Antiwar Radio with Scott Horton » Israel

Muhammad Sahimi

Scott Horton — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 06:03:28 +0000

Muhammad Sahimi, Professor of Chemical Engineering and political columnist on Iran issues, discusses the latest anti-Iran talking point from World Net Daily and serial propagandist Reza Kahlili (“Ayatollah: Kill all Jews, annihilate Israel“); what Alireza Forghani, the blogger in question, really said about Israel and preemptive strikes; and why many Americans want to believe every anti-Muslim propaganda piece they see.

MP3 here. (20:48)

Muhammad Sahimi, Professor of chemical engineering & materials science and the National Iranian Oil Company chair in petroleum engineering at the University of Southern California, has published extensively on Iran’s political development and its nuclear program. He is the lead political columnist for the web site PBS/Frontline/Tehran Bureau, blogs at The Huffington Post, and contributes regularly to antiwar.com and National Public Radio on issues related to Iran.

Flynt Leverett

Scott Horton — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 06:05:17 +0000

Flynt Leverett, former Senior Director for Middle East Affairs at the National Security Council, discusses his article “Hype or Reality: Will Israel Attack Iran Before the U.S. Presidential Election;” Israel’s inability to cripple Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities without putting boots on the ground; why the US may not join the fight if Iran’s response is limited and doesn’t result in American casualties; how Obama’s “feckless” style of leadership is failing to dissuade Bibi Netanyahu from attacking Iran; indications that Mossad accepts the 2007 Iran NIE’s conclusions, and isn’t eager to start a war; Israel’s policy choices in response to the Arab Spring; and the lost opportunity in 2003 to engage Iran in talks, which could have converted Hamas and Hezbollah into demilitarized political organizations.

MP3 here. (29:55)

Flynt Leverett runs The Race For Iran blog and teaches at Pennsylvania State University’s School of International Affairs. Additionally, he directs the Iran Project at the New America Foundation, where he is a Senior Research Fellow.

Dr. Leverett is a leading authority on the Middle East and Persian Gulf, U.S. foreign policy, and global energy affairs. From 1992 to 2003, he had a distinguished career in the U.S. government, serving as Senior Director for Middle East Affairs at the National Security Council, on the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff, and as a CIA Senior Analyst. He left the George W. Bush Administration and government service in 2003 because of disagreements about Middle East policy and the conduct of the war on terror.

Dr. Leverett’s 2006 monograph, Dealing With Tehran: Assessing U.S. Diplomatic Options Toward Iran, presented the seminal argument for a U.S.-Iranian “grand bargain”, an idea that he has developed in multiple articles and Op Eds in The New York Times, The National Interest, POLITICO, Salon, Washington Monthly, and the New America Foundation’s “Big Ideas for a New America” series.

Gareth Porter

Scott Horton — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 05:26:59 +0000

Gareth Porter, investigative historian and journalist specializing in U.S. national security policy, discusses Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey’s warning to Israel’s government that the US would not be dragged into war with Iran by a unilateral Israeli attack; why Iran might hold the US accountable for an Israeli strike anyway, and counterattack US targets in the region; Mossad’s general agreement with the US National Intelligence Estimate on Iran (that there is no evidence Iran has decided to pursue a nuclear weapons program); and why Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak seems to think Israel isn’t ready for military action.

MP3 here. (19:50)

Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specializing in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, was published in 2006.

Philip Giraldi

Scott Horton — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 05:35:32 +0000

Former CIA officer Philip Giraldi discusses his article ”What War With Iran Might Look Like;” the many layers of obfuscation (like peeling an onion) in the Jundallah/CIA/Mossad frame-up; President Bush’s “absolutely ballistic” response to Israeli operatives, posing as CIA officers, recruiting Jundullah agents to commit terrorist acts in Iran; and why the Obama administration is powerless to stop Israel from starting a war with Iran (and dragging the US along with it).

MP3 here. (19:40)

Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is a contributing editor to The American Conservative and executive director of the Council for the National Interest. He writes regularly for Antiwar.com.

Gareth Porter

Scott Horton — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:52:05 +0000

Gareth Porter, independent historian and journalist for IPS News, discusses the Israeli Mossad’s false flag operation that made the CIA appear responsible for terrorist attacks inside Iran; using Jundullah to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists to provoke a military response – not set back their nuclear program; how terrorist attacks marginalize Iranian political moderates and make diplomatic negotiations with the US impossible; and the predictable nationalistic “blowback” response of Iranian students, who are defiantly switching majors to nuclear science.

MP3 here. (19:58)

Gareth Porter is an independent historian and journalist. He is the author of Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam. His articles appear on Counterpunch, Huffington Post, Inter Press Service News Agency and Antiwar.com.

