Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 3/17/23 Grant F. Smith on How the Saudi-Iran Peace Initiative Is Bad for Israel

Episode Date: March 22, 2023

Scott talks with Grant F. Smith about an article he recently wrote on the major blow the Saudis dealt Israel by reengaging with Iran. Scott and Smith assess the damage this has done to Israel’s plans for the region. They then discuss whether this major development makes a war against Iran more or less likely.  Discussed on the show: “Israel and its US lobby Dealt Major Blow by China Saudi Iran Peace Initiative” (Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy) How Israel Made AIPAC Podcast Grant F. Smith is the author of a number of books including Big Israel: How Israel’s Lobby Moves America, Divert!, and most recently The Israel Lobby Enters State Government: Rise of the Virginia Israel Advisory Board. He is director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy in Washington, D.C. This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott. 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: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjY 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 all right you guys guess what on the line i've got grant f smith and guess what else he wrote a piece and we published it at the libertarian institute that's libertarian institute

It's called Israel and its U.S. lobby dealt major blow by China-S.-Saudy-Iran Peace Initiative. And, of course, the ha-ha-ha-ha-ha is in brackets in your imagination at the end of the headline. But I'm sure you can read it in the tone of voice in which Grant wrote it. Welcome back to the show, Grant. Hey, Scott. Thanks for having me back again. Happy to have you here. So something went wrong for Israel, huh?

Yeah. I mean, they were really pushing hard. You had groups created by APEC in the region, in Riyadh, trying to negotiate some final what needs to happen before Saudi Arabia gets into an Abraham accord with the United States, which is really an Israeli project as far as we can tell. But, you know, they're supposed to get in, put their head into the yoke, just like UAE did, just like Morocco did. And then for the privilege of being in an Abraham Accord,

they could have sort of all of the power of the Israel lobby, helping them get the weapons they need, helping them do things in the region, but with the guidance of Israel. And they balked. I mean, they balked. And they left a lot of mainstream media like the New York Times wondering what the hell happened.

And you've also got the U.S. Institute for Peace, which is sort of now struggling and trying to explain that, oh, actually, this isn't too bad for the United States or Israel. This is actually a good thing. It'll mean the end of the war in Yemen, blah, blah, blah. But you just can't, absolutely can't underestimate the damage this is done to Israel's lobby in particular, which was all in with putting together a regional coalition against Iran and then to see the two reconciling

under China's guidance is just an incredibly big blow. Ha ha. Well, that's really great to hear and, you know, these Abraham Accords I can see why people think, oh, hey, peace deals. Peace is breaking out all over.

The Israelis getting along with Arabs and all that, it seems pretty good on the face of it, right? Yeah, I don't know. These are a different kind of peace deal than the kind that you favor Grant Smith was exactly. Yeah, to finally end this horrendous war between UAE and Israel, which that's a joke, there never was a war. What the Abraham Accords do is they trade U.S. credibility in the region, such as recognizing Western Sahara as belonging to Morocco for the small price. of having Morocco sign a diplomatic deal with Israel. Now, how does that benefit the U.S.? It doesn't. Makes us look like a bunch of land grabbers as well. And these things really have

nothing to do with the United States. The UAE's, you know, was UAE signs a deal. They get $23 billion worth of advanced jet fighters that a sale will go through in 2021 in exchange for they're signing a deal. These deals really don't do anything for the United States. And that's what made the Saudi pivot to peace with Iran and restoring diplomatic relations and restarting some programs that were on hold since 2001, such a slap in the face to this deal. They were basically also saying, yeah, maybe we don't want to keep buying boatloads of weapons. So what we're going to do is placate the Mickey Mac, as Ray McGovern would say, and buy $35 billion worth of Boeing passenger jets. We're not going to buy any more weapons just now.

And it's had this really incredible sort of effect on UAE, which shortly thereafter, because of the turmoil in Israel, canceled a major weapons purchase from the Israelis, which is another. other alleged benefit of these deals is that they get to buy, you know, weapons from Israel. And they just said no. And then the Saudis also said, oh, Israeli participation in a tourism confab in Saudi Arabia. No, we're not going to do that. So it represents a real sharp sort of turn away from what the Israel lobby has been working on through building these coalitions, getting everybody geared up for military action against

Iran. And, you know, the real interesting thing about these Abraham Accords was it was really about building this coalition that the Israel lobby here in the U.S. has been building through all of these sanctions resolutions against Iran to limit their ability to export oil and limit their ability to engage in the international finance system. But the lobby still has those tools. So obviously, countries that don't want to sign Abraham Accords could become subject to them as well.

