May 18, 2018 • 59 mins
The Islamic Republic of Iran, located in western Asia, has historically been the seat of several massively influential empires. Today, it's home to over 81 million people and some of the world's most lucrative petroleum supplies. Currently tensions between Iran and the West are ratcheting up at an unprecedented rate, and both sides portray the other as unrepentent antagonists hellbent on destruction. So how did we get here? Join the guys as they delve into the strange history of Iran, imperialism, the West and war.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. M
(00:24):
Welcome back to the show. My name is Mac, my
name is No. They call me Ben. We are joined
with our super producer Paul Michig controlled decade. Most importantly,
you are you. You are here that makes this stuff
they don't want you to know. And we are recording
on breaking news this this time around the table. Right,
(00:46):
Let's let's start with the most recent news as we're recording.
On May eighteen, the US, the United States, announced that
it was withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
or the j c p o A for those of
us who are acronym fans, it's also known as the
Iran Deal. Yeah, or the Iran Nuclear Deal here in
(01:07):
the States. Right. Uh, that's an easy way to explain
it in a few syllables on the evening news. And
this decision was met with pretty widespread, uh, consternation from
some of our allies and fellow participants in this deal.
I guess we're going to go into why that might be. Yeah,
it's certainly subject that is just rife with complexity, and
(01:31):
they were going to look into the history. Today, we're
gonna look into what it could mean for everyone involved.
And let's talk about the deal itself. True. Yeah, the
deal was signed into effect in twenty fifteen by members
of the u n's Permanent Security Council, essentially the winning
side of World War Two, plus Germany and the EU
(01:53):
as its own entity, and then Iran and the United States,
which was, you know, part of the Permanent Security Council,
but there are they're one of the main actors in
today's episode. In exchange for freezing aspects of Iran's nuclear
enrichment program and submitting to intense, historically unprecedented UH investigation
(02:16):
programs on site in the country, Iran would receive partial
sanctions relief. This would allow the economically strapped country access
to billions of dollars, both in terms of potential billions
of dollars for trade and in terms of billions of
dollars of real world money that have been held frozen
(02:37):
offshore by foreign powers like the European Union and the
United States. I'm a big dummy when we say sanctions
that can mean a couple of different things. What does
it mean in this particular situation, is like a trade
like blocking, barring of trade? Great question. Yeah, because again,
for for those of us who just hear these terms
thrown around in the news, they're not often explained. So
(02:59):
sanctions are in general penalties for breaking a law or
an agreement. Just in general. You can give someone a
sanction yourself, should you somehow convince them you have the
authority to do it. In the geopolitical sense, however, sanctions
are part of what we would call sticks and carrots
of diplomacy. Carrot is an incentive we will give you
(03:22):
x amount of dollars to do what we want, or
we will give you this nuclear hardware or these chemical agents.
It is based around trade, right most of the time,
most of the time, yeah, thank god today. Military actions
can also be considered sanctions, depending on how they're rationalized.
It could be something like imposing penalties are making it
(03:44):
less profitable to do business kind of I mean, or impossible. Right. So,
typically when we hear the phrase sanctions apply, what we're
talking about is a genre of sanctions called economic sanctions.
I mentioned that carrots earlier. Economic sanctions are a form
of stick a form of punishment, so not enticing a
state to change its behavior, but attempting to force it
(04:06):
to do so. The role of sanctions in this conflict
cannot be overstated, and it's primarily due to the actions
of the United States. The United States is one of
the few countries in the world that can unilaterally apply sanctions.
They can take their toys, they can leave the playground,
and now no one else can play. That's that has
(04:28):
been the case for a long time, and that's a
vast oversimplification. But here's here's how it works. When the
US wants to sanction a country, it helps if they
have an alliance with other allies, But if they decide
to go it alone, they can still screw up the
entire Rube Goldberg esque thing that is international trade. Let's
(04:49):
say they let's say they do an economic sanction regime,
wherein they say no US based businesses, So no like Boeing,
no lock Keied Martin, Northrop grum Northrop Grumman, no financial
institutions can economically interact with a certain country or with
trades involving that country. At first, that sounds like okay,
(05:12):
US is leaving the game. There are more fish in
the sea, there are more badgers in the bag. But
the problem is almost all financial interactions at that level,
at some point in the chain travel through a US
financial institution, and once they do, the money stops the game,
the bubble pops, and on the ground, this means that
(05:33):
a sanctioned country literally cannot buy or sell certain things,
not just weapons of war, but things like medical equipment,
industrial components, you know, stuff like let's say you have
an ice cream factory and you need a large enough
UH boiler for some reason. Obviously we have not researched
ice cream factories, but but if that if that specific
(05:57):
component falls under this sanction, then it becomes very, very
difficult for you to buy it. So when Cuba, for instance,
had sanctions during the Cold War, UH, it was not
able to get life saving medical equipment. And that's why
if you travel to Cuba today, as some of my
contacts had recently, and you tour their hospitals, several very
(06:20):
important pieces of equipment in the hospital are going to
be German stuff from the fifties because that's all they
could get. The hospitals, by the way, or not air conditioned.
Just to illustrate that so, so the whole point with
this deal that that went through it was it was
very difficult for it to actually happen, and it happened
(06:41):
in the previous administration under President Obama. And it's if
you look at the agreement itself, they are all kinds
of things that have problems with it, at least on
that either side would say that this is kind of
a big deal. Well, that's how you know it's a
compromise exactly. No one's entirely happy. Yeah, yeah, And Matt,
you're absolutely right. It took a long time to get
(07:03):
everyone to the table first and then to achieve anything.
Most of the global community was completely appalled to see
the US withdraw although under US law it is legal
to do so. Because our side of this agreement was
what's called an executive order, it was not ratified by
Congress because it's an executive order that means whomever occupies
(07:25):
the position of Commander in chief afterwards can just get
rid of it without without running it past Congress or
the American people. And there were there was international support
for this deal, primarily uh U s Allies, Saudi Arabia
and Israel. They were also the key regional rivals of Iran.
They applauded the move. They said, this is a way
(07:46):
to prevent nuclear war. Yeah. Well, a lot of this
has to do with these things called sunset clauses, which
were built into the agreement itself, and specifically with the
enrichment process and what which centrifugis could be used at
what time. I think there's like an eight year what
they called sunset clause where after eight years they could
then begin enriching uh uranium with this these new versions
(08:11):
of their centrifuges firing back up much more efficient. Yeah, exactly.
But the whole idea was that the people who are
fighting against us being in this deal, we're saying they're
just using these sun set clauses to then be to
be able to achieve nuclear weapons anyway, or they're secretly
still conducting these things despite the investigations in their argument
(08:33):
that there's doing this to have nuclear power like we do.
Everybody's arguments. That's the thing. Everybody's argument is that we
are only pursuing nuclear capabilities to replace fossil fuels. Yeah,
that's since a nuclear weapon, since before a nuclear weapon
was even devised, And it's tricky because when when you
(08:55):
study this kind of stuff, the enrichment process for a
web in and for a power plant are identical. The
only difference is the degree of enrichment. So you just
keep going and that's that, regardless of what side you
fall on. That's a huge dilemma North Korea, for instance,
(09:17):
when um, when you speak with North Korean diplomats for
years and years and years, they were saying that they
were peacefully pursuing nuclear power as a means of economic independence,
not as a means of starting war. And who believed them,
No one, no one, No one would believe the US
(09:39):
if they said that. So right now here in the
States where stuff they don't want you to know is based,
public opinion is divided on whether this was a smart
decision to exit a critically flawed agreement and again one
that was not ratified by Congress, or a short sighted,
bellicost move to push the region and ultimately the entire
world close or to war. But let's hold on for
(10:02):
a second, and Rewind, Let's ask some questions. How did
we as a species get to this point. How much
does the average person in the US know about Iran,
about its history, about every single thing leading up to
this moment. I would say not very much. At least
I didn't before studying this a while back when we
(10:24):
touched on the Petro dollar and a couple of other
things like that. Um, so let's just jump right into it.
Here are the facts. Will go through a very quick
broad rush Iran from the beginning of time to uh.
We'll make it quick where you're not hardcore history, which
is a great show. I just want to point out
so Iran is home to one of the world's oldest
(10:47):
continuous major civilizations, meaning that it was never a dead
man's land after it started. You can find settlements dating
back to seven thousand BC. I mean they're not super glamorous.
It's not like a casino or something. But yeah, but
there were humans. They're living together, yes, yes, And we
have to remember everybody involved in these stories, these are
(11:07):
all real people. Ancient Iran was also known as Persia. Uh.
It's an historic region of southwestern Asia that is kind
of located where Iran is now. It's roughly the same boundary.
The term Persia was used for centuries mainly by folks
in the West to designate just regions where people spoke
(11:30):
the Persian language or spoke Parsi, and what they perceived
as Persian culture predominated. But more correctly, the term Persia
applies to a part of southern Iran, which was known
as Persis or pars or Parsa or modern day Fars
and Parsa is the name for an Indo European nomadic
(11:52):
people who got into the region around one thousand BC.
And the first mention occurs from an Assyrian king back
in eight hundred forty four BC, So this is old.
You may recognize the historical figures Cyrus the Great. He
(12:12):
was the founder of the Archaemenid Empire and he was
This was the first Persian empire. It ruled a huge
swath of land, Central Asia, North Africa, the Balkans, and
the seed of power was Persepolis. This was around five
fifty to three and thirty BC. So you will hear
a lot of people say it was the first quote
(12:33):
unquote world empire. It was the only civilization in all
of history to connect fort of the globe. Granted, there
weren't as many people around at that time, but uh,
there were about in four b C, for example, there
were about a hundred and twelve million people. Hundred, give
or take, forty nine point four of those were member
(12:57):
forty nine point four million of those, excuse me, are
members of the first Persian Empire. And then there's a
huge change that affects the world and Iran today, and
that was the Arab invasion. So there's this huge misconception
that's distressingly common, and it's the following. Many people think
(13:18):
that Iranians or people from Iran are Arab. They are not.
May speak Arabic, but if they did, they learned it
as a foreign language. And Iran is, however, an Islamic country.
During the eighth to tenth centuries, Islam became the dominant religion,
(13:40):
and the pre existing dominant religion, Zeastrianism, declined, as well
as many of the other associated religions. But thankfully for everyone,
and I do mean everyone, the achievements and the scientific
progress of the previous Persian civilizations were not lost. They
(14:02):
were absorbed by this new growing civilization. And let's so
that's ancient run multiple invasions, not Arabs. Was was a
great empire, free Islam before any of that happened. Now,
let's fast forward to the history of modern Iran and
(14:22):
of course their oil industry. It starts in nineteen o
one a British speculator named William Darcy paid Iran uh
and was allowed to explore and develop their oil resources
in the south of the country. Yeah. And it was
that discovery of oil in nineteen o eight that led
to the formation in nineteen o nine of the London
(14:43):
based Anglo Persian Oil Company or APOC. SO. Then by
nineteen fourteen, the British government had gained control over the
Iranian oil industry, direct control which it would not give
up for thirty seven years. Then after thirty five, the
APOCH was called the Anglo Iranian Oil Company or IOC.
