Jeremy Scahill

Brandon, I think an off-ramp requires Trump's removal from office at this point, because if you're the Iranians, why would you ever deal with this?

Why would you ever negotiate with this administration?

Well, they've already said that.

Yeah, they have already said that, and I believe them because multiple times, and not just with regard to the buildup to the 12-day war, but in other instances as well, we've used diplomacy as a ruse.

They see what's going on here with Trump just now inventing fake diplomacy and once again trying to use it as a ruse for whatever his next escalatory plan is.

So you have that, and then you also look at this man who is clearly a menace to the country and the world at this point.

So, I mean, is there an off-ramp as long as Donald Trump remains president of the United States?

Extraordinary stuff.

Brandon, it's always great to speak with you.

We really appreciate it.

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First of all, the United States preference in the world is that the only countries it wants to have nuclear weapons are countries that are adhering to US hegemony or considered allies in the broader project, some of which is related to what you said about capital interests and sort of the prevalence of free market politics backed up by the iron fist of militarism.

In the case of Iran, I guess we would have to back up to the end of World War II briefly and recognize that coming out of World War II, you had two major powers emerge in the world as so-called superpowers, the United States on the one hand, the Soviet Union on the other hand.

And of course, while in America, we're all taught that we won the war and America saved the world, the Soviet Union actually had...

exponentially more people die fighting fascism in Europe than the United States.

But that that history is often told as though it was sort of an afterthought.

And so when Europe started to be divided up, you had the Soviets fighting for their spheres of influence, the United States fighting for its spheres of influence, of course, being assisted by the British.

But then the Middle East became a huge prize.

And so what you saw in the 1950s with the rise and creation of what was called the Central Intelligence Agency, you had the kind of Cold War battle beginning over the control of oil resources.

And so one of the first actions of the CIA and British intelligence in the region was to overthrow the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran.