[SPEAKER_04]: Hello and welcome to Eastwood Idiot Time Katie Helper.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm Aaron Mattey, thanks so much for being here.
[SPEAKER_07]: Our website is usefulityitspodcast.com.
[SPEAKER_07]: Go there to support the show and get bonus content.
[SPEAKER_07]: This week we'll be looking at the latest in Iran.
[SPEAKER_07]: There are talks supposed to be going on between the U.S. and Iran unless, of course, one side pulls out, which you never know, is always a possibility, especially as the Trump administration can't stop bragging about how their sanctions destroyer Iran's economy.
[SPEAKER_07]: And even as talks are happening, it's still threatening constantly to bomb.
[SPEAKER_07]: I know these circumstances, it's pretty difficult to imagine success, but we all kind of hope against what we can see before eyes that maybe just maybe peace can be achieved, and we'll be speaking to Professor Afshin Matin Asgari, he is a history professor.
[SPEAKER_07]: and author of a brand new book called Axis of Empire History of Iran, U.S. Relations.
[SPEAKER_07]: But first, we have a weekly segment where we recap the week in the news, called The Friday Free For All.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's for our paid subscribers.
[SPEAKER_07]: If you're a free subscriber, here's a preview.
[SPEAKER_07]: One of the biggest stories of the week, everyone's talking about it.
[SPEAKER_07]: The release of the Epstein files.
[SPEAKER_07]: uh... the justice department putting up more than three million documents and the documents look people can debate what they signify my views on this have been won't known i i don't think some of the maximal claims about a petophile blackmail ring on behalf of the musad i don't think that's been born up by the evidence others would disagree maxima list view
[SPEAKER_07]: You mean like, Jillane, Max, Max, well, yes, yes, they're very good, yes, yes.
[SPEAKER_07]: But what we can, I think, all agree on, or most people can agree on, is that Epstein had deep ties to Israel.
[SPEAKER_07]: He was very close with a hood baroque, the former's late Prime Minister, helping him try to broker some business deals.
[SPEAKER_07]: His lawyer, after all, was Alan Dershowitz, one of the most fanatic supporters of Israel in the U.S., and Epstein himself was a big fan of Israel.
[SPEAKER_04]: there's something in one of the files about how he doesn't like Israel.
[SPEAKER_04]: He can't stand that place.
[SPEAKER_07]: Well, that was in my friend's to him not wanting to visit Israel, but in terms of the government of Israel, I think it's safe to say he was a supporter.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_07]: So despite all this, despite the well-documented ties to Israel, you have a different country.
[SPEAKER_07]: being named as the actor, the state actor, yes, by the steam and working with Epstein.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, they'll never guess who it is.
[SPEAKER_04]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I was going to say the good news.
[SPEAKER_04]: Guys is that don't worry.
[SPEAKER_04]: The media's on it.
[SPEAKER_04]: They really care about international connections.
[SPEAKER_04]: They really care about connections to foreign governments.
[SPEAKER_04]: The bad news is that the one that they're talking about is not Israel, but
[SPEAKER_04]: Say it with us now, Russia.
[SPEAKER_04]: So let's take a look at some of these headlines.
[SPEAKER_04]: Here's the Telegraph Epstein's links to Putin and Kremlin spies.
[SPEAKER_04]: Raise fears, he was Russian agent, pedophile financiers suspected of being engaged in world's largest honey trap operation.
[SPEAKER_04]: Here's the Daily Mail.
[SPEAKER_04]: Epstein's sex empire was KGB honey trap.
[SPEAKER_04]: pedophile financier had multiple talks with Putin after conviction with Russian girls flown into harvest compromise, world-favorite mess figures, New York Post.
[SPEAKER_04]: emails reveal new theory about whom a Jeffrey Epstein was really working for and of course thousands says thousands of cryptic messages tying uh Jeffrey Epstein's Vladimir Putin have been discovered in the latest release and the son sinister secrets as FBI files reveal fake passport secret recordings and links to the KGB
[SPEAKER_07]: So this is basically a redo of Russia gate where you had these fanatical non-stop allegations that Trump and Russia weren't cohoots.
[SPEAKER_07]: Now, we know how that turned out.
[SPEAKER_07]: Robert Mueller found nothing.
[SPEAKER_07]: It was a, would argue, giant waste of time and energy.
[SPEAKER_07]: While meanwhile, it was documented.
[SPEAKER_07]: The Trump campaign did clube with the foreign power and that was Israel in between Trump's election and his inauguration in January 2017.
[SPEAKER_07]: The Trump team worked with Israel to undermine a vote at the UN, where Obama was not going to veto a measure that was like mildly critical of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
[SPEAKER_07]: And the Trump camp worked very hard to undermine that, including by approaching foreign countries, essentially on Israel's behalf.
[SPEAKER_07]: The established media and most Democrats, in fact, pretty much all Democrats have our mark quickly ignored that collusion story because they're also beholden to Israel or at least they support these other government.
[SPEAKER_07]: And that didn't help their favorite conspiracy theory that Trump and Russia weren't votes.
[SPEAKER_07]: Now you have several similar things.
