Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 11/4/22 Ted Snider: The US Admits Iran Isn’t Building a Nuclear Bomb

Episode Date: November 7, 2022

Scott brings Ted Snider back on to discuss a major story that nobody but Antiwar.com appears to be covering. The Biden Administration recently declassified its Nuclear Posture Review where it is admitted that Iran is not working towards a nuclear bomb. After a quick discussion about how U.S. nuclear strike policy has evolved since the Cold War, Scott and Snider dig into this bombshell of a story. They reflect back on all the revelations that made it clear the Iran nuclear weapons program was a hoax. Now, this official acknowledgment really drives home how ridiculous all this chest-thumping has been. Scott and Snider finish with a quick discussion about how the U.S. has created and prolonged the nuclear tension with North Korea.  Discussed on the show: “US Admits Iran Is Not Building a Nuclear Bomb” (Antiwar.com) The Threat by Andrew Cockburn Manufactured Crisis by Gareth Porter Losing an Enemy by Trita Parsi “When the Ayatollah Said No to Nukes” (Foreign Policy) “Iran, Islam, and Banning the Bomb” (Antiwar.com) Ted Snider has a graduate degree in philosophy and writes on analyzing patterns in U.S. foreign policy and history. He is a regular writer for Truthout, MondoWeiss and antiwar.com. 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; and Thc Hemp Spot. Get Scott’s interviews before anyone else! Subscribe to the Substack. 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

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 2004. almost all on foreign policy and all available for you at scothorton dot for 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 ted snider he's one of our best teds at antiwar dot com welcome back to the show ted thanks glad to be there um it's a very close race between you and ted

Carpenter for best Ted. You guys are great, Ted's both you. Um, listen, so this happens from time to time. U.S. admits Iran is not building a nuclear bomb. Yeah. And yeah, we're recording this in 2022, and it seems like anyone listening to this ought to be able to suss it out by themselves in their own brain that, geez, well, if the Ayatollah had been trying to make a nuke all this time since 1995, it seems like he probably would have been able to get one together by now, at least one, No, huh? But they don't have any nukes because they're not making nukes. Is that really right, Ted Snyder?

Yeah, it's really right, Scott. But what's really striking is to get as clear and bold an admission of that as we just got. And what's even we're even weirder, Scott, is that nobody's touched it. Like, I can't find this anywhere. Like, if you Google it, you won't find it. There's this bold, clear admission in the new one. So the U.S. releases this new nuclear. posture of view, right? And there's this very clear statement that Iran's not building a bomb,

and it doesn't make the news, which is remarkable since a month ago. The U.S. signed a declaration saying they would use their full military force against Iran if they developed a bomb. So you've got these major military threats if Iran develops a bomb. And then here's this stark admission that they're not building a bomb, and it's not on the news. No one touches it. It's crazy. Yeah. It really is. And if there's an excuse for it at all, maybe it's that when you talk about nuclear posture review, everybody's concerned about the Russia and China chapters rather than Iran, because they know that Iran isn't making a bomb. That's always been a hoax.

They just skip that chapter, maybe. Yeah, so I think, okay, so first of all, so first of all, the nuclear posture review is something that every administration releases at the beginning of its, its administration that sets out their nuclear policy, and the Biden administration has delayed this. It's been kind of classified for a couple of years, so it finally comes out the other day in October 27th. And you're right, it gets ignored because there's so many other bomb shells in the nuclear posture of you. There's really three huge bombshells that get all the attention so Iran doesn't get noticed. The first one is that there had been a lot of hope that the Biden

administration would abandon what's called a first strike policy. That is, the states has always had a policy that they would be willing to drop a nuclear bomb, not in retaliation, but they would be willing to be the first to drop a nuclear bomb. And Biden had at least implied in its campaign that he wanted to end that he would end the first strike policy. So the first bomb shell of the nuclear policy review is that it did not end the first strike policy. It clearly states that they considered ending the first strike policy and decided not to.

So they explicitly say they thought about it didn't. So the first bomb shells that the states maintains a policy that they'd be willing to be the first to drop a nuclear bomb. That's big, by the way, because China has expressly said they would not have a first-strike policy. India has expressly said they would not have a first-strike policy. So here's the state saying they have a first-strike policy. The second striking thing in the nuclear policy. Wait, actually, let me stop here right there for just one second if I could. Yeah. So I don't space out and forget. If we go back, if I remember it right, the nuclear posture ever, I mean, all through the Cold War and up through W. Bush was that we reserve the right

to use nukes in a first strike, even against non-nuclear weapon states. And then Obama changed that in his nuclear posture review. I believe he updated it to say, we would never use a nuke in a first strike, except against another nuclear weapon state or Iran. And then Trump came and undid that and put it back to the old way, which is we reserve the right to use a nuclear weapon in a first strike against any state on the planet, whether they're armed with nukes or not. Is that now correct?

