Judging Freedom - Trita Parsi : What the US Misunderstands about Iran : LIVE - (PART TWO)

Episode Date: August 7, 2026

Trita Parsi : What the US Misunderstands about Iran : LIVE - (PART TWO)See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Undeclared wars are commonplace. Tragically, our government engages in preemptive war, otherwise known as aggression with no complaints from the American people. Sadly, we have become accustomed to living with the illegitimate use of force by government. To develop a truly free society, the issue of initiating force must be understood and rejected. What if sometimes to love your country you had to alter or abolish the government? Jefferson was right? What if that government is best which governs least? What if it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong? What if it is better to perish

fighting for freedom than to live as a slave? What if freedom's greatest hour of danger is now? Everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for judging freedom. Today is Friday, August 7th, look at the calendar. Friday, August 7th, 2010. 26, TRETA party, Parsi joins us now. We were of course chatting yesterday when the internet gremlins prevented us from resuming our chat. TRETA has been kind and generous enough to resume the conversation. TRETA is of course the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for responsible statecraft, an entity founded and run by my dear friend the wonderful Lieutenant Colonel Andrew

Baceovich. Treata, welcome back. Great to be with you again. How desperate is Donald Trump for an off-ramp from the war? Might he accept a joint Oman, Iran, sovereignty

over the Strait of Hormuz tell the American people that it's now open, even though it won't be open for Israeli or American-destioned traffic and go home? I do think that he's desperate. I think it is insane that this war was restarted with no new plan, no new methodology or intelligence or anything that would indicate that it would go differently from what it did the first round. I do think, however, it would be good for the United States to accept the deal that is now on the table that is being discussed, that it seems to be very close to being finished, that would have some form of.

of an Iranian Omani joint management of the strait in the interim until the final deal is reached. And the reason for it is that we look back into history and we look what is actually our interest in these different types of situations. Our interest has been to make sure that commerce is flowing freely without discrimination predictably, not who is actually controlling the strait.

So for instance, in the Suez crisis in 1956, the United States took the side of Egypt, a country that was not an ally of the United States, against France, the UK, and Israel, and ensured that there would be a completely free flow of commerce, even though it was under Egyptian sovereignty, rather than siding with these other countries. Because at the end of the day, the free flow of commerce was more important than who was controlling it. Who was controlling this trade is a secondary interest, because it does have a potential impact on the first interest, which is, is the commerce going to flow or not?

But it's not something that replaces the first interest. Now we're in a situation in which it can be argued, of course, that because the hostilities between the U.S. and Iran, there is a bit of a risk if the Iranians are in control. Of course, they wouldn't be in full control. It would be together with Oman. But the bottom line is, if a deal can be struck in which the flow is free and is predictable, which would include American commercial ships,

then that actually meets the primary interest of the United States. Whether it's free for Israel or not is a completely different story that is not part of the U.S.'s interest. So if Trump accepts this, I think it actually does meet U.S. interests, and it walks us away from this conflation of these two interests, and which for some reason people are thinking that our control of it or our denial of the other side's control of it is a primary interest, It is not. It is the free flow of commerce that is the primary interest. The other one is in support of that. It doesn't replace it.

All right. So here is Major General Razaei, R-A-Z-A-E-I. I think I'm pronouncing it correctly. You can correct me. Rezai. Razi. Yesterday, Thursday, August 6, basically saying the straight will not be open to the U.S. leaves the Persian Gulf. I don't know what everyone means by Open. Do they mean under, I'll play the clip in a minute, but do they mean under Iran, Omani, sovereignty, they can decide who comes in, who goes out, they can decide what to charge,

or does Open mean the way it was in February where anybody could go? I don't think they mean anything close to what it was in February. They've insisted numerous times that it won't go back to the way it was before. However, again, that may not necessarily mean that it won't be open. Keep one thing in mind, it is in the interest of Devanias to make sure that it is open. Because if it is not open, they cannot sell their own oil.

