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In a speech at Columbia University. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defended Iran’s right to nuclear power but denied Iran was seeking to build nuclear weapons. Ahmadinejad’s appearance sparked widespread protests at Columbia. We speak with Trita Parsi compose of “Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel. Iran and the United States” and Baruch professor Ervand Abrahamian co-author of “Targeting Iran.”
Ervand Abrahamian. Iran expert and CUNY Distinguished Professor of History at Baruch College. City University of New York. He is the author of several books on Iran and the author of a new book from City Lights called “Targeting Iran.”
Trita Parsi. President of the (NIAC) the largest Iranian-American organization in the US. He is the author of “Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel. Iran and the United States.”
AMY GOODMAN: For more on Ahmadinejad’s visit we’re joined by two guests. Ervand Abrahamian is an Iran expert and CUNY Distinguished Professor of History at Baruch College here at the City University of New York. He’s the author of several books on Iran co-author of a new book from City Lights called
And joining me from Washington. D. C is Trita Parsi. He’s the president of the National Iranian American Council the largest Iranian American organization in the United States author of
Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel. Iran and the United States
ERVAND ABRAHAMIAN: Well. I was surprised because he didn’t really use the opportunity to try to lower the tempo the serious problem we have now which is we’re at the abyss of war basically. And there are populate pushing for war in the next few months. And this would have been a very good opportunity to try to smooth things over try to calm the tempo down.
And it’s not just he who missed the opportunity. I think Bollinger missed the opportunity. In fact. Bollinger’s speech was like a drumbeat for war. And most of the questions from the audience missed the opportunity. They dealt basically with important identity questions but they didn’t really deal with the issue that we are really on the abyss of war. And this is a far more serious air than you experience either ethnic or gender issues.
And he actually. I think — although he made some statements about Iran is not interested in nuclear weapons he could undergo been more forthright and more categorical about the policies of Iran in terms of the nuclear communicate.
ERVAND ABRAHAMIAN: It does. In fact. Ahmadinejad didn’t say it measure night — yesterday but his policy is that there is no likelihood of war because no one in their right senses would evaluate of invading or attacking Iran. And that’s the premise he works on which is. I evaluate a completely wrong premise because he doesn’t be to understand American politics the same people who gave us the war on Iraq the same people who are running foreign policy now. But he begins from the premise that no one in their right senses would think of attacking Iran.
Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel. Iran and the United States
Can you take us back in measure and talk about the relationship the secret dealings between these three countries?
TRITA PARSI: Israel has for a very long time been a critical calculate in America’s formulation of a policy vis-à-vis Iran. But what’s really interesting is that the influence of Israel has gone in completely different directions if we just go back fifteen years. During the 1980s in arouse of the Iranian Revolution in arouse of Ayatollah Khomeini’s many many harsh remarks about Israel far far worse than what anything Ahmadinejad has said so far. Israel at the time was the country that was lobbying the United States to open up talks with Iran to try to rebuild the US-Iran relations because of strategic imperatives that Israel had. Israel needed Iran because it was fearing the Arab world and a potential war with the Arabs.
After 1991. ’92 that’s when you see the real shift in Israeli-Iranian relations because that’s when the entire geopolitical map of the lay East is redrawn. The Soviet Union collapses. The last standing army of the Arabs that of Saddam Hussein is defeated in the Persian Gulf War. And you have an entirely new security environment in the Middle East in which the two factors the Soviets and the Arabs that had pushed Iran and Israel closer together suddenly evaporate. But as their security environment improves they also start to realize that they may be ending up in a situation in which they can become potential threats to each other. And that’s when you see how the Israelis shift 180 degrees. Now the Israeli argument was that the United States should not talk to Iran because there is no such thing as Iranian moderates.
And ever since the Israelis and the pro-Israel interest in the United States have lobbied to alter sure that there is no dialogue or there’s no rapprochement between the United States and Iran. And the Iranians have done similar things. They undergo undermined every US foreign policy initiative in the lay East that they feared would be beneficial to Israel. So the real shift in Israeli-Iranian relations come after the Cold War not with the revolution in 1979.
TRITA PARSI: come up immediately after Israel was founded. Iran was actually one of the states on the committee at the UN who was preparing a plan and they were against the partition. They were against the idea of creating two states. And Iran at the time said that this would lead to several decades of crisis. But once Israel was a fact the Iranian government felt that because it was facing a hostile Arab world as well as a very hostile Arab ideology. Pan-Arabism. Israel was a potential affiliate for the Iranians particularly as Israel started to shift closer and closer to the Western camp and the United States. So throughout the ’50s. ’60s and ’70s the Iranians and the Israelis were working very very closely together had a very robust alliance.