[SPEAKER_07]: You have documented ties between Epstein and Israel, but yet,
[SPEAKER_07]: everyone still believes that it really is Russia and who of course is going to run with the narrative that the real foreign actor here involved with Epstein is Russia and Israel.
[SPEAKER_07]: Of course, it's Barry Weiss's CBS News.
[SPEAKER_03]: Poland says it's looking into possible connections between convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and Russian intelligence services.
[SPEAKER_03]: The announcement came after the US Justice Department last week.
[SPEAKER_04]: Hi, the way I just got to point out.
[SPEAKER_04]: This, of course, is a photo of Epstein with Matt Gilin Maxwell whose father was Robert Maxwell who happened to have been buried in Israel.
[SPEAKER_04]: At a very holy site in Israel.
[SPEAKER_07]: And he was, and he was a Mossad asset.
[SPEAKER_07]: I mean, that's confirmed that he was a asset from, that's another connection that Jeff Restin had.
[SPEAKER_07]: So that, you know, his, his lieutenant, Jelaine Maxwell, her father literally, worked for him as a, I don't think there's any dispute about that, that the elder Maxwell was a Israeli asset.
[SPEAKER_04]: So even they can't even help themselves.
[SPEAKER_04]: They can't, the connection is so thick between Epstein and Israel that they can't, they can't even find enough photos that don't hint to it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And more files related to the federal investigation into Epstein.
[SPEAKER_07]: They just showed us a picture of him with Alan Dershuitt, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: That's a Russian Russia guy, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: Straight to Putin.
[SPEAKER_07]: There he is.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's Alan Dershuitt, right?
[SPEAKER_07]: So I know there.
[SPEAKER_07]: Whether Dershuit is an official Israeli assort or an official one, he certainly one of the biggest apologists for Israel in the US and areas, certainly not for Russia.
[SPEAKER_04]: By the way, but that is that sweatshirt he's wearing.
[SPEAKER_04]: He's wearing a Harvard sweatshirt, and it is crimson, of course, the famous crimson of Harvard.
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, red, so there you have some connection, perhaps, suggestion of Russia, you know, the whole red connection.
[SPEAKER_03]: Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Tuesday, quote, more and more leads more and more information and more and more commentary in the global press all relate to the suspicion that this unprecedented pedophilia scandal was co-organized by Russian intelligence services.
[SPEAKER_01]: about any links between Epstein and Russian espionage.
[SPEAKER_01]: Our own CBS News will leave you guys us in Washington, spoke to Poland's foreign minister on that take-listen.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, honey trops, it's a classic KGB tactics.
[SPEAKER_07]: I mean, this is what we heard during Russia gate.
[SPEAKER_07]: But all this is classic Putin.
[SPEAKER_07]: Everything is classic Putin.
[SPEAKER_07]: Black Lives Matter is classic Putin.
[SPEAKER_07]: So nothing, nothing can not be traced back to the Crownman's doorstep.
[SPEAKER_04]: Right.
[SPEAKER_04]: Straight and with the Russian pipe up, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not clear to you.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_07]: Just think about all the private things you've typed into chatGPT.
[SPEAKER_07]: Late night questions, business ideas, even sensitive personal struggles.
[SPEAKER_07]: How would it feel if those conversations weren't private?
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[SPEAKER_07]: All right.
[SPEAKER_07]: Well, the British government, which has long had this really weird obsession and hatred
[SPEAKER_07]: And when I was in the UK recently, I was kind of taking a back at how, at public events that I did, just the people in the audience just, they believe the absolute worst about Russia.
[SPEAKER_07]: And I don't fully get that.
[SPEAKER_07]: I think it goes back to the Cold War and maybe Britain's insecurity about being like,
[SPEAKER_07]: second fiddle to the U.S.
[SPEAKER_07]: Anyway, certainly after the Epstein files released last week, the British Parliament also is in Russia as being the actor behind Epstein.
[SPEAKER_07]: And that's especially salient for them because the former U.K.
[SPEAKER_07]: Ambassador to Washington is a
[SPEAKER_07]: and the Epstein files show that he was very tight with Jeffrey Epstein, that even the head financial ties and had a lot of crude exchanges to put it mildly by email.
[SPEAKER_07]: So that's been a scandal there over Petal Medicine.
[SPEAKER_07]: And what does the British Parliament have to say about this?
[SPEAKER_07]: Well, does this mean that maybe Peter Mendelssohn was also tied to Russia?
[SPEAKER_07]: This is from a debate in Parliament.
[SPEAKER_04]: and to see the full Friday free-for-all where we talk about Trump's surprising empathy towards a very surprising person, as well as his humble brags about killing people in the Caribbean.
[SPEAKER_04]: Please do go to usefuladgetspodcast.com.
[SPEAKER_04]: Again, usefuladgetspodcast.com.
[SPEAKER_07]: For this week's interview, we're going to look at Iran and the state of the Trump administration's content threats of bombing.
[SPEAKER_07]: I want to note something that so far we have not interviewed on the show, someone who actually supports the Iranian government.
[SPEAKER_07]: And I want to acknowledge that contrary to what we get in the established media, that that constituency exists.
[SPEAKER_07]: If you look at footage from Iran, for example, millions of people have come out
[SPEAKER_07]: to support the government.