(15:05):
And today it's just a good old BP. Yeah, British
Petroleum that VP down this street from you. Yeah. They're
just all about simplifying those, uh, those acronyms. I like it. Uh.
They signed a sixty year agreement in nineteen thirty three
to establish a flat payment to Iran of four pounds
four British pounds for every ton of crude oil exported,
and denied Iran any right to control oil exports. So
(15:30):
you get your flat fee, you don't get to say
and where we're selling it. How we're selling it or
what kind of deals we're cracking. Sounds like a sweetheart deal,
we cannot Yeah, yeah, exactly, we can see there that
they're the oil was controlled not by Iran up and
to that point one all the way into the nineteen thirties,
(15:50):
and they were obviously getting the short end of the
stick with this deal. They like many other countries, sought
to nationalize their oil resources back in nineteen fifty. This
there directly led to a coup in nineteen fifty three,
an overthrow of their democratically elected governing structure, but not
a coup of the people, not a genuine uh, mass
(16:15):
of the proletariat rising or something. No, Uh, This regime
change came from outside of Iran. Yeah, exactly. There was
a prime minister who had been elected in everything. And
then of course not of course, but as we have
seen before, British and in this case, American intelligence agencies
(16:37):
both decided they needed to do something, and it was
mostly British intelligence contacting American intelligence and saying, hey, we
need your help with this taleho exactly, So they replaced
the democratically elected prime minister, Mohammed Mozadek with the with
this guy that's known as the Shaw. He was also
known as the King of Kings to his friends, and
(16:58):
I guess to himself and his friends, now you call
me the king of King. Yeah, that's like the informal name.
Ok okay, yeah, well I think it was the Shaw,
Simshaw some something to that Effectum, Mohammed Resa Shaw, this
dude ben Oh. Yeah. He was tremendously unpopular. Not an opinion,
(17:18):
that's a fact, Yeah, exactly. Um. You can find out
more about this whole situation that occurred during the nineteen
fifty three Iranian coup if you've searched for things like
t P A j A X or Operation AJAX that
was the CIA's version, and also Operation boot b O
O T that was the secret intelligence service of the
(17:40):
British intelligence agencies also known as am I six, that
was their version. And so he ends up the the Shaw,
uh was it ends up being the last Shaw of Iran.
That the timing will differ a little bit, but he
would be considered active not although not an absolute monarch,
(18:02):
active from September one until February of nineteen seventy nine
when he was overthrown by the Iranian people and normally
you would think, Wow, that's fantastic. The people a rising
up right democracy. They are pursuing what they as a
(18:25):
community or as a state, consider their own will, their
own independence. However, the overthrow led to the creation of
a theocratic regime, modern theocratic regime. They are the rulers
of Iran today. So the so what we see is
a move ideologically right, uh, move to a more western
(18:50):
Iran under the shaw and then all of a sudden
you get a slingshot effect when it goes when when
commune comes up to power. Did you know that the
English word check was derived from the word shaw, like
the idea of checkers and check and checkmate. I just
was googling shaw and that came out. That was really interesting.
You over there just googling shaw, just googling show baby.
(19:12):
So I'm gonna we should start calling money shaws. That's great.
It's derived from shaw from Persian via Arabic, Latin and
French and related terms of checker, chess, ex checker um
and they also originate from that word, though I don't
see the connection in the way it sounds. But shaw
doesn't mean king, and I guess the idea of you know, mate,
(19:34):
just a hilly as side, just to just to lighten
the mood for a second. That's that's silly, It's fine.
I think that's really smart. So now we've explored Iran
from the beginning of time all the way up until
almost night. Why don't we jump into the modern Iran,
or the more modern Iran into today. But we'll do
it right after a quick hangout with a sponsor. So
(20:01):
in the decades since the overthrow seven, several of several
of your fellow conspiracy realists listening live may have been
around and seen this in the news. In the decades
since that n overthrow, Iran has been portrayed as an
adversary of the West. Growing up, I I remember personally
(20:23):
thinking and trying to figure out as a kid if
Star Trek was making political commentary and at Klangon's were
supposed to be like Iran or something interesting. It's a
very loaded, loaded show in terms of symbols. Yeah, in
popular culture, Iran has has been the enemy several times, right,
(20:45):
and the primary antagonists of Iran historically have been Saudi Arabia, Israel,
and the United States, and its primary allies have been
Russia and Syria, with some European allies attempting to act
as peace brokers or being neutra role for most of us.
In the United States, Iran is presented as a hard
line Islamic theocracy and there is an elected president, but
(21:10):
the actual leader is the Ayatollah, who is the country's
supreme religious authority. The current supreme leader of Iran is
a fellow named Ayatollah Ali Kamini. He's been in power
since nine, ten years after the revolution. Yeah. Have you
guys seen the new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm where
Larry gets a FATA put out on him because he
(21:31):
makes fun of the Ayatola. Yes, it's great and he
how does he get out of it? Well that I
don't want to spoil the season, Okay, it does involve making.
He's got a musical idea called Fatua the Musical where
he plays Salmon Rushdie and that displeases the Ayatola because
he sort of makes fun of him on a late
show and that sets off the absurdity that is Curb
(21:53):
Your Enthusiasm. But there we do want to say, there's
not a racist representation anymore so than his typical for
Curb Your Enthusiasm, the the religious authorities that he's beefed
up with are presented as ultimately like kind of cool people. Yeah, politicians,
Well there's a real argument over catchup. I want to
say it's anyway, check it out. It's fun, and it
(22:14):
also gives you a little bit of insight into this
stuff through a slightly absurdist comedic lance. Yeah. Well either way,
nine until two thousand eighteen is a long day time
to be in. Yeah, And I just only bring bring
that up because the idea of a fatwa and that
this man is so powerful that he can literally snap
his fingers and then any of his followers are just
(22:35):
you know, your persona non grata. We can endia, And
a fatwa isn't always going to be by any means
some sort of mafia hit. They can be, But fatwa
is more like a legal opinion almost or an authoritative declaration.
So a fatwa could be recognization of a slight change
(22:58):
in a ritual as well. But we again in the West,
are most often going to hear of fatois as a
declaration that somebody is persona on groutus, right, But I
guess you said like you said, could also be a
change in the sort of the party line on interpretation
of religious text, right, something like that. Yeah, yeah, exactly exactly,
(23:22):
And the tension that permeated the decades since the revolution.
It's hard to distill it into a single sentence or
a single example, because there was so much both on
a regional and global scale, and there was also outright
conflict such as the Iran Iraq War from nineteen eighty
(23:45):
until nineteen this and then series of other wars, some
of which the US was involved in. Yeah, the Gulf War,
Operation Desert Storm and all that in um, I mean
in in my mind as a child growing up. That
is that's how I knew. That's the only reason I
(24:06):
knew about Iran and Iraq at that time through those conflicts.
Did ever I tell you I met uh, Norman Schwartzgraft,
the General. Yeah, really, yeah, I was not, uh, not
in an official capacity. I should say, I was a kid,
just like at a park, you guys. He was just
sitting on a bench and then yeah, and there and
(24:30):
we sat on the other side of the bench and
we didn't talk, but we passed envelopes. But that that
guy would remember was very prominent in the American public
eye during this time. What was accomplished in those wars,
It certainly wasn't the de escalation of this tension because
(24:51):
the Middle East has further destabilized and right now in
distrust runs extremely high on all side to the conflict,
because what we're looking at is the escalation of a
proxy war in the Middle East. So UM. One thing
that is a an open secret it feels weird even
(25:13):
called a secret, is that the government of Iran funds
militias in other countries. In Syria, in Lebanon, there's his
Black and some of these some of these organizations are
considered by the West to be terrorist groups, but to
their supporters, they're considered to be freedom fighters, which is
another definition or contradiction that we run into often. Yeah,
(25:38):
and speaking of freedom fighters, you may recall the US's
involvement with the Iran contra scandal, where we were illegally
selling weapons to Iran without Congress knowing, without anyone else knowing. UM.
And then there's the whole the whole situation with US
selling weapons to Iraq as well during the Iran Iraq War.
(25:59):
So there's just the United States and this region. It
just has this history, man, where we we tend to
do some shady stuff, right, right, And maybe that's the
fog of war. Maybe there's something larger at play, because
one of the questions that we consistently run into when
we talk about why there's intervention in one state or
(26:21):
one region over another, right, one one of the things
we run into is whether there is something greater at
play behind the curtain. So consider, for instance, uh countries
that are resource poor or at least comparatively not not
as fortunate in terms of the resources. Consider all the
(26:44):
all the countries that are struggling with poverty, with human
rights abuse, with brutal authoritarian dictatorships. Why is the US
not there? Why is the West not there? For some people,
for the cynics in the crowd, the answer is resource based.
In Iran's case, they argue that this intervention is specifically
due to the oil that was discovered way back in
(27:07):
the early nineteen hundreds. So what's going on with Iran
and oil? I just gotta say, I don't think you
have to be cynical to have that few. I think
you just gotta have your eyes open, bro, That's all
I'm saying. And the guys if you're if you just
to set the scene. Matt's eyes right now are wide open. Um. Well,
just here's a quote from the World Bank. Ready, Iran
(27:29):
ranks second in the world, second in the world in
natural gas reserves, and fourth in the world improven crude
oil reserves. Like just okay, that's massive. This this world
still to this day runs on oil. And just knowing
that that exists there, all that crude oil underneath the
(27:49):
feet of each and every Iranian human being that I
don't know, I think that tells a lot about the
current situation and past situations. Agreed, there's a now passive
amount of energy in the ground there that is not
under BP's control, that is not under the control of
a Western energy conglomerate or a or a state actor.
(28:16):
Right and what it could be? Ben, but it was
once upon a time, could be again remember the good
old days. Did we mentioned in seven Russia and Britain's
secret treaty to divide Iran? Okay, well we'll get to that.
Russia is their ally, I remember. So we've got this
(28:36):
quick look at the broad strokes of Irani and geopolitical
history and current climate. As we said, vastly oversimplified, but
we wanted to hit some of those big points. It's
easy to see how Iran's antagonists would not want the
country to have any sort of nuclear capability, regardless of whether,
like to Knowle's point, regardless of how much they say
(28:57):
it's just for peaceful purposes, there's not really a way
to stop it, right, right, you can't. There's not a
different process. Yeah, but we're not gonna like stop making
nuclear power. It's not like we're standing in line to
give up all this stuff. It's true. We still have
(29:18):
the second largest number of nuclear warheads we be in
the US, not Matt. It's funny. I actually looked it up.
We only get our power from nuclear It's true. It's true. Well,
we also have a very powerful fossil fuel based industry,
and they have a lot of legislative hooks. And speaking
of legislative hooks, I guess, hang ups, it's very difficult
(29:41):
to build new nuclear power plants in this country. Oh yeah,
very difficult. I actually used to cover that was my
beat when I was a reporter for Georgia Public Radio,
and I covered the new um reactor. They were trying
to build a plan Vogel and Augusta, And it's still
hung up in red tape. It's it's it's been years.