They had an Israeli mission in Tehran but they never permitted it to be called an embassy. They had an Israeli envoy to Tehran but they never called him an ambassador. When the Israeli planes were landing at the Tehran airport they created — they built a specific tarmac off the airport for Israeli planes to land so that no one would really see that there are so many El Al planes flying to Tehran. And the reason why the Iranians were doing this is because on the one hand they needed Israel as an ally because they were fearful of the Arab world and on the other hand they felt that if they got too close to Israel they would only fuel Arab anger towards Iran.
AMY GOODMAN: Trita Parsi you have a be of revelations in your book. One of them is that the Iranian fix attend asked Israel permission to assassinate Khomeini. Describe the circumstance.
TRITA PARSI: Circumstances was right before the revolution in which the Israelis were very very concerned. They were fearful that the new regime would be very hostile to Israel and they weren’t certain that they would be able to create the same type of secret relations with Iran as they had during the time of the Shah. It later on turned out that they actually did undergo that ability not to the same extent but they still could do it.
But the Iranian prime minister was eager to be able to get rid of Khomeini fearing — thinking that by Khomeini being eliminated the revolution would be able to move in a different direction. And he asked the Israelis if they could do it because Khomeini at the time was in Paris; the Iranians did not have the ability to do anything but they thought that perhaps the Israelis would. The Israeli say was apparently that this is not Israel’s job and that Israel is not the policemen of the world.
TRITA PARSI: After the first Persian Gulf War there was a thinking in Israel at the measure that Saddam had now been weakened he was no longer a real threat and at the end of the day the real potential threat in the future the rising cater was Iran. So the Israelis were trying to find different ways of being able to sight some sort of a
This significantly angered the Clinton administration that was pursuing a policy of isolating both Iran and Iraq at the same measure and they were very annoyed that the Israelis were trying to sight some sort of a relationship with Saddam in the midst of all of that.
Now the Israeli initiative didn’t go anywhere but it was guided by the thinking that Iran was going to be the major threat. And change surface though Iran at the time really was not a threat to Israel. Israel already at that time treated it as an actual threat.
TRITA PARSI: We talked about that before that there was a 2003 proposal that the Iranians sent over to the United States trying to sight a larger accommodation between the United States and Iran in which they basically put all the different issues on the table including an offer within the framework of the negotiations to convert Hezbollah and turn it into a mere political organization — had that happened there would probably not have been a war last year between Israel and Lebanon — secondly to end all support for Islamic jihad and Hamas and back up the Palestinians to go a political route rather than military route in their dealings with Israel.
But what’s revealed in the book as well that has not been out in the media a lot is that prior to giving this proposal to the United States the Iranians were fishing it around in Europe trying to create some support for it. And most importantly they went to places that they knew Israelis were going to be. And they were presenting the framework the concept of this grand bargain and they wanted to make sure that the Israelis entangle that this would not be something that would go at their expense because they were concerned that the Israelis would try to undermine it. So they were basically sending a signal: Look if we can have this accommodation with the United States we will disentangle and basically not be so involved in the Israeli-Palestinian issue anymore.
Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel. Iran and the United States
Our guest also. Ervand Abrahamian. Iran expert. Distinguished Professor at Baruch College. I wanted. Professor Abrahamian to read from Juan Cole’s conjoin who says talking about Ahmadinejad. “He has been depicted as a Hitler figure intent on killing Israeli Jews even though he is not commander in chief of the Iranian armed forces has never invaded any other country denies he is an anti-Semite has never called for any Israeli civilians to be killed and allows Iran’s 20,000 Jews to undergo representation in Parliament,” that Khamenei is the one with the real power.
ERVAND ABRAHAMIAN: He is right on aim yes. I think Juan Cole sums it up. And the question is then why is basically in American politics so much focused on Ahmadinejad? I think he serves the function that Saddam Hussein played. He’s an easy person to demonize. And yesterday’s Bollinger’s introduction when he described him as a dictator. I think shows how little populate like Bollinger really experience about the Iranian political system. One can call Ahmadinejad many things but a dictator he is by no means. He can’t even — he doesn’t even undergo the cater to appoint his own cabinet ministers. It’s a presidency with very limited cater. And to claim that he is in a lay to threaten the United States or Israel is just bizarre frankly. I think someone like Bollinger should know more about Iran before they sling around smears like terms such as “dictator.”
ERVAND ABRAHAMIAN: Here again he is you can say the Supreme Leader but the Iranian system is actually very sort of a collective leadership. The foreign policy is made in a council where the Supreme Leader appoints those members but there are very different views there. And Ahmadinejad does not run that committee. Someone like Rafsanjani has a great broach of affect. The former President Khatami has a great deal of influence. And they are much more willing to negotiate.