[SPEAKER_07]: And I don't want to ignore them and pretend that they don't exist.
[SPEAKER_07]: So far, we've interviewed people who are critical of the Iranian government, but are also critical of the US campaign of regime change.
[SPEAKER_07]: But I do think in the future, because we want to represent all voices that in the interests of being fair to everybody that we also get someone who actually is supportive.
[SPEAKER_07]: of the government by the Iran.
[SPEAKER_07]: So, because I don't want to just play into a one-sided narrative here.
[SPEAKER_07]: But this week, we're speaking to someone who comes from a leftist background in Iran, who's written a new book on the history of Iran-US relations.
[SPEAKER_07]: Option, Matin, Eskari, is a history professor at California State University in Los Angeles.
[SPEAKER_07]: His latest book is called Access of Empower.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's their option, Matina Scari.
[SPEAKER_07]: Thank you so much for joining us.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're welcome.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm glad to be here.
[SPEAKER_07]: You are the author of the new book, Accessive Empire, a history of Iran, US relations.
[SPEAKER_07]: Before we delve into that, I want to ask you about current events.
[SPEAKER_07]: You have right now.
[SPEAKER_07]: talks that are set between Iran and the US.
[SPEAKER_07]: But there are still uncertainty on where the talks will be held.
[SPEAKER_07]: And even if that gets cleared up, there's uncertainty about what will be discussed.
[SPEAKER_07]: And the two sides at least publicly seem to have a different ideas.
[SPEAKER_07]: So here is Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, on what he says has to be addressed in these talks.
[SPEAKER_02]: As far as the topic of those discussions and what the agenda needs to be, look, I think in order for talks to actually lead to something meaningful, they will have to include certain things, and that includes the range of their ballistic missiles.
[SPEAKER_02]: That includes their sponsorship of terrorist organizations across the region.
[SPEAKER_02]: That includes a nuclear program, and that includes the treatment of their own people.
[SPEAKER_07]: So that's Rubio laying out the terms for what he says would be meaningful talks.
[SPEAKER_07]: Do you think that Iran will accept those terms?
[SPEAKER_07]: I know on the issue of nuclear weapons, they've said we're happy to talk about that.
[SPEAKER_07]: They basically want to revive the nuclear deal.
[SPEAKER_07]: But how about on the other issues?
[SPEAKER_07]: The range of its ballistic missiles support for its allies, what Rubio calls proxies, and the treatment of of its own people?
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, let me just preface briefly by saying I claim no expertise on
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, current events are not a political scientist or political analyst.
[SPEAKER_00]: The book is about a long-term history of U.S. Iran relations, but I can give you, I'm following the news like everybody else, try to use that historical context as some kind of a benchmark.
[SPEAKER_00]: But to go back to the background of this talk, Trump, when he canceled the so-called Obama deal, I said that he's doing it to force a better deal on Iran.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what's during his first term.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that never happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: All the pressure, sanctions, threats, assassination of Iranian military personnel.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that didn't work.
[SPEAKER_00]: and nor did it work the recent before the summer war.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Islamic Republic and the US were negotiating the same place the venue again has moved to Oman and
[SPEAKER_00]: At the very end of the deadline, Trump had given 60 days or two months.
[SPEAKER_00]: Apparently, I guess from Trump's perspective, the negotiations had not reached the satisfactory conclusion.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he joined Israel's war on Iran.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what happens at this point?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not clear that Islamic Republic is in its weakest position.
[SPEAKER_00]: It has ever been because of accumulation of a lot of problems it has domestic unrest.
[SPEAKER_00]: having to do a massacre of his own population to keep things under control.
[SPEAKER_00]: The access of resistance, it had military alliances, or presence outside of Iran with his Bullah in Syria.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are gone.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very vulnerable to more vulnerable than it ever was to military attacks.
[SPEAKER_00]: bad.
[SPEAKER_00]: It has accepted to come to negotiations.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's I don't I don't really know.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's anybody's guess either we have to say this is just for show and totally meaningless.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think so.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I think even the US may want to get something out of this probably I think it's just a guess that if Trump can
[SPEAKER_00]: make Islamic Republic accept some of its terms he could claim victory and he could say I impose the new deal on Iran and kind of walk away with this which may not be a bad thing because it at least affects full scale military confrontation something that everyone knows would be a disaster
[SPEAKER_00]: it can be predicted.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a suggestion by the Foreign Minister of Turkey when the talks were going to take place last week.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were supposed to meet in Istanbul with change to Omanah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the Turkish diplomats had said the way forward would be for the U.S. to put one demand on table and not all of them at the same time.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're asking the Islamic Republic to completely freeze enrichment, if you ask them to put a cap or freeze on a ballistic missile program, if you ask them at the same time, do everything
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a non-starter, they even if they wanted to compromise if you all of a sudden for ask all these things, they may not be able to oblige and it fails.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I have no idea what happens after that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there is the possibility of some kind of a step-by-step kind of moving forward.
[SPEAKER_00]: The nuclear enrichment program is effectively stopped.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, there's a lot of people who say, okay, but we're going to freeze it for now.