And now you see major Democrats beginning to notice human rights violations in Saudi Arabia. Oh, yeah. Coincidentally, that's coming up just this week. Major concerns about Saudi Arabia and human rights. You know, about as predictable as. you could imagine something people who pay attention, you know, know that that's where that can come from, you know, country doesn't cooperate. Oh, suddenly we got to look at their human rights record. Yeah, seriously. In fact, it was a cliche last year when India said, yeah, we're not going to

go in on the sanctions, you know, regime against Russia. We're staying out of this thing. And then like the next day or two days later, the State Department said, oh, yeah, human rights abuses in India. And on the Twitters, people were just laughing about it. Like, are you kidding me? Where you think we can't see right through you? What's going on here? Those are some of the best memes. Some of the best memes were, oh, we better take a look at their human rights record. Well, in this case, Democrat Chris Murphy and Republican Mike Lee are introducing a resolution linked to the Foreign Assistance Act of all things that lets them, start looking into, you know, a country's foreign, or their human rights practices. You know,

we don't give any foreign aid to Saudi Arabia. So it's kind of a joke. And guess who we do give it to mostly? That would be Israel. Guess who never gets any sort of investigation of human rights in association with the $38 billion package, minimum they're getting? Same country. No interest in investigating their human rights disaster. Yeah. I saw one too that said, oh, look, I found some lithium in Zimbabwe. So prepare for, you know, in the next few months, you'll be seeing a whole campaign against did you realize that they don't have a limited constitutional republic with a perfect bill of rights and free market capitalism like we have here in America over there in Zimbabwe?

We've got to liberate those poor people. Yeah. Well, I think, you know, it's really interesting. The Saudis are obviously seeing China as sort of a economic and trade. building entity that doesn't carry a lot of baggage in terms of trying to force these countries into any sort of agreement to, you know, open themselves up to meddling. And so there are a much better, much better option for them. And of course, it creates through the Petro-Uan and these ideas about trading oil in the Chinese currency rather than dollars.

You know, that creates a major problem for the United States, obviously. They really count on Saudi trading all of its oil and dollars. So, but they're seeing China is a force that needs a lot of the oil. I think they're taking 40% of the oil that's coming out of the Gulf, including from Iran. And they want to be able to transact that in the yuan and be able to sell back products, heavy machinery, et cetera, in their own currency. And I think, you know, we haven't seen a. reaction yet. But all of these developments, in addition to undermining the Israel

lobby's 10-year program to put together a coalition to attack Iran, you know, I think there are going to be some major moves both in the region and Congress and the White House and in the media, you're going to start seeing why this is not a good thing. And of course, the Israel angle is never going to come up. You're going to have to keep reading iramup.com for that. But this is a major development, and it didn't receive anywhere near the Israel Lobby angle that it merited. Yeah. Hey, guys, check out my new sponsor. It's Peacehawk Coffee at Peacehawk. Coffee. First of all, business, you have to drink coffee in the morning, and you want it to taste good. Well, Peacehawk coffee is the best from around the world. But then, just as

important, Peacehawk coffee donates at least a dollar of every pound sold to worthy foreign aid organizations like Yemen Relief and Reconstruction Foundation. When you buy Peacehawk Coffee, you're not only buying great coffee. You have a chance to support the economies of countries struggling against the effects of war and support private aid foundations doing life-saving work abroad. Sign up for their email list and get yourself some great coffee at peacehawk.coffee. Hey, I'll Scott Horton here for the Libertarian Institute at Libertarian Institute.org. I'm the director. Then we've got Sheldon Richmond, Kyle Anzloan, Keith Knight, Lori Calhoun, Jim Bovard, Connor Freeman,

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We libertarians don't have the power, but we do have enough influence to try to lead the left and the right to make things right. Join us at libertarian institute.org. What did your ancestors really do all day? Beyond names, what were their lives like? With Ancestry's global historical records, you can discover incredible stories about how your ancestors live,

and worked. And for a limited time, you can explore select occupation records for free. Imagine finding your great-grandfather's R-CMP records or discovering your ancestors' name in the UK and Ireland Nursing Register. Don't miss out. Free access ends August 24th. Visit Ancestry.ca for more details. Terms apply. Well, look, I mean, my basic view is that Israel doesn't want to attack Iran. They want to leave Iran as their enemy forever. Although if they attacked them, it's not like anybody thinks that we're going to win a real regime change war and complete, you know, the overthrow of the government and replacing and all that. So they would still have an enemy. They'd set their nuclear program back a little bit, maybe, but then probably just spur it that much further forward, like what happened when they bombed Osirak in Iraq in 1981, and it just drove their program underground.