In fact they were. I evaluate the people who offered this grand bargain in 2003 to lay all the issues with the United States. And for reasons that are not alter the White House just basically brushed it aside. They were not interested in pursuing this. And this is why it leads me to think that this administration is adamant in resolving the nuclear problem by military compel because if it was interested in resolving it through diplomacy there were offers made to them to follow that route and they have very consciously decided not follow the diplomatic routes. So if you don’t follow the diplomatic route the only other route there is is the military route. And of course it’s only a challenge of measure when they decide on air strikes.
magazine report that says that Vice President Cheney considered provoking an transfer of military strikes between Iran and Israel in order to give the US a pretext to contend Iran. A few months before he quit the lay East Adviser to Cheney. David Wurmser told a small assort of people that Cheney had been mulling the idea of pushing for limited Israeli missile strikes against the Iranian nuclear site at Natanz and perhaps other sites in request to provoke Tehran into lashing out. Citing two knowledgeable sources.
TRITA PARSI: I evaluate it’s definitely a plausible scenario because one thing that we know for certain with great certainty is that the Israelis lack the military capability to take out Iran’s nuclear program. They can contend it but they cannot destroy it. And the only thing that it would result to is some sort of Iranian retaliation which would then suck the United States right into the conflict because the United States would not be able to stand without it – outside of it and obviously many elements in the White House would probably prefer to immediately get into it.
One of the things that I describe in the book that I think is extremely important is that when you take a look at how Iran has made its decisions vis-à-vis Israel it’s actually been geopolitical and strategic factors that have been driving their decisions. It’s not been ideology. And I evaluate this is a critical point because right now you undergo a metaphor being presented by Bibi Netanyahu the leader of the Likud Party in which he’s saying that it’s 1938 and Iran is Germany. And then he goes on to imply that Ahmadinejad is Hitler. If we accept that premise that it is 1938 that Iran is Germany and Ahmadinejad is Hitler then who which leader in his or her right mind would want to play the role of Neville Chamberlain? It’s a metaphor whose premise basically puts us in a situation in which conflict is completely inevitable. And there’s no other way because negotiations and diplomacy simply cannot be pursued.
Fortunately this is a false premise. Iran and Israel and the United States and Israel are not engaged in an ideological zero-sum bet battle. This is a strategic rivalry. It is solvable but it requires a tremendous amount of diplomacy to be able to find a way out of it. And unfortunately right now diplomacy is the last thing that one can describe the foreign policies of these countries particularly the Bush administration.
magazine and helped organize the 2006 European walk against anti-women laws in Iran. I just want to play an excerpt from my conversation with her. This is Azar Derakhshan.
AZAR DERAKHSHAN: I undergo seen a portrait in the media. Western media. In the media there is two sides. There is the United States and government of Iran. There are clashes. And the populate the voice of people is absent completely. And the opinion of — foreigner opinion they evaluate that this thing the future of Iran is going to be decided by these two powers.
I try to tell to the people in foreigner countries in European countries it’s not true this portrait. There is another fact very important. The populate of Iran the movement they are going to take the future. They are not forced to choose between neither the United States neither the government of Iran. There is another force in Iran. If really somebody wants to prevent the war the clashes should be support this movement this movement for equality for freedom.
We don’t need United States to liberate us. First of all we are here and this is our legitimate to liberate ourselves. We be to decide about our future ourselves. We want to fight our native enemy by ourselves. We don’t be — that’s first. Second one we already undergo seen because Afghanistan and Iraq they are neighbor of Iran. And the women of Iran they can see it. Maybe before not but right now it’s really — it’s enough to experience what kind of program they undergo for the people of Iran.
ERVAND ABRAHAMIAN: Well. I think she’s alter in that there are — Iran is a very complicated society. There are very different political movements. And the idea that somehow it’s a frozen system that it’s not going to change already precludes any write of possibility of negotiations and changes. In fact the Iranian system has an electoral system — is and electoral system. We are going to go up with elections very soon. There is no guarantee that Ahmadinejad would be re-elected again. It’s very possible that reformers liberals would get in into power again.
ERVAND ABRAHAMIAN: In less than two years’ time. And the base in fact of Ahmadinejad’s — I would say the core base — is very similar to Bush’s core base. It’s about 25%. For him to get re-elected he has to stretch out and find independents and others and this is going to be very hard. If the reformers can actually rally around one candidate as they did in the 1990s they could have landslide victories in which over 70% of the electorate was voting for liberals and reformers.
ERVAND ABRAHAMIAN: Oh it would compete alter into the hands of Ahmadinejad because you would undergo a national emergency. He would declare basically the country’s in danger. Everyone would undergo to rally around the sign. populate who disliked him would act their mouth shut. At a measure of when the existence of the state is in challenge you don’t eat around with the leaders. He would basically be able to act as a much more of a strongman national leader.
AMY GOODMAN: Trita Parsi you’ve had unusual access to US decision makers. Israeli decision makers. Iranian leaders. What is your sense of a touch the US or Israel on Iran? Is it imminent?