[SPEAKER_00]: What are you going to do on the other side?
[SPEAKER_00]: And entirely depends.
[SPEAKER_00]: It really entirely depends on Trump.
[SPEAKER_07]: When you say that Iran committed a massacre of its protesters, I have to...
[SPEAKER_07]: ask you a follow up about that.
[SPEAKER_07]: I wasn't there.
[SPEAKER_07]: I don't know what happened.
[SPEAKER_07]: I have friends in Iran who told me different things.
[SPEAKER_07]: One friend came out of Iran and told me that it was a blood bath, but didn't elaborate.
[SPEAKER_07]: But I also have friends who talk about the infiltrators, the people who attacked mosques and clinics and who killed state security forces, and you have the fact that
[SPEAKER_07]: Mike Pompeo and Israeli journalist tied to the massage said that there was covert support for demonstrators who attacked the government.
[SPEAKER_07]: So I mean, what is your understanding of what happened and what leads you to believe that there was this huge massacre of civilian protesters by the government.
[SPEAKER_07]: If that's what you're saying.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, that's what I'm saying based on the accumulation of massive evidence, the clips and the videos that are coming from Iran.
[SPEAKER_00]: The regime officially has admitted that over 3000 people have died.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one can really know the exact numbers or figures, but the regime's explanation is this is
[SPEAKER_00]: People who have been killed or the regime's military personnel, I assume trying to keep things under control, foreign infiltrators and agents who are there to incite the people to protest because how many himself, the Supreme Leader,
[SPEAKER_00]: before the protests became really massive, said that, yes, people have legitimate grievances, but it should not turn into riot and chaos, but apparently it did lead to that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not nobody knows the extent of foreign intervention, but let's assume there was some foreign intervention.
[SPEAKER_00]: Foreign agents, we know that when we know this is not just Gessworth, the protests have been in the remote cities across the country, not evenly everywhere, but they've been spread.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's highly unlikely that Mossad, or whoever, has incited people in small towns of Iran to rise up and kind of commit acts of violence.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, about the acts of violence, we don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't know if it's people themselves who are so fed up on angry, that might attack a mosque.
[SPEAKER_00]: And by the way, mosques have been centers of the regimes
[SPEAKER_00]: repressive organs say they operate out of mosque.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if people may have a attack mosque, it doesn't mean it's because of its religious symbolism, they are like barracks.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's not clear, but I still think even assuming that there was foreign intervention, I still think it's the regime responsibility for not having allowed some kind of a peaceful
[SPEAKER_00]: The protest that it said were legitimate, and then it escalated into something else where let's say foreign agents came in and incited further violence.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one has argued and it doesn't make any sense to say that the entire thing was a foreign
[SPEAKER_00]: So the regime also has a claim that we have bodies of foreign agents, but that remains to be shown.
[SPEAKER_00]: So no, I don't put much trust in this argument of perhaps to some extent, but I think that really confuses the main issue.
[SPEAKER_07]: not to get into a debate about it, but so I think people who are more sympathetic to the government's perspective would say that the protests were peaceful initially, as you mentioned, even top officials said that the protests had legitimate grievances, the protests that started out in the bizarre event, but then they got violent.
[SPEAKER_07]: And the question is, you know, who's responsible for the violence, you're saying it was the government, and I think people more people said that the government would say that it was infiltrators.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, look, I mean, is it, is it if people can protest peacefully?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why should they inside to violence?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's, I mean, this is pattern of repressing peaceful protests had happened in Iran again and again and again.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is not the first time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And every time it has been the impossibility of peacefully and legally protesting that has led to violence, I can't see if people can legally and legitimately express their protest.
[SPEAKER_00]: They would resort to violence.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it doesn't even make sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why should people want to die if they can say what they want to say legitimately?
[SPEAKER_07]: Well, the answer there would be if there are people with an interest not in addressing issues peacefully, but in pursuing regime change and offering, for example, the U.S. a pretext to bomb, because Trump said that if there's this mass of crackdown, then he will bomb and Mike Pompeo, bragging about the Mossad infiltrating protests and basically saying that it seems to me that people like that wanted to incite a government crackdown, and so that's why I'm open to that possibility.
[SPEAKER_07]: But listen, sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: But I hear your perspective and I understand that there's long history behind it.
[SPEAKER_07]: So, let me play you a few more clips before we delve into the history.
[SPEAKER_07]: This is JD Vance talking about what he sees as one of the problems with negotiating with Iran.
[SPEAKER_06]: One thing I would say about the Iranians.
[SPEAKER_06]: that is just really weird to me and I don't understand their system and I frankly think that it makes diplomacy with them extraordinarily difficult is the person who makes the decisions in Iran is the spring leader, okay?
[SPEAKER_06]: The president, our sense is, doesn't have a lot of juice, doesn't really matter.
[SPEAKER_06]: The foreign minister seems to talk to the spring leader and that's mainly the person that we've communicated with, but it's a very weird country.
[SPEAKER_06]: to conduct diplomacy with, when you can't even talk to the person who's in charge of the country, that makes all of this much more complicated, and it makes the whole situation much more absurd.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like, you can pick up the phone and call, pick up the phone and call G, even countries that we have very hostile relations with.
