Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 3/24/23 Trita Parsi: America Is Not the Peacemaker in the Middle East

Episode Date: March 26, 2023

Scott talks with Trita Parsi about an op-ed he wrote in the New York Times on the Saudi-Iranian agreement to reestablish diplomatic ties. Although the agreement does not mark an end to the rivalry between the two governments, it did establish a way to manage that rivalry with words. Also, the talks were brokered by the Chinese government. Parsi explains why this is a big deal. They also talk about the news that the Saudis agreed to resume ties with Syria in talks brokered by Russia.  Discussed on the show: “The U.S. Is Not an Indispensable Peacemaker” (New York Times) “Saudi Arabia, Syria Close to Resuming Ties in Russia-Brokered Talks” (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: 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 dot com slash scott horton's show hey guys on the line i've got trita parcy from the quincy institute and they let him write one in the new york times i didn't like that the u.s is not an indispensable peacemaker ah sad welcome

back to the show trita how are you good good good to be back uh very happy to have you here and uh the occasion of course is the peace deal did you ever think that you and me were going to have this conversation anytime and a reasonable term you know medium future kind of thing here the new peace deal between saudi arabia and iran brokered by china over america's helmet and very much against their wishes so tell me what's it mean? It's a significant development because at the end of the day, certainly Iran-Saudi relations have gone up and down. So a normalization deal there is not in and of itself necessarily a shocker. But the fact that it was mediated by the Chinese is a significant change because the Chinese have

traditionally try to stay out of all of these things. They're not just staying out of the war business. they're staying out of the peace business as well. Because once you start mediating in these things, you kind of get entangled in a way that could be problematic and they wanted to avoid that. But now they decided to really raise their profile as a stabilizer in the world. That's how they want to be perceived.

That's how they're branding themselves. And they were successful. And I know that in Washington, there has been a bit of an effort to try to downplay the Chinese role and say, well, look, you know, these two countries were on the cost of, of doing it anyways, the Chinese kind of came in the last minute and just put their signature

on it. I don't think that's true. It's absolutely true that the Iraqis and the Amanis did a lot of the groundwork of bringing Iran and Saudi Arabia closer together, but they couldn't move it beyond the goal line. You had the Chinese coming in and doing that, getting this over the goal line, and they did so to a large extent because they ended up becoming the guarantors of the agreement. They're actually a signatory to the agreement. meaning that both the Chinese, the Saudis and the Iranians, feel more comfortable that the other side is not going to cheat, because if they cheat, they will tick off the Chinese. And that seems to have been a key reason as to why they finally managed to make this deal,

despite the fact that others had tried, others had been, you know, very helpful in moving it along, but not managing to get it across the goal line. That's interesting. I didn't realize that. So, and then, but what does that mean? they promise to enforce it by what mechanism? Well, they're promising to make sure that they stop interfering in each other's internal affairs. In the Iranian case, that means that they're going to see some of the support that they're

providing to the Houthis. And the Saudis are going to try to truly end that war now that they themselves started and have been an absolute disaster. The Saudis are going to stop some of the programming of Yvonne International, which has become a very widely seen satellite TV station in Yvonne, which truly in my view has, it is not a news channel. It's much more of a propaganda channel and has been trying to fuel tensions inside the country. And I know some people appreciate what they're doing because of the recent protests,

but if you scratch the surface, you will see that the agenda seems to be a much, much more maligned one because they've really been trying to promote separatism, promote ethnic strife inside the country, thing that actually would not bring about regime change, certainly not bring about democratization, but would bring about chaos and the disintegration of the country as a whole. If either one of these don't live up to that agreement, then they will be seen as being at fault

for the tensions that exist between the two of them in the eyes of the Chinese, and neither one of them can afford that. because of the importance that China plays in both of their economies. Hey, by the way, when you say things like that, people on Twitter say things like Treata Parsi is loyal to the Ayatollah and on his payroll. And I know that's stupid, but I'd like to give you a chance to answer that because people do say it about you all the time and you, you know, should probably have your point of view

out there, you know, your response to at least occasionally, you know. not necessarily to dignify it, but you know what I mean? I don't know. It's important. It's ridiculous. It's unfortunately typical of the state of the debate right now. People cannot actually debate the arguments. They come with all kinds of crazy accusations.