Mark Sheffield

Scott Horton — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 21:22:30 +0000

Mark Sheffield of the Policy on Point blog discusses his article “Skip the Turban, Check the Brain: It’s Called the Persian Gulf for a Reason;” why the Persian Gulf qualifies as US-occupied territory; the mainstream media’s spin on Iran’s naval war games and their bluff and bluster about closing the Strait of Hormuz; Iran’s asymmetrical options for counterattacking a US or Israeli airstrike; and the danger of Silkworm missiles to US naval vessels, especially aircraft carriers.

MP3 here. (19:18)

Mark Sheffield runs the Policy on Point blog.

M.J. Rosenberg

Scott Horton — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 05:27:33 +0000

M.J. Rosenberg, journalist and Senior Foreign Policy Fellow at Media Matters Action Network, discusses his article “The ‘Israel Firster’ Brouhaha” about the Politico article chiding Media Matters for supposedly trying to turn the Democratic Party establishment against Israel; AIPAC’s dossiers on journalists (including M.J.) unwilling to parrot Likud Party talking points; the political risk-reward calculation that makes almost the entire Congress rabidly pro-Israel; why even Tom Friedman understands Netanyahu’s fawning reception in Congress was “bought and paid for by the Israel lobby;” Israel’s demographic change from secular liberal Jews to religious right-wing Russian immigrants; and why those who really love Israel oppose war with Iran.

MP3 here. (20:05)

M.J. Rosenberg is Senior Foreign Policy Fellow at Media Matters Action Network. Previously, he worked on Capitol Hill for various Democratic members of the House and Senate for 15 years. He was also a Clinton political appointee at USAID. In the early 1980s, he was editor of AIPACs weekly newsletter Near East Report. From 1998-2009, he was director of policy at Israel Policy Forum.

Eric Margolis

Scott Horton — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 12:35:35 +0000

Eric Margolis, internationally syndicated columnist and author of War at the Top of the World and American Raj, discusses the conflict in Syria, where Western-backed instigators and a legitimate domestic opposition face off against the Assad regime – which still enjoys widespread popular support; the consequences of Syrian regime change for Palestinians, Iran and Hezbollah; how Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states are exporting homegrown Islamic radicals to fight in Syria (shades of 1980s Afghanistan – what could possibly go wrong?); what a truly democratic Middle East would look like; whether Egyptian sympathy for Palestinians will be tempered by continued US bribe money; and why the US needs to accept the Muslim Brotherhood as a legitimate political force – or deal with something far more radical later on.

MP3 here. (19:52)

Eric S. Margolis is an award-winning, internationally syndicated columnist. His articles appear in the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, Times of London, the Gulf Times, the Khaleej Times and Dawn. He is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post. He appears as an expert on foreign affairs on CNN, BBC, France 2, France 24, Fox News, CTV and CBC.

As a war correspondent Margolis has covered conflicts in Angola, Namibia, South Africa, Mozambique, Sinai, Afghanistan, Kashmir, India, Pakistan, El Salvador and Nicaragua. He was among the first journalists to ever interview Libya’s Muammar Khadaffi and was among the first to be allowed access to KGB headquarters in Moscow. A veteran of many conflicts in the Middle East, Margolis recently was featured in a special appearance on Britain’s Sky News TV as “the man who got it right” in his predictions about the dangerous risks and entanglements the US would face in Iraq.

Margolis is the author of War at the Top of the World: The Struggle for Afghanistan, Kashmir and Tibet and American Raj: Liberation or Domination?: Resolving the Conflict Between the West and the Muslim World.

M.J. Rosenberg

Scott Horton — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 05:32:06 +0000

M.J. Rosenberg, journalist and Senior Foreign Policy Fellow at Media Matters Action Network, discusses his article “American Enterprise Institute Admits: Iran Threat Isn’t That It Will Launch Nuclear Attack;” why the neoconservatives fear Iran getting a nuclear weapon and then not using it, dispelling the “crazy Ayatollah” image carefully created by Iran-hawks; how a nuclear-armed Iran would disrupt the “balance of power,” so the US and Israel could no longer wage undeclared war with impunity; the new round of “crippling” Iran sanctions, which would end conventional trade and create nation-wide black markets; and why Israelis keen on attacking Iran should expect retaliation from Hezbollah’s large arsenal of missiles in Lebanon.

MP3 here. (19:44)

John Glaser

Scott Horton — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 05:11:35 +0000

John Glaser, Assistant Editor at Antiwar.com, discusses the connection between “crippling” new Iran sanctions and the storming of the British embassy in Tehran; comments from Ehud Barak and Meir Dagan that indicate Israel is backing away from war with Iran; the new WikiLeaks spy files that expose the “surveillance-industrial complex;” and how Nigeria’s Boko Haram became an official “emerging threat to the U.S. Homeland.”

MP3 here. (22:16)

John Glaser is Assistant Editor at Antiwar.com. He is a former intern at The American Conservative magazine and CATO Institute.