They just can't make it happen. So all the ones
we have are aging and very very old legacy reactors
(30:04):
and need extensive infrastructure repairs. Right, this is interesting, you know,
just as an aside. And there's another there's another question here,
what what's the motivation for this general historical tension? What
went wrong? What's happening now? Why? That's that's the big question.
(30:27):
Why we'll answer it after a word from our sponsors.
Here's where it gets crazy. So oddly enough, not being
sarcastic here it is kind of odd. You will hear
continuing and contradictory explanations for the historically aggressive actions of
(30:48):
modern Western powers against Iran and for Iran's actions in
the region. In the case of the first oil exportation agreements,
Darcy remember him from earlier, did pay for the concession.
But it was, as as you guys said, a sweetheart deal.
And just a few years later, by nine seven there's
that secret treaty we were mentioning. Russia and Britain already
(31:12):
signed a deal to divide her On up between themselves
without consulting the Iranian government. So Russia said, we want
the top half, we want more control of Central Asia.
We're still playing the Great Game. And Britain said, cool,
we want the bottom half because we have oil there
and we consider it ours the great Game. By the way,
(31:34):
if you don't know what that is, listen to our
episode on the Great Game. It's a great game, man,
between Russia and uh well, I was gonna say Europe,
but the United Kingdom mostly. Yeah, oh man, that was fascinating.
I think that, you know what, I think some of
those guys on the Russian side, I think they really
did believe in magic. I think they did believe they
(31:55):
were practicing occult stuff. I mean, you kind of had
to in the time, and it was really the sign
of the times, you know what. You're probably correct, and
speaking of the times, in World War One, Iran was
again a battle ground for rival imperialist powers it during
World War One, ran said, hey, we're neutral, we're staying
out of this. So the British forces invaded to guard
(32:19):
their oil lifeline because you know, their naval power and
they needed this fossil fuel to be the engine for
their war effort. Yeah. I remember all the oil at
this time in Iran is controlled by Britain, right, but
they're still getting a flat rate, I believe, right to
Knowle's earlier point. The the thing here is we see
(32:43):
some of the first contradictions occurring early on. So we
said we we mentioned Britain's obsession with Iranian oil, right,
or Persian oil as they called it at the time.
The Western Powers in World War One advanced and i'd
eological argument one that is probably going to be familiar
with a lot of people today. They said, we're fighting
(33:05):
World War One because we want to free the Middle
East from this outdated Ottoman rule, from the Ottoman Empire.
That's feudalism, they said, that's that's garbage, juice, that's trash. Yeah,
and we wanted on to be independent and free and
of its own rule, right, that's what they said. Yeah,
that's that sounds that sounds real. Yeah, people should be free, right. Yeah,
(33:28):
we're just looking out for your best interest, Ron, and
we're gonna help you protect your oil. Be a shame
of something happened all that oil. Right. So, for people
who are critical of Western actions in Iran over the
past century, to them, this narrative, this story is one
of repression, of controlling resources and extracting them for the
(33:49):
benefit of a foreign power. For those who are supportive
of intervention in Iran, not just what has happened recently
or what may be happening soon. Uh, the issue comes
down to a couple of publicly declared beliefs. Saudi Arabia
believes that if Iran is not economically isolated, not militarily crippled,
(34:13):
it will strengthen its influence beyond its border. It will
use its proxy groups, its military organizations to disrupt the
status quo, to take economic resource control away from Saudi
Arabia while also propagating Shia Islam in areas that are
under Sunni Islam control. So one of the things that
(34:34):
Saddam Hussein was worried about when he was in control
of Iraq was that the Shia population of Iraq would
rise up and destabilize the state. Yeah, and just so
you've probably heard this in the news or somewhere. Groups
like Hezbollah are one of those proxy groups somewhat controlled
by Iran. Yeah. Absolutely, And this becomes an ideological battle
(34:58):
in many respects, a truly ideological battle because from the
Saudi perspective, there there's a struggle against disruption and instability.
And this is a huge concern given the chaos that's
already consumed. Iraq is eating Syria as we speak, and
plagues Yemen. Saudi forces are already heavily entrenched in Yemen,
(35:19):
and you know, you don't hear much about it on
the news. It is interesting how Yemen was all over
the news for what a month or two, maybe not
even that long, a couple of cycles, and then it
went away. But the fighting hasn't stopped. The fighting hasn't
stopped just because the camera stopped rolling, right, It's something
we would all do well to remember. The second thing,
(35:40):
and I should say these are not first and second
in terms of any kind of priority or hierarchy. The
second thing concerns the government of Israel, which sees Iran
and as an existential threat, meaning that they don't see
Iran as a some sort of rival nation that might
compete in trade. They see it as a country that
(36:03):
has prioritized eliminating their country. It's a ticking time bomb. Yeah,
just so right, Like how various Israeli prime ministers have
said Iran is one year away from making a nuclear bomb,
or like the way we worry that like sun flares
are gonna fry us all in our sleep. Yeah, I
mean there's I'm not getting Yeah, it's because it's really
(36:25):
it's not a question of a small conflict. It's they're
thinking in terms of every man, woman and child. Yeah,
and it's an ancient theological disagreement essentially. Was what that
boils down to? The the tension there, Yeah, it was.
It was around long before the United States, long before
(36:47):
the oil was important at all, long before uh, laser
disc Definitely. I think I had a misstepped there. You
were actually held a laser disc. Yeah, it's the weirdest
thing in the World's like a giant gold LP And
to flip it you have to flip it part way through.
And Steve said, like, what the hell You'm getting an
(37:07):
expensive thing a movie and I have to flip the movie.
I'm sorry, No, I worked up about this is a
legitimate gripe nol I had. I had people under the stairs,
and it ruined the flow, the cinematic flow film. I'm
all about flipping a record because that you sequence the
record and I have like sort of like a little
moment to pause and reflect movies. Now, So what did
(37:29):
these people under the stairs do for you to keep
them under the stairs? They were cannibally zombie things. They were.
So there was a couple that was religious. They were
religious extremists, and if children did not adhere to their rules,
the children they adopted, they would mutilate them and forced
them to live in this cartoonishly large basement where they
(37:51):
became candle. And there was a gimp suit. I remember that. Actually,
as it turns out funny, you should mention this. It's
actually meant to be an allegory for the US, his
relationship with Iran whoa gimp suit? And all my friends, wait,
are you being seriously? I'm not being serious. I'm sure
we could worm our way into making that work. We
get there. Actually, it turns out all West Craven movies,
(38:12):
especially the Nightmare on Elm Street series, are complex um
allegories for geopolitical conflicts. That's right, so right to us,
right to us with the name of West Craven Film,
and one of us will explain to you exactly which
geopolitical conflict that is an analogy for. What if? What
if it might take us a while to figure it out?
(38:33):
What if we ask people to send us there the
movie and why they think it's an allegorical geopolitical thing,
because I would love to get their ideas, or just
send us your entire dissertation on you know, which which
film and what which conflict it represents. Yeah, I can't
speak for everyone, but I will. I love reading dissertations
(38:57):
when you all send them in. We got a great
one regard Arthur Conan, Doyle and Sherlock Holmes from our
pal Simon Workman. Or do it verbally by calling our
eight hundred number one three three st d w y
t K. We will play it on the show. We swear. Yeah,
we can't wait to hear from you, assuming that the
world as we know it still exists when you are
(39:17):
hearing this. So back to the idea of this existential threat.
It's not to say that destabilization is not a problem,
but not existing is a huge problem right from their perspective,
from anyone can't Yeah, So as so long as Iran
exists in anything close to its current political state, the
(39:39):
government of Israel believes Iran will spend massive amounts of time, weaponry,
and blood attempting to eradicate it entirely from the earth.
Threatening disputed regions that Iran considers to be its own
territory like the Golden Heights, right, which were Syrian territory
for a while, or threatening to influence areas that Israel
later hopes to incorporate into its territory, for example uh
(40:03):
in future peace settlements with Palestine. Right. In the US,
this is often this is often reported, right, and it's
reported around the world because that is the belief. And
here in the U S at least, we often see
this cited as a as something that applies to the
(40:27):
States as well. Right, and you will see the chance
of protesters saying death to America or death to the West,
or calls from Iranian hardline politicians saying we need to
eradicate this nation. In the past, some Western powers have
portrayed their interventions in Iran not as a mission for
(40:48):
resource extraction and economic control, but as another theater in
the Great War of ideas, the Great War between capitalism
and communism. So there was always a reason to go
into Iran. Those reasons have changed over time, but there
has always been some sort of reason. And we have
(41:08):
to ask ourselves are we talking about is it really
about hearts and minds, it's really about survival. Is it
about ideology or is it about as uh Smedley Butler
would say, is it about being an economic hit man?
Is it about extracting and controlling the means of wealth
and production? Yes, that's that's what a lot of I
(41:33):
mean that. That is what a lot of people say,
including people who support intervention in Iran, like fans of
real politics, sort of the uh the Kissinger descendants, they
will say, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely communist, definitely communism mainly oil.
But also yeah, definitely communism mainly oil. Though that's that's true.
(41:54):
So for critics on either side, here's the weird party.
They both believe. There's plenty of stuff they'd want you
to know about this conflict. So for people who see
this as a matter of ideological threats, those opposing further
harsh sanctions and military incursions, the quote unquote moderates, they're
the same thing as anybody who's actively supporting Iran. So
(42:16):
for many of these people, if you say, well, these
sanctions are counteractive, for they're they're not going to have
the attended effect. What they're hearing is that you're saying,
I'm a member of Hezbollah because there's extremism there. It's
the old If you're not with us, you're against this
mentality that we see in so many ideological arguments, right,
(42:36):
and this idea hinges on the concept of Iran as
a hardline theocracy. But hey, guess what it is. I
mean and again this is not the people, this is
just the government, right. Uh. The fear here is that
arising Iran would inevitably become a nuclear power and exert
brutal control over the region, possibly uh, discrimin nading against
(43:01):
non Muslims or Muslims who were not their branch, who
are not from their branch of Islam, right, so Sunni
Muslims for instance. Yeah. Basically it would just be a
brand new Persian empire from the old days, one that
would attempt to take over Saudi Arabia, erase Israel, and
turn the other countries in the area into puppet states,
(43:21):
you know, with some kind of ten pot uh dictator
or dare I say a shaw In other words, they
think Iran would do to other countries the same thing
that Britain did to Iran in the past. And that
is a I would say, a good fear for those
which had done harm to it in the past. It's
(43:44):
a it's at least a it's good to at least
imagine that because you one does reap what one shows. Well,
it's also understandable. It's not like it would be a
sudden plot twist. Yeah exactly. You know if you're writing
that out in Revenge movie, that's what would happen, which
I think was which Nightmare on Elm Street is that?
(44:06):
Is it Dream Wars sdream Warriors? Yeah, I think it's
Dream Warriors when you're watching. For people who see this
as purely a matter of resource control, the Iranian oil reserves,
specifically the energy reserves or natural gas reserves, etcetera. Are
too important globally to not be used, to be not
not be part of this great supply chain. But for
(44:29):
people who opponents of Iran, uh, that resource is also
too important to be used to the advantage of this state.