So keeping it open is in their interest as well. Now, will they try to prevent American military ships from coming into the strait? As long as we are still in a war situation, which means even under an MOU, even under a ceasefire, we are still in a war situation and then it is quite likely that the Iranians will prevent any American warships from coming in. But if we are at a situation in which the war is officially over, at that point, international law does not give the Iranians the right to be able to have that type of control or discrimination. So I think, and perhaps their view is that as long as the U.S. military is in the Persian Gulf, there is still war. That would not be accepted.

power. So there's still some details there that are going to be difficult to sort out. And we also have to keep in mind that what this individual is saying is not necessarily true reflection of the Iranian position at the negotiating table. Okay. I'm going to play the general a minute, but I've got to follow up on what you said. The math is important and very basic here. The United States of America claims control of the seas 12 and a half miles out from all the coast to the U.S., whether it's Boston, New York City, Key West, or Los Angeles, 12 and a half miles is half of the street. So 12 and a half, if that international law applies,

12 and a half miles belongs to Oman, 12 and a half miles belongs to Iran. The street is approximately 25 miles. Wouldn't Oman and Iran have a legitimate, lawful claim for a dual sovereignty over the strait, based on American claims and understanding of international law, war or no war? So this is the irony of it all. The United States, when it claims that this trade is international waters, is relying on the law of the C's treaty that the United States has not signed and nor has it ratified, of course. It did not party to that treaty, but it is invoking that treaty.

Iran has also not signed that treaty and has been a consistent objector to set it over the clauses of that treaty. The Omanis have signed it, but it is a common position in which the U.S. is invoking that treaty, even though it itself is not a party to it. It's the same thing that is happening in the South China Sea. So it is, this is part of the reason why we're not in a situation in which the international law has only one interpretation or that it gives us a a very clear and easy way out. Iranians do insist exactly what you said, that there is no such thing as international waters in the strait, that at the end of the day, this is a strait that is divided between Iranian territorial waters and Omani territorial waters. This is part of the reason why the negotiations on Iran's insistence is only taking place officially between the Iranians and the

It's only between the countries that actually have territorial waters in the strait. Now, the fact though, the U.S. is at the table and so are the other GCC states, but not formally. And that is part of a symbolic win for the Iranians because they're insisting that the actual negotiations, the official seats at the negotiating table, are only for those who have territorial waters in the straits. Okay. Here's Major General Razai, former commander of the Revolutionary Guard, now senior military advisor to the present of the new Ayatollah. Chris, number 10. The Strait of Hormuz will not be opened.

No American warship has the right to enter the Persian Gulf. The American presence in the Persian Gulf is the main cause of the insecurity of the last 50 years. Without the U.S. leaving the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz being controlled by the country of the region themselves, especially us and the country of Oman, who are on both sides of this trade, it is impossible for security to be established. The end of the war is also in our hands. We will look at the end of the war when, first of all, we have received all our damages from America. Secondly, we must reach a 100% guarantee about the future, which is not possible

without the US leaving the Persian Gulf. Therefore, the second condition is the withdrawal of the U.S. from the Persian Gulf. How realistic is that? Or how unrealistic is that? No, if we look forward five to ten years, actually even shorter than that, do we think that the United States is going to have 19 bases in the region, several of them in the Persian Gulf, many of them already having been destroyed in this war? I personally find that very unlikely. Who's going to pay for rebuilding these bases? Many of them are completely inoperable, or at least critical elements of that are destroyed, which makes them quite useless. And in the past, it's been the GCC countries themselves

that essentially have paid for this. Are they going to pay for it again, given the result of this war and in which it turned out that these bases did not provide protection or deterrence for these states? Rather, they actually turn out to be magnets for attacks. So you have a base on your territory, a foreign base, because you think it adds to your security.

Did it add to their security this time around? I think it's quite clear to many of them that it didn't. Doesn't mean that they want to give up their security relationship with the United States. But that security relationship may not look the same way as it has in the last couple of decades, essentially centered on a structure of U.S. bases in the region. I suspect that they're going to buy more American weapons in the future, but they're not necessarily going to rely on bases. The problem, of course, is that if the Iranians make this a demand for a peace deal,

it makes it more difficult for the U.S. to accept it. But if it wasn't an Iranian demand, I think we've had numerous American presidents in a row constantly promising the American people that they're going to get U.S. troops out of the Middle East because the Middle East no longer is that strategically vital to the United States. In fact, the Biden administration in its early review of this matter at the Pentagon in which they had this wholesale forced posture review, originally the version of the report that we were going to issue was going to call for the closing of 17 out of the 19 bases in the region. That all changed for other reasons.