It was funny when I wrote the piece in New York Times about how the U.S. has lost the ability or the willingness to play an impartial broker role, the very same person who oftentimes fuels those false accusations against me from Foundation for Defense of Democracy is tweeted that now Trita is working for the Chinese CCP as well. And it's like, you know, it would be nice if you at one point just try to see if you can engage in a real conversation about these issues instead of immediately going to ad hominem attacks and lies and defamation. It just shows them the weakness of the other side. In my view, if there's anyone who's actually helped the Ayatollahs in Washington, D.C.

It's the very same people who are making these accusations because they oftentimes tend to be the very same neocons who invaded Iraq and invaded Afghanistan and actually significantly helped strengthen the reign of the Ayatollahs in Iran. Iran rose to a very large extent because of these massive American mistakes. I was dead set against those things, and these people were in favor of it. So who's actually helping the Ayatollahs? Got that right.

That's for sure. And listen, I think it's great. in fact that he would go, oh yeah, now you're working for Beijing, because it just goes to show how hollow the previous argument was. You know, they say this kind of thing about you so much that it sounds like, geez, I don't know, maybe there is some kind of history there or something. Maybe there is some substance to it. But then when they turn around and go, oh, you said a thing that I don't like on another subject. So now you're a foreign agent of that capital, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's just completely stupid. Get the hell out of here.

So I'm sorry for wasting your time with that. But then again, people say it about you often enough that I thought that, you know what, from time to time, you should process it. It's an organized campaign. It's not an organic thing. It's an organized campaign to try to de-platform voices that are against war, against sanctioning populations to death, against, you know, spreading American military dominance and, you know, first options you're always to see where can we bomb. Those voices are faced with these types of attacks, unfortunately, not the only ones, but it's systemic, it's organized, it's not organic, because if it was organic, we would not see public opinion polls in the United States over and over and over again show that the American public is very much

leaning towards less military interventions, more diplomacy, more of a peaceful engagement in the world rather than leading with the military. Yeah, absolutely. All right, so now let's talk more about this agreement. You brought up Yemen there, and is Yemen specifically mentioned in the agreement or we could just see that the Saudis are getting even more serious now about finally putting an end to this thing? So, no, I do think the Saudis for a period of time now have tried to get out of the war, but they want to get out of the war essentially as some form of not a winner, but at least they want to save some face, which is very difficult to do, mindful, how disastrous their war has been, not only for themselves, of course, but also overwhelmingly

for the Yemeni population. So I think one way of understanding is that the Iranians show that they could really hurt the Saudis through the war in Yemen and the support they have provided to the Houthis. But then the Saudis really also showed that they can really hurt the Iranians in the manner in which Iran International can fuel ethnic strife and separatism inside a country. So they both kind of realize that, look, this is a lose-lose proposition. We need to get out of this. MBS seems to want to focus on his 2030 plan and compete with UA.E as being an economic and innovation hub in the region.

He can't do that if he's going to have this conflict with Iran, which also incidentally makes Abraham Accord not particularly attractive to him, because it's very clear now the Abraham Accord, truly at the core of it, was to create an anti-Iran coalition. Why would the Saudis and the Emirates enter into that type of an anti-Iran coalition when they are geographically closer to Iran, meaning that they would be on the front line of such an anti-Iran coalition, even though they actually have an easier time resolving their tensions with Iran than Israel does? This is really beneficial to Israelis, but rather strategically foolish for the Saudis and the Emirates to do, particularly if the Saudis and the minorities are under the impression conviction that the U.S. nevertheless, is withdrawing from the region. It is less and less interested in the region. It is not going to fight for the region. It would be such a foolish measurement measured by them because they would essentially just