And many of the people who believe this is entirely
matter of resource economic control are opponents of Western intervention
in Iran. But here's the thing. There's people who are
opponents of Western intervention in Iran. They are not opponents
(44:52):
of intervention in general. You gotta remember Russia, right, is
a great ally of Iran. They also attempted to cut
it and have can take over it. Uh, it was
a long time ago, and buddy, don't worry, it was
a little more in this century. We're cool now. We're
cool now. But this what we're saying here, what we're showing,
(45:13):
is that the pat explanations that you are receiving on
the news, if you're tune into broadcast stuff, if you're
listening for four or five minutes on your way home
to something, they're either going to be about a very
specific event, such as the eleven minute speech on May
eighth withdrawing from this agreement, or they're going to um
(45:38):
or they're going to pass over a lot of the
history that led to these moments. These these kinds of things,
these conflicts never occur in a vacuum. There's not a
leader who wakes up, has a bad day, finds out
the palaces out of Ovaltine, and then decides to you know,
bomb Muzbekistan. Yeah, but you know what you will hear
(46:00):
when you're listening to those a lot of the times,
what's that You'll hear someone from the Rand Corporation or
some other think tank, come on and tell you exactly
what's going on in their in their sphere, their analysis right,
and it's and it's usually one of these exact stances.
So what is Yeah, we have we still not done
(46:21):
an episode on think tanks. No, I don't think so,
No do you do? You guys have a favorite think tank?
I don't know. Would you consider counsel and foreign relations
in some way of think tank? Sure? Yeah, not a
not like a white House think tank? You know what
about like the Southern poverty loss in Airison like them? Hey,
that's a you know what, I would consider that a
(46:45):
think tank. To be honest, I think think tank is
kind of I think I think tank is kind of
an amorphous concept. I don't quite fully understand what makes
a think tank. It's like an umbrella term, almost right,
because they do a lot of different things, like a
work group. Yeah yeah, pay a bunch of very well
informed people to get together and well informed each other, consults,
(47:06):
policy wonks, experts, professors. Well, we want to hear what
your favorite thing tanks are? Two or the most dangerous
ones ran Europe. There, But at this point we have
to we have to end an episode with no real conclusions.
(47:26):
We don't know what's going to happen in the Middle
East over the next few months, over the next year,
but we do know that currently we no matter where
we live, no matter where you're listening to this from,
unless you are in space currently and planned to stay there,
in which case, high and thanks for checking out the show. Yeah,
(47:48):
and also good on you. That's that's that's a difficult
life to leave. Yeah, zero gravity is very bad for you.
But as long as you are living on the same
ball of mud and fire with the rest of us,
you and Matt and Noel and Paul and I are
all in the middle of an extremely dangerous and fragile time.
(48:09):
They already destabilized Middle East may well become the starting
point for World War three. I know that sounds hyperbolic.
I know that sounds alarmist, and I know people say
that about like everything that's ever happened. Well, but maybe
it's already maybe it has already become Yeah. I read
something recently, uh where a commentator said they had the
(48:31):
increasingly creepy feeling that they were living through a future
Wikipedia paragraph titled events leading to the war. But it
doesn't it You're right that you're saying that everything feels
like it could be that increasingly, so I would say
it feels like that. And again, they don't happen in
(48:51):
a vacuum. Here's where we are, as we're as as
we're recording this, uh, Israel and Iran are firing directly
at each other's stuff through Syria, right and Iran publicly
stated that if the deal collapses, just because the US
pulled out, by the way, doesn't mean it's going to collapse,
just severely weakens it that They said that if the
(49:13):
deal collapses, they're going to stop holding up their end
of the bargain and they will resume enrichment activities, to
which Saudi Arabia immediately said, well, if Iran resumes nuclear
enrichment activities, we're gonna assume they're making a bomb, and
that means we're going to get a bomb too. Israel
right now, for anyone who doesn't know, officially, has a
(49:37):
stance called strategic ambiguity when it applies to nuclear weapons.
They have never stated that they have a nuclear weapon,
but they got some. But it it is barely an
open secret that they that they do. Even NPR today
mentioned Israel being the only major nuclear power in the
region right and the United States does likely have nuclear
(50:02):
weaponry positioned around there. Uh. No one knows what the
Russian submarine um boundaries are, how far out those nuclear
subs go. But what what we do know is that
if a military conflict escalates, the US is well positioned
(50:28):
to exert control outside of the borders. But invading Iran
would be a blood bath. And you can look at
a map that the three of us have all seen
off air. You can look at a map of military
bases in the Middle East and how they ring Iran.
US military bases. They're there through the Strait of Hormones,
(50:48):
which I think we cover in the Petro Dollar there
through Central Asia. They're ringing the boundaries of the country.
And the saul means that if Iran, perhaps with outside assistance,
like a figure like a q Khan who gave Pakistan
the bomb, if Iran has outside assistance or independently creates
(51:12):
or even gets closer to creating a bomb, than in
short order, there could very easily be not one but
three nations in the Middle East with nukes and with
millennia old conflicts and and waiting surrounded by subs with nukes,
surrounded by subs with nukes, uh, surrounded by military basis. Yeah,
(51:34):
and this there's a big question here though if and
it goes back to North Korea as well, like, if
nuclear weapons are so dangerous in terms of relationship with
other countries, why would someone pursue them? Well, I think
that we see a great example of this with the
(51:55):
current negotiations with North Korea. For the first time in
along I'm North and South Korea came together and actually
began having talks. And then the United States is now
going to be meeting with North Korea, and you know,
they're allegedly the discussions will be about disarming even North
Korea and stopping their nuclear capabilities, but they're coming to
that table with nukes. And just being able to sit
(52:18):
down for negotiations with a nuke, I think creates a
much more powerful position than if you might be getting
some nukes. That's a dangerous position. Can we talk for
a second, just to as we wrap up why the
current administration is so opposed to the Iran nuclear deal,
why it's such a bad deal? Yeah, quote I was
doing quote fingers. Yeah, there's a there are a couple
(52:39):
of thoughts about that, and supporters of the current administration
see it as following through on a campaign promise. While
campaigning for the office of the presidency, Donald Trump cited
the Iran deal as the worst deal he'd ever seen.
He also said that he understands it more the anybody else. Yeah,
(53:01):
than than any anywhe else. Like He's done a ton
of research on it, and the it seems to me
like it's more. He just means he's done a lot
of deals. He's uniquely qualified to dissect and understand deals. Well.
He has some generals in his ear that are telling
him about these sunset parts of the deal and saying, hey,
this is really dangerous. Um, this isn't gonna work. They're
(53:23):
still gonna make it. Supporters of the deal, including former
President Barack Obama, who signed the executive order, saw it
as a way to buy time to de nuclear rise
or Iran or prevent it permanently from acquiring nuclear weaponry.
Opponents of the deal and cluose generals that you mentioned, Matt, say,
(53:45):
all we're doing We're not buying time for ourselves. We're
giving time to a to a belligerent government that is
that is sure gonna shake hands and play nice at
the table, but then when they go act, they're going
to make a bomb, and there we're not really stopping them.
And there was a um there was cooperation, international cooperation
(54:12):
leading to the Trump administration's announcement, because you'll remember, just
before he announced there pulling out of the deal, the
media and at least here in the US released a
story that showed Israel I believe had acquired some documents
that they said indicated Iran was not holding up its
(54:34):
end of the park. And those things have been tossed
back and forth by policy walks regarding their import or
their veracity, but that's that's ultimately it is the idea
that the deal didn't completely cut off nuclear activity at
the budget I see. And yet there are still supporters
(54:56):
and people that are remaining in the deal, like allies
of ours, that are sort of disappointed that we are
making this movement exactly. And I think at least Obama
came out and have this having been his show getting
this thing put together. Um said, it was mainly about
creating a sense that we're not going to follow through
(55:16):
with our commitments, and that could cause destabilization in terms
of our relationships with others and the expectation that we
will just you know, turntail at the at the last one.
That's when it suits us. That is the huge that
that is the huge problem with the precedent being set
because look, other countries will have experts who know about
(55:40):
how domestic US politics work, and sure they will understand
the legality of this contradiction, but it also violates the
concept of keeping one's word as a country, and this
will make things tremendously difficult going forward in various aspects
(56:02):
of international policy. UH. One thing that's getting a lot
of play now is the UH successful or seemingly successful
negotiations that are starting with DPRK or North Korea. And
they may d nuclearize, UH, they may not. It's it's
impossible to predict the future with full accuracy, but it
(56:24):
is entirely is entirely a beneficial thing for rival world
powers like China and Russia to be able to say, hey,
we may not be perfect, but if we agree to
agree with you that we'll do something, will actually do it. Yeah,
(56:46):
And that's a that's I mean, that's a dangerous thing.
So we're going over our time. Mischian control is probably
getting a little well eredate with us. And this is
this is a scary, scary subject, and it's tremendously controversial.
But if we end on anything, we should we should
end on the most important part to remember. The most
(57:06):
important thing to remember in this entire episode is that
in Iran, in Israel, and Saudi Arabia, and the United States,
the people and the government are not the same. They
often do not hold the same beliefs as their leaders.
The nation of Iran, the nation of Saudi Arabia, and
Israelity guid states. It's not one big army of people
who dress up in uniform and can't wait to kill
(57:29):
anyone who doesn't look like them or doesn't you know,
have the same opinion of what makes a good pizza.
Just imagine a single teacher in every single one of
those nations that wakes up in the morning, gets in
their vehicle whatever it is, gets to work, works, goes home,
goes to bed, gets back up, gets in their vehicle,
(57:52):
goes to work, and just does it over and over
and over again. They're all human beings. Yeah, they wake
up in the morning just like us. They hate traffic,
just like anybody's in traffic. Pants One leg at a
time like people say humans do. Yeah, they have ridiculous
in jokes and crushes and friend of me is they
probably like some of the same music that you do,
(58:12):
because music is everywhere. Chances are they enjoy cheese. Yeah.
They probably think your country's leaders are kind of loony tunes.
And unless they are Russian, the odds are that they're
not too impressed with their own leaders either. We say
that because Putin as a massive approval rating officially, and
they all believe that they are the good guys. So
(58:32):
what do you believe, folks? Is this a conflict of
self preservation? Is a resource control? Is it a matter
of ideology? Hearts and minds and and freedom? And what
does freedom mean in this situation? And how does freedom
for one group affect freedom for another? These are great questions.
I don't know the answer. Yeah, well that's for that.
You know, we're crowdsourcing this, Yeah, I think we have to.
