Dozens of retired US admirals and generals and a group of former Iranian political prisoners in the US have both come out in support of the Iran agreement recently. How will the neocons write this off? Will they ignore it?
Dozens of retired US admirals and generals and a group of former Iranian political prisoners in the US have both come out in support of the Iran agreement recently. How will the neocons write this off? Will they ignore it?
Dozens of retired US admirals and generals and a group of former Iranian political prisoners in the US have both come out in support of the Iran agreement recently. How will the neocons write this off? Will they ignore it?
Hello everybody and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With me today is Daniel McAdams.
Daniel, good to see you today.
Good to see you, Dr. Paul.
You know, there's a bit of an argument going on in the public about the Iran deal, obviously.
You know, what will Congress do?
Are they going to vote it up or down?
Will the president win this political thing or will the neocons win and get it stopped?
But there are two groups that have come out in favor of it, and they're interesting because I think they should have a significance, but you're probably not going to hear about it on the television because it supports our position in many ways that we should, you know, look at this cautiously, but lean toward trying to talk with the Iranians rather than only threatening them with more militarism.
But the first group are the former Iranian political prisoners under the Ayatollah.
And there's a large group of them, and they're now in the United States.
So they were never, they probably had to escape with their lives.
But surprisingly, this group, they're anti-Ayatollah, but they're pro-Iran.
And now they have come out a significant number.
And I want to read a short paragraph of their statement on this because they think that we should go with this and that there's no danger to them, there's no danger to their country, and they think it will be an improvement.
This is what their statement was.
We believe this agreement would reinforce peace and stability in the Middle East and the world.
It will help develop and foster a relationship between both the Iranian and the American people that will strongly benefit the interests of both nations.
Furthermore, such an agreement will help counter the spread of terrorism within the region and around the world.
And that's a pretty strong statement, and I happen to agree with this, but it seems like they'd have more credibility.
I would think more Americans would listen to this and get a better understanding about this.
You can't write them off as Iranian agents or people like this.
As you point out, they're people who were political prisoners and dissidents.
So I don't want to put words in their mouth, but it seems to me from the words you read, they recognize what you've said all along, which is an agreement and a deal and getting rid of sanctions and getting rid of threats is the best way for two countries to grow together, to trade, to get along.
And if there are changes that are going to be made, the influence certainly will come more from trade than from threats.
Let's say we were in their situation and we were dissidents and we had to escape with our lives.
But, you know, even though a lot of people, once they get out and get to this country, most of them like to stay because we're still a lot better off than some of these other countries.
But also there are people that if conditions were different, maybe they would move back.
You know, maybe there are opportunities.
Maybe they would like to travel back.
So from my viewpoint, what they're saying is they, from their viewpoint, would be better off in the relationship, you know, with their country, and they would like that.
And they also see this as a move toward peace in the Middle East.
Well, if you look at some of their credentials, obviously most of them are well-educated, very accomplished people.
They probably realize they would have a comparative advantage because knowing both systems, obviously knowing the language and things, it certainly would be beneficial for them in that way as well.
How do you think the Bill Crystals of the world would write a letter off like this?
Would you want to postulate on what you think they would say?
I think because of the way you framed it and because we recognize these are not people who support the regime in Iran, I think he would do his darndest to ignore it, pretend it doesn't exist, and not write about it at all.
Because they don't want to call attention to it.
Well, yeah, I think it's a powerful statement.
But there's another group that's very interesting that we in the past have called on when we want support for a non-interventionist position.
And it reminds me of what happened in the presidential campaign when they said that my position was terrible in the military.
I don't support the military.
And of course, I got more support from the military than anybody else.
The military aren't automatically for war.
They're for peace.
They don't want to deliberately cause a war, so they get in and have to do a lot of fighting and killing.
But there's now dozens of retired generals, admirals back the Iran nuclear deal.
So this is interesting, and I imagine there are a couple credible military personnel now saying, which they have in the past, even over the past decade, you've had military people take a different position.
But I doubt if you're going to see this on national television showing how the military are actually saying this is not going to endanger our national security.
Indeed, and we should say thanks to anti-war.com from where we got both of these documents.
They provided good service by finding these and putting them up.
The argument of the admirals and generals is from a more national security argument.
And I think they're trying to outflank the neocons by saying, in fact, this agreement will prevent them from getting a weapon.
I'm not sure that'll work.
I don't know that it will, but it's certainly from their perspective and their background in national security, they're saying our security would be better served from this agreement than by not having one.
Yeah, and there's one other argument which is sort of, I consider, you know, sort of a sick argument or a backup argument because they say, okay, we should go ahead and do this because we know it's going to be a failure.
And once we know it's a failure, we can get the world engaged in this big war that we're looking for.
You've heard that argument, of course.
Yeah, the neocons love that argument, you know, but I think you prefer probably the argument that some of our Institute board members, Flint and Hillary Leverett, make, which is the deal is good because opening up to Iran is good, recognizing that it's a regional powerhouse, that there's an enormous amount of trade that can go on that would be beneficial to both sides, and that it's just simply the right thing to do rather than couching it in these terms that they'll get a bomb or there'll be a war.
What I find troubling is some of the people arguing for the agreements say what the neocons say, which is without an agreement, there's going to be war.
But I honestly think that without an agreement, meaning if the U.S. backs out, if Obama doesn't get the votes and the U.S. backs out, do you really think the rest of the world is going to put sanctions back on again and go back down that line?
This to me is a good thing in that way.
And it's not a disaster if we back out afterwards, because I would think it would wake up more people.
Because right now, we're in the midst of a financial crisis internationally, you know, with the devaluation of the won, and that's sort of getting out of control.
It's being devalued more than expected.
It's playing havoc with the stock markets and all.
And this is just going to drive them further to the east.
So if we drop out and four other countries say, hey, I'm going east, I'm going to deal with the Iranians.
And Europeans, you know, money talks.
Some of these, the business people say, hey, maybe there is oil there, there's drilling to be done.
And who knows, maybe the financial interests, if the Iranians are smart enough, they'd open it up to development by the West and Russia.
And this, of course, would push away from the dollar and enhance the power of China and Russia.
So here, we're always arguing that we have to punish, punish, punish.
The Chinese are fixing their currencies and all this stuff.
But I think if we back out of this and the Congress votes this down, I would predict that the other countries, the five countries, would probably stick with it and go for it.
And maybe by that time, the American people will wake up and change their tune on this.
You know, it's funny, everyone loves calling you an isolationist, you're an isolationist, but the people who are fighting this deal are the real isolationists, don't you think?
Yeah, they are.
They're the ones who do it.
And the sanctions and the whole thing are.
But anyway, these are two interesting groups that are now supporting this position that we've been pushing for various reasons.
And the one group of dissidents that support this position, I think those individuals are just pro-Iranian, and that is the reason.
But what about the people who object to this, who are yelling and screaming that this is going to be war and we have to stop them and no options are off the table?
I think they're pro-empire.
So you have one group that looks for pro-Iranian relationships with the world, and there's an argument both by dissidents and the military that that is the road to achieve that policy.
Belief in Empire Status00:00:34
At the same time, those who object, I think really it's not subconscious.
I think they believe in the empire status.
I believe they want to control natural resources and it's a power struggle which has gone on for literally the time of all history.
But there's no reason in the world why we can't stop and think about true diplomacy.
And I say this is a small step, but the best step.
Otherwise, you take a huge step toward more militarism.
And that we don't need.
I want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report.