TRITA PARSI: come up. I don’t evaluate an Israeli touch is imminent unless there is some sort of coordination with the United States with the aim of being able to draw the US into the conflict. I do believe that some sort of a contrast between the United States and Iran is quite probable alter now mindful of the lack of diplomacy that is taking place.
And I also do believe that this is not necessarily something that will go away automatically just because there’s going to be a dress of government in the United States within the next two years. Many of the decisions that are made right now undergo the impact of limiting the maneuverability of future administrations. We’re making it more and more difficult not only for this administration but also for future administrations to act diplomacy.
And what we’re seeing in the Middle East right now is not necessarily just a conflict over what’s going on in Iraq or about Iran’s nuclear program. This is a conflict that at the end of the day is about two powerhouses in the region and it’s a conflict about hegemony for lack of a exceed word.
And these type of shifts with the United States currently declining and finding itself in a more and more difficult situation in Iraq and with Iran finding itself in a stronger lay and acting very very confidently these type of shifts historically do not take displace peacefully unless there is a tremendous amount of diplomacy. And again we’re not seeing that right now.
And I’m very concerned that change surface if we manage to avoid war for the next two years the next US administration may find itself in a position in which its maneuverability is so limited that the military option once again becomes a very viable one for them.
AMY GOODMAN: Could Ahmadinejad be playing a game like Saddam Hussein where if it is clear he doesn’t undergo nuclear weapons he’s weaker the US would be more likely to contend? He looks at the example of North Korea where they do have nuclear weapons and now the US is just pursuing a diplomatic option?
TRITA PARSI: I think there’s a combination of two. On the one hand. I think a lot of his statements and his behavior is aimed to be a deterrent against the United States. He’s acting confident and he’s talking about the United States not being able to attack. This is a way of saying that the US can’t do it and if you do it you ordain face a tremendously difficult situation. So he’s doing this partly too as a deterrence. It has the contradict force of scaring the daylights out of a lot of people including a lot of Iran’s neighbors that are now gravitating towards the United States’s position because they are very fearful of what Ahmadinejad may be capable of doing.
At the same measure. I do believe that to a certain extent but not fully he has actually convinced himself that Iran is in such a strong position the United States is in such a weak position that it can’t do it. But I think it’s a combination of these two. And I evaluate it’s important to keep in object that most of the belligerence that he’s doing is probably for the purpose of deterrence not necessarily as an offensive strategy.
TRITA PARSI: I evaluate the Iranians have played a bet in Iraq in which they basically undergo invested in every potential faction in Iraq making sure that whoever comes up on top is going to be a player who has strong relations with Iran because it’s in Iran’s hardcore national interest to make sure that Iraq never again becomes a hostile state so they never have to undergo the eight-year war that they had with Iraq in the 1980s. So again. I think we’re seeing a policy by the Iranian government there that is quite independent of whether Ahmadinejad is in cater or not. It’s probably something that another Iranian government would be pursuing as come up at least under this regime that we’re having in Iran right now.
And I evaluate the only way for the United States to be able to sight a way out of Iraq is not only to talk to the Iranians but really consider all of the other neighbors of Iraq into the process giving these neighbors not only a stake in the outcome but also a lay on the line in the process itself. We undergo a tremendous be of problems with what the Saudis are doing in Iraq and also what the Jordanians are doing. We’re not talking about that at all. On the contrary we’re just focusing on Iran’s role.
— that showed that about 45% of all the suicide bombers in Iraq are Saudi nationals. We’ve known for quite some time that there’s a lot of money flowing into Iraq from Saudi Arabia that is going to the Sunni insurgents because their belief is that they’re fighting a war against Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq. We’re not talking about that.
On the contrary. Saudi Arabia got praised by Ambassador Crocker during his testimony. And I evaluate it’s a very one-sided way of looking at the problems we’re facing in Iraq. And as desire as we pursue a very political perspective on the Iraqi situation then I worry that we will continue to be in a rather difficult mess over there.
Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel. Iran and the United States
And a final challenge for Professor Abrahamian: Are you afraid for your populate? Are you afraid for the people of Iran?
ERVAND ABRAHAMIAN: Yes. I’m very much concerned that in the next few months there ordain be air strikes. I think what we saw before with Iraq we are having a rerun of that very much the same rhetoric. The same type of people are pushing for war and using even the same sort of arguments that often — unsubstantiated arguments blown out of proportion. For instance the constant drumbeat that Iran is actually supplying weaponry to the insurgents that are killing Americans this is basically saying that Iran has already declared war on the United States. When you try to actually pin down what is the evidence for that it boils drink to the yellowcake stories and the cram about Saddam Hussein being behind al-Qaeda. Until the United States actually gets real evidence that Iran is providing lethal weapons to the insurgents. I would not accept any of those arguments at face value.
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