[SPEAKER_06]: He can pick up the phone, you know, North Korea.
[SPEAKER_06]: He met the guy at the 38th parallel.
[SPEAKER_06]: It is bizarre that we can't just talk to the actual leadership
[SPEAKER_06]: it makes diplomacy very, very difficult.
[SPEAKER_07]: So that's J.D.
[SPEAKER_07]: Vance complaining about what it calls the weird government ever-wrom or Trump just can't pick up the phone and call this your prime leader.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you say to that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think this is kind of ironic because this mirrors what's happening in the US.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's the vast things that there should be one person like Trump in the US who makes all the decisions
[SPEAKER_00]: And diplomacy means two people like that talking to each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is his understanding of diplomacy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And
[SPEAKER_00]: Iran's situation is a bit more complicated, the supreme leader has dictatorial constitutional powers, but he's not the only decision maker, and Vance just has a very strange notion of diplomacy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, he thinks diplomacy means in any given country there has to be one decision
[SPEAKER_07]: And the fact is, I mean, I suspect that decades of U.S. policy might have contributed to the Supreme Leader not wanting to talk directly to Trump because it correct me if I'm wrong.
[SPEAKER_07]: But does the Supreme Leader shun conversations with other world leaders or is that just reserved for the U.S.?
[SPEAKER_00]: He has occasionally met with high-ranking me as met with Putin, for example.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has met with others who have more or less placed themselves at his level.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not endorsing his diplomacy, but he has met with foreign leaders, but Iran obviously has this long-standing conflict with the US.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Supreme Leader also has had direct communications, for example, with Obama.
[SPEAKER_00]: writing and exchanging letters.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he's not totally opposed to that kind of direct conversation, communication at the highest levels, but Trump is at the different case, Trump kind of bullies and his idea of coming to a table is you do what I say and
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, without endorsing communes style of negotiation or substance of it, I think he can't do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he thinks his futile and he may have a point that in that kind of negotiation you would trump, either you do what he dictates to you or is meaningless.
[SPEAKER_00]: And until now, he has refused to watch and do exactly what Trump is imposing.
[SPEAKER_00]: He may have to accept that during these negotiations or to some extent.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that kind of leader, you know, fewer to fear diplomacy that is Trump's idea, I don't think that's going to happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: does the negotiations, which, of course, that intermediary be it, Iran's foreign minister, or positionally on the president, has absolutely no independent initiative.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever they do or accept or not accept, has to be the Supreme Leader's decision.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he doesn't want to do that directly himself, which is also a clever tactic because if things fail, he can blame it on that.
[SPEAKER_07]: But let's get into your book.
[SPEAKER_07]: When people talk about the history of U.S. Iran relations and the conflict, for many people, the original saying is the 1953 CIA backed coup against Musa Day, Iranian nationalist, leader who wanted to control Iran's oil reserves for itself and not have it pilfered by Western British and American oil companies.
[SPEAKER_07]: the starting point and and the foundational original sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I know, obviously it was a very important event and even though the US intervention changed a razor thin margin, the crew may not have been successful, but it was successful and changed everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: but I think both the US and Iran under the Shah had ample opportunity 25 years to do things differently.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they didn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: They developed this relationship that I don't think it was like a puppet, puppet master relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think the Shah's position visibly that he was changed.
[SPEAKER_00]: to a point where he thought he could have a lot more independence, obviously that was wrong because in the end, he was told by the last ambassador to Iran to just leave and he had to we had to do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: uh... but i think uh... no it's not we can't say that uh... the history of us your relations just telelogically followed from the original sin
[SPEAKER_00]: also because the Iranian Revolution happened and that changed completely the equation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And after the Revolution, the Islamic Republic might have acted differently and the US might have acted differently and things could have been different.
[SPEAKER_00]: I, in the book,
[SPEAKER_00]: I focus on the hostage crisis as a very crucial moment that things changed and that was the initiative there was on the Iranian side.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was Komeni who I believe primarily for state consolidation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, shows this confrontation with the US and, uh, in the end, when his objective domestically was accomplished, let the hostages go and Iran gained nothing from it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not the Shaw's wealth, the Shaw, of course, was dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm not saying again that, uh, the whole, uh, history of US Iran, uh, animosity or conflict goes back to the hostages crisis.
[SPEAKER_00]: that was an important point, and the Iranian side was the initiator of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even though again, both sides had ample opportunities in the past 47 years to change things, I would even say that during that time, of course, the US is a vastly more superior side of this equation.
[SPEAKER_00]: So even though Islamic Republic at times tried to meant fence, it was always the American side that was adamant, kept the sanctions on, kept the pressure on, which again doesn't mean that I am arguing that no matter what Islamic Republic had done,
[SPEAKER_00]: the reaction from the American side with the being the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: The proof of that is no, they could reach an agreement as they did under Obama.
[SPEAKER_07]: Well, but one could look at that and say that's proof that no matter what Iran does, you can't reach an agreement because Trump immediately kills the agreement.