(58:54):
So what do you think? Write to us on Twitter
or Facebook where we're conspiracy stuff. You can find us
on Instagram, can or see stuff show. If you want
to give us a call again. Our number is one
eight three three S T D W Y T k
call that number right now, leave us a message. You
might get it on the air. Yeah, and if you
want to, if you want to really up the gravitas
(59:14):
of your phone call, use one of those voice disguisers
that pitches your voice. Now, that would be badass. Oh yeah,
please do that. So, if you don't want to do
any of that stuff, just send us your opinions about
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episodes that we should cover, or just really tell us
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(59:34):
conspiracy at how stuff works dot com.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. M
(00:24):
Welcome back to the show. My name is Mac, my
name is No. They call me Ben. We are joined
with our super producer Paul Michig controlled decade. Most importantly,
you are you. You are here that makes this stuff
they don't want you to know. And we are recording
on breaking news this this time around the table. Right,
(00:46):
Let's let's start with the most recent news as we're recording.
On May eighteen, the US, the United States, announced that
it was withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
or the j c p o A for those of
us who are acronym fans, it's also known as the
Iran Deal. Yeah, or the Iran Nuclear Deal here in
(01:07):
the States. Right. Uh, that's an easy way to explain
it in a few syllables on the evening news. And
this decision was met with pretty widespread, uh, consternation from
some of our allies and fellow participants in this deal.
I guess we're going to go into why that might be. Yeah,
it's certainly subject that is just rife with complexity, and
(01:31):
they were going to look into the history. Today, we're
gonna look into what it could mean for everyone involved.
And let's talk about the deal itself. True. Yeah, the
deal was signed into effect in twenty fifteen by members
of the u n's Permanent Security Council, essentially the winning
side of World War Two, plus Germany and the EU
(01:53):
as its own entity, and then Iran and the United States,
which was, you know, part of the Permanent Security Council,
but there are they're one of the main actors in
today's episode. In exchange for freezing aspects of Iran's nuclear
enrichment program and submitting to intense, historically unprecedented UH investigation
(02:16):
programs on site in the country, Iran would receive partial
sanctions relief. This would allow the economically strapped country access
to billions of dollars, both in terms of potential billions
of dollars for trade and in terms of billions of
dollars of real world money that have been held frozen
(02:37):
offshore by foreign powers like the European Union and the
United States. I'm a big dummy when we say sanctions
that can mean a couple of different things. What does
it mean in this particular situation, is like a trade
like blocking, barring of trade? Great question. Yeah, because again,
for for those of us who just hear these terms
thrown around in the news, they're not often explained. So
(02:59):
sanctions are in general penalties for breaking a law or
an agreement. Just in general. You can give someone a
sanction yourself, should you somehow convince them you have the
authority to do it. In the geopolitical sense, however, sanctions
are part of what we would call sticks and carrots
of diplomacy. Carrot is an incentive we will give you
(03:22):
x amount of dollars to do what we want, or
we will give you this nuclear hardware or these chemical agents.
It is based around trade, right most of the time,
most of the time, yeah, thank god today. Military actions
can also be considered sanctions, depending on how they're rationalized.
It could be something like imposing penalties are making it
(03:44):
less profitable to do business kind of I mean, or impossible. Right. So,
typically when we hear the phrase sanctions apply, what we're
talking about is a genre of sanctions called economic sanctions.
I mentioned that carrots earlier. Economic sanctions are a form
of stick a form of punishment, so not enticing a
state to change its behavior, but attempting to force it
(04:06):
to do so. The role of sanctions in this conflict
cannot be overstated, and it's primarily due to the actions
of the United States. The United States is one of
the few countries in the world that can unilaterally apply sanctions.
They can take their toys, they can leave the playground,
and now no one else can play. That's that has
(04:28):
been the case for a long time, and that's a
vast oversimplification. But here's here's how it works. When the
US wants to sanction a country, it helps if they
have an alliance with other allies, But if they decide
to go it alone, they can still screw up the
entire Rube Goldberg esque thing that is international trade. Let's
(04:49):
say they let's say they do an economic sanction regime,
wherein they say no US based businesses, So no like Boeing,
no lock Keied Martin, Northrop grum Northrop Grumman, no financial
institutions can economically interact with a certain country or with
trades involving that country. At first, that sounds like okay,
(05:12):
US is leaving the game. There are more fish in
the sea, there are more badgers in the bag. But
the problem is almost all financial interactions at that level,
at some point in the chain travel through a US
financial institution, and once they do, the money stops the game,
the bubble pops, and on the ground, this means that
(05:33):
a sanctioned country literally cannot buy or sell certain things,
not just weapons of war, but things like medical equipment,
industrial components, you know, stuff like let's say you have
an ice cream factory and you need a large enough
UH boiler for some reason. Obviously we have not researched
ice cream factories, but but if that if that specific
(05:57):
component falls under this sanction, then it becomes very, very
difficult for you to buy it. So when Cuba, for instance,
had sanctions during the Cold War, UH, it was not
able to get life saving medical equipment. And that's why
if you travel to Cuba today, as some of my
contacts had recently, and you tour their hospitals, several very
(06:20):
important pieces of equipment in the hospital are going to
be German stuff from the fifties because that's all they
could get. The hospitals, by the way, or not air conditioned.
Just to illustrate that so, so the whole point with
this deal that that went through it was it was
very difficult for it to actually happen, and it happened
(06:41):
in the previous administration under President Obama. And it's if
you look at the agreement itself, they are all kinds
of things that have problems with it, at least on
that either side would say that this is kind of
a big deal. Well, that's how you know it's a
compromise exactly. No one's entirely happy. Yeah, yeah, And Matt,
you're absolutely right. It took a long time to get
(07:03):
everyone to the table first and then to achieve anything.
Most of the global community was completely appalled to see
the US withdraw although under US law it is legal
to do so. Because our side of this agreement was
what's called an executive order, it was not ratified by
Congress because it's an executive order that means whomever occupies
(07:25):
the position of Commander in chief afterwards can just get
rid of it without without running it past Congress or
the American people. And there were there was international support
for this deal, primarily uh U s Allies, Saudi Arabia
and Israel. They were also the key regional rivals of Iran.
They applauded the move. They said, this is a way
(07:46):
to prevent nuclear war. Yeah. Well, a lot of this
has to do with these things called sunset clauses, which
were built into the agreement itself, and specifically with the
enrichment process and what which centrifugis could be used at
what time. I think there's like an eight year what
they called sunset clause where after eight years they could
then begin enriching uh uranium with this these new versions
(08:11):
of their centrifuges firing back up much more efficient. Yeah, exactly.
But the whole idea was that the people who are
fighting against us being in this deal, we're saying they're
just using these sun set clauses to then be to
be able to achieve nuclear weapons anyway, or they're secretly
still conducting these things despite the investigations in their argument
(08:33):
that there's doing this to have nuclear power like we do.
Everybody's arguments. That's the thing. Everybody's argument is that we
are only pursuing nuclear capabilities to replace fossil fuels. Yeah,
that's since a nuclear weapon, since before a nuclear weapon
was even devised, And it's tricky because when when you
(08:55):
study this kind of stuff, the enrichment process for a
web in and for a power plant are identical. The
only difference is the degree of enrichment. So you just
keep going and that's that, regardless of what side you
fall on. That's a huge dilemma North Korea, for instance,
(09:17):
when um, when you speak with North Korean diplomats for
years and years and years, they were saying that they
were peacefully pursuing nuclear power as a means of economic independence,
not as a means of starting war. And who believed them,
No one, no one, No one would believe the US
(09:39):
if they said that. So right now here in the
States where stuff they don't want you to know is based,
public opinion is divided on whether this was a smart
decision to exit a critically flawed agreement and again one
that was not ratified by Congress, or a short sighted,
bellicost move to push the region and ultimately the entire
world close or to war. But let's hold on for
(10:02):
a second, and Rewind, Let's ask some questions. How did
we as a species get to this point. How much
does the average person in the US know about Iran,
about its history, about every single thing leading up to
this moment. I would say not very much. At least
I didn't before studying this a while back when we
(10:24):
touched on the Petro dollar and a couple of other
things like that. Um, so let's just jump right into it.
Here are the facts. Will go through a very quick
broad rush Iran from the beginning of time to uh.
We'll make it quick where you're not hardcore history, which
is a great show. I just want to point out
so Iran is home to one of the world's oldest
(10:47):
continuous major civilizations, meaning that it was never a dead
man's land after it started. You can find settlements dating
back to seven thousand BC. I mean they're not super glamorous.
It's not like a casino or something. But yeah, but
there were humans. They're living together, yes, yes, And we
have to remember everybody involved in these stories, these are
(11:07):
all real people. Ancient Iran was also known as Persia. Uh.
It's an historic region of southwestern Asia that is kind
of located where Iran is now. It's roughly the same boundary.
The term Persia was used for centuries mainly by folks
in the West to designate just regions where people spoke
(11:30):
the Persian language or spoke Parsi, and what they perceived
as Persian culture predominated. But more correctly, the term Persia
applies to a part of southern Iran, which was known
as Persis or pars or Parsa or modern day Fars
and Parsa is the name for an Indo European nomadic
(11:52):
people who got into the region around one thousand BC.
And the first mention occurs from an Assyrian king back
in eight hundred forty four BC, So this is old.
You may recognize the historical figures Cyrus the Great. He
(12:12):
was the founder of the Archaemenid Empire and he was
This was the first Persian empire. It ruled a huge
swath of land, Central Asia, North Africa, the Balkans, and
the seed of power was Persepolis. This was around five
fifty to three and thirty BC. So you will hear
a lot of people say it was the first quote
(12:33):
unquote world empire. It was the only civilization in all
of history to connect fort of the globe. Granted, there
weren't as many people around at that time, but uh,
there were about in four b C, for example, there
were about a hundred and twelve million people. Hundred, give
or take, forty nine point four of those were member
(12:57):
forty nine point four million of those, excuse me, are
members of the first Persian Empire. And then there's a
huge change that affects the world and Iran today, and
that was the Arab invasion. So there's this huge misconception
that's distressingly common, and it's the following. Many people think
(13:18):
that Iranians or people from Iran are Arab. They are not.
May speak Arabic, but if they did, they learned it
as a foreign language. And Iran is, however, an Islamic country.
During the eighth to tenth centuries, Islam became the dominant religion,
(13:40):
and the pre existing dominant religion, Zeastrianism, declined, as well
as many of the other associated religions. But thankfully for everyone,
and I do mean everyone, the achievements and the scientific
progress of the previous Persian civilizations were not lost. They
(14:02):
were absorbed by this new growing civilization. And let's so
that's ancient run multiple invasions, not Arabs. Was was a
great empire, free Islam before any of that happened. Now,
let's fast forward to the history of modern Iran and
(14:22):
of course their oil industry. It starts in nineteen o
one a British speculator named William Darcy paid Iran uh
and was allowed to explore and develop their oil resources
in the south of the country. Yeah. And it was
that discovery of oil in nineteen o eight that led
to the formation in nineteen o nine of the London
(14:43):
based Anglo Persian Oil Company or APOC. SO. Then by
nineteen fourteen, the British government had gained control over the
Iranian oil industry, direct control which it would not give
up for thirty seven years. Then after thirty five, the
APOCH was called the Anglo Iranian Oil Company or IOC.
(15:05):
And today it's just a good old BP. Yeah, British
Petroleum that VP down this street from you. Yeah. They're
just all about simplifying those, uh, those acronyms. I like it. Uh.
