 Welcome. Please put your name and where you're from in the chat, say hello, share any affiliations you want to share. We're just allowing people to come in now and we'll get started in a minute or so. Welcome. All right, I think we should get started. I'm Marcy Winograd, coordinator of CodePin Congress. Welcoming all of you. Thank you for joining us tonight. Medea, I believe, is on her way to Istanbul. She could surprise us, but that's what I've heard. She and Anne Wright are taking that emergency flotilla to Gaza. We will wish them well, right? And thank them for their courage and hope that they are protected. I know that there are people from, I think, 30 or 40 countries participating in this flotilla. And they're going through a lot of training, nonviolent training before they set off. Tonight, we have an excellent program, No War with Iran. How timely is this? We have two guests. We're very honored to have Trita Parsi, who's the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. We also have Asal Rad, a researcher who has been widely published with her writings on Iran. And she'll also provide analysis for what's going on and predictions. Unfortunately, I just read, I don't know if you've read it as well, on the Associated Press, that Israel is vowing to retaliate for the drone strikes launched by Iran after Israel conducted its own strikes on the Iranian embassy in Syria, killing a number of people. We'll talk about that tonight, but first, I just want to share some news updates and some norms. Our norms are show respect for our speakers and participants, encourage healthy debate, disagree agreeably. Stay on topic in the chat, and let's organize and mobilize for peace and justice. Any disrespect will not be tolerated, but we haven't really had much of a problem with that. Onward. Now, in terms of news updates, you may have read that this supplemental, the $95 billion supplemental that Biden was pushing for and has been stalled in Congress. Now, the Speaker of the House, Johnson has said, well, maybe we'll slice it up instead of allotting $14 billion for Israel, $60 billion or $61 billion for Ukraine, $8 or $9 billion to further militarize East Asia, along with $9 billion for humanitarian aid to be sliced between Israel, Ukraine, and Gaza. Maybe we'll just cut up all of these bills and submit them separately. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican, of course, Maga Republican has threatened to try to have the Speaker removed from his position, but so far she hasn't really taken a step toward executing that threat. Apparently, Johnson met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, and Trump said, well, if you want to push for more aid to Ukraine, if you make it alone, I could maybe go along with that. So it's still stalled, but people are predicting that there will be votes on these separate bills, possibly as soon as this week by Friday. So tonight for our capital calling party, we will be calling to say we don't want it. We don't want it in one bill. We don't want it in three or four bills. No more weapons to continue these, the war on Gaza and the war in Ukraine and to invite further problems in the East Pacific. All right, what else? So last week, I want to shout out and thank you all of you who participated across the country in our delegations and our protests in front of the German diplomatic missions. Why? Because the International Court of Justice began proceedings last week, last Monday, on Nicaragua v. Germany, Nicaragua's lawsuit against Germany for aiding and abetting genocide by sending weapons. Of course, the United States is the biggest supplier of weapons to Israel supplying about 69% of its arsenal, but Germany comes comes up with another 30%. So Palestinians in Germany, there's a large community and of course we know that they are being suppressed. They are not allowed to hold conferences. A doctor who was in Gaza was not allowed to enter Germany to talk at a conference that was then ordered shut down. They have been asking for as much solidarity from us as we can possibly offer. So that was our purpose. We had delegations in Chicago. We had one in Chicago that met with the general of Germany for Chicago. He started out by saying Israel has a right to defend itself. Our delegation pushed back. It was a muscle delegation of Muslims and Jews and others. They pointed out that this is not self defense. This is genocide. We had also a meeting with the first secretary for the German embassy or mission rather the UN mission in New York City. Shout out to everyone who participated in that. Again, he parroted a lot of the talking points that we've heard from Republicans in our Congress. But there was a lot of pushback. We had a demonstration in Los Angeles in front of the German consulate there. We had about 50 people. We delivered a letter. They were not friendly at all. But we did deliver a letter and there were also actions in San Francisco and Washington DC and elsewhere. So thank you to all who participated in that. Okay, tonight our topic is no war with Iran. And our first guest is Trita Parsi. Trita is the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for responsible statecraft. He is an expert on US Iranian relations and geopolitics. If you're on Twitter, you can see that he tweets a lot and shares his analysis of what's happening. Trita has authored three books on US foreign policy in the Middle East treacherous alliance, the secret dealings of Israel, Iran and the United States. A single role of the dice Obama's diplomacy with Iran, losing an enemy Obama Iran and the triumph of diplomacy. Born in Iran, Trita and his family moved to Sweden when Trita was four years old to avoid political repression in Iran, where his father had been jailed twice. First by Mohammed Reza Pavlavi. And then following the Iranian Revolution by the Ayatollah Homeini. Welcome Trita Parsi to Code Pink Congress. Thank you so much, Marcy. It's a great pleasure to be with all of you and I have to say, before we start, I just want to express my deepest gratitude to what Code Pink has done in the last couple of months to put political pressure for a shift towards ceasefire. I can tell you that from where I sit in Washington, the only reason there's been at least a rhetorical shift, nothing close to what we want to see is actually actually because of the pressure that groups like Code Pink, JVP, if not now have been pressing on politicians and as well as the administration. And I just want to express my gratitude for all the work that you all have been doing. Thank you. Thank you so much. So Trita. Now we hear that Israel is vowing to retaliate. We don't know what in what form against Iran after Iran launched drones that were intercepted by Israel United States and others and following Iran's embassy, Israel bombing Iran's embassy in Syria and killing a number of people. We're still, you know, hearing what the count was, but the number of diplomats agree violation of international law. Where do you think all of this is going? You know, Biden has said he doesn't want to support Israel in further retaliation, but we've known that Biden doesn't always stand firm in what he says. So your thoughts. So let me first start off with giving brief analysis of what actually has happened because now the dust has settled. We're a little bit beyond the spin. And I think we can see more clearly exactly what happened, whether, you know, it was a success from the Israeli standpoint, whether it was a success from the Iranian standpoint. And I would argue that this was quite an astonishing retaliation by the Iranians. I mean, they were clearly doing something to try to make sure that they restored their deterrence. They showcased their capability of hitting Israel and by that further piercing the perception of Israel's invincibility. While doing so without killing a single Israeli and not giving a great at least opportunity for the Israelis to expand or escalate matters further. And this was done obviously through coordination with the United States. Both the U.S. and the Israelis had numerous days of heads up before the attack took place. Part of the reason, of course, that a large number of these drones were shot down was precisely because there was so much ample time to prepare for it. If this had been an actual war, and which this had been done by surprise, then I don't think A, we would have been able to see the U.S. put in place its air defenses to be able to protect Israel. Nor would certainly the Brits with a French have been able to have enough time to do so. And under those circumstances, mindful of the fact that most of these missiles were shot down by the United States, not by Israel. Under those circumstances, then it seems like the Iranians showcase that they can do tremendous damage to the Israelis, which then moves us towards potentially a new balance in the region. In the past, Israel has had such a preponderous of power and firepower in the region that it had this ability to be able to strike against Damascus, strike against Lebanon. Earlier on we saw, of course, they struck against Tunis and Tunisia when the PLO was stationed there. And it had this kind of impunity because no other country in the region had the power to be able to inflict consequences on Israel when it did so. Now I think we have moved into a new era. So when all the spin lies down, if I was sitting in the Israeli defense establishment looking at the situation, I would recognize that this is a definite setback for Israel in terms of its image of invincibility, which means that its maneuverability and freedom to act in the region has been limited by what Iranians can do and what they're apparently willing to do. And they managed to send this signal without any casualties and as a result, a situation in which an Israeli retaliation against this is going to be a tough sell even for Washington. This then brings us to the question that you just raised as to whether the signaling from the Biden administration is clear enough in order not to have the Israelis expand or escalate matters further. And here I think once again, we're seeing this contradictory approach by the Biden administration. On the one hand, the administration clearly does not want to see the Israelis escalate matters. They do not want to see an enlargement of the war and they are making that clear and they're saying that they're not going to be participating or helping the Israelis in any offensive action. But then they turn around and say that they will have Israel's back iron clad if Israel is under attack. Now on the surface, this may not sound contradictory, but when you think about it a little bit, it is profoundly contradictory. Because essentially we're providing Bibi Netanyahu who for 20 years have tried to drag the United States into war with Iran. We're providing him with a roadmap. This is how you get us dragged into the war. We will not help you with an offensive campaign against Iran. But once you engage in that offensive campaign and the Iranians retaliate, well then we're going to be right there with you. So the distinction between me offensive or defensive becomes quite meaningless. I think it would have been much better for the president to send a very clear red line that we do not wish to see any escalation at all. And that Israel should take this as a win because all of these missiles were shot down etc etc and to simply stand down. Because we have already tolerated this war going on for seven months and we cannot tolerate any further. I mean from my perspective and I'm sure yours, we would like to see an end to the war in Gaza right away. But if the Biden administration has a wishy washy approach towards Netanyahu expanding this into a regional war, I think that would be an absolute disaster for the region and for the United States as well. And again when we take a look at Biden's track record, when he has given these kind of contradictory messages, you know no pushback publicly and some sort of a soft pushback privately, Netanyahu has completely defied the United States consistently and consecutively during this period. Now just take a look at what happened with the April 1st attack against the Iranian consulate in Damascus. The United States was not given any heads up about this. Once the Israeli jets essentially or the missiles were fired, that's when the Israelis informed the Pentagon and the Pentagon was furious. Because at the end of the