[SPEAKER_07]: And in fact,
[SPEAKER_07]: Obama didn't, I mean, I would argue, and you can tell me if I'm wrong here that Obama didn't even fully respect the Iran nuclear deal that he negotiated in terms of offering sanctions relief to Iran.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, what he offered was limited.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was not a total removal of sanctions, and it was complicated.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what I'm saying is how the Islamic Republic responds to U.S.
[SPEAKER_00]: did not have to increase its nuclear uranium enrichment to levels the clearly way beyond what you need for production of energy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think if you do that, you're walking into a trap set for you by the US and Israel that you want to build a bomb.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you don't want to build a bomb, you don't need to raise your enrichment beyond a certain level, no matter what the other side does.
[SPEAKER_07]: Listen, I agree with that, and I've tried to think of the terms of what the Iranian government's perspective is on this, and why they increase their enrichment beyond peaceful levels and clearly in the direction of putting themselves with increased capability to develop a nuclear weapon.
[SPEAKER_07]: And the best argument I can come up with, and this is based on speaking to people who are favorable to the government's position is that, well, listen, what if Israel attacks Iran with nuclear weapons?
[SPEAKER_07]: In that case, I'm not going to have no choice.
[SPEAKER_07]: to survive, but to build a nuclear weapon up its own.
[SPEAKER_07]: So increasing the enrichment, to put itself towards the possibility of acquiring a nuclear weapon, tells others that, listen, if you attack us, then we have this capability.
[SPEAKER_07]: So the argument there is in one of self-defense, especially if you are of the view that no matter what you do, Israel and the U.S. are going to threaten you anyway.
[SPEAKER_07]: And there's no hope of diplomacy, which I can understand after, especially after Trump breaking the Iran nuclear deal,
[SPEAKER_07]: some people in Tehran came around to that point of view.
[SPEAKER_00]: True, but you know, that argument, I don't agree with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the argument of deterrence.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nuclear weapons as deterrence.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't, I don't believe in that argument in the case of Iran or internationally.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think developing nuclear weapons just increases the chance of war and the horrible and the nuclear exchange.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it did not work in any event.
[SPEAKER_00]: It didn't work as a deterrence.
[SPEAKER_00]: If there's not much of a public quickly and quietly build a nuclear bomb put it on a table and say,
[SPEAKER_00]: The fact is Israel has been adamant that we're not going to let you even get to the point of being able to build a bomb.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so far, they've had the upper hand.
[SPEAKER_00]: They did not let Iran get to that point.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that argument has failed, is as failed in practice.
[SPEAKER_00]: It did not prevent
[SPEAKER_07]: all that's true.
[SPEAKER_07]: I can't argue with that.
[SPEAKER_07]: The revolution talked to us about your own involvement back then.
[SPEAKER_07]: You know, here in the West, when we hear voices of the Iranian diaspora, the main voice are the monarchists, you know, people who support the Shah and now want the
[SPEAKER_07]: a re-imposition of of the Shah's rule via his son.
[SPEAKER_07]: But you come at that this differently, you're a leftist.
[SPEAKER_07]: You were involved in the student movement back then.
[SPEAKER_07]: What was the the leftist student movement role in the Iranian Revolution?
[SPEAKER_07]: What happened after the Revolution succeeds?
[SPEAKER_00]: I was involved in the primary leftist Iranian student movement in the US.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I would say if you want, I want to generalize.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I have a book about this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wrote the history of that student movement as my PhD dissertation and then it became a book.
[SPEAKER_00]: And basic argument over our analysis was this movement.
[SPEAKER_00]: as it's activist mostly claimed was a support of the opposition in Iran.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was not something that had its own kind of autonomous agency or
[SPEAKER_00]: goals.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a coalition of various leftist movements.
[SPEAKER_00]: Many of them, I have to admit quite pragmatic, but the overall effect was, I think, the movement played the biggest role in internationally kind of shattering the image of the Shars regime as this kind of perhaps authoritarian, but benevolent regime.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it did
[SPEAKER_00]: bring the voice of the running opposition to the international arena.
[SPEAKER_00]: So in that sense, it was quite successful.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the revolution came, most of his activists returned to Iran and I was one of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: uh... so i went back before the shop fell and i joined the street protest i was in Iran for less than a year but uh... it was a six or seven month into the formation of the Islamic Republic when i say formation i think the important thing is it was a time of state building
[SPEAKER_00]: the Shaw State completely collapsed or disintegrated.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Iranian Revolution was a true revolution in the sense that one state structure collapsed and another state structure was to be built to take this place.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there were intense struggles as to what this longer Republic was going to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Iranian left was very much divided, contrary to readings that are kind of common.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, a good part of the left to which I belong were totally opposed to this conception of the Islamic Republic was which was a constitutional dictatorship.
[SPEAKER_00]: One unelected supremely there had absolute power over all branches of government.
[SPEAKER_00]: and that project was not going down easy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Many of us were opposed to it writing articles or I was a word for a newspaper, but part of the country were up in arms against it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Iranian courtesum, people were armed, not just in courtesum, when the shots army fell, hundreds of thousands of arms were captured by ordinary people.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the country was in the throes of revolution, power had devolved to this street level, and the project of this non-mobric republic was not really going well, for many was immensely popular.