They signed a sixty year agreement in nineteen thirty three
to establish a flat payment to Iran of four pounds
four British pounds for every ton of crude oil exported,
and denied Iran any right to control oil exports. So
(15:30):
you get your flat fee, you don't get to say
and where we're selling it. How we're selling it or
what kind of deals we're cracking. Sounds like a sweetheart deal,
we cannot Yeah, yeah, exactly, we can see there that
they're the oil was controlled not by Iran up and
to that point one all the way into the nineteen thirties,
(15:50):
and they were obviously getting the short end of the
stick with this deal. They like many other countries, sought
to nationalize their oil resources back in nineteen fifty. This
there directly led to a coup in nineteen fifty three,
an overthrow of their democratically elected governing structure, but not
a coup of the people, not a genuine uh, mass
(16:15):
of the proletariat rising or something. No, Uh, This regime
change came from outside of Iran. Yeah, exactly. There was
a prime minister who had been elected in everything. And
then of course not of course, but as we have
seen before, British and in this case, American intelligence agencies
(16:37):
both decided they needed to do something, and it was
mostly British intelligence contacting American intelligence and saying, hey, we
need your help with this taleho exactly, So they replaced
the democratically elected prime minister, Mohammed Mozadek with the with
this guy that's known as the Shaw. He was also
known as the King of Kings to his friends, and
(16:58):
I guess to himself and his friends, now you call
me the king of King. Yeah, that's like the informal name.
Ok okay, yeah, well I think it was the Shaw,
Simshaw some something to that Effectum, Mohammed Resa Shaw, this
dude ben Oh. Yeah. He was tremendously unpopular. Not an opinion,
(17:18):
that's a fact, Yeah, exactly. Um. You can find out
more about this whole situation that occurred during the nineteen
fifty three Iranian coup if you've searched for things like
t P A j A X or Operation AJAX that
was the CIA's version, and also Operation boot b O
O T that was the secret intelligence service of the
(17:40):
British intelligence agencies also known as am I six, that
was their version. And so he ends up the the Shaw,
uh was it ends up being the last Shaw of Iran.
That the timing will differ a little bit, but he
would be considered active not although not an absolute monarch,
(18:02):
active from September one until February of nineteen seventy nine
when he was overthrown by the Iranian people and normally
you would think, Wow, that's fantastic. The people a rising
up right democracy. They are pursuing what they as a
(18:25):
community or as a state, consider their own will, their
own independence. However, the overthrow led to the creation of
a theocratic regime, modern theocratic regime. They are the rulers
of Iran today. So the so what we see is
a move ideologically right, uh, move to a more western
(18:50):
Iran under the shaw and then all of a sudden
you get a slingshot effect when it goes when when
commune comes up to power. Did you know that the
English word check was derived from the word shaw, like
the idea of checkers and check and checkmate. I just
was googling shaw and that came out. That was really interesting.
You over there just googling shaw, just googling show baby.
(19:12):
So I'm gonna we should start calling money shaws. That's great.
It's derived from shaw from Persian via Arabic, Latin and
French and related terms of checker, chess, ex checker um
and they also originate from that word, though I don't
see the connection in the way it sounds. But shaw
doesn't mean king, and I guess the idea of you know, mate,
(19:34):
just a hilly as side, just to just to lighten
the mood for a second. That's that's silly, It's fine.
I think that's really smart. So now we've explored Iran
from the beginning of time all the way up until
almost night. Why don't we jump into the modern Iran,
or the more modern Iran into today. But we'll do
it right after a quick hangout with a sponsor. So
(20:01):
in the decades since the overthrow seven, several of several
of your fellow conspiracy realists listening live may have been
around and seen this in the news. In the decades
since that n overthrow, Iran has been portrayed as an
adversary of the West. Growing up, I I remember personally
(20:23):
thinking and trying to figure out as a kid if
Star Trek was making political commentary and at Klangon's were
supposed to be like Iran or something interesting. It's a
very loaded, loaded show in terms of symbols. Yeah, in
popular culture, Iran has has been the enemy several times, right,
(20:45):
and the primary antagonists of Iran historically have been Saudi Arabia, Israel,
and the United States, and its primary allies have been
Russia and Syria, with some European allies attempting to act
as peace brokers or being neutra role for most of us.
In the United States, Iran is presented as a hard
line Islamic theocracy and there is an elected president, but
(21:10):
the actual leader is the Ayatollah, who is the country's
supreme religious authority. The current supreme leader of Iran is
a fellow named Ayatollah Ali Kamini. He's been in power
since nine, ten years after the revolution. Yeah. Have you
guys seen the new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm where
Larry gets a FATA put out on him because he
(21:31):
makes fun of the Ayatola. Yes, it's great and he
how does he get out of it? Well that I
don't want to spoil the season, Okay, it does involve making.
He's got a musical idea called Fatua the Musical where
he plays Salmon Rushdie and that displeases the Ayatola because
he sort of makes fun of him on a late
show and that sets off the absurdity that is Curb
(21:53):
Your Enthusiasm. But there we do want to say, there's
not a racist representation anymore so than his typical for
Curb Your Enthusiasm, the the religious authorities that he's beefed
up with are presented as ultimately like kind of cool people. Yeah, politicians,
Well there's a real argument over catchup. I want to
say it's anyway, check it out. It's fun, and it
(22:14):
also gives you a little bit of insight into this
stuff through a slightly absurdist comedic lance. Yeah. Well either way,
nine until two thousand eighteen is a long day time
to be in. Yeah, And I just only bring bring
that up because the idea of a fatwa and that
this man is so powerful that he can literally snap
his fingers and then any of his followers are just
(22:35):
you know, your persona non grata. We can endia, And
a fatwa isn't always going to be by any means
some sort of mafia hit. They can be, But fatwa
is more like a legal opinion almost or an authoritative declaration.
So a fatwa could be recognization of a slight change
(22:58):
in a ritual as well. But we again in the West,
are most often going to hear of fatois as a
declaration that somebody is persona on groutus, right, But I
guess you said like you said, could also be a
change in the sort of the party line on interpretation
of religious text, right, something like that. Yeah, yeah, exactly exactly,
(23:22):
And the tension that permeated the decades since the revolution.
It's hard to distill it into a single sentence or
a single example, because there was so much both on
a regional and global scale, and there was also outright
conflict such as the Iran Iraq War from nineteen eighty
(23:45):
until nineteen this and then series of other wars, some
of which the US was involved in. Yeah, the Gulf War,
Operation Desert Storm and all that in um, I mean
in in my mind as a child growing up. That
is that's how I knew. That's the only reason I
(24:06):
knew about Iran and Iraq at that time through those conflicts.
Did ever I tell you I met uh, Norman Schwartzgraft,
the General. Yeah, really, yeah, I was not, uh, not
in an official capacity. I should say, I was a kid,
just like at a park, you guys. He was just
sitting on a bench and then yeah, and there and
(24:30):
we sat on the other side of the bench and
we didn't talk, but we passed envelopes. But that that
guy would remember was very prominent in the American public
eye during this time. What was accomplished in those wars,
It certainly wasn't the de escalation of this tension because
(24:51):
the Middle East has further destabilized and right now in
distrust runs extremely high on all side to the conflict,
because what we're looking at is the escalation of a
proxy war in the Middle East. So UM. One thing
that is a an open secret it feels weird even
(25:13):
called a secret, is that the government of Iran funds
militias in other countries. In Syria, in Lebanon, there's his
Black and some of these some of these organizations are
considered by the West to be terrorist groups, but to
their supporters, they're considered to be freedom fighters, which is
another definition or contradiction that we run into often. Yeah,
(25:38):
and speaking of freedom fighters, you may recall the US's
involvement with the Iran contra scandal, where we were illegally
selling weapons to Iran without Congress knowing, without anyone else knowing. UM.
And then there's the whole the whole situation with US
selling weapons to Iraq as well during the Iran Iraq War.
(25:59):
So there's just the United States and this region. It
just has this history, man, where we we tend to
do some shady stuff, right, right, And maybe that's the
fog of war. Maybe there's something larger at play, because
one of the questions that we consistently run into when
we talk about why there's intervention in one state or
(26:21):
one region over another, right, one one of the things
we run into is whether there is something greater at
play behind the curtain. So consider, for instance, uh countries
that are resource poor or at least comparatively not not
as fortunate in terms of the resources. Consider all the
(26:44):
all the countries that are struggling with poverty, with human
rights abuse, with brutal authoritarian dictatorships. Why is the US
not there? Why is the West not there? For some people,
for the cynics in the crowd, the answer is resource based.
In Iran's case, they argue that this intervention is specifically
due to the oil that was discovered way back in
(27:07):
the early nineteen hundreds. So what's going on with Iran
and oil? I just gotta say, I don't think you
have to be cynical to have that few. I think
you just gotta have your eyes open, bro, That's all
I'm saying. And the guys if you're if you just
to set the scene. Matt's eyes right now are wide open. Um. Well,
just here's a quote from the World Bank. Ready, Iran
(27:29):
ranks second in the world, second in the world in
natural gas reserves, and fourth in the world improven crude
oil reserves. Like just okay, that's massive. This this world
still to this day runs on oil. And just knowing
that that exists there, all that crude oil underneath the
(27:49):
feet of each and every Iranian human being that I
don't know, I think that tells a lot about the
current situation and past situations. Agreed, there's a now passive
amount of energy in the ground there that is not
under BP's control, that is not under the control of
a Western energy conglomerate or a or a state actor.
(28:16):
Right and what it could be? Ben, but it was
once upon a time, could be again remember the good
old days. Did we mentioned in seven Russia and Britain's
secret treaty to divide Iran? Okay, well we'll get to that.
Russia is their ally, I remember. So we've got this
(28:36):
quick look at the broad strokes of Irani and geopolitical
history and current climate. As we said, vastly oversimplified, but
we wanted to hit some of those big points. It's
easy to see how Iran's antagonists would not want the
country to have any sort of nuclear capability, regardless of whether,
like to Knowle's point, regardless of how much they say
(28:57):
it's just for peaceful purposes, there's not really a way
to stop it, right, right, you can't. There's not a
different process. Yeah, but we're not gonna like stop making
nuclear power. It's not like we're standing in line to
give up all this stuff. It's true. We still have
(29:18):
the second largest number of nuclear warheads we be in
the US, not Matt. It's funny. I actually looked it up.
We only get our power from nuclear It's true. It's true. Well,
we also have a very powerful fossil fuel based industry,
and they have a lot of legislative hooks. And speaking
of legislative hooks, I guess, hang ups, it's very difficult
(29:41):
to build new nuclear power plants in this country. Oh yeah,
very difficult. I actually used to cover that was my
beat when I was a reporter for Georgia Public Radio,
and I covered the new um reactor. They were trying
to build a plan Vogel and Augusta, And it's still
hung up in red tape. It's it's it's been years.
They just can't make it happen. So all the ones
we have are aging and very very old legacy reactors
(30:04):
and need extensive infrastructure repairs. Right, this is interesting, you know,
just as an aside. And there's another there's another question here,
what what's the motivation for this general historical tension? What
went wrong? What's happening now? Why? That's that's the big question.