day, the Israeli action significantly risked breaking the truce that has existed between Iraqi and Syrian militias, supported by Iran and the United States on the other hand, which has been lasting for about seven, eight weeks now. This is, you know, as you all know, these militias were extensively attacking the United States as a way of pressuring the United States for a ceasefire in Gaza. And that stopped after the U.S. started taking kinetic military action against them and the Iranians were pressuring these militias to stand down. That could have fallen apart as a result of the Israeli action which they didn't even inform the U.S. about. And the question is what were the consequences for Netanyahu taking military action in such a way that endangered U.S. troops in the region? I cannot point to anything that shows that there wasn't any significant consequences. So this is part of the reason I'm very worried that the way the administration has messaged this, even if they may be much firmer in private, as long as they're at the same time saying that, well, if you start a war, we will definitely protect you defensively. That actually incentivizes the Netanyahu government to go in a direction that we don't want them to go. And this is what I'm worried about right now. The ball is in Israel's court. We will see in the next couple of days whether they respond and exactly how they respond. Thank you for that analysis, Trita. A couple of things. So it seems like this latest launch of drones could be spun either way. The Iranians could say we were able to threaten Israel without killing one person. And we were able to prove that they're not invincible. But the Israelis might say, well, their drones were intercepted. They're not a formidable enemy. We can do what we want. So look, the drones were never the problem to begin with. These drones cost less than $10,000 and the United States spent about $1.1 billion shooting them down over the course of less than 12 hours. The real issue is the ballistic missiles. And the drones and the cruise missiles are all aimed at overwhelming the Israeli air defenses. The reason I would say that if I was sitting in Israel, I would be worried about the situation is because the Israelis were successful because they had such a heads up about this, a deliberate heads up, which then enabled France, the UK, the United States and Jordan to participate in making sure that none of these projectiles or very large number of them were shot down. It is not at all clear. And I think from the Israeli standpoint, they may know very well that they would not be able to pull this off entirely on their own if this was a surprise attack. So as a result of that, I think actually the Israelis as much as it actually makes sense for the administration to keep on saying that this was a win for Israel, take the win. It's because they're hoping that that will convince the Israelis to stand down. But if we brush aside the spin, it would be a different story if this whole thing was designed to actually inflict a lot of damage on Israel. The reason why we can confidently say that it was not designed to do so was because they caved the United States and Israel 72 hours heads up that this was going to come even telling them the details of exactly from where some of these things would be shot. So that's not the way you do it. If you actually want to inflict damage, that's how you do it. If you want to have a lot of symbolism, well at the same time demonstrating your capability. Demonstrating your capability to your domestic population as well, right? I would think that if they didn't retaliate in some form, either militarily or diplomatically, there would be some pushback within Iran itself. I would say that would be pushback from inside the regime, hardline elements who believe that Iran's previous strategy of strategic patience in which they absorbed a lot of these hits without responding had been unsuccessful because they had emboldened the Israelis to keep on pushing the envelope. If you go to the general population, I do not believe that there was a lot of desire for a move like this precisely because they were fearing and it still may happen that will lead to a much larger war. The population in Iran has zero appetite for that at this point, understandably. And we see that there are over 88 million people in Iran, 64%, what I read, under the age of 35, a whole new generation coming up. I just want to remind people that we're talking to Trita Parsi. He's the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. And if you have a question for Trita, please post it in the chat and we'll try to get to it. Trita, I've heard, well, this attack on the embassy, Israel's attack on the Iranian embassy and the effort to get Iran to retaliate and the US involved was all a distraction to distract from the genocide Israel is perpetrating in Gaza. Right. And others say no, this was really the agenda all along. As you mentioned, Iran has wanted to get the, excuse me, Israel has wanted to get the United States involved in a war with Iran for decades. And I can remember George Bush, like the war criminal George Bush even said, no, I don't want to bomb Iran for Israel. So what do you, you know, it's not clear what the agenda is here for me. I think certainly that one of the calculations of the Netanyahu government was that this could be a great distraction, but I do don't. I'm not confident that they thought that the Iranians were going to respond and certainly not that the Iranians were going to respond in the manner that they did. I think it's clear that one of the consequences has been that attention has shifted away from Gaza. In fact, I was speaking to a congressional staff earlier today who pointed out that actually at the exact same moment that these drones were being shot down by the United States. Israeli jets were engaged in bombing Gaza. So it was using its resources to actually bomb Gaza rather than defend itself against these drones and missiles. But at the same time, I do not believe that this is going to be a new normal. Because at some point, these tensions are either either going to go, you know, explode or they're going to start to simmer down and then focus will