Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 1/13/22 Trita Parsi on the American Public’s Influence on US Foreign Policy

Episode Date: January 15, 2022

Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute recently wrote a piece in a German publication arguing that the noninterventionist sentiment of the Trump years was not an arbitration. So Scott brought him on to talk about it. They discuss Parsi’s expectations for the future of Europe’s security structure. They then get into whether or not public opinion has any impact on American foreign policy. Next, they discuss how global perceptions of Biden’s political situation are affecting the Iran deal negotiations. Lastly, they touch on the continuing war in Yemen.  Discussed on the show: “The end of American adventurism abroad” (IPS) Doomsday by Daniel Ellsberg  “Biden’s Shameful Silence on Saudi Arabia’s War in Yemen” (The New Republic)  “In Strategic Shift, U.S. Draws Closer to Yemeni Rebels” (Wall Street Journal) Trita Parsi is the Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and the author of Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran and the Triumph of Diplomacy. Parsi is the recipient of the 2010 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. Follow him on Twitter @tparsi. This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: The War State and Why The Vietnam War?, by Mike Swanson; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; EasyShip; Free Range Feeder; Thc Hemp Spot; Green Mill Supercritical; Bug-A-Salt and Listen and Think Audio. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjYu5tZiG. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, Dave Richardson here. Between rallies and sell-offs, bulls and bears, markets move fast. It can be hard to keep up. Join me on the download podcast as I chat with investment experts from all around the world to help you make sense of what's happening in the markets and the global economy. Go to the download on Spotify to get the latest episode and to subscribe. All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton show. I'm the director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of anti-war.com, author of the book,

Fool's Aaron, Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and the brand new, enough already. Time to end the war on terrorism. And I've recorded more than 5,500 interviews since 2003, almost all on foreign policy, and all available for you at Scott Hortons. Horton.4. You can sign up the podcast feed there, and the full interview archive is also available at YouTube.com slash Scott Horton's show. Aren't you guys on the line? I've got our friend Trita Parsi. Now, he was over at the National Iranian American Council, fighting against America's horrible foreign policies there and advocating better ones. And now he is the co-founder

and the something or other over at the Quincy. Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and, of course, helps to keep their great publication at ResponsibleStatecraft.org. And here he wrote this really interesting thing for a German publication called IPS. I guess I'll ask you what that stands for a second. It's called The End of American Adventurism Abroad. I like your wishful thinking. Welcome back to the show. How are you doing, Trita? Doing well. How are you? There's a question. question mark at the end of that title or at least they should be yeah they didn't make the translation anyways um so what's iPS by the way so this is a publication that is i believe connected to one of the

major parties in germany and is apparently very widely read amongst uh politicians in germany as well as their uh bundestog their their parliament great all right well i sure like the message that you told them what was the message that you told them the message that i told them is that they would make a mistake if they think that trump uh was an aberration that at the end of the day there's some tectonic shifts taking place in america and it's particularly visible in the younger demographics uh that two decades plus of regime change wars and uh hegemonic foreign policy has turn the American public to a very large extent against some of these tenants, and they don't believe any longer that we have to be the policemen of the world. Even when it comes to intervening

militarily for the sake of human rights, the numbers keep on dropping and are already actually very, very low. And of course, I'm not naive to say that foreign policy is driven by public opinion alone. But public opinion is not unimportant, and we do see it. Just take a look at the last democratic primary, almost all of them, with the exception of one or two, were competing with each other or who's going to bring home more troops from the Middle East? It's a reflection that the politicians have gotten the message, that that is what the public wants. Now, whether they pursue it fully once in office, of course, is a different story. But as this trend intensifies, as it will, and new generations of Americans come to power, it is far more likely

that this is the direction that the United States will go in, in addition to the fact that continuing to do what we're doing is just simply not possible because of cost and other reasons. And as a result, the Europeans should take the writing on the wall seriously and start investing in their own defenses instead of pursuing a rather over-optimistic policy that the slogan, America is back, actually means anything particular, meaningful. well listen i mean there's so many important points there first of all i think there's no question that

you're right about where the american people are on this and more and more and importantly on the right i don't know if we ever talked about this but i think it's so hilarious and ironic and funny that it was the evil david singer who i know you spent a career debunking over at the new york Times who tried to hang the term America First around Donald Trump's neck because he presumed that everybody is just like him and that if he could get Trump to take the bait and say, yeah, America first, then everyone would think that he is a terrible anti-Semitic Nazi and is, you know, he and Charles Lindberg favor the Germans in the World War and then we'll all hate him, except that Americans never heard of America first.

much less John T. Flynn and all the heroes of the America First movement. But anyway, Sanger was trying to trick him into saying, yeah, sure, America First. That sounds good, which worked. Except that people love that. Said, wait, why should we be at war for Ukraine? The Congress just passed the Protecting Ukrainian Sovereignty Act? Come on. As Pat Buchanan says, Ukraine is east of what we ever called Eastern Europe.

