal with the United States all of those who are making that argument in Washington as a way of the oil deal would never work with Yvonne have been proven utterly wrong that. That was actually an ideological hick up on the American side more so than the one you cite the problem for the Conservatives is not a deal it's not a deal with the u.s. It's the aftermath of the deal will the deal be a stepping stone for a larger us you are a rapprochement and if that is the case will the United States be able to move into Iran economically gain influence and if that happens the conservatives grip over to Iranian economy will start to weaken and that would ultimately affect the balance. Power domestically within Iran between conservatives and reformists etc So their opposition is not so much because of ideological hate cops etc This is ultimately about their own power and the fear that an opening up of Iran to the west and tiredly would ultimately be very detrimental to their interests they are not incorrect in that analysis in my view I think that's precisely why the reformers want to open up your heart because they do recognize that any Iran that is more open to the outside world that has more normal interaction will also be uneven in which the conservative faction will shrink Rouhani and you mentioned Rafsanjani both clerics Russian Johnny passed away in early 2017 How do they line up or how does Rouhani line up in opposition to the supreme leader who holds ultimate power in the country support of the reason why Rouhani has been able to be a bit more effective than what a reformist president was under Hatami and potentially other reform his presence is precisely because he has a different working relationship with harmony and his modus operandi is not necessarily been to oppose and confront harmony directly but to. Bring him to his side. And comment his red line is actually is Don't cross me. Don't cross the institutional divide to Valley which Rouhani has not done explain what that is the unique Iranian concept is a unique Iranian concept that was put together by Ayatollah Khomeini which essentially is that Iran has a political system he has a president has a parliamentary as a Guardian Council an assembly expert but he has above all of that supreme ayatollah the grand ayatollah who is the factory the supreme leader he is essentially the balancer of the system he is the person who holds most power in the country more so than the president but he doesn't hold complete power it is not a could Garfield or Saddam Hussein type of a system more than anything else he's the balancer but he's a balance that with his own strong tilt towards the conservative side of course how would you characterize the Iranian economy today its strength and weaknesses this is a kind of state capitalist system this is actually one of the interesting criticism against Rouhani by some people on the reformist side and elsewhere in Iran which is that he's a strong neo liberal and he's you know pursuing such reforms and changes in Iran society which is meeting the same type of resistance as we see to the neo liberal policies elsewhere it is effective in creating growth but is affecting creating growth at the expense of massive inequality and even has significant inequality right now plausibly potentially more so than it did even during the time of the shot. But one of the main problems for the Iranian economy right now is that the sanctions relief simply hadn't worked. Rouhani needs to create a lot of jobs his economy is growing at 6.6 or so percent this year but that is mainly because he's able to sell more oil computer was before because the old sanctions relief has worked but to create jobs you can't just sell or you have to have investments and when you only sell oil it strengthens the state companies not the private sector so we've seen significant growth in Iran but we haven't seen unemployment shrink as much and unemployment has further suffered by the fact that he has been very aggressive in trying to push down inflation and he got it down from roughly 40 to 10 percent. So that is a significant achievement but that also comes at the expense of other things and the combination of pushing down inflation and not having investments that would create jobs because in pushing out investments actually tends to do the opposite has created a situation in which a lot of people are not terribly happy with the economy but this is still giving Rouhani political support because he's still seen as a better candidate and alternative than anyone that the reform conservatives have put forward. The militaries in Pakistan Turkey Egypt and other countries have a major economic power does the Iranian Revolutionary Guard also have economic influence they have significant economic power and they are corrupt they are operating like a mafia and they are right now in a confrontation with Ronnie Ronnie has arrested several of their leaders. Because he recognizes of course that they're gaining too much power but also that it's very difficult for you on an economy to really pick up and get investments to come in if you have this shady essentially oligarchy run by the I r g c that is above the law doesn't open up its book doesn't even necessarily pay taxes etc that needs to be dismantled in order for a Vons economy to become more transparent and more functional but that is one of the biggest fault lines in Iranian politics right now that between Iranian dired you see. Aren't the Revolutionary Guards under the control of the supreme leader come and the sense of the yes but they are a very very big movement and much of what is happening right now is that former r.g.c. Officials have moved into the economic sector and they have a very strong network there and they are not necessarily abiding by the rules again harmony is a balance or harmony seems to be in agreement that they have become perhaps a little bit too big and has not objected Wesley's not stood in the way over on any climbing down I don't think we should expect that common a will approve a complete dismantlement of the ira gc's economic empire all countries have security concerns 3 of Iran's neighbors are quite unstable Pakistan Afghanistan and Iraq Iran was subjected to an ISIS attack in June of 2017 an attack on the parliament an attack on the muzzle iyam of I told the Khomeini what or Iran's concerns in terms of its security it's a great question I think the as a might surprise you the Iranian National Security Council has defined as their top threat. 