And they weren't really close to a nuclear weapon, but they were trying for one. by the time of the Iraq war in the first Iraq war in 91. Yeah. But so with, in other words, it looks like, well, I don't know, to whatever degree there really was a threat that Israel was going to bomb. I mean, I don't think tensions are as high as they were in, say, 2012 was the last time it looked like they really might, I think. But they would definitely have to have the Saudis.

at least the UAE, if not Bahrain and Qatar, you know, I'm sure Bahrain too, on board. They're like, hey, we're going to attack them. You guys better to be ready because. Yeah, well, you know. Right. So without Saudi, their whole plan is basically set way, way back now. But then so that leads to the question of what do we do next, et cetera. Yeah, I think they do actually want to attack the nuclear sites.

I think Netanyahu would feel really bolstered politically by having, you know, again, a major raid on a site. He's got approval to buy KC46A tankers to refuel all of his American-made planes to be able to get over there. They need overflight rights. And so I do think that they would love to stage an attack on all of the Iranian nuclear infrastructure, instead of just picking off scientists with sticky bombs on top of their sedans and guys on motorcycles, mowing them down. Because, you know, as you say, they don't want, obviously, a shooting war that they have to lead. They want to keep the tension high. And so this is just a disaster for the Israelis because it takes all of these pieces off the chessboard, especially if UAE

said, you know what, you know, we don't like what you're doing in Oman. We don't like what you're doing with some of these other smaller states, we don't want to be a part of this anymore. If they were to pull out of their Abraham Accord and just cancel it, it really wouldn't harm them to any significant way, but it would take them out of this coalition that was really, you know, uparming to be able to at least allow overflights and at least be able to ignore, you know, carnage against Iran. So I think, you know, to your point, they do want to keep it simmering. They want to be able to push back. And the fact that you've kind of got this reversal with, you know, again, the Saudis putting absolutely terms on the table for an Abraham Accord that they know are

not going to be accepted. They said basically, okay, we want a civilian nuclear program. Well, that's a non-starter for the Israelis because they know from their own experience. that you can build a nuclear weapons program with atoms for peace infrastructure in short order. And in fact, they did. The Pentagon's own report shows that they did that. So I think they're out. And I think this is a major, major blow to the Israeli plan for continued low-intensity conflict on Iran. See, I don't know because I'm a paranoid type.

So then I spend it around the other way, too, that actually I spent all this time talking about, man, one of the reasons that you can't have a war with Iran is because all of those economic targets, I mean, obviously military targets, too, and that hasn't changed. We still got our air base in Qatar and our Navy base in Bahrain and all different bases still in Saudi. But I would always add, too, all those economic targets all up and down the Gulf, too, that are essentially all hostage, just as our troops in Kuwait. And still we have some in Iraq. It used to be, you you know, tens of thousands in Afghanistan as well, all hostage to Iran in a way. Thank goodness.

We have so many military bases so close to them. It means we can't hit them without absolutely getting hit back. They have enough medium-range missiles or short-range missiles to hit across that Gulf. But now we've got to delete the part about, yeah, and all those economic targets in Saudi Arabia, because Saudi and Iran already have a deal called, hey, we're not helping America attack you. Right. We're staying out of that. And now the Americans can be assured that the Saudis targets are not up for reprisals. That might actually make it easier for them to attack.