You know, that stops about at Hungary or something. so yeah so anyway the sentiment is certainly moving more and more in this direction and look at all the support that the quincy institute has gotten i mean you guys have become a major important voice in um not just out in the country you know bringing all jim lobes great bloggers to life for us here and all that kind of way but i can tell in dc you'll have more and more um sway people take more and more time to attack you and blame you for things and that kind of deal, which shows that there's that momentum there. And yet, you know, well, for example, I just got off the phone with Daniel Ellsberg,

while the Skype, you know, and we were talking about how he was refusing to take credit for ending the Vietnam War because he said, even though it did, he admitted and confessed and conceded that it did, releasing the Pentagon Papers really did help change public opinion. That didn't really help end the war. Well, really, his best, most important role in ending the war, was Nixon being out to get him got Nixon in trouble. And Nixon's impeachment helped end the war. But that's different. You know, it wasn't the fact that the American people were shocked and astounded and angered to find out that they had been lied to deliberately for all those years. That was a big deal, but it didn't change the policy. So I wonder, you know, if I'm a German, I might say, yeah, Trita Parsi.

You know, the human beings of North America might not support this anymore, but the military industrial complex and their representatives in Congress sure do, and the TV stations always will. And so, you know, what's really going to change? Well, and I think there's plenty of folks there who either, uh, from the perspective of simply living in denial, would say that, or in the case of what you just put forward, trying to put forward a thoughtful argument as to why at the end of the day,

public opinion doesn't matter. And I think it's a bit more complex than that. Public opinion is not decisive, nor is it irrelevant. There is a balance, or let me put it this way, the tension between what the American public wants and what they actually care about, not just what they want, but they actually care about. And what the military-industrial conflict,

military-trusted complex is seeking cannot become too great, because at some point things will break down. And I think for the first two decades, there was clearly a divergence. Was that divergence decisive? No, it wasn't. But suddenly it started to impact elections because suddenly you had a situation in which someone was willing to make these points,

that person actually would have a higher chance of getting elected than those who did it, which was a complete 180-degree flip. Before, you didn't win elections by saying, we're not going to have war. Now, suddenly, that is almost mandatory for you to even be eligible. Again, it doesn't change the policy right away, but the policies don't change right away. They change in steps and in measures. And what you're seeing here is the beginning phases of that. and the smart actors in Europe will understand that there are few predictable things.

I can actually only identify one that could cause this trend to break and reverse. And as a result, you would be, again, quite a lot of malpractice if you are a planner and you're planning for this status quo to just keep on going forever. Yeah, well, I mean, here's the thing, too, that's so important that way, on this, right, is that there is no real conflict in Europe that we're preventing here. We're not protecting Germany from anybody. The French ain't coming. The Russians ain't coming. You know, Doug Banda loves pointing out how the Germans are not building tanks right now because they don't think they need them because they know the Russians aren't coming. So, you know,

that's why, you know, the Americans perennially are complaining. You don't spend enough on defense, that kind of thing. Yeah. Because they don't, they know they don't need to. It would be a waste for them to do Yeah. And Doug makes a good point. I think you are seeing an increasing defense in some countries in Scandinavia, Finland and Sweden, for instance. But you know what? That too is actually okay, because if they feel that there is a threat to them from Russia, for instance, if that is what they're identifying, well, then you should be arming yourself and taking care of whatever you need to do for your defenses. It's not so that automatically United States needs to do so. So if some of them are actually taking responsibility, for the, you know, for the threats that they actually are perceiving, not the ones that they're hyping. I'm totally fine with that as long as they're not asking that the United States needs to take care of all of those things. Right. Give me just a minute here. Listen, I don't know about you guys, but part of running the Libertarian Institute is sending out tons of books and other things to our donors. And who wants to stand in line all day at the post office? But stamps.com?

Sorry, but their website is a total disaster. I couldn't spend another minute on it. But I I don't have to, either, because there's easyship.com. Easyship.com is like stamps.com, but their website isn't terrible. Go to Scotthorton.org slash easy ship. Hey, y'all, Scott here. You know, the Libertarian Institute has published a few great books. Mine, fools errand, enough already, and the great Ron Paul, two by our executive editor, Sheldon Richmond, coming to Palestine and what social animals owe to each other. And of course, no quarter, the ravings of William Norman Grigg, our late-great co-founder and managing editor at the Institute.