And then Biden has decided to keep that same policy, not even go back to the Obama policy. I have to review it. I think, Scott, I have to review this. I think the Kerr one just released said that they wouldn't do a first strike against a non-nuclear state that was in compliance with the nuclear nonproliferation act. So I think, I may be wrong with one. Okay, so this is the Obama policy then, essentially, because that was what Obama said. they were pretending that Iran was in violation of their international obligations, which was not true. But that was what they stated it. That's right. And so the current one was, the current,

you know, the first bomb show was this really disappointing breaking of Biden's campaign promise because he had at least implied David Anna. So it's still the first right. The second, the second although that's still, I mean, we give him kind of half credit that that's still, at least he's going back to the Obama policy rather than the Bush, Trump and previous policy, which was, we reserve the right to use nuclear weapons even against non-nuclear weapons states yes yes for sure it does it's still completely insane but whatever we're creating on a curve here campaign language or he was saying we need to limit our use right but the second the second sort of bombshell was that is that the nuclear posture of use states that the u.s would use a nuclear weapon not only as a first strike to

prevent a nuclear attack but also in the face of a conventional threat so this is this is kind of This is the U.S. saying would use a nuclear weapon as a first strike to prevent a conventional threat, even though the U.S. has by far the most powerful conventional military, you know, could deal with it in a non-nuclear way. So the first bomb shells first strike. The second one is they would use a nuclear weapon in the face of conventional threat. The third one, which is really kind of striking, is that it reserves the right not only to use a nuclear weapon in the face of a threat against American territory, but also in the defense of American allies. And the language actually goes even a bit further than that, Scott. It says they would use a nuclear weapon in defense with their allies or partners, right? So this is very broad.

Keep in mind, just this is maybe a bit tangential, but keep in mind that when everybody reacted so strongly to what they took as Putin's warning that Russia could use a nuclear weapon to defend Russian territory, even there, Russia's, Russia's. nuclear policy, which also allows for a first strike, by the way, and also allows for to use nuclear weapons to defend against conventional attack, and that they've sort of aligned with the U.S. But the Russian one seems to limit it to using nuclear weapons to an attack on Russian territory. The American nuclear policy review, and this isn't new, this reiterates what was in the 2018 one, but it maintains the right to use a nuclear weapon, even in defense of an ally or partner, which seems, as I will argue in an upcoming Antoar article, which, you know, seems to make the American nuclear posture the most dangerous one in the world.

Absolutely. I mean, look, and partner means anything, right? Any nation that we're friends with, we have no treaty with, no actual legal responsibility to whatsoever. Yeah, that's what scares me because recently Wendy Sherman made it very clear during a meeting with South Korea and Japan that the United States would use nuclear weapons. to defend South Korea, Japan, you know, presumably against North Korea. So there you might argue, okay, they're some sort of ally.

They're not NATO allies, but there's some sort of, you know, alliance. But what does partner mean exactly? So that's, and I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong about this. Maybe there's a legal definition. But what exactly is a partner? So I think those three things drew so much attention that it's almost like nobody read beyond that to get to this really clear.

Acting me too. I mean, so let's go back to Iran in a second. But, you know, the threat that we would use nuclear weapons against a conventional force in the Cold War was built around the premise that the Soviets could invade through the fold of gap into Western Germany and that they would have so many tanks that we would not be able to stop them with conventional forces, that it would take atom bombs to stop them. But we've known since 81, never even mine since the end of the Cold War, we've known since Andrew Coburn's book at the very latest in 1981 when I was in kindergarten, that that was a hoax. The book is called The Threat. And it's about how the Red Army in Eastern Europe had a week's worth of gasoline and 15 pairs of boots and no ammunition and no morale whatsoever. There's no way in the world they were going to march in to Western Europe. And there's no way in the world that America would have had to resort to atomic weapons to stop them. So now look at what we're talking about. We're talking about we've seen Russia's conventional force at war for almost a year now with 10 months and they can't even consolidate power over all of eastern Ukraine and now that's true they haven't sent in

their entire conventional force yet but we're still talking about a thousand miles east of the fold of gap and so the idea that um that russian armored power anywhere would require American nuclear weapons to stop them. It's just completely off the table. It's not even a daydream. So what's left? The only other thing that comes to mind there would be the Chinese sinking American ships with supersonic sea skimming missiles that the Israelis gave them the blueprints after the Americans gave them to Israel.

Speaking of partners and allies. And so that's what they're really implying there, right? is if America gets in a fight with China over what American policy has considered for 50 years to be won China, the dispute of sovereignty over the island of Taiwan or Formosa, that if we lose aircraft carriers to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, that then we'll use atom bombs on the Chinese. Otherwise, what else are we talking about? What other power in the world could possibly threaten American military, power with conventional

power. That's the only other answer. I think the unclarity of the phrasing is scary and I think it's they talk about it in two ways I think Scott and I'm not an expert on this but they talk about it in two ways I think one is the use of nuclear weapons

against a conventional threat you know against the American territory that was really hard to see for all the reasons you just said America's the strongest you know conventional army in the world. The other one they talk about is that they almost sort of dress it up the non-proliferation language and say that we need to be able to provide a nuclear umbrella to our allies in the event of a nuclear conventional attack so it's not necessary for our allies