[SPEAKER_00]: like you're saying sorry I'm confused like you're saying he was popular or unpopular immensely popular for many was many was immensely popular and he remained popular uh... during the early years of the revolution but everything changed
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't know, there is no way to gauge the hostage crisis was followed by eight years of war with Iraq.
[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe during the early years of the war when Iraq was the clear aggressor and occupied Iraq and territory, maybe out of a sense of nationalism, many people were can actively
[SPEAKER_00]: defending the country, but later as the war dragged out, it's clear that it became unpopular.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even though Komeni was enormously popular and that's something that has to be considered in any kind of analysis of early years of the revolution, that is not, I don't think we should
[SPEAKER_00]: kind of turn these into, it's just natural, it's just natural that their evolution was Islamic, it's just natural that how many was an enormously popular leader to the end of his life, these things changed.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's at least how I see it.
[SPEAKER_07]: Well, yeah, and this is important because look at, you know, being a Westerner or being a leftist.
[SPEAKER_07]: This context is important for formulating.
[SPEAKER_07]: I mean, how leftists will now respond when you have our government.
[SPEAKER_07]: our governments imposing sanctions that kill people by design, threatening regime change, supporting military aggression.
[SPEAKER_07]: But then you know, there are a lot of voices who say that this government is authoritarian and repressive.
[SPEAKER_07]: And so people are then left wondering, like, what is the stance to take?
[SPEAKER_07]: And there's a lot of debate about that on the Western
[SPEAKER_07]: understanding this history helps clarify some questions.
[SPEAKER_07]: As a leftist, where you, what was your own personal experience with the government, especially after you went back?
[SPEAKER_07]: Because I know that there was some persecution of Iranian leftists after the revolution.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was there a month before the Shah Felt and a seven or eight month into the formation of the Islamic Republic and I was not a member of any left organization but my sympathies were with maybe it was a minority faction in the left that were not favorable to the project of
[SPEAKER_00]: some even saw it as a form of fascism, enormously popular leader, an agenda that is really not progressive, an issue of anti-empelism was not major either.
[SPEAKER_00]: Initially, the Islamic Republic had relatively, if not 40 old, but relations with the US were going on and members of Iran's provisional government, were meeting with US diplomats, either in the embassy or elsewhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were even meeting with CIA, exchanging information.
[SPEAKER_00]: They had a convergence of interest
[SPEAKER_00]: Afghanistan was an issue Iraq was an issue this kind of turn towards picking up the mantle of anti-imperism and standing up to the US it was a short turn that began with the hostage crisis and it disarmed their onion left
[SPEAKER_00]: who were criticizing attacking regime for being soft on imperialism.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was quite complicated as it is now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I realize how the left internationally is divided on this issue.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't think this should be the cause for the kind of acrimony that leftists are used to constantly bickering amongst themselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: With Iran, maybe exceptionally hard, I have always thought the sanctions were an act of war on the people of Iran, because they are designed to hurt ordinary Iranians to the point and your officials have admitted this, to the point that then the people would rise up,
[SPEAKER_00]: and over to their own government.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yes, well listen, I'll let me stop you there and let's play one of these US officials just recently speaking, the Treasury Secretary Scott Besson.
[SPEAKER_05]: President Trump ordered Treasury and our OFAC division, office of foreign asset control to put maximum pressure on Iran and its work.
[SPEAKER_05]: Because in December, their economy collapsed.
[SPEAKER_05]: We saw a major bank go under the central bank has started to print money.
[SPEAKER_05]: There is a dollar shortage.
[SPEAKER_05]: They are not able to get imports.
[SPEAKER_05]: And this is why the people took to the street.
[SPEAKER_05]: So this is economic state crap.
[SPEAKER_05]: No shots fired.
[SPEAKER_05]: things are moving in a very positive way here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, that's their logic.
[SPEAKER_00]: The view they have of the people of Iran is just pawns, that should be pressured and crushed, so that they may rise up and overthrow the government that the US doesn't like.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a very cynical, you know, I don't know what to call it, but it's open and it's out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so is the logic of factions in the Iranian diaspora who
[SPEAKER_00]: support the same kind of argument along with and then at that point there would be a surgical US or Israeli intervention, you top of the regime and you free Iran.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay this has lots and lots of problems in addition to it being immoral and cynical and wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where is the other country where
[SPEAKER_00]: and U.S. intervention Iraq would be the obvious point of comparison.
[SPEAKER_00]: After many, many years of the most honest U.S. sanctions, there was U.S. intervention and regime change, and the consequence was disastrous.
[SPEAKER_00]: Afghanistan 20 years of it was intervention and he was had to leave.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's very difficult to see where this kind of applying pressure, making ordinary people suffer.
[SPEAKER_00]: The regime doesn't suffer, nor do it's highest officials.
[SPEAKER_00]: they have adapted to the sanctions.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, they benefit by the sanctions.
[SPEAKER_00]: They run an economy has distorted in ways that is most powerful institutions benefit by circumventing sanctions.
[SPEAKER_00]: They economically benefit by this and they haven't been toppled.
[SPEAKER_00]: down the pressure but they haven't toppled.
[SPEAKER_00]: But even if they toppled, what is the, how?