Coming very soon in the new year will be the excellent voluntarious handbook edited by Keith Knight, a new collection of my interviews about nuclear weapons, one more collection of essays by Will Grigg, and two new books about Syria by the great William Van Wagonin and Brad Hoff and his co-author Zachary Wingert. that's libertarian institute.org slash books you know so here's the thing and this is something that we talked about with Ellsberg here a minute ago too

of course as you know Daniel Ellsberg is not just some left-leaning peace activist type the subtitle of his book The Doomsday Machine says it all Confessions of a Nuclear War planner This is a guy who is extremely familiar With all of this

In fact his father built Or you know designed and implemented the first assembly line for A-bombs, turned down the contract for H-bombs. This guy knows everything about it. Anyway, he just kept going back to this, that it's the economics of the military industrial complex. They just have such capture over our national government that, you know, whether it's selling F-35s or battleships or carriers or hydrogen bombs, that it's just a racket.

It's just like any other business trying to get rid of inventory only for them. them the way you get rid of inventory is you bribe congressman to do what you want, which is buy more H-bombs. And then same thing with all this stuff. And look at when Trump appointed McGregor to be ambassador to Germany with the idea that we're going to pull at least some forces out of Germany. And the entire national security establishment just went crazy and basically canceled it, right? They refused to confirm him as ambassador, which, not that he would be able to pull the troops out as ambassador, but he was going to do the diplomatic side of that and increase the skids for it. And the military essentially just crossed their arms and just said no. Just like when Trump

tried to get out of Syria. They just said, no, we're not getting out of Syria. Okay. It's a really wild thing, man. It's such a distortion of power. It is. One thing we have to be careful, and this is not me disagreeing with him in any way, shape, of form. But one thing we have to be very careful about, is that as we're identifying and defining the problem, we have to be careful not to assign excessive power to the other side to the point in which actually any resistance then becomes meaningless. Because as true as it is that the military industrial complex has a tremendous amount of power and it's going to be tremendously difficult to shift things.

We also have the example that Biden actually did pull out of Afghanistan. on. And the biggest losers of that was the military-industrial complex. And they couldn't stop it. That's true. And I'm not thinking that's like, you know, the one example, one exception. I think there's others as well. There's wars that have been prevented, you know, that the dogs that never bite or whatever the expression is. So there's definitely an ability to be able to resist us and change. The demographic trends are on our side when they come to this. Yeah. And on that one point about Afghanistan there, too, that the deal was that, yes, he had his back to the wall in the sense that he would have had to escalate massively or leave one or the other. But he was, it would not have been easy to break the deal and maintain the status quo. That was not one of the cards. So, but at the same time, then, that was what he was up against was, what would the American people say if he was to, have to send 50,000 more troops there, send the Marines back to home and enforce and all that.

People just would not have stood for it. It was the public opinion at the end of the day that really mattered there. And I think it's also very much the case right now when it comes to the nuclear negotiations with Iran. Part of the reason why some of the hawks are losing their minds, not that there's been a return to the deal. I think the Biden administration should have gone in right away and I was not in agreement with the strategy. And so far, the strategy has led to, what is it now, 10 or so months of inconclusive talks. Hopefully it will succeed, but it was not the smartest way of going about it, in my view.

But nevertheless, one of the things that the hawks are losing their minds over is that they think that the United States is not going to be able to get a new, a good agreement out of these negotiations because the Iranians no longer fear that the United States would bomb it. First of all, I think there's some truth in it. I don't think the Iranians are terribly worried about it because they can read the papers and they can follow what's going on over here as well. And they understand fully well

that if Biden pulls out of Afghanistan only to start a war with Iran, you can imagine what Donald Trump's slogans is going to be in 2024. Four years of Trump, no new wars, two years with Biden, and we have a regional war in the Middle East. That will be a killer slogan.

And it will be costing the administration a lot, probably even the presidency. So again, we're seeing it in the case of what is not happening. You know, if you had asked me five years ago, could the Iranians go up to 60% enriched uranium without a military response from the United States? I would have said most likely, no, it would have elicited some form of military action by the United States. they've been having 60% in rich uranium for several months now and there's no hysteria about it in the media that says a lot right well and so what do you think's going to happen there they're going to be able to get back in the thing it seems like they have done such a clumsy job of handling this i i think there's still a chance that they could get back in i i'm frustrated that this

strategy were chosen because even if they do um you know it's it's led to a scenario in which the two sides are going back in somewhat grudgingly and with far greater mistrust and what existed before right i think what one thing that is closer to the sun sets right i mean aren't some of those almost you know all of those different things which is going to create all kinds of problems you know according to the schedule in twenty twenty three the administration has to get sanctions lifted in Congress. I assume they're going to have to do something to perhaps rearrange that schedule. So there's a lot of other things that are happening.