to acquire nuclear weapons. So they sort of sometimes dress it up in this non-proliferation. But the fact remains, or I think the fact remains, that China and India don't have these policies. And Russia does extend theirs to non-conventional as well, but not to the sort of dangerous allies and partners line. So I think that the nuclear posture of view was just a huge disappointment because Biden's campaign language had been so full of needing to draw back nuclear, you know, nuclear use and restricted. And it just falls way short of this. And I think, I think that that just got, rightfully so, that got so much attention that these, you know, two or three lines that were almost just sort of slipped into it, you know, in hard to find places. You really had to read the documentary when unnoticed that that's a huge thing to be saying at this moment that Iran is not building a nuclear bomb because, as I said a minute ago, just in the last few weeks, the states has signed a declaration saying,

that they would use the entire, you know, the entire, you know, military power of the country. And also, you know, keep in mind, too, that in the last just couple of days, as the U.S., and we can talk about this if you want, also, that the U.S. has said that they've just given up on negotiations with Iran that's no longer in their focus, that that language was accompanied by some, you know, by some very dangerous lines. because, you know, one senior Biden official said that now that we consider talks with Iran dead, he said, and I'm quoting, we're taking steps to ensure the U.S. has a ready military auction. And Robert Malley, who's the, who's Biden's, you know, chief, his special envoy for Iran and the diplomat most in charge for negotiating the nuclear talks with Iran,

he echoed that language. He said that Biden is ready to use military means. is a last resort to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. So here's a country threatening that they're making military plans to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear bomb that they admit Iran is not developing. It's this absurdly aggressive language that we're prepared to use our full military force,

which implies nuclear, right? We're prepared to use our full military force against Iran to stop them from acquiring a bomb that we don't believe they're acquiring. Right. So that's the sort of absurdity that the NPR reveals about, you know, Robert Malley in the American's language right now. Right. Well, folks, sad to say, they lied us into war. All of them. World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq War I, Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq War II, Libya, Syria, Yemen, all of them. But now you can get the ebook, all the war lies by me for free. just sign up the email list at the bottom of the page at scothorton.org or go to scothorton.org slash subscribe get all the war lies by me for free and then you'll never have to believe them again

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You guys, my friend Mike Swanson has written such a great revisionist take on the early history of the post-World War II National Security. State and military industrial complex in the Truman Eisenhower in Kennedy years. It's called the war state. I have to say, it's the most convincing case I've read that Kennedy had truly decided to end the Cold War before he was killed. In any case, I know you'll love it. The War State by Mike Swanson. I mean, think about it.

I mean, they came in. Supposedly, it was the Antichrist walking in earthly shoes, Donald. Trump, who made the absolutely horrible decision to cancel the Iran nuclear deal. So all Biden had to do was say, hey, my best buddy Barack Obama signed that deal, and I think it's a great deal. And the antichrist in shoes, Donald Trump is the one who broke it. So I'm getting back in it. And he could have done that within a week of being sworn in in January of 2021.

Just the same as he made a deal with Putin. And he said, let's save the new START treaty, but let's not save the INF treaty, right? So these are all decisions that Biden can make, one way or the other. And instead, he sent Malley, who is less worse than some of Israel's frontmen in America. But he went and has completely failed, deliberately so, to get back in this deal with the Iranians. And all the deal did was take a civilian nuclear program that was already a civilian nuclear program. that was already a civilian nuclear program and it just locked it down more

and expanded inspections more and just guaranteed more that their civilian nuclear program remained a civilian program. That's all it did. And yet, in the Israelis themselves and their partisans in America have made it absolutely clear

that they really don't care about that. They want to keep the sanctions on. They want to keep the economic war and the diplomatic war against Iran at a fever pitch. And the only excuse for it is their supposed nuclear weapons program. And that was why they all hated the Iran deal, the nuclear deal, JCPOA of 2015, is because it took their lie off the table. They can pretend there's a secret program somehow under the NPT and IA safeguards agreement. But when the JCPOA started adding additional protocols to that safeguards

agreement and expanded inspections so vastly, they could no longer even push the law. And so they don't have an excuse, really, for this, you know, full diplomatic pressure and crippling sanctions and all these things as they do to Iran. It's all essentially just pretext. And so you can see why, first of all, that's why Obama made the deal in the first place. But then you can see why that's why the Israelis absolutely hated it and why they put so much pressure on Trump to get out of it and so much pressure on Biden to stay out of it, right? I mean, I mean, I think part of the hatred of the deal. JCPOA never really had anything to do with the nuclear program because nobody, nobody ever thought Iran had a nuclear program.