They had nothing to do with the Middle East, but an argument as to whether they thought the Chinese would try to replace the U.S. And whether the competition with China eventually would take place in the Middle East as well. And as a result, it would be inappropriate to withdraw. But it wasn't because of a strategic significance of the region. Why would a country like Kuwait, and I'm thinking somewhere in heaven, George H.W. Bush is not happy if it's possible to be unhappy in heaven. Why would a country like Kuwait want to rely on American security guarantees? Look at what happened to it. Exactly. Well, but also look at what happened to it early Iran because of the American security guarantees in Iraq invading, the United States put together this massive coal. and kicked Saddam out of Kuwait.

So from the Kuwaiti standpoint, there is a data point that showed how effective that security guarantee was. And Saddam was under the impression, based on his conversations with U.S. officials, a misperception, that the U.S. would be okay with him taking Kuwait. But once he did, of course, the U.S. put that coalition together and kicked him out. Sitting in Kuwait today, however, is a very different story because that America no longer exists, that America that has that capacity, that has the ability to sell to the American people that the U.S. needs to go into a ground war in the Middle East for the sake of a minor kingdom, that America no longer exists.

And as a result, relying on it today is a completely different proposition than relying on it 20, 30 years ago. All right. I want to post a statement by Mr. Ghalibov, the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament. This is just two days ago. There he is. Massive attack coming. Wait, never mind.

They want to negotiate. That's theater diplomacy on loop using bullying, broken promises, fake news as leverage as a failed strategy. Acknowledge the facts and fulfill your commitments. We don't need more theater. It appears as though the Iranians see right through Trump and aren't afraid to say so publicly. Yes. Yes. I think we have reached a point in which it is clear, Trump cannot escalate his way out of this conflict,

and on top of that, he can no longer bluff his way out of this conflict. The Iranians are calling the American bluff. And I think when they also see reports revealing that the U.S. is not only extremely short on interceptors, but also short depleted its projectiles such as Tomahawks, etc., it reinforces their view that the U.S. the U.S. actually does not have the capacity to be able to go back to war to achieve its objectives. And it is actually to this point that I think they were trying to drive this situation after the second round of the war, thinking that the only time Trump actually will become serious about diplomacy, truly dedicate himself to diplomacy, is when he has internalized

that he does not have a military option. Only then will he be able to resist the temptation of thinking, well, perhaps I can bomb a little bit in the middle of the negotiations in order to improve my negotiating position. Because as long as he felt that he had that option, he was exercising that option. He did that in the second round. But this is the thinking of a mob boss, of a mafia chieftain, not of a president of the United States, who should have at his disposal a vast array of diplomatic tools. Absolutely. And a vast array of advice that would tell him that this is a foolish idea. Don't go back into this war. You're not going to be able to change the facts on the ground to your liking. And it's, again, stunning to me that having experienced the first round

award, that did not end up the way Trump wanted, he went back into it without a new idea, without a new strategy, without a new tactic, without new intelligence, without some new plan that would make it different. So throughout those first 13 days, I think I myself and many others were waiting to see, okay, he probably has some sort of a cart up his sleeve. And he didn't. And it's just stunning to me that he did this a second time with nothing changing, thinking that the same method, the same strategy, everything else the same, would lead to a different result. And that the advice from the people around, and particularly the military advice, was not strong and clear enough to him to understand that this is not going to work. There's no reason why it would have worked.

I want to ask you a few questions about Israel, and of course, its absence for many of these negotiating tables. Not a surprise, but before we do, this is a terrific clip by a colleague of yours, Ian Lustick, on the dangers of a foreign entity having control over the government of the United States. Chris, number 13. what George Washington prophetically pointed out in his farewell address after he decided not to take a third term, he warned the country that there was a flaw in the system, there was a vulnerability in the system. The vulnerability was that if there was in the United States a faction that was passionately attached to a foreign country or passionately opposed to a foreign country because of its ethnic or religious or ideological. background, there would be no natural countervailing force to it inside the country. That would mean that unless there was an agreement that foreign policy was not something