But I think one of the things that is truly a missed opportunity here is that the deal was supposed to set the stage, obviously eliminate the risk of war, eliminate any pathway for them to go for a bomb and I know where you stand on what they wanted or didn't want. But then really enable additional diplomacy on other issues and start in that. going in the direction of actually making sure that the United States and Iran would no longer have to be lethal enemies. That was destroyed, not just by Trump pulling out, which obviously did the massive amount of damage to it.

But there was such high expectations, not just in Iran, but elsewhere, that once Biden comes in or a Democrat comes in, the U.S. is going to quickly go back into the deal, and there's going to be an effort to be able to, you know, recapture. capture what has been lost. Instead, for the first two, three months, Biden did essentially nothing, except for actually saying that the Iranians have to go first, even though the U.S. was the one who pulled down. All of these different things have just led to a scenario in which the mistrust is actually even greater. So part of the reason I'm a little bit down here is not because I don't believe that the deal can be reinstated, but because I am far less optimistic about how it can be

sustained. All right. Now, listen, we're so short on time here, but real quick, I saw you wrote a peace in the new republic of all places they've supported every war since world war one they were created to support world war one anyway you have an article in there about how we ought to stop genociding the yemenis with the great annel she line who i really like tell us about that yeah so we have a piece out that came out this morning and we're criticizing the by the administration because biden said that he was going to end this war he said that on february 1st of last year i believe If it's gone a year, instead of ending the war, we're actually back into selling more weapons. Just $650 million the weaponry just sold to the Saudis, claiming that these are defensive weapons,

which they clearly are not, because we've seen a massive offensive by the Saudis in the last four or five weeks. And, you know, we've seen a steady number of condemnations by the administration whenever the Houthis do something. And there's been a lot of concern that if the Houthis were to take Maharib, one of the states, cities in in in uh in yemen that would lead to a massacre and all kinds of humanitarian disaster which i'm sure uh is is a likelihood um but then the saudis have been bombing sana uh relentlessly and there's not a peep out of the administration for seven years so we're seeing for seven years but particularly for the last couple of weeks as they were condemning whatever the houthis were doing the saudis were doing even more with no condemnation so we've gone back to the old patterns the hegemonic

pattern of the United States in the region, in which we are taking sides, tilting, trying to you know, support whatever country we define as a partner ally. Essentially, we're making ourselves party to the conflict and then we sell more weapons. U.S. interest, stability, peace, be damned. And this is really problematic because Biden said that he was going to move to make sure that the world would see the Saudis for the pariahs that they are. It's a quote from him. If he doesn't do what he did in Afghanistan and end this war. Instead of turning the Saudis into the pariahs as they are, MBS, Saudi Arabia's notorious crumperes, may have succeeded in making Biden the hypocrite that he shouldn't be. Yeah. Well, and by the way, I should clarify when I say

seven years that, in fact, we're almost at the seven-year anniversary. Yeah. It's January 29th, 2015. The great article and the important article in the Wall Street Journal is strategic shift. U.S. draws closer to Yemeni rebels about how our current Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Barack Obama, his commander-in-chief, were allied with the Houthis, giving them intelligence to use to kill al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula with. It was two months later in March that Barack Obama decided to switch sides in the war and take AQA-P side and the Muslim Brotherhood side and Saudi Arabia and UAE side and committing an act of the highest treason against the American people and siding with the al-Qaeda suicide bombers there. the guys who try to blow up a plane over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009 against their enemies, the Houthis. You read all about it in the Wall Street Journal right there. How do you like that?

It's crazy. That's why I like bringing it up. It's a shocking thing. Not surprising, but still shocking, you know, to me. I just can't stand it. So I hope that people like reading that and like passing that around. And as well as your great article in the new republic here, It's called Biden's shameful silence on Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen.

And then the other tab here, ha-ha, at IPS-Journal.EU, the end of American adventurism abroad. Thank you, Torea. Appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me. The Scott Horton Show, Anti-War Radio, can be heard on KPFK, 90.7 FM in L.A. APSRadio.com. Anti-war.com. Scott Horton.org and Libertarian Institute.org.