A weapons program, you mean? A nuclear weapons program, yeah. I mean, the U.S. national intelligence estimates of 2007 and 2011, they both concluded that Iran doesn't have a nuclear program. The Israelis concluded they don't have a nuclear program. The International Atomic Energy Agency, at least at the most generous sense, that since 2003 they haven't had a nuclear weapons program you could talk about before 2003 i think they didn't then either but the ia said that also then the the so it was never really

about about the nuclear weapons program it was it was really about the upset that the u.s was negotiating with iran at all because you want to keep iran isolated um you know so so the whole the whole problem both in israel and the states with the what the nuclear thing was was never with the agreement was never about nuclear. It was about we have to stop the U.S. from negotiating with Iran in the first place. When Obama pulled off this, you know, one of the few really great things he did in his administration was this agreement with Iran to de-escalate the tension, Trump completely illegally pulls out of it. And by the way, something that needs to be said here, because it's not, it's not set often enough, is not only did Iran wait at least a year after Trump pulled out before they started

working on their nuclear capabilities, not nuclear weapon, but civilian nuclear capabilities. None of they wait a year. But the advances that they did put in, which often people say were slow and gradual and easily reversible, that's all true. But the thing that doesn't get said is that while the states was in violation of the agreement by pulling out illegally, Iran was not in violation because the agreement allowed Iran to make those advancements if another party pulled out, which the Americans did. So, so Iran was not, during the agreement, there's something like 11 consecutive IA assessments that show that Iran was in complete compliance with the agreement, but even after Trump pulled out, and even after Iran made those advancements, they were still not out of

compliance with the agreement because they were allowed to do that, right? So, so this was all, this was all sort of, this was all fine above board. And then, and then the nuclear posture of you comes along. And it says two things, Scott. And I don't know if you want, do you want to get into what it actually said right now? Yeah, man, go for it. Okay. So this is kind of interesting because there were, there's actually two formulations in the, in the current nuclear posture review. So the nuclear posture review was buried within a larger document. And in the larger document, they actually say three times that Iran doesn't have a program. But in the actual nuclear posture view, it says it twice. So the first one says, I'm quoting, because the wording is very

important. The first one says, Iran does not currently pose a nuclear threat, but continues to develop capabilities that would enable it to produce a nuclear weapon should it make the decision to do so. So there's the first line. They haven't made the decision to do so, but they're working on capabilities where they could. Then the second formulation is the clearest one in a very long time to come out of an official U.S. document. The second formulation, I'm quoting, so straight up, Iran does not today possess a nuclear weapon, and we currently believe it is not pursuing one. So here's the full weight of every U.S. organization saying that not only don't they have a nuclear weapon, we don't even believe they're going after one. Okay, so here's why those two are important. The second formulation is

obviously the most important because it's the clearest statement that Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapon and that the states doesn't even believe they're going after one. So what is, all this threat of war, you know, what are all these sanctions? What is all of this if we don't even believe they're even thinking about a nuclear weapon? So when O'Malley, what, O'Malley, when, when Robert Malley says that the U.S. is wasting time on the JCPO nuclear agreement negotiations, and they say they're wasting time on it because it's no longer our focus, we no longer care. And the reason they give is because of Iran's crackdown on protests and because, because of their policy of supporting Russia, which is absurd.

The U.S. isn't wasting its time negotiating a nuclear agreement with Iran because of their response to protests or their position on Russia. If Iran was actually developing a nuclear weapon, it would be worthwhile negotiating a nuclear agreement, whatever their stance on protests or Russia, right? The U.S. is wasting its time renegotiating a nuclear agreement with Iran to stop him for building a bomb because the U.S. knows Iran's not building a bomb. So that's the first formulation and the absurdity. But the second one is important, too, because it says, again, it says that Iran does not currently pose a nuclear threat, but continues to develop capabilities that would enable it to produce a nuclear weapon.

So this is important because the second one is complaining that they still are, have nuclear activities that we're concerned about. But go down a little bit further in the nuclear posture of view, okay? And if it says that it admits very clearly that the nuclear policy says that these activities weren't, I'm quoting again, previously constrained by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the JCPO Nuclear Agreement. So if the U.S. is concerned that Iran still has activities that could enable nuclear weapons program, but they admit in the nuclear posture of view that those. activities were fully constrained by the nuclear agreement, then you're not wasting time negotiating a nuclear agreement. That's all the more reason to negotiate the nuclear agreement because the nuclear agreement was constraining the very acts you're concerned about.

It's totally absurd to say, on the one hand, that we're wasting our time negotiating to prevent a nuclear bomb that we know they're not even getting. And it's equally crazy to say that we're wasting our time renegotiating an agreement that previously constrained, the very activities we're hoping to constrain. So both formulations are really important and both reveal the complete paradoxical nature of the American policy towards Iran. You're very polite. I mean, in other words, they're just lying.

They're trying to fool Americans and to being afraid of a thing that doesn't even exist at all. And like on both parts, right? Because to say that it's a waste of time. when you say the agreement was constraining the one thing you're still complaining about, which is nuclear activity, which is totally legal under the MPR. So it's absurd. And these lines, these are just three lines that get buried in this huge document.

And this is how I sort of opened the show, Scott. But it just amazes me that nobody's talking about that. Nobody picked up at that. Nobody's talking about that. I Google it. Google it. You'll see anti-war. and nothing else.

