Medea Benjamin talking:
President Trump is allying with a very narrow—very, very narrow sliver of countries. And that is basically Israel and Saudi Arabia. He is talking about Iran as the spreader of terrorism in the Middle East. But look at who has been the basis of the—ISIS and al-Qaeda: has been Saudi Arabia, not Iran. You look at who has been meddling in the internal affairs in the Middle East. First of all, it’s the U.S. The U.S. has no business to be in the Middle East, but we have been, since the time of the invasion of Iraq, destroying country after country.
And you look at the issue of who has nuclear weapons. I think it’s important just to say the incredible hypocrisy, first, of the United States, that has thousands of nuclear weapons, as does Russia, but then, of Netanyahu being the one to, quote, “expose” Iran, when Israel has lied about its nuclear weapons program. Israel has hundreds of nuclear weapons. Israel refuses to join the Nonproliferation Treaty, refuses to have any international inspectors. And this is the person that Donald Trump is listening to about supposed Iranian violations. Let’s be clear: Iran does not have nuclear weapons; Israel has hundreds of them. Iran has actually called for a nuclear weapons-free Middle East, which I think we should all get on board for.
Trita Parsi talking:
I think one of the problems with trying to analyze Donald Trump is that people have tried to use their regular models of trying to figure out what are the geopolitical calculations behind various moves that he’s making. But this is an individual that doesn’t not understand geopolitics, doesn’t think along those lines. And I think it’s much easier to get an understanding of what he is thinking and what he’s seeking to do by looking at who is paying him and looking at where those type of interests are. And it’s very clear that, you know, Adelson has not only argued for war with Iran more than anyone else, but he’s also been arguing for a nuclear strike against Iran. And he’s the main funder of many, many of the groups that have been pushing the United States to go in this direction and have a military confrontation with Iran.
SHELDON ADELSON: What I would say is, “Listen, you see that desert out there? I want to show you something.” So you pick up your cellphone, even at—even at traveling rates. You pick up your cellphone. And what do they call them? Roaming charges. You pick up your cellphone, and you call somewhere in Nebraska, and you say, “OK, let it go.” So there’s an atomic weapon, goes over ballistic missiles, in the middle of the desert, that doesn’t hurt a soul—maybe a couple of rattlesnakes and scorpions or whatever. And then you—and then you say, “See? The next one is in the middle of Tehran. So, we mean business. You want to be wiped out? Go ahead and take a tough position and continue with your nuclear development.”
And I think what we should see here is that this decision, this decision to kill this deal, as Trump has now made, this is the moment that this situation actually was turned into a crisis. Because we had a triumph of diplomacy. This deal was working. The only thing that wasn’t working with this deal was that the United States, under Trump, was cheating on it. If we now, six months, nine months, 12 months from now, end up in a military confrontation with Iran, as Sheldon Adelson wants, we should remember that conflict was started yesterday, when Donald Trump decided to cheat on this nuclear deal and pull the United States out of it.
President Trump’s new national security adviser, John Bolton: I have said for over 10 years, since coming to these events, that the declared policy of the United States of America should be the overthrow of the mullah’s regime in Tehran. The behavior and the objectives of the regime are not going to change, and therefore the only solution is to change the regime itself. And that’s—and that’s why, before 2019, we here will celebrate in Tehran. Thank you very much.
Trump’s new attorney, Rudy Giuliani: We’ve got a president who’s tough, a president who doesn’t listen to the people who are naysayers, and a president that is as committed to regime change as we are.
Medea Benjamin talking:
And he’s very clear that, for him, this is about regime change, just as the spectacle of Giuliani speaking at this Iran Freedom Convention that took place over the weekend in Washington, D.C., where he spit on his piece of paper as if it were the Iran nuclear deal, and talked about meeting with the MEK in Tehran, that they were going to somehow miraculously take over from the government in power now. Let’s be clear: This is a group that was not only on the terrorist list until 2012, but a group that has probably about zero popularity inside Iran, from the time that it sided with Saddam Hussein against the Iranian people during that brutal 8-year war from 1980 to 1988. This is a cult-like group that would in no way be a group that could take over from the present government in Iran. But this is the delusion of people that are surrounding Donald Trump.
So, it is so dangerous that we’ve pulled out of the nuclear deal, but it’s also so incredibly dangerous that the person in the White House has no sense of history of how we have meddled in Iran’s affairs, overthrowing their democratically elected government in 1953, that paved the way for the Islamic revolution in ’79, interfered internally in Iran’s affairs in all kinds of ways, from hundreds of millions of dollars spent on covert activities and crippling sanctions. And in some ways, this only strengthens the regime in power. And so, I think the pulling out of the nuclear deal strengthens the hardliners in Iran, makes people feel they have to rally around the flag, rally around the government. And it certainly does not help anyone inside Iran who wants to see more gradual kinds of reforms for a more democratic government inside Iran.
Black Cube in Dirty Ops Effort Attacking Supporters of Iran Deal
Black Cube, the private intelligence—Israeli intelligence firm that the Trump administration reportedly hired to target former U.S. officials who support the Iran agreement.
Trita Parsi talking:
in addition to what’s been going on here, we have the situation in which, apparently, the Trump administration has been using a foreign intelligence firm, filled with former Mossad agents, to spy and try to entrap American individuals and organizations. And apparently I was a target of this, as well, with one person contacting me, pretending to be a journalist and then trying to goad me into saying things that would be problematic for the Obama administration, in order to put the Iran nuclear deal in a bad light and use this later on to discredit the people who were behind the nuclear deal and the people who were supporting it. I think it shows the desperation that some of these elements have gone to, to try to create this crisis and to try to then drive it towards a military confrontation.
I was first informed late last week by a journalist that had come across the list of targets, and told—and he told me that I was one of the primary targets. And then, I think it was a day later that I got a call from another journalist, who read to me the transcript of one of my conversations with one of these Black Cube pretending to be a journalist. And that’s how I realized that, I mean, they’re not tapping my phone, but they’re calling me and taping those conversations through their end.
My understanding, based on conversations with some of these journalists, who have not been able to put everything in writing, is that it was very clear to the people who were working at Black Cube and who were outsourcing this to some people that the actual client was the Trump administration, whether it was Trump himself or some of his aides or people around him. That may not be as clear, but that the real client, that the people they were trying to help, was the Trump administration.
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Trita Parsi
founder and president of the National Iranian American Council. His most recent book is titled Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran, and the Triumph of Diplomacy.
Medea Benjamin
co-founder of CodePink. Her latest book is titled Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran. She is also the author of Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the U.S.-Saudi Connection.
— source democracynow.org
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