that should be part of the electoral process, that politics should stop at the ocean, that there should be bipartisanship beyond the borders of the United States. If that wasn't the case, that passionate minority attached to another country could control U.S. policy, entangle us in wars we shouldn't be in, and distort our image and our affairs abroad. Now, Washington had in mind the fact that the Democrats associated with Jefferson were in love with the French revolutionaries. That's no longer the issue, but the issue that did come through to show that Washington was right about what he was worrying about was the issue of Israel, because there has never been any group in the United States attached to a foreign power

with as much political clout as the group that is represented by the Israel lobby in the United States. And any group in the United States attached to a foreign power with as much political clout as the group that is represented by the Israel lobby in the United States. an absolutely accurate, true, profound, and courageous statement. Absolutely. So Ian and his co-author, Eli Clifton, who is also a co-founder of the Quincy Institute. Ian is a non-resident fellow, are coming out with this book. I think the release date is on Monday.

It is called Israel's Lobby. In some ways, it is a follow-up on John Mearsheimer and Steve Walt's first book from 2007, the Israel Lobby. but it goes in some ways deeper and it also looks at one factor that was not addressed in full in the previous book, which is the money trail, the manner in which campaign finances, et cetera, have enabled this lobby to become as influential as it's been. I personally believe that this is going to be the most important book of 2006. And it's coming out at an absolutely crucial point. We're seeing how Israel and the U.S.'s relationship with Israel,

Israel is becoming a litmus test in numerous American primary elections, both on the left and on the right. We saw that it was a litmus test in Michigan, two, three nights ago. It was a litmus test in Kentucky in Massey's elections, primary elections, and I think it's going to continue to be that in several others. So we're entering a completely new phase in American politics in which supporting Israel in the manner that many members have done, supporting APAC's position, is going to be politically costly in a manner that never has been the case in US history before. Before it's always been a political non-brainer, even if people recognize clearly that this was bad policy, it was nevertheless good politics because it kept the member of Congress safe.

It kept the president safe. That is now changing. It is a complete game changer for America's domestic politics and also for its foreign policy in the Middle East. So here's the question. Can anyone expect, well, let me back up. The removal of the IDF and Israeli dominance in Gaza and in Lebanon is an absolute requirement for peace between the United States and Iran from the Iranian perspective. It's even articulated, not Gaza, but Lebanon, in the memorandum of understanding. Can anybody expect that, Trump can compel Netanyahu to withdraw from these two territories. It's hard for me to believe he would ever do that voluntarily. He would only do it with a gun to his head. Well, he started doing it when the MOU was in place, as you recall. Because as you mentioned, this was a requirement of the MOU.

And once the MOU was signed, you saw that Trump started talking very differently about Israel's presence in Lebanon. He said, you know, the Israelis are conducting themselves in a way that is unacceptable. You don't blow up an entire building just because you're trying to take out one Hezbollah person. J.D. Vance went out and said that Israel cannot kill its way out of every problem.

He reduced Israel's standing to the same standing such as France and the UK allies of the United States, but not exceptional states. This was not an exceptional relationship, special relationship. So you started to see clear measures towards implementing this. Unfortunately, the whole thing collapsed over differences over the state of Hormuz. And also incidentally, Trump spoke about a regional ceasefire no longer as an Iranian demand, but as an American requirement for the deal to work. So I do believe that the intent was there to make it

work. I think there were other elements in the Trump administration that opposed it. Because suddenly immediately after the MOU, you had Marco Rubio go to the region and sign this Lebanese-Israeli agreement that completely contradicted the terms of the MOU. In that agreement, the Lebanese government inexplicitly signed on to an agreement that said that Israel would stay in southern Lebanon until Hezbollah had disarmed, whereas the MOU makes no such mention. as a result, would allow the Israelis to stay in southern Lebanon, completely contradicting the NYU. And it really puts the question to Trump in the clearest possible way. What's most important to you? Is it to end the war with Iran?

Right. Or is it more important to you to allow the Israelis to do whatever they want in Lebanon? But here in the U.S., with very, very little debate and likely passage is Trump's proposal to create a merger between the Israeli military and the Pentecost. between Mossad and the CIA, the latter probably already exists de facto. This would make it de juries, would make it by law, which would facilitate or even require the sharing of intel and security information. We don't have that with any other country. Do we have a treaty with Israel?