Yep. And, yeah, I mean, Eric Garris told me. He was like, hey, this is Ted Scoop and Dave wrote it up, but you were the one who found it in the document, and then there's no other news stories about it anywhere. And the thing is crazy about that story. It is true, though. It is old news in a way, right? Like, as you point out, as you mentioned earlier in the show here, the CIA and, in fact,

the National Intelligence Council came out with an NIE, National Intelligence Estimate, in November of 2007, that said they're not making new. they haven't made a decision to begin to try to make nukes. And they said that again in the 2011 posture of view. And the former head of the International Atomic Energy Association has said that there was never any evidence while I was, you know, in that Iran. And in Haaretz, the Mossad has said that, yes, we agree with the CIA. They reluctantly admitted in 2015. Oh, Scott, like all kinds of Israeli generals and officials have said that there's no nukees.

program and all kinds of um careful now no nuclear weapons program you mean i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry iran has a civilian nuclear program just like you know canada where i'm from lots of countries have nuclear civilian programs right um it what what it means is that is that iran has never enriched to the level needed for a nuclear weapon and they've never diverted weapons material from a civilian program to weaponize anything that's a key point because even in the international atomic energy associations, I think it was in 2015, I think. They claimed that despite the fact that all of Iran's statements to explain their activity are consistent with the fact, so there's no evidence of a nuclear weapons program. The IA, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in

2015 that Iran had a weapons program prior to 2003. But that in itself is an absurdity, because prior to 2003, even though Iran was working on some nuclear activities, they didn't have a stockpile of rich uranium, and they never diverted that to a weapons program. So people like Trita Parsi have said that even if that means there was activity, you can't call that a weapons program because they never diverted any nuclear material to weapons. They didn't even have a stockpile. So, so even, I mean, stop there for just a second here, Ted, because what we know is that they didn't have a single centrifuge spinning until toward the end of 2005. You know, the BBC, they took them on a tour of the Natanz facility.

It was just a big, empty underground warehouse in like halfway through 2005. They didn't even begin to get their centrifuges up and running until the end of that year. So whatever was going on in 2003, one, the argument was, well, it was a nuclear weapons research program. In other words, they weren't trying to make a bomb. They were researching what it would take to try to make a bomb if they were to try to make a bomb. Now, I got a couple different things to say about that, too. One of them is that the CIA told Seymour Hirsch that they believed that the only reason they were even looking into it was to dissuade Saddam Hussein in case Jimmy Carter wanted to hire Saddam Hussein to invade Iran again, something like that. But they didn't think for a minute that they would be able to face down the Americans or the Israelis who have advanced thermonuclear weather. America certainly has age bombs. And Israel has 200 A bombs and possibly H bombs and definitely German-made submarines and all of this stuff. They didn't think for a minute they could take us on. They thought maybe that they could dissuade Saddam from invading if he was going to. But then once America got rid of Saddam for the Ayatollah,

in 2003. Then they were like, well, whatever, dude. Now we don't even need it at all. We don't even need to think about it at all. But now on top of that, I can debunk even that. Because Gareth Porter shows in his book, Manufactured Crisis, that what really happened was there were two major reasons that the Americans believed that there was a nuclear weapons research project up until 2003. The first one was an honest mistake. The DIA had intercepted purchase orders for many suspicious dual-use items that were being purchased by the University of Tehran. But the IAEA inspectors came out and found all of that stuff. And there's the ring magnet, and there's the watchmajigger and the whatever it is. All of it was being used

for the innocent civilian purpose that they had claimed in the first place. So if you had been at DIA, you might have said, whoa, that does look suspicious. But the thing is, that was all debunk. So that was one hook to hang your hat on. That's it. The only other hook to hang your hat on to say that they had a nuclear weapons research program before 2003 was the completely fake Israeli forged so-called smoking laptop, which the IAEA admitted was given to them by the Mujahideen e-calk, communist terrorist cult, which is nothing but a front for Israeli intelligence. And everything in there was debunk. I mean, hell, even David, Albright debunked this stuff in there about a nuclear warhead.

And then, of course, you know, the green salt project was completely debunked by Gordon Prather, I believe, and Gareth Porter, both, that why would they need this laser enrichment to uranium tetrafluoride, which is this green salt, as they call it, when in order to enrich uranium, you need to enrich it to uranium hexafluoride, which is a gas that you put in your centrifuge to spin. They already had a conversion facility for turning the uranium into uranium hexafluoride gas. So why would they even need a green salt project at all and whatever? Anyway, Gareth Porter, above all, has completely debunked that laptop as a Israeli fraud, forged fraud. So there are the two legs of the stool. There are hooks for your hat hanging about why to believe they even were researching how to make a nuclear bomb before 2003, when even the massage. and CIA said they haven't even been researching since 03. It turns out they weren't even researching before 03 either.

Yeah, so Scott, first of all, you have a way better memory than I did. That was pretty impressive. I'm a huge Gareth Porter fan. So I was just going to say, second of all, for your listeners, if you want to look into the stuff more, in my opinion, at least the best book on debunking this stuff is Gareth Porter's manufacturing crisis. And if you want to read more about the negotiating, negotiating the JCPOA and how all of that happened,

then Treata Parsy's losing an enemy is an amazing book. The third thing, and I don't know how much you want to go into the Scott, because it's a bit different than the nuclear posture view, but the whole question of whether, you know, Iran was developing a nuclear weapon, and I don't have your memory, and this is stuff I was writing about years ago, so I don't remember how much as you remember. But, you know, a couple of things, I think a couple of important things, is that, you know, Iran has always said,