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's say there's a military confrontation between the US and Iran today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can anyone even imagine what the consequences of that would be?
[SPEAKER_00]: And what is the other kind of example like that something positive came out of that equation?
[SPEAKER_07]: We'll share, and in the case of Iraq, I mean, the outster of one authoritarian has led to another, which is Washington now tells Iraq what to do.
[SPEAKER_07]: So just recently, with Iraq being poised to reelect Nuri on Maliki's Prime Minister, the Trump administration says that if Maliki is reappointed, then we're going to steal your oil cells, because your oil's a sales, because they're
[SPEAKER_07]: by the US.
[SPEAKER_07]: But let me ask you a very big counterfactual question.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's not something I've I'm able to gauge.
[SPEAKER_07]: I've never been to Iran and I'm just informed by the perspective of my friends who come from Iran all whom have very different perspectives, including people who support the government, I should say, which is that
[SPEAKER_07]: If there were not decades of U.S. warfare, supporting Saddam Hussein as he attacks around the 80s, these sanctions, as we just heard Scott Besson say, are designed to empowerish ordinary Iranians.
[SPEAKER_07]: All the various assassinations by Israel of Iran nuclear scientists, the constant threat of aggression.
[SPEAKER_07]: If there wasn't any of that, do you think that there would be more space inside of Iranian society for reform from within?
[SPEAKER_07]: So my question is, is this government
[SPEAKER_07]: prone to public pressure to reform, especially if you take away the outside pressure of the U.S. that basically entrenches the power structure and just hurts ordinary civilians.
[SPEAKER_07]: And just to finish this thought, the fact that you have what I understand now no longer a crack down over wearing the hijab, that suggests to me that the government is vulnerable to internal pressures.
[SPEAKER_07]: So what's
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say, yes, it's a counterfactual, but because every single time that have been let's say mass protests, this has been the most obvious.
[SPEAKER_00]: case of confronting popular demands.
[SPEAKER_00]: The regime's reasoning for putting it down is that this is foreign induce, we are the regime's rationale from day one has been that we are in an existential confrontation with foreign enemies.
[SPEAKER_00]: In some ways, revolutions have said this, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, because it was true also in those cases.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so suppression of domestic descent, it always, always and directly tied to, we are under pressure from foreign enemies, so therefore we cannot afford any kind of stepping back in the face of domestic opposition.
[SPEAKER_00]: if you don't have that foreign existential threat or the excuse of it, I assume it may be easier to negotiate with your domestic descent, especially because the Sanders, again and again, they were not asking for the regime's
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the demand that you see for the regime's overthrow emerged when particularly after the green movement in 2009, the idea that things could change peacefully and legally was shattered, and we are in this mind that, uh,
[SPEAKER_00]: No, the regime would never budge.
[SPEAKER_00]: The issue of head job, I don't think it is a political concession on who holds power in Iran.
[SPEAKER_00]: They just look the other way and some women don't want to observe it, they don't, because that was effectively underground.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, you could consider it as again, and it was again, but there is Jim has not budged on any kind of significant demand that has come from inside from civil society, from
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, no one can say, but the place it has reached today and the kind of accumulated problems domestic and foreign that it's unable to even address.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think if the issue of confrontation with the US, if tensions are at least reduced, I think that's beneficial to the send inside Iran.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because at least they excuse that what you say regime change, Trump says regime change, so you are agents of Trump, that argument would be neutralized.
[SPEAKER_07]: We're going to wrap, so any last comments you want to leave us with?
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, we are all of us, the Iranian diaspora people who live outside of Iran are extremely sad and depressed and rejected and we understand that people want to do something, they want to intervene and have some kind of agency, but I think we have to also be a little bit more humble and realize that what happens in Iran happens in Iran and
[SPEAKER_00]: is the Iranian people who decide their faith and future in Iran.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can say whatever you want from here, but it's at best second day.
[SPEAKER_00]: What happens on the ground there?
[SPEAKER_07]: The book is called Axis of Empire, a history of Iran, US relations, Professor Afshin, Matin, Asgari.
[SPEAKER_07]: Thank you so much for joining me.
[SPEAKER_07]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_07]: Thank you for having me.
[SPEAKER_07]: Thanks again to our guest, Afshin Matin, Asgari.
[SPEAKER_07]: His new book, again, is Axis of Empire, a history of Iran-U.S. relations.
[SPEAKER_04]: We also bring you a bonus interview this week, and I speak to Ahmad Epsaise, who is a first-generation Palestinian American law student poet and scholar, who writes the newsletter state of siege.
[SPEAKER_04]: His writing appears in places like the Guardian, Mundo-Wise, Al-Jazeera, and the nation.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I talk to Ahmad about what is going on in Palestine right now, things that are being ignored by the media, that we really need to make sure that we are paying attention to.
[SPEAKER_07]: And that will come out on youthfulity, it's this weekend.
[SPEAKER_07]: So stay tuned for that.
[SPEAKER_07]: Thank you for tuning in to our show, our website again at usefulityitspycast.com.
[SPEAKER_07]: We'll see you next time.
[SPEAKER_07]: Bye, everyone.
[SPEAKER_07]: Thanks so much for listening to and watching useful idiots.
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