No. This is a diminution of American national sovereignty in deference to exactly what Mr. Leph, Professor Lustick was talking about. Yes, a couple of points of clarification, though. What has been proposed on the intelligence merger goes way beyond what has existed in the past. It was put forward by Tom Corden in the Senate, that amendment. It would essentially mean that the US intelligence services are forced to share all kinds of intelligence with Israel. Force. And the only way that can be prevented is if the president

personally intervenes, which means that he would constantly have to sit aside all other duties that he has during the day in order to review every intelligence data point and decide whether they should or should not be shared, which means that it essentially would happen on a very rare occasion. And as a result, the US would be forced to share almost everything. It is disastrous. It goes way beyond anything the U.S. ever has done with Israel or with any other country. And it jeopardizes the U.S.'s intelligence sharing arrangement with many other countries,

because no one's going to share anything with the U.S. any longer, knowing that everything that is shared with the U.S. immediately hands up in Israelis. This is the same Israel that destroyed the U.S.S. liberty. The same Israel that welcomed Jonathan Pollard and took his stolen data and sold it to the Soviet Union. The same Israel that spies on the White House. Oh, the same Israel that is the second and at times the main target of American counterintelligence efforts, because it is so intense in its efforts to spy on everything going on in the U.S. Let me give you another example. During the JCPUA negotiations, in the beginning, the Obama administration,

hoping to be able to please the Israelis, shared all details of the negotiations with Israelis. In fact, when the American negotiators were completed, their negotiations in Geneva or whatever it was, they tended to fly first to Israel to brief the Israelis before they came back to Washington. So oftentimes, State Department officials were not in the know for 48 hours of the details of the negotiations because the Israelis got the information first. The reason why the administration stopped doing so is because they found out that that intelligence that was willingly shared by the administration in the hope that Israelis would not be opposed to the deal was being used by the Israeli embassy in Washington to lobby Congress,

share the information in a selective manner in order to get Republican opposition to that deal. So they were using that intelligence to sabotage the negotiations on American ground in Congress. Once that became clear, the administration stopped sharing almost any information with Israelis. And again, we know the rest of the story how the Israeli completely opposed the deal, But they opposed it all along. They were just having an easier time opposing it and sabotaging it when the U.S. administration was actually sharing that information. The other part of what you said, just one clarification,

I am not under the clear impression that the administration certainly did not initiate the language in the NDAA that would have that type of a merger with this sharing of the, what they're essentially trying to do is to take away the money that the U.S. is giving Israel on a yearly basis, and put it in some sort of a bureaucratic process in Pentagon that would be out of sight of Congress and out of sight of the American public. This was initiated by Benjamin Netanyahu himself. It took credit for it.

I'm not entirely clear to the extent that the administration has been hopefully supportive of it. Its final outcome is still not entirely clear, but if it passes similar to what we saw with the intelligence merger essentially, it will be absolutely disastrous. Trita Parsi, what a great, great conversation. I'm almost happy we had the Internet problems, yes,

because this has been a terrific 30 minutes with you. If you want more of TRETA, the article that provoked me is from his substack. Before Hormuz, there was Suez, what Trump can learn from Eisenhower, but you can get TRETA's fabulous analysis regularly by subscribing to tritaparsi. cubsstack.com and following him at the wonderful, wonderful Quincy Institute.

Please tell the professor that Chris is going to try and find him. That's Professor Lustick once the book comes out. Chris, do we have a full screen of the book yet? No, we don't. Okay, we'll have one and I'd love to be able to interview him. Thank you. Just tell me about it. I'll make sure it happens.

I'm sure they would love to come on the show. Oh, thank you. Have a great weekend. All the best. You too. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Sure.

Oh, great, brilliant, courageous human being. Coming up later today, there's Professor Lustick's book, America in the grip of a foreign power, Israel's lobby. I'll be talking to Professor Ramir Schimer about this next week. But for later today, the Intelligence Community Roundtable, today, with Larry Johnson and Pepe Escobar 4 o'clock this afternoon. We'll see you then. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.