And both Ayatollahs and the leading, you know, Islamic scholars in Iran, I've always said that the development of a nuclear weapon goes against Islamic law. And it's not something that they would even consider doing. And part of the interesting evidence for that, you were talking about Iraq, is that, you know, back during the Iran-Iraq war, when Iraq with, you know, complete American knowledge and extensive assistance was using chemical weapons on Iran, And Iran claimed that chemical and nuclear weapons go against Islamic law. They held very true to their word, and they never used chemical weapons back on Iraq. So it's not all clear that Iran would have ever even thought about using or developing a nuclear bomb. And then later, as you were talking about, you know, the center view just, you know, spinning and what they were doing, you know, Iran was enriching like 3.5 percent, which is what you need, you know, uranium for energy.

purposes. And then they began to develop like 19.5%, which is what you need for nuclear imaging and cancer institutes and hospitals and treatments and stuff like that. And, you know, Iran was, was perfectly prepared to get their 19.5% in rich uranium from other countries, mostly Argentina, under agreements that had been negotiated in full knowledge of the International Atomic Energy Association with their assistance. It was only when the U.S. stopped other countries from doing that, when they froze Iran's ability to get the amount of enriched uranium that countries use for medical purpose and stuff like that, that Iran even began to consider enriching their own. And they were perfectly willing still to, you know, send stuff out and bring it in from

countries like Russia so they didn't have 20% uranium. So Iran only went to that level when the estates forced them to go to that level. Right. And they never exceeded that level again until after Trump pulled out of the, the JCPOA as a sort of negotiating, you know, chip to show that they could do that. But again, not illegal because so that stuff's all, you know, you know, it's all really interesting to look at, you know, that sort of history of it. And again, you know, we've talked about this before and I've written about this a lot on

anti-war. And Gareth Porter's book is just, you know, is amazing on that. Sorry, hang on just one second. Hey, guys, anybody who signs up to listen to this show by way of Patreon will be invited to join the Reddit group. And I'm going to start posting stuff over there more. That's patreon.com slash Scott Horton's show. Thanks. Hey, y'all, Libertasbella.com is where you get Scott Horton's show and Libertarian Institute shirts, sweatshirts, mugs, and stickers and things, including the great top lobstas designs as well.

See, that way it says on your shirt, why you're so smart. Libertas Bella, from the same great folks who bring you ammo.com for all your ammunition needs, too. That's Libertasbella.com. You guys check it out. This is so cool. The great Mike Swanson's new book is finally out. He's been working on this thing for years. And I admit I haven't read it yet. I'm going to get to it as soon as I can. But I know you guys are going to want to beat me to it. It's called Why the Vietnam War. Nuclear bombs and nation building in Southeast Asia, 1945 through 61. And as he explains on the back here, all of our popular culture and our retellings and our history and our movies are all about the height of the American war there in, say, 1964 through 1974. But how do we get there? Why is this all Harry Truman's fault? Find out in why the Vietnam War by the great Mike Swanson available now. And by the way, so if people want to read about the thought was there, it's Gareth Porter and foreign policy, which is, I think it's this only piece

they ever ran in foreign policy. And they fact-checked very carefully in order to run it. And they did. It's called When the Ayatollah said no to nukes. And as you say, it's the Ayatollah, the mean old Ayatollah from the revolution, Khomeini was approached in the 80s by the IRGC, who said, look, Saddam is using chemical weapons against us. We got some chemicals ready. All we need to do is on your order, sir. We'll mix them together, and we'll teach them Iraqis good. And the Ayatollah said, no, you're forbidden from doing so. God says you may not, according to me, the supreme leader. And so they didn't. Now, my take is, I don't believe in religion, and I certainly don't believe in religious men who claim to have, you know, religious authority over other men and this kind of

thing whatsoever. A theocrat can go jump in a lake. I don't believe a politician, and I especially don't believe a theocrat. But the fact is that the proof is in the pudding. We see what happened. They did not make chemical weapons. They did not make nuclear weapons. They have not not attempted to this entire time. And when the old, mean old Ayatollah died and the new Ayatollah came in, the same guy now, he's been in there since 89, Khamene, that he gave them the same order. And Gareth has, you know, the story of the anecdote that he told them, nope, the old Ayatollah was right. God says it is Haram to make weapons of mass destruction that kill innocent people. So again, you don't have to believe in Islam. You don't have to believe in the sincerity of,

an Ayatollah for a moment. All you have to do is accept the fact that the IRGC obeys the Supreme Leader's orders, and apparently those are, in fact, his orders, because look at the proof and the pudding. We're having this conversation in November

of 2022. They'd be sitting on a giant pile of atom bombs right now, like the North Koreans are. If they had been making them. I think about three years ago, I wrote piece for Iran-Tor, I think it was called Iran-Islam and banning the bomb, or I try to cover some

of the stuff on what Islam, you know, what the Ayatollahs and Islam said about banning the bomb. Yeah, so this is, this is like, and I know, you know, a lot of people, like you say, a lot of people don't believe that, that, you know, that those, those declarations by the Ayatollahs had force, but I think the two proofs that are one, one, or not proofs, but the strongest arguments for them are one, as you said, the proof was on the pudding they haven't. And I really do think that other one was the Iran-Iraq war where there was all kinds of pressure. I mean, Iran was being attacked by chemical weapons and people were dying like crazy. And they did not move to chemical weapons under the same, as far as I understand, under that same interpretation of what kind of weapons would be banned by Islam, even when being attacked, they didn't do it. And that deserves being taken seriously. seriously. So, yeah, so I think these are very strong arguments, but yeah, so that's sort of some of the background to the, to the fact that, as you said, it's not totally new news and national intelligence estimates have consistently said that around. It's hugely important, though.