What do you think? Sorry, it took so long for me to get through that. No, that's okay. You didn't mention the hypersonic missiles, though, that really make aircraft carriers almost a relic of the past that can't be deployed. But, yeah, all of their major... I don't know if Iran has any hypersonics. oh yes they do oh yeah

they're developing them and they'll have them very soon but there have been some tests Iran in 2022 had some hypersonic missiles that appeared to be working oh yeah yeah I know man I gotta start reading

antiwar dot com every day yeah you do and it definitely you know all of those Gulf petroleum refineries and reservoirs are absolutely at risk. It makes no sense for Saudi Arabia to be in an Israeli-led coalition against Iran when they have so much that's vulnerable. And they also have their own plans. I mean, they have five-year economic plans that don't really call for any more war,

that don't really call for stuffing their, you know, air strips and other bases with U.S. purchased weapons. I don't think they're going to be sitting down again with any future president bragging about how many weapons are being stuffed into their economy. The ability to say, look, we really are, we're building our regional airline. We're pivoting away from major weapons purchases is obviously a huge blow to Boeing and Raytheon and the rest of the military producers, but it really shows that they're serious. They really don't want to be uparming for this conflict. And, you know, so even, even some of the Pentagon briefing said that, and I don't know how much they mean it, but that they actually looked at this as a positive development.

The U.S. has been delaying the delivery of the refueling tankers to the Israelis, even though they, quote unquote, bought them with the free aid we give them, because I don't think they want to see that happen. They don't want to be dragged into a war with Iran. But, you know, we're going to continue to get this media blast of, as we have for the past three decades, that the Iranians are on the brink of going nuclear. And it's just, we've got to do something about it. But it's getting so old. And, you know, as you see Israel just spinning out of control into near civil war, I think

this move is extremely adroit. Yeah, I mean, I like the part about how they decided they would announce up front they're going to buy all these Boeing airlines. So Lockheed and Raytheon, like you guys pound sand. But Boeing, we got your back, guys. You know, don't turn on us yet. So I wonder about that military industrial complex weekend at the Bohemian Grove. Do they all have a big fist fight about this or how exactly that work?

You know, they always come to terms, though, when the U.S. offered nuclear submarines to Australia really completely surprising and cutting the U.K. out of the deal. They ultimately came back, and now they're throwing them a bone over that so that they don't feel too bad about that deal. They get in on this contract. You guys provide the rivets. Everyone's going to get a taste. You know, all of these military industrial contractors,

they're, of course, spread into every state, and they're all going to get a taste. But I think they might have picked Boeing again, because it does make passenger jet airliners. I'm not sure Raytheon makes anything of any use except for killing people. Same for Lockheed too. Yeah. So I think I think they picked, you know, that was obviously going on for a while, but it really undermines, you know, even these senators suddenly finding human rights violations in the kingdom. You know, it undermines their position because their states are going to be saying, you know, we really need these.

jobs. Yeah, hopefully at least in Washington State, they'll mellow out a little bit. Who's the senator from there these days? The senator from Boeing these days. Yeah, every senator from Washington state's the senator from Boeing. So that'd be a good way to take the temperature of, you know, what effect that's having when they remark upon these policies. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell. So Patty Murray. Is she the insane woman who said that they were saying off of head or what was the ridiculous claim the other day? Yeah, I think so. So, you know. Yeah. Oh, there are bad people there. Um, listen, before we go, which we have to do, uh, would you please tell people about your brand new book, how Israel made A-PAC and what they can do

to get their hands on it, Grant F. Smith? Well, first of all, you need to have $200 to be able to even look at a single page, which is, I know that's extremely expensive, but we're going to be an very soon a way to get the book for a lot less than that. But it's basically the culmination of all of our knowledge about how APEC came into existence. And if you just can't wait and you don't have any money in your pocket, just Google how Israel made APEC and you can listen to an entire audiobook for free in the form of a podcast from all of the major platforms. So it's an incredible book. You know, it's really got all of our best stuff on how APEC came into existence, including something that nobody knows about, that Israel, the government and its cut

out, the Jewish agency spent $60 million setting up a lobby for Israel in the United States. And you're pretty much not allowed to know that or discuss it, but hell, it's in the Senate records. So check it out, how Israel made A-PAC, and be on the lookout for a way to get that book for a lot less than $200 very soon. That's great. Okay, listen, man, thank you very much for your time on the show. Grant, you do great work, and I got the book right here. I can't wait to read it. Thanks, Grant. Have a good one, man. Hey, thanks. The Scott Horton Show, Anti-War Radio, can be heard on KPFK, 90.7 FM in L.A.

APSRadio.com, anti-war.com, ScottHorton.org, and Libertarian Institute.org.