put themselves on the front line of a new anti-Iran coalition in which they, They actually have the least amount of reasons to even be part of such a coalition. It's a different thing if you're sitting in Israel and which truly the prospects of finding some sort of accommodation with Iran is much, much more difficult. I think the Saudis have wanted to get out of this. It's about finding a way of doing so without losing face and finding some sort of mechanisms that make sure that you feel comfortable that you're not going to get screwed over. And that's what the Chinese, I think, played a very important role, a role that we could

not have to play when we frankly have not even desired to play. Yeah. Now, I thought of this, though, you know, one of the reasons that we can't have a war with Iran all this time is because all of those economic targets in Saudi Arabia, not just our bases in Qatar and Bahrain and in Kuwait and especially, you know, in Iraq still used to be, you know, many thousands of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, all this kind of hostage. You know, they say, oh, why do Iran put their country so close to all our military bases. Well, it's actually, all those trip wires actually seem to kind of prevent war in a way. But so I got the idea that possibly this peace deal makes it easier for Israel the start of war, because now they can be sure the Americans can be,

you know, more satisfied that Iran isn't going to retaliate against Saudi Arabia because they really don't have a dog in the fight when that would have been one of the real concerns before. So is that stupid? I think you're absolutely right. I think this is a measure in which the Saudis feel like, okay, they are now pushing themselves out of the line of fire if there is a conflict. And I think the Saudis have lost confidence in the American strategy of managing this conflict. On the one hand, we're not going for the JCPOA. We say it's not a priority. On the other hand, we see all of these military exercises with the Israelis. We see that the Israeli, the U.S. ambassador to Israel is saying that we're going to back Israel if it does something militarily.

And the Saudis feel like, well, hold on, they're going to be in the line of fire. They don't think the United States is going to be able to manage this. Then Biden administration does not seem to have the guts to say the Israelis, no, don't start a war. It's not going to be helpful to you to us or to anyone. So it makes some sense for them to be like, okay, this is too volatile. We don't feel confident in the management of this and the way that the Biden administration is handling. So they're pulling themselves out. But from the U.S. perspective, particularly since in the last year or so, I don't think there's been much of a desire on the U.S. side to see a U.S. Iran-S. normalization because we are going in the direction of a new variation of Trump's

maximum pressure strategy. And now the Saudis are saying they're not going to be part of that. in stock, you're even hinting that they're going to be investing in Yvonne, meaning that they're going to be ignoring U.S. actions. Yeah. Hey, guys, Scott here for Leo Hamill find jewelers out of San Diego at jewelry store sd.com. They do business nationwide. They sell jewelry and watches, specializing in engagement rings, you know, in case you're in love with somebody.

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Go to JewelrystoreSD.com to check out their fine selection and to find out more. Hey, y'all, you should sign up for my substack. It's Scott Horton's show.substack.com, and if you do that, you'll get the interviews a day before everybody else, but not only that, they'll be free of commercials. How do you like that? Pretty good, huh? Scotthortonshow.substack.com. Hey, y'all, libertosbella.com is where you get Scott Horton 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.

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Order yours on the Tim's app today at participating restaurants in Canada for a limited time. And by the way, I'm sorry I spaced out, and I didn't get a chance to say earlier, that every time these people accuse you with this, I scratch them. And it turns out that they support the return of the Pahlavi family to power over there. Or they support the Mujahideenie cult, communist terrorist cult, that still worships the guy that died 25 years ago and his idiot wife with their, you know, matching Nikes and purple scarves. So, yeah, these are the people calling you a traitor. So, man, I'm sorry I didn't say that. Maybe I'll cut and paste that earlier in the conversation. Nah.

But Trita, here's the other thing. We're talking about the Middle East and, yeah, Israel, Israel, Israel, but also oil, oil, oil. And there was a point during Donald Trump when he said, listen, man, why are we spending all this money to secure these oil resources? When China's the one buying all the oil from the Middle East, we export oil. And we got, you know, there's Venezuela and the North Sea and all of these things. we don't even need the Middle East. We import, I don't know what the recent number is. The last one I heard was 7%. But that was a long time ago. But there's a very small amount of our energy resources come from Saudi in that whole region. And now I do know that we get to lord it over our allies, quote unquote, our vassal states in Japan and Korea. But it seems like, you know, as Dick Cheney would have said, this is an important choke point. He said that on September 11, 1990, we have to go to war over there because this is an important choke point. And they want to be able to cut off China in the event of, see, this whole Middle East war as part of the Cold War against Russian China always was.