I mean, look, if you, say, for example, you have a job driving for a living, deliver in auto parts or being a cab driver or, you know, maybe you're an air conditioner repairman or a building contractor. You're out driving around a lot. You listen to, you get sick of the same ACDC, so you listen to some talk radio. Top of the hour news on Fox News. Top of the hour news on ABC News. For the last 25 years, Iran is making nuclear weapons. Iran is a nuclear weapons danger.

What are we going to do about it? Are we going to attack them now or later because of the nuclear weapons threat that they pose? And, I mean, unless you're willing to stop and say, man, why don't they have any A-bombs yet? You might be under the impression that, boy, is Iran a nuclear weapons. I remember back years ago, there was a poll. 71% of Americans believed that Iran already had nuclear weapons, and they wanted to fight them over it. So how do you like that?

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, just like today as we speak, you know, Iranian envoys are in Vienna, at the atomic, you know, the IAEA, still explaining and justifying, you know, accusations of nuclear weapons. So it's all over the place. And, of course, the language of that is all over the place. And as we said, sort of towards the beginning of the show, the language in the last couple of weeks has been really inflammatory because the language in the last couple of weeks coming from people like Robert Malley and also coming from the declaration that the state signed, I think, on July 14th. These are all declarations that don't just talk about around developing a nuclear weapon.

These are declarations that talk about the U.S. developing a plan to use its military force. to stop it. So they're not just still saying Iran's developing a bomb. They're saying we're preparing a military option. And they've even used the language of the full weight of the American military to stop Iran from building a bomb that the nuclear posture of view says, we don't even believe they're building. So this is, it's huge important. They're not just still talking about Iran developing a nuclear bomb. They're talking about bringing the full force of the U.S. military down on Iran because they're building a nuclear bomb when their own nuclear review says they don't even think Iran is building a bomb. So it's it's incredibly dangerous language and it's just it's getting

you know more and more peaked in the last couple of weeks. Yeah. All right now I'm sorry I brought this up so I just have to do it real fast. It's the 20 year anniversary of John Bolton and George W. Bush and Dick Cheney essentially forcing the North Koreans to obtain nuclear weapons. Step one, was they lied and broke the agreed framework deal based on the claim that they had no evidence of whatsoever and still to this day don't, that the North Koreans had a secret uranium enrichment program, which wasn't even in violation of the rules or the deals if they did have one. But anyway, they broke the deal based on that lie. Then they announced new sanctions.

Then they announced the proliferation security initiative, which was their unilateral claim of the right to seize North Korean ships on the high seas. And then they put the North Koreans in the nuclear posture. review, December 2002, saying that they're on the short list for a nuclear first strike. And only then did Kim Jong-il announced that he was leaving the non-proliferation treaty, kicking the IAEA inspectors out of the country, and beginning to make nuclear bombs. Now, I guess the plan, Ted, was they were going to hit Baghdad and then they were going to turn right around and go to Pyongyang, except that didn't happen because, of course,

Iraq War II went completely to hell immediately. And so all they did was push the North Koreans into an arsenal of at least a couple of dozen plutonium atom bombs that they're sitting on right now. Yeah. And that, you know, that again shows the importance of the NPR, right? Because it was in that nuclear policy review where they grouped North Korea together with, I think it was Iran and Iraq or whatever, and that, you know, the axis of evil and said they would be, and this was the first strike policy. It was that where they said they would they be willing to use a first strike nuclear attack on North Korea. So what's really important about this is that you talked about, you know, people

always say you can't negotiate with North Korea about nuclear weapons. In fact, the states have very successfully, on at least two occasions negotiated with North Korea on nuclear weapons. And on both occasions, it was the U.S. that broke the agreement and pushed North Korea more towards

weapons. And one of the early ones was that, I forget the years, you've got the memory, you probably have all the years, but under the agreed framework, one of the promises was that you know, the U.S. would stop threatening military action against North Korea. It was when the U.S. said we would use a first strike nuclear attack on North Korea, that the North Korean said, hey, that's not exactly not threatening.

And that was part of what broke the nuclear agreement with North Korea. So this first strike language that's used in the NPR has worked against nuclear nonproliferation and helped push North Korea towards a nuclear weapon. And it's important to look to what North Korea always says. North Korea always says that we're developing a nuclear weapon as a deterrent to American threats against North Korea. And they've always expressed, they've never said we won't give up our nuclear program. That's what it says. They've never said we won't give up our nuclear program.