6 areas and the reason and the combination of sectarianism with Salafi jihadism and the reason for this is because yes the night of states has a very mighty military and it can definitely take out the Iranian military but if he knows he's were to start a war you would see a massive rally around the flag phenomenon in Iran and the country would essentially a night. Out I says and other jihadi groups don't have that military power but they have the opposite power they have the power of creating division within Iran society. Iran has ethnic minorities Sunni Arab minorities some of them have very legitimate grievances with the central government and just as much as ISIS and al-Qaeda have managed to move into areas elsewhere where there are disgruntled group where there are minorities or not doesn't necessarily matter the Iranians are worried about this because that type of penetration can create internal problems that are much more difficult for the Iranians to deal with guess what the 2nd national security threat is according to the Iranian National Security Council. Climate change Iran is going to be disproportionately affected at a very early stage as a result of climate change. Most of the areas where food is grown in Iran and Iran is essentially self-sufficient in food is going to dry out very soon it's going to be hit with Matt massive heat waves as a result of this Stephen is don't have the technology to be able to resist this and ultimately no one single country can handle this problem alone the Iranians are painfully aware of not only this problem but also the lack of capacity of addressing it. Talk about the Trump imposed travel ban singling out Iran and other Muslim majority countries you're going to zation very strongly oppose that this because this battle has nothing to do with u.s. Security this is not aimed at making America safer this is aimed at him giving red meat to his base he promised them and Muslim bad he's giving them a Muslim bad and even though he's suffered significant setbacks in courts visas to many Muslim countries including those who are on the original bad as well as the current bout it have gone down between 30 and 50 percent so he's getting his Muslim bad despite what the course of decided that's why we are fighting not just in the courts but also in Congress ultimately this is going to have to be prohibited by Congress itself we believe particular with the constellation that we have in the Supreme Court right now. If this was based on a need to secure America then we would have started off with the countries where the threat actually emanates whether it is because of the government there doing something or because of movements they're creating something and we would have started off with Saudi Arabia. Where so much of this problem has come from and where so many people who have attacked the United States and elsewhere have been radicalized San Bernardino as an example Pakistani citizen has been radicalized in Saudi Arabia of the countries doubts Trump put on the Muslim ban the 1st time around not a single American has been killed in a terrorist attack on u.s. Soil by a citizen of any of those countries whereas 94 point one percent of all Americans killed in terrorist acts on u.s. Soil committed by foreign national were committed by nationals of the Saudis Saudi Arabia u.a.e. And Egypt none of them are addressed in this band and in fact the 1st country Trump went to was Saudi Arabia and he gave them a massive hog and he told them explicitly We're not here to criticize I'm not making an argument that Saudi Arabia should have been on a Muslim about making the argument that this has nothing to do with American security just take this example Saddam was actually originally on one of these it's not on the 3rd version of the Muslim on guess why well because the u.a.e. Lobbied to get them off the Muslim bat in return for the Sudanese sending mercenaries to help the u.a.e. Fight the who tease in Yemen talk about the conflict with Saudi Arabia is this 2 countries Iran Saudi Arabia vying for Hedger money or power in in the Middle East and the Saudi foreign minister. Says Iran quoting Iran remains the single main sponsor of terrorism in the world and it's determined to up and the order in the Middle East. It's 2 very strong statements to give us good insight in Saudi thinking on the 1st statement it is a more accurate statement to describe Saudi Arabia as such that's not to say that the Iranians have not been involved in terrorism but there's very little of that if any we can point to since 2001. Saudi role in all of this of course is quite extensive including the $911.00 itself in which a redacted $28.00 pages do show that Saudi very senior Saudi officials including the ambassador in Washington at the time bond there had contact and provided aid to the Saudis that ended up doing the 911 attacks. Though that insists convincing in your view that evidence is convincing that there's something there then we stopped searching discern the something there that should have been investigated and we did and for political reasons because of the contacts between and the relations between the Bush administration the Bush family and the Saudis I mean remember band that nickname was Bandar Bush that's how close he was to the Bush family and Bin Ladin family that was in Washington d.c. Including in Georgetown University were flown out with the help of the f.b.i. Say meaning of 911 it's not enough to be able to say with certainty that Saudis were there but it's enough to say something seemed to have been there we should have investigated instead there was a political decision to shut down that investigation why was that decision made if there was nothing there what were you worried about. On the other issue that's actually a very interesting point that Jupiter is making he said that Iran is trying to up and the order in the region that's a very strong misread of the Saudis but it tells you something about what they want . The order in the region was appended in 2003 the previous order was an order that the Saudis preferred want to go back to it it was a dual containment the United States had strong hegemony in the region that it was an order that was centered on Israel Saudi Arabia and Egypt and it was based on Iran in Iraq's exclusion and containment it was called and you will contain the Iranians hated that order they did everything they could to cause its collapse but it wasn't Iranians that killed it it was the United States because George Bush went into Iraq he thought that he could create a different order that would be less costly for the us which is removing problematic states from his perspective he failed so miserably because he did manage to kill that order but he did not manage to create a new order and in the process he weakened himself to the point in which the United States ever since have not been in a position to have the capacity to impose on the Middle East and new equipment so there is