(30:27):
Why we'll answer it after a word from our sponsors.
Here's where it gets crazy. So oddly enough, not being
sarcastic here it is kind of odd. You will hear
continuing and contradictory explanations for the historically aggressive actions of
(30:48):
modern Western powers against Iran and for Iran's actions in
the region. In the case of the first oil exportation agreements,
Darcy remember him from earlier, did pay for the concession.
But it was, as as you guys said, a sweetheart deal.
And just a few years later, by nine seven there's
that secret treaty we were mentioning. Russia and Britain already
(31:12):
signed a deal to divide her On up between themselves
without consulting the Iranian government. So Russia said, we want
the top half, we want more control of Central Asia.
We're still playing the Great Game. And Britain said, cool,
we want the bottom half because we have oil there
and we consider it ours the great Game. By the way,
(31:34):
if you don't know what that is, listen to our
episode on the Great Game. It's a great game, man,
between Russia and uh well, I was gonna say Europe,
but the United Kingdom mostly. Yeah, oh man, that was fascinating.
I think that, you know what, I think some of
those guys on the Russian side, I think they really
did believe in magic. I think they did believe they
(31:55):
were practicing occult stuff. I mean, you kind of had
to in the time, and it was really the sign
of the times, you know what. You're probably correct, and
speaking of the times, in World War One, Iran was
again a battle ground for rival imperialist powers it during
World War One, ran said, hey, we're neutral, we're staying
out of this. So the British forces invaded to guard
(32:19):
their oil lifeline because you know, their naval power and
they needed this fossil fuel to be the engine for
their war effort. Yeah. I remember all the oil at
this time in Iran is controlled by Britain, right, but
they're still getting a flat rate, I believe, right to
Knowle's earlier point. The the thing here is we see
(32:43):
some of the first contradictions occurring early on. So we
said we we mentioned Britain's obsession with Iranian oil, right,
or Persian oil as they called it at the time.
The Western Powers in World War One advanced and i'd
eological argument one that is probably going to be familiar
with a lot of people today. They said, we're fighting
(33:05):
World War One because we want to free the Middle
East from this outdated Ottoman rule, from the Ottoman Empire.
That's feudalism, they said, that's that's garbage, juice, that's trash. Yeah,
and we wanted on to be independent and free and
of its own rule, right, that's what they said. Yeah,
that's that sounds that sounds real. Yeah, people should be free, right. Yeah,
(33:28):
we're just looking out for your best interest, Ron, and
we're gonna help you protect your oil. Be a shame
of something happened all that oil. Right. So, for people
who are critical of Western actions in Iran over the
past century, to them, this narrative, this story is one
of repression, of controlling resources and extracting them for the
(33:49):
benefit of a foreign power. For those who are supportive
of intervention in Iran, not just what has happened recently
or what may be happening soon. Uh, the issue comes
down to a couple of publicly declared beliefs. Saudi Arabia
believes that if Iran is not economically isolated, not militarily crippled,
(34:13):
it will strengthen its influence beyond its border. It will
use its proxy groups, its military organizations to disrupt the
status quo, to take economic resource control away from Saudi
Arabia while also propagating Shia Islam in areas that are
under Sunni Islam control. So one of the things that
(34:34):
Saddam Hussein was worried about when he was in control
of Iraq was that the Shia population of Iraq would
rise up and destabilize the state. Yeah, and just so
you've probably heard this in the news or somewhere. Groups
like Hezbollah are one of those proxy groups somewhat controlled
by Iran. Yeah. Absolutely, And this becomes an ideological battle
(34:58):
in many respects, a truly ideological battle because from the
Saudi perspective, there there's a struggle against disruption and instability.
And this is a huge concern given the chaos that's
already consumed. Iraq is eating Syria as we speak, and
plagues Yemen. Saudi forces are already heavily entrenched in Yemen,
(35:19):
and you know, you don't hear much about it on
the news. It is interesting how Yemen was all over
the news for what a month or two, maybe not
even that long, a couple of cycles, and then it
went away. But the fighting hasn't stopped. The fighting hasn't
stopped just because the camera stopped rolling, right, It's something
we would all do well to remember. The second thing,
(35:40):
and I should say these are not first and second
in terms of any kind of priority or hierarchy. The
second thing concerns the government of Israel, which sees Iran
and as an existential threat, meaning that they don't see
Iran as a some sort of rival nation that might
compete in trade. They see it as a country that
(36:03):
has prioritized eliminating their country. It's a ticking time bomb. Yeah,
just so right, Like how various Israeli prime ministers have
said Iran is one year away from making a nuclear bomb,
or like the way we worry that like sun flares
are gonna fry us all in our sleep. Yeah, I
mean there's I'm not getting Yeah, it's because it's really
(36:25):
it's not a question of a small conflict. It's they're
thinking in terms of every man, woman and child. Yeah,
and it's an ancient theological disagreement essentially. Was what that
boils down to? The the tension there, Yeah, it was.
It was around long before the United States, long before
(36:47):
the oil was important at all, long before uh, laser
disc Definitely. I think I had a misstepped there. You
were actually held a laser disc. Yeah, it's the weirdest
thing in the World's like a giant gold LP And
to flip it you have to flip it part way through.
And Steve said, like, what the hell You'm getting an
(37:07):
expensive thing a movie and I have to flip the movie.
I'm sorry, No, I worked up about this is a
legitimate gripe nol I had. I had people under the stairs,
and it ruined the flow, the cinematic flow film. I'm
all about flipping a record because that you sequence the
record and I have like sort of like a little
moment to pause and reflect movies. Now, So what did
(37:29):
these people under the stairs do for you to keep
them under the stairs? They were cannibally zombie things. They were.
So there was a couple that was religious. They were
religious extremists, and if children did not adhere to their rules,
the children they adopted, they would mutilate them and forced
them to live in this cartoonishly large basement where they
(37:51):
became candle. And there was a gimp suit. I remember that. Actually,
as it turns out funny, you should mention this. It's
actually meant to be an allegory for the US, his
relationship with Iran whoa gimp suit? And all my friends, wait,
are you being seriously? I'm not being serious. I'm sure
we could worm our way into making that work. We
get there. Actually, it turns out all West Craven movies,
(38:12):
especially the Nightmare on Elm Street series, are complex um
allegories for geopolitical conflicts. That's right, so right to us,
right to us with the name of West Craven Film,
and one of us will explain to you exactly which
geopolitical conflict that is an analogy for. What if? What
if it might take us a while to figure it out?
(38:33):
What if we ask people to send us there the
movie and why they think it's an allegorical geopolitical thing,
because I would love to get their ideas, or just
send us your entire dissertation on you know, which which
film and what which conflict it represents. Yeah, I can't
speak for everyone, but I will. I love reading dissertations
(38:57):
when you all send them in. We got a great
one regard Arthur Conan, Doyle and Sherlock Holmes from our
pal Simon Workman. Or do it verbally by calling our
eight hundred number one three three st d w y
t K. We will play it on the show. We swear. Yeah,
we can't wait to hear from you, assuming that the
world as we know it still exists when you are
(39:17):
hearing this. So back to the idea of this existential threat.
It's not to say that destabilization is not a problem,
but not existing is a huge problem right from their perspective,
from anyone can't Yeah, So as so long as Iran
exists in anything close to its current political state, the
(39:39):
government of Israel believes Iran will spend massive amounts of time, weaponry,
and blood attempting to eradicate it entirely from the earth.
Threatening disputed regions that Iran considers to be its own
territory like the Golden Heights, right, which were Syrian territory
for a while, or threatening to influence areas that Israel
later hopes to incorporate into its territory, for example uh
(40:03):
in future peace settlements with Palestine. Right. In the US,
this is often this is often reported, right, and it's
reported around the world because that is the belief. And
here in the U S at least, we often see
this cited as a as something that applies to the
(40:27):
States as well. Right, and you will see the chance
of protesters saying death to America or death to the West,
or calls from Iranian hardline politicians saying we need to
eradicate this nation. In the past, some Western powers have
portrayed their interventions in Iran not as a mission for
(40:48):
resource extraction and economic control, but as another theater in
the Great War of ideas, the Great War between capitalism
and communism. So there was always a reason to go
into Iran. Those reasons have changed over time, but there
has always been some sort of reason. And we have
(41:08):
to ask ourselves are we talking about is it really
about hearts and minds, it's really about survival. Is it
about ideology or is it about as uh Smedley Butler
would say, is it about being an economic hit man?
Is it about extracting and controlling the means of wealth
and production? Yes, that's that's what a lot of I
(41:33):
mean that. That is what a lot of people say,
including people who support intervention in Iran, like fans of
real politics, sort of the uh the Kissinger descendants, they
will say, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely communist, definitely communism mainly oil.
But also yeah, definitely communism mainly oil. Though that's that's true.
(41:54):
So for critics on either side, here's the weird party.
They both believe. There's plenty of stuff they'd want you
to know about this conflict. So for people who see
this as a matter of ideological threats, those opposing further
harsh sanctions and military incursions, the quote unquote moderates, they're
the same thing as anybody who's actively supporting Iran. So
(42:16):
for many of these people, if you say, well, these
sanctions are counteractive, for they're they're not going to have
the attended effect. What they're hearing is that you're saying,
I'm a member of Hezbollah because there's extremism there. It's
the old If you're not with us, you're against this
mentality that we see in so many ideological arguments, right,
(42:36):
and this idea hinges on the concept of Iran as
a hardline theocracy. But hey, guess what it is. I
mean and again this is not the people, this is
just the government, right. Uh. The fear here is that
arising Iran would inevitably become a nuclear power and exert
brutal control over the region, possibly uh, discrimin nading against
(43:01):
non Muslims or Muslims who were not their branch, who
are not from their branch of Islam, right, so Sunni
Muslims for instance. Yeah. Basically it would just be a
brand new Persian empire from the old days, one that
would attempt to take over Saudi Arabia, erase Israel, and
turn the other countries in the area into puppet states,
(43:21):
you know, with some kind of ten pot uh dictator
or dare I say a shaw In other words, they
think Iran would do to other countries the same thing
that Britain did to Iran in the past. And that
is a I would say, a good fear for those
which had done harm to it in the past. It's
(43:44):
a it's at least a it's good to at least
imagine that because you one does reap what one shows. Well,
it's also understandable. It's not like it would be a
sudden plot twist. Yeah exactly. You know if you're writing
that out in Revenge movie, that's what would happen, which
I think was which Nightmare on Elm Street is that?
(44:06):
Is it Dream Wars sdream Warriors? Yeah, I think it's
Dream Warriors when you're watching. For people who see this
as purely a matter of resource control, the Iranian oil reserves,
specifically the energy reserves or natural gas reserves, etcetera. Are
too important globally to not be used, to be not
not be part of this great supply chain. But for
(44:29):
people who opponents of Iran, uh, that resource is also
too important to be used to the advantage of this state.