But anyway. But certainly it's, I think the perspective now is that as part of a competition with China, it will play out in the Middle East. And as a result, you know, it will bring it back into focus in a way that perhaps the administration at first did not want to. I'm not one of those who think that, you know, a Cold War with China is inevitable or even desirable. But I think it is worth noting that we are subsidizing Chinese oil imports from the Middle East because of all the troops that we're stationing there and, you know, securing the oil lines and all of this stuff, the ship lines. And, you know, they're significantly benefiting from it. So I do think one of the things we clearly have seen over and over again, more and more evidence for, which is that contrary to what we have been told, which is that if we're not dominating militarily, if we're not securing these regions by having our military hegemony there, these regions will dissent into chaos.

Well, in reality, once we start to pull back, guess what happened? Other states started to pull forward and take responsibility for security and engaging in diplomacy. And who had expected the Chinese to suddenly step up and play a diplomatic game? Well, now they are. And you know what? The outcome is actually good for us because it's good for us that the Iranians and the Saudis are not destabilizing the region by fighting each other. It's good for us as well. Now, if they want to pay the cost for that and shoulder the weight of that, all the better

for us. We don't have to be everywhere all the time, particularly when it's proven, quite, unfortunately, that we're not that good at it. Because instead of coming in as neutral players and trying to actually mediate a peace, we immediately take sides. We immediately try to make sure that the outcome is beneficial to us, meaning the outcome of a conflict, rather than trying to see the benefit of actually stabilizing the region. So if the Chinese are doing that part better than us, I don't think we should be worried about it. What I wrote in the New York Times is that what we should worry about is that if all our paths to war ends up going. to Washington, meaning that if you want to go to war, Washington is the place that you go to

to seek support. And we end up becoming that power, the power that is constantly exporting military conflicts rather than the power that can actually play a stabilizing role in bringing about peace. And, you know, there's just such a lack of self-awareness. It's just incredible to hear these people talk. You know, Anthony Blinken gave a 10-minute statement about, man, if Russia and China broker a ceasefire in Ukraine, damn it, we will not stand for that. And what? Really? The whole world's watching you, man.

And that's the side of we're definitely right. And we do not need to stop and think about this a second time at all. I'm going to complain when the Chinese come in and broker a deal. I mean, I was just talking with Ted Snyder about this. And you and I've talked about this for a long time. I've always been the worst pessimist thinking that. essentially the very cold war between Riyadh and Tehran

was going to last forever and you know for the rest of our lifetimes that we'd see essentially Iraq as the battlefield between these two giant powers fighting because George Bush gave the Shiites Baghdad so Saudi's going to flink suicide bombers at it forever and ever and then now it seems like maybe not maybe they figured out just like they figured out

you know what the Houthis rules are not you know the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran, I don't think, has come to an end. And certainly the enmity is still there. But what we have, thanks to this agreement, is a way to manage it. And if they manage it well, perhaps it will even bring about a thought, a warm-up in relations and something even more positive. So, you know, we should be careful. This is not, you know, this is not a peace agreement in that sense. But the management of that conflict is extremely important. In that sense, it is a very, very important and valuable step in the right direction.