no water the region has been order less since 2003 the Saudis are living in a dream world they think that the United that there is an order and the Iranians are pending and that the United States should restore tooth preety $1003.00 balance of power there's only 2 ways you can do that you can either do that by making Iraq and Afghanistan splendid successes and by that have them continue to balance Iran the way it was prior to 2003 war or if that's not possible which it clearly is not at least not possible for the United States you have to cut down Iran in size by taking military action and that's exactly what the Saudis wanted throughout this entire period and now would trump they see their chance of being able to get an administration that is so clueless about the geopolitics of the world to actually be able to sell them this idea. And the wars being fought in Syria and Yemen are called proxy wars where outside states are involved including Iran and Saudi Arabia Yes and the Saudis have essentially lost in Yemen in Syria in Iraq and 11 on. And I understand their calculation they obviously don't want to negotiate with the Iranians right now because they're in a very very significant position a weakness that's why the Iranians have kept on reaching out to the Saudis and the Saudis every buffed them they don't want to negotiate because they have such a weak position. And then would trump coming in why would they want to resolve this issue right now why not wait to see what is Trump willing to do how far can we push Trump towards challenging Iran perhaps bombing Iran and then we'll negotiate until you know how far you can drag and lure Trump into this it's completely rational for the Saudis not to want to negotiate but ultimately we have to recognize. Iran cannot wish away Saudi Arabia and Saudi Arabia cannot wish away Iran these 2 countries are going to have to come to some sort of an understanding so Obama told the king of Saudi Arabia King of the at a time that you have to find a way to share the region with the Iranians the Saudis were deeply offended by this because essentially what Obama was said I'm not going to commit u.s. Resources any longer for an all out containment of Iran because a it doesn't work it further destabilize the region and it actually is no longer in our interest because we just struck a nuclear deal with Iran it just makes so much more sense for you Saudi Arabia to find a way to get along with Iran instead of thinking that you can fight Iran to the last American. And what about the vibrancy of civil society this is in my view one of the reasons why I'm very hopeful about Iran which is that has a very vibrant civil society has a very educated public it has a public that recognizes that the best path for them to be able to get to change that is so needed Iran is through the ballot box is through peaceful means they've gone through a revolution they don't see a need to be that dumb again to be completely frank revolutions don't bring about that type of positive change and particularly after seeing how the Arab Spring has feared you really have to be quite disconnected from the realities of Iran to wish dot for you and I remember a very vivid scene in weeks after Rouhani won the elections which was a was a major win for the green movement because the Green Movement was the core of his supporters and in the voting bloc you had the massacre in Cairo in which. The end that coupe those made and about $1500.00 people were killed in the streets of Cairo that on a single day. And Iranians put pictures of Cairo on fire on their Facebook and as said Revolution on top of that picture than they had picture of Iranian women dancing in the streets after Rouhani had been elected and over that picture they said evolution was very clear in my idea that this is in my mind this is a very sophisticated population that has understood they're faced with problems that no country should face to face with problems that their government has created for them. But a peaceful controllable gradual path has a far higher likelihood of success than rushing towards yet another revolution and if you close your eyes for a moment to imagine a different future between Iran and the United States what would that look like to you. What I would like to see is the 2 sides losing each other as enemies that does not necessarily mean that they will become great friends I think there will be a rivalry remaining between the 2 sides as long as the United States seeks to have a strong presence in the Middle East it will be at odds with Iran but that doesn't mean that it needs to be right and enmity. But I think it's important to eliminate this all out and Miti because that all out and Miti not only destabilize the Middle East does not serve us or Iranian interests but he also has a very negative effect on Iran's internal development its ability to be able to move towards a much more freer and I'm a credit society driven not by any outside force but by the Iranian people themselves I've been talking to Trita Parsi he's the president of the largest Iranian American grassroots organization the new United States the National Iranian American Council is the author of Treacherous Alliance a single roll of the dice and most recently losing an enemy thanks very much for your time thank you so much for having me you were just listening to an interview I did with 3 to Parsi on the Iran deal I talked with him in Denver Trita Parsi is president of the National Iranian American Council and the author of several books on u.s. 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College 92 point one kicks w r l p Saley listen and make us at 91 point one or unpleasant view at 90.9 and follow us on Facebook Twitter and on the web at case j.d. Or r g It's 5 o'clock Stay tuned for Weekend All Things. President Trump is in Asia for a 5 country tour that includes China for talks with this powerful president a lot of what Trump's agenda has on it particularly North Korea and traders' going to depend on what she Jinping gives him for Sunday November 5th it's All Things Considered from n.p.r. News. I'm Noel King here in the u.s. Another deadly mass shooting this time at a church in Texas we'll bring you the latest from Southerland Springs near San Antonio and we dive into our study on discrimination in the u.s. No matter what we need to always be seen as others are different Plus a conversation with Jennifer Lewis the self-proclaimed mother of black Hollywood I play to Dana Darrell as Mama Whitney Houston's mom and the list goes on and on 1st news live from n.p.r. News in Washington I'm Janine Herbst at least 26 people are dead several others are wounded after a man opened fire at a church in a small town in south Texas near Santa.