And many of the people who believe this is entirely
matter of resource economic control are opponents of Western intervention
in Iran. But here's the thing. There's people who are
opponents of Western intervention in Iran. They are not opponents
(44:52):
of intervention in general. You gotta remember Russia, right, is
a great ally of Iran. They also attempted to cut
it and have can take over it. Uh, it was
a long time ago, and buddy, don't worry, it was
a little more in this century. We're cool now. We're
cool now. But this what we're saying here, what we're showing,
(45:13):
is that the pat explanations that you are receiving on
the news, if you're tune into broadcast stuff, if you're
listening for four or five minutes on your way home
to something, they're either going to be about a very
specific event, such as the eleven minute speech on May
eighth withdrawing from this agreement, or they're going to um
(45:38):
or they're going to pass over a lot of the
history that led to these moments. These these kinds of things,
these conflicts never occur in a vacuum. There's not a
leader who wakes up, has a bad day, finds out
the palaces out of Ovaltine, and then decides to you know,
bomb Muzbekistan. Yeah, but you know what you will hear
(46:00):
when you're listening to those a lot of the times,
what's that You'll hear someone from the Rand Corporation or
some other think tank, come on and tell you exactly
what's going on in their in their sphere, their analysis right,
and it's and it's usually one of these exact stances.
So what is Yeah, we have we still not done
(46:21):
an episode on think tanks. No, I don't think so,
No do you do? You guys have a favorite think tank?
I don't know. Would you consider counsel and foreign relations
in some way of think tank? Sure? Yeah, not a
not like a white House think tank? You know what
about like the Southern poverty loss in Airison like them? Hey,
that's a you know what, I would consider that a
(46:45):
think tank. To be honest, I think think tank is
kind of I think I think tank is kind of
an amorphous concept. I don't quite fully understand what makes
a think tank. It's like an umbrella term, almost right,
because they do a lot of different things, like a
work group. Yeah yeah, pay a bunch of very well
informed people to get together and well informed each other, consults,
(47:06):
policy wonks, experts, professors. Well, we want to hear what
your favorite thing tanks are? Two or the most dangerous
ones ran Europe. There, But at this point we have
to we have to end an episode with no real conclusions.
(47:26):
We don't know what's going to happen in the Middle
East over the next few months, over the next year,
but we do know that currently we no matter where
we live, no matter where you're listening to this from,
unless you are in space currently and planned to stay there,
in which case, high and thanks for checking out the show. Yeah,
(47:48):
and also good on you. That's that's that's a difficult
life to leave. Yeah, zero gravity is very bad for you.
But as long as you are living on the same
ball of mud and fire with the rest of us,
you and Matt and Noel and Paul and I are
all in the middle of an extremely dangerous and fragile time.
(48:09):
They already destabilized Middle East may well become the starting
point for World War three. I know that sounds hyperbolic.
I know that sounds alarmist, and I know people say
that about like everything that's ever happened. Well, but maybe
it's already maybe it has already become Yeah. I read
something recently, uh where a commentator said they had the
(48:31):
increasingly creepy feeling that they were living through a future
Wikipedia paragraph titled events leading to the war. But it
doesn't it You're right that you're saying that everything feels
like it could be that increasingly, so I would say
it feels like that. And again, they don't happen in
(48:51):
a vacuum. Here's where we are, as we're as as
we're recording this, uh, Israel and Iran are firing directly
at each other's stuff through Syria, right and Iran publicly
stated that if the deal collapses, just because the US
pulled out, by the way, doesn't mean it's going to collapse,
just severely weakens it that They said that if the
(49:13):
deal collapses, they're going to stop holding up their end
of the bargain and they will resume enrichment activities, to
which Saudi Arabia immediately said, well, if Iran resumes nuclear
enrichment activities, we're gonna assume they're making a bomb, and
that means we're going to get a bomb too. Israel
right now, for anyone who doesn't know, officially, has a
(49:37):
stance called strategic ambiguity when it applies to nuclear weapons.
They have never stated that they have a nuclear weapon,
but they got some. But it it is barely an
open secret that they that they do. Even NPR today
mentioned Israel being the only major nuclear power in the
region right and the United States does likely have nuclear
(50:02):
weaponry positioned around there. Uh. No one knows what the
Russian submarine um boundaries are, how far out those nuclear
subs go. But what what we do know is that
if a military conflict escalates, the US is well positioned
(50:28):
to exert control outside of the borders. But invading Iran
would be a blood bath. And you can look at
a map that the three of us have all seen
off air. You can look at a map of military
bases in the Middle East and how they ring Iran.
US military bases. They're there through the Strait of Hormones,
(50:48):
which I think we cover in the Petro Dollar there
through Central Asia. They're ringing the boundaries of the country.
And the saul means that if Iran, perhaps with outside assistance,
like a figure like a q Khan who gave Pakistan
the bomb, if Iran has outside assistance or independently creates
(51:12):
or even gets closer to creating a bomb, than in
short order, there could very easily be not one but
three nations in the Middle East with nukes and with
millennia old conflicts and and waiting surrounded by subs with nukes,
surrounded by subs with nukes, uh, surrounded by military basis. Yeah,
(51:34):
and this there's a big question here though if and
it goes back to North Korea as well, like, if
nuclear weapons are so dangerous in terms of relationship with
other countries, why would someone pursue them? Well, I think
that we see a great example of this with the
(51:55):
current negotiations with North Korea. For the first time in
along I'm North and South Korea came together and actually
began having talks. And then the United States is now
going to be meeting with North Korea, and you know,
they're allegedly the discussions will be about disarming even North
Korea and stopping their nuclear capabilities, but they're coming to
that table with nukes. And just being able to sit
(52:18):
down for negotiations with a nuke, I think creates a
much more powerful position than if you might be getting
some nukes. That's a dangerous position. Can we talk for
a second, just to as we wrap up why the
current administration is so opposed to the Iran nuclear deal,
why it's such a bad deal? Yeah, quote I was
doing quote fingers. Yeah, there's a there are a couple
(52:39):
of thoughts about that, and supporters of the current administration
see it as following through on a campaign promise. While
campaigning for the office of the presidency, Donald Trump cited
the Iran deal as the worst deal he'd ever seen.
He also said that he understands it more the anybody else. Yeah,
(53:01):
than than any anywhe else. Like He's done a ton
of research on it, and the it seems to me
like it's more. He just means he's done a lot
of deals. He's uniquely qualified to dissect and understand deals. Well.
He has some generals in his ear that are telling
him about these sunset parts of the deal and saying, hey,
this is really dangerous. Um, this isn't gonna work. They're
(53:23):
still gonna make it. Supporters of the deal, including former
President Barack Obama, who signed the executive order, saw it
as a way to buy time to de nuclear rise
or Iran or prevent it permanently from acquiring nuclear weaponry.
Opponents of the deal and cluose generals that you mentioned, Matt, say,
(53:45):
all we're doing We're not buying time for ourselves. We're
giving time to a to a belligerent government that is
that is sure gonna shake hands and play nice at
the table, but then when they go act, they're going
to make a bomb, and there we're not really stopping them.
And there was a um there was cooperation, international cooperation
(54:12):
leading to the Trump administration's announcement, because you'll remember, just
before he announced there pulling out of the deal, the
media and at least here in the US released a
story that showed Israel I believe had acquired some documents
that they said indicated Iran was not holding up its
(54:34):
end of the park. And those things have been tossed
back and forth by policy walks regarding their import or
their veracity, but that's that's ultimately it is the idea
that the deal didn't completely cut off nuclear activity at
the budget I see. And yet there are still supporters
(54:56):
and people that are remaining in the deal, like allies
of ours, that are sort of disappointed that we are
making this movement exactly. And I think at least Obama
came out and have this having been his show getting
this thing put together. Um said, it was mainly about
creating a sense that we're not going to follow through
(55:16):
with our commitments, and that could cause destabilization in terms
of our relationships with others and the expectation that we
will just you know, turntail at the at the last one.
That's when it suits us. That is the huge that
that is the huge problem with the precedent being set
because look, other countries will have experts who know about
(55:40):
how domestic US politics work, and sure they will understand
the legality of this contradiction, but it also violates the
concept of keeping one's word as a country, and this
will make things tremendously difficult going forward in various aspects
(56:02):
of international policy. UH. One thing that's getting a lot
of play now is the UH successful or seemingly successful
negotiations that are starting with DPRK or North Korea. And
they may d nuclearize, UH, they may not. It's it's
impossible to predict the future with full accuracy, but it
(56:24):
is entirely is entirely a beneficial thing for rival world
powers like China and Russia to be able to say, hey,
we may not be perfect, but if we agree to
agree with you that we'll do something, will actually do it. Yeah,
(56:46):
And that's a that's I mean, that's a dangerous thing.
So we're going over our time. Mischian control is probably
getting a little well eredate with us. And this is
this is a scary, scary subject, and it's tremendously controversial.
But if we end on anything, we should we should
end on the most important part to remember. The most
(57:06):
important thing to remember in this entire episode is that
in Iran, in Israel, and Saudi Arabia, and the United States,
the people and the government are not the same. They
often do not hold the same beliefs as their leaders.
The nation of Iran, the nation of Saudi Arabia, and
Israelity guid states. It's not one big army of people
who dress up in uniform and can't wait to kill
(57:29):
anyone who doesn't look like them or doesn't you know,
have the same opinion of what makes a good pizza.
Just imagine a single teacher in every single one of
those nations that wakes up in the morning, gets in
their vehicle whatever it is, gets to work, works, goes home,
goes to bed, gets back up, gets in their vehicle,
(57:52):
goes to work, and just does it over and over
and over again. They're all human beings. Yeah, they wake
up in the morning just like us. They hate traffic,
just like anybody's in traffic. Pants One leg at a
time like people say humans do. Yeah, they have ridiculous
in jokes and crushes and friend of me is they
probably like some of the same music that you do,
(58:12):
because music is everywhere. Chances are they enjoy cheese. Yeah.
They probably think your country's leaders are kind of loony tunes.
And unless they are Russian, the odds are that they're
not too impressed with their own leaders either. We say
that because Putin as a massive approval rating officially, and
they all believe that they are the good guys. So
(58:32):
what do you believe, folks? Is this a conflict of
self preservation? Is a resource control? Is it a matter
of ideology? Hearts and minds and and freedom? And what
does freedom mean in this situation? And how does freedom
for one group affect freedom for another? These are great questions.
I don't know the answer. Yeah, well that's for that.
You know, we're crowdsourcing this, Yeah, I think we have to.
(58:54):
So what do you think? Write to us on Twitter
or Facebook where we're conspiracy stuff. You can find us
on Instagram, can or see stuff show. If you want
to give us a call again. Our number is one
eight three three S T D W Y T k
call that number right now, leave us a message. You
might get it on the air. Yeah, and if you
want to, if you want to really up the gravitas
(59:14):
of your phone call, use one of those voice disguisers
that pitches your voice. Now, that would be badass. Oh yeah,
please do that. So, if you don't want to do
any of that stuff, just send us your opinions about
this show or any other show, your suggestions for new
episodes that we should cover, or just really tell us
about your cat. That would be great too. We are
(59:34):
conspiracy at how stuff works dot com.
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