They've always said it as a conditional that as long as the U.S. threatens us, we won't give up our nuclear program. But the U.S. continues to threaten them by saying that we would use a first strike nuclear attack on North Korea. Recently, North Korea said for the first time, for the very first time, we're a nuclear weapon state and we won't give up our nuclear weapons. It finally got pushed to that. But if you look carefully even at the language there, even there, Kim said that because the West and the U.S. has this hostility, we can't give up our nuclear weapons program. So it's always been a response to American threats.

and the negotiated agreements with North Korea to curtail their nuclear weapons program have always been violated by the states and the point I'm trying to make that ties it into the story we're talking about with Iran is it was precisely this or partially there were other things too

the states reneged on lots of parts of their agreement that didn't give them a lot of the energy help they were supposed to give them they, you know, they waged economic war in North Korea but one of the really big ones was this for a strike policy that just like they're saying we would, you know, putting it in Iran and the NPR now, it was their insistence on the right to have a first nuclear strike against North Korea that pushed North Korea further into

their nuclear weapons program. So this stuff we're talking about about NPRs and first strike policies, this isn't trivial stuff. This is really, really important stuff. And it's absolutely mind-blowing that in the same week, the United States can threaten war, against Iran to prevent them from getting a nuclear bomb that their official policy says we know they don't have and we don't even believe they're trying to get it um this is really really important stuff and it's not in the newspaper and it's that's remarkable yep absolutely well look if you go back to 2007 when the n i e came out about iran there was George bush wrote about this or his ghostwriter or no, I think W. probably wrote this in his memoir about how mad he was, that he says that

NIE didn't just undermine diplomacy. It also tied my hands on the military side. There were many reasons I was concerned about undertaking a military strike on Iran, including its uncertain effectiveness and the serious problems it would create for Iraq's fragile young democracy. But after the NIE, how could I possibly explain using the military to destroy the nuclear facilities of a country, the intelligence community said had no active nuclear weapons program. And he goes on to paint the scene of him groveling on his knees before the Saudi monarch. Oh, your royal highness, your majesty, I'm so, so sorry. You got to understand. I don't control the CIA, not all the time. And unfortunately, they're truiting us out of war here. And there's nothing

I can do about it. Please don't be mad at me. When? And he's admitting it, too. He's like, and that was when I gave up the last shred of my pretended dignity and got down on my belly before the royal monarch. Like what? Which is a story that's playing itself out again, right? American president's going to Saudi Arabia and embarrassingly, you know, begging them. And how familiar is that story about trying to get the intelligence to fix around supporting your policy instead of having your policy based on the intelligence? And these are unfortunately just, you know, stories that keep replaying. And, and this is what we've got again today, we've got the state saying they'd be willing to go to war with Iran to stop

from getting a bomb when the fact is all of their intelligence tells them that Iran's not even thinking about building a bomb. But that's inconvenient and it's inconvenient so it doesn't make it into the New York Times or the Washington Post or anywhere. It just, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong, but I can't find a mention of it in those papers. No, no, no, you're right. You're the only one who got it. You and Dave. And Dave got it from you. And keep this in mind, too, Scott. I am not a reporter. I do not scoop stories. I do not break stories. If anything, I'm a philosopher. All I did was read it. Well, you do thorough research, man. You find stories and documents that people ain't turned up. This is not the

first time. I'm in danger of plagiarizing you on all the promises to not expand eastward after the Cold War at this point. So don't be, you know, too humble in your capabilities there. I know that I'm highly dependent on you. And all of us at antiwar.com are very grateful that we have you around in your sharp eagle eyes here, man. Well, I thank you very much for that, Scott. That's really nice to you. My point is that it's not even a scoop. It didn't take investigative journalism. It didn't take what, you know, Gareth Porter's

an investigative journalist, right? I didn't do any of that. I'm not investigative journalists. I didn't have to go out and find a scoop. You just have to read the document. And yes, it's a long document. And yes, it's just three little lines tucked in there. But this is really, really huge stuff to publicly admit in the official nuclear policy of the Biden administration that they don't even think Iran's developing nuclear bomb or even thinking about it. And you would think that would make it into the New York Times to the Washington Post. This is the official nuclear policy

the Biden administration that Iran is not working on a nuclear bomb. Right. Yeah, but the New York Times Charlie Savage's paper? I don't think so. So not only don't you tell them that, but the story that you do report is that we've given up on negotiating a nuclear, you know, agreement with Iran, and so we're preparing a military option. That's the part you tell them, that that Iran messed up on the negotiations, that Iran's the dangerous nuclear country, and that we need a military option to go to Iran, when the actual truth is, we don't even think they're working on it. But the papers report the other part. Of course. Right. It was easy to find that stuff in the paper. Yeah. All right. We've got to wrap this up, man. Thank you so much, Ted. I really appreciate

your time on the show and all your great work. Thanks so much, Scott. It was great talking to you. That's Ted Snyder. He's at Anti-War.com. U.S. admits Iran is not building a nuclear bomb, and you've got to read all of his great stuff there. Original.antiwar.com. The Scott Horton show, anti-war

radio, can be heard on KPFK 90.7 FM in L.A. APSRadio dot com, anti-war dot com, Scott Horton.org, and Libertarian Institute.