And he also shows that, you know, when we least expect it, there can be some flexibility. And at one point, again, I'm repeating myself, the one little nugget that we have kind of lifted up to some sort of article of faith, which is that if we're not there dominating, everything will turn into chaos. It's just simply not true. It could end up being a chaotic situation, but it could also be that other states take the responsibility of stepping forward and showing their ability to be able to stabilize the reason. We are not uniquely the only ones that can do so. In fact, we're not that great at it

as of late. Yeah, seriously, I mean, even the dual containment policy of Bill Clinton that was supposedly, you know, holding down both Iraq and Iran from Saudi, that's what got our towers knocked down and kicked off the last generation of total chaos. Now there's been like two million people killed. And as I was mentioned there, the massive shift in power in the capital city in Iraq, which led to all these other consequences in Syria and in Yemen and leading up to this point. So, yeah, to say we're not that good at it, boy, oh boy, are you being polite? You know, and the Americans see the Joe Biden government and all the Republicans and the Democrats and the Congress and on TV, they all agree that, yeah, yeah, that was a long time ago. And

And who even understood what was going on? It was America versus the bad guys, and then we lost or something. I don't know. But they never said who was Sunni and Shia and who's taken over cleansing which neighborhood or why it mattered or any of those things. And so, you know, they don't have to refer back to it. But they want to project their own blissful ignorance onto the rest of the world. Like you guys have all forgotten that too, right? Of course everyone accepts America as Superman come to help them through our benevolence and self-ful.

When the other people in the world, they're looking around going, are you kidding me? Like, you're the guys who did all these things. I won't do the list because everybody knows. And, you know, it was really fascinating the news I broke yesterday that apparently, forget about the Chinese doing this thing between the Saudis and the Iranians. But now, apparently, Russia is on the cusp of mediating a successful normalization between Saudi Arabia and Syria. Oh, really? I didn't hear that. Where do I read that right now?

in the Wall Street Journal. And the Russians are doing this in the midst of their own war in Ukraine. I mean, it's quite stunning. And by the way, that means, you don't know if it's going to be successful yet. Yeah, the background there, everybody, is the Saudi backed a bunch of suicide bombers against Syria for years with the help of Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu and Rysip Erdogan and other friends. So that's a hell of a climb down. And from the U.S. perspective, the position has been that we don't want to see. normalization with Assad. And I don't think there's any doubts of all the crimes that Assad has

committed, but he's still there. And the rest of the world does not appear to be waiting for some sort of immoralizing position of who's right and whose side history was on, et cetera. Life goes on for better or for worse. And pragmatic people have to adjust to that. And that's what we're seeing happening. Again, I think There can be a very compelling moral case made against Assad. There's no doubt about that. And what Russia is doing in Ukraine is no moral defense of that either. But nevertheless, if we want to pretend that we live in some sort of world in which, you know, it's good versus evil, then we will always be at conflict.

And the rest of the world likes to get a respite from conflict and even make peace with horrible people and horrible regimes. because at the end of the day, that's what's better for their people. Yeah. Oh, man, this must be on anti-war.com this morning, and I just didn't see it. Saudi Arabia, Syria, close to resuming ties in Russia-brokered talks there in the journal. I mean, sorry about all those suicide bombers. We're cool, right? Hey, listen, as you said, hey, life goes on. What are you going to do? Keep fighting? And after all, the Saudis kind of called off their waves of suicide bombers quite a few years ago. They switched to Yemen instead.

But so great. I mean, that's really great. And, you know, your overall point in the New York Times, and as you've been saying for so long and including on this show, that, see, we don't have to do this. The world keeps turning. We don't have to have our hands in every little thing. And I guess, because you live in D.C. It really, it seems strange to me, but they really do believe that they have to do all this stuff and that they're in the right, no matter what, right? Yeah, and I personally don't believe that necessarily some of the deep, deep thinkers. behind this think that this is actually about preventing chaos.

I think it goes rather to the idea that we want to be in control. It's not that this Chinese deal is a bad one for us because the outcome. It's because we want to be in control of these things. We feel more comfortable and safe if we're controlling almost everything that happens far, far away from us. The issue is we never had that control in the first place. It was an illusion. and pursuing it was damaging our own interests.

Giving up that illusion is a good thing. Adjusting to reality is a good thing. Absolutely. All right, you guys, that is Trita Parsi. And, of course, he helps run the Quincy Institute. And somewhere in my tabs is this piece in the New York Times. The U.S. is not an indispensable peacemaker. Read it and weep, elites.

Thanks, Trita. Thank you so much for having. 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.