Nora Jones

And this is such a fascinating thing that although all the people who come up with these policies in the US government see the results of their policies, but nevertheless, they continue to perpetuate those policies, which really produces results exactly opposite of their stated objectives.

Unless they set the objectives is to radicalize.

That's a different kind of worms there.

Yeah.

This might be a provocative question.

How radical is Iran?

So we're told that they're theocratic, that they want to kill us, Al-Qaeda, Islamic State that basically analogize them.

At the same time, you had an Ayatollah who was a Shia cleric who extremely cautious, you know, in my estimation, we bomb their nuclear sites, the only token attack back.

Even here, the religious cleric who's supposedly radical instructs his foreign minister to pursue a ceasefire deal.

It seems highly rational.

I mean, I'm curious, are they radical?

And radical in what sense, whenever we use that word?

I think it is true that they see themselves as an anti-imperialist force.

But that's nationalistic.

But that's totally nationalistic.

I mean, Henry Pratt, who was the director of Iran Desk at the State Department in 1980s,

always used to say, and he wrote this piece in the Foreign Affairs, that Iran is mostly concerned with security and independence domestically rather than dominion abroad.

And the dominion abroad is a posture, it's a defensive posture for them.

And because they know that the US and US allies

and Israel are determined to overthrow this regime.