be shifted back towards Gaza. So this is a temporary distraction. I suspect that it will be very difficult for Netanyahu to use it to truly be able to distract the world away from Gaza. Another thing that I think is important to keep in mind while a lot of people are pointing out that this one Israel a lot of sympathy because it was under attack, etc. And I think that's absolutely true in Washington, in Europe, outside of the West. That is not at all the impact that this episode had, nor did it necessarily. We did not see any deliberate effort amongst those global South countries to shift away the attention from Gaza. Rather, they saw through the bluff or the charade here and wanted to shift their focus back to Gaza. Thank you, Trita. A question that was posted in the chat. Is there any way to influence the Biden administration? They seem to be immune to the pressure being exerted in action. And by pressure, we can talk about the case South Africa brought at the International Court of Justice against Israel. We can talk about Nicaragua filing charges against Germany and asking the ICJ to order Israel and the I mean Germany and the US to stop arming Israel. We can talk about all of these shutdowns that occurred yesterday across the country freeways and other forms of transportation being shut down. All the bird dogging in Congress all of us calling our Congress members, and yet Biden is still on board and Congress seems to be on board most of them for sending more arms to Israel. So, do you see any pressure points that we are missing or need to press harder on. I personally think actually that the pressure is effective. I think we were starting to see some significant changes, not in the administration but in the political landscape as a whole, including in Congress. I mean, the conversation about conditioning aid is further ahead than it has ever been. And I think it will bounce back once this episode with Iran starts to fade away. I think the pressure is very, very effective. It's just that it's not reaching the White House directly. It's starting to first have its impact in Congress. Conversations with member of Congress, etc., is leaving me with the impression as well that many of them are understanding that this is a huge problem for their own reelection. And even if Biden may not take that into account, doesn't care or doesn't understand it doesn't mean that other members of Congress are not. Again, if you take a look at the number of members who have increased in terms of signing off for a ceasefire, I would also point to another very important development in my view. This was probably two weeks ago. So, Senator Chris Murphy was otherwise obviously very close to the administration on MSNBC stated that he does not agree with the administration's strategy of tying a ceasefire to the release of the hostages. It's crucial because this has been part of the reason why there hasn't been a deal. Now, of course, on the surface of it, it may sound as if it's logical to tie the two things together. Hamas is taking these hostages in order to get them released. Israel is using its leverage by potentially offering a time limited ceasefire. Here's where that is falling apart. First of all, it is immoral at this point because Israelis are killing between 150 and 200 people a day. And to do so in order to secure the freedom of probably at this point quite a bit less than 130 hostages, since many of them likely have died, unfortunately. This brings us to the second point. Many of the hostages have died as a result of the ongoing fighting. And thirdly, because you have a prime minister in Israel who is openly accused by the Israeli public of not trying to get the hostages home, who's not prioritizing the hostages. If you then tie a ceasefire to the release of the hostages and the prime minister of Israel is not interested in getting the hostages home, well, then you're not going to get a ceasefire. This is part of the reason why at the UN Security Council, these two objectives were disconnected, disentangled. There was a clear demand for the release of the hostages and a clear demand for a ceasefire, but without making them contingent upon each other. To have Senator Murphy come out and publicly say that the White House should also shift its position, I think is actually very crucial. And I think there's something I would suggest that perhaps Code Pink would look into and push for further, because this is part of the reason why we haven't gotten a deal. That's not to say that the hostages shouldn't be released, but reality the current strategy is ensuring that they don't get released. We need a different strategy. Yes, and I think we do need to pressure Chris Murphy more because the tweets that I read that he's sending out are campaigning for Biden's $95 billion supplemental spliced however you want it, but more money for arms for Israel. So I'm glad to hear that he is evolving a little bit, but he still needs a lot more pressure. Here's a question that was posted in the chat. Hello, with the impending Rafa military ground invasion looming. Do you believe that an Israeli ground operation will cause an Iranian attack? Or does Iran seem to work attack for their best interests? I think it's very, very clear as much as the Iranians definitely have their sympathies with the Palestinians. Neither the Iranians nor any other country in the region has any appetite to get actually involved in the fighting, with the potential exception of course of the Houthis. So if the Israelis stop attacking Iran, whether on Iranian soil or Iranian assets, I do not see the Rafa attack shifting the Iranian position towards actually getting involved in the war. That's partly because Iranians actually have always pursued their own interests, but also because the Iranians are in a very weak position internally with the economy, with the repression that is going on to be able to justify such an engagement. It's different if Iran itself was attacked, but if it is choosing to get involved in that fight, I don't think it would work out politically. So I don't see that changing. What I think it will do, however, is that it will really make it difficult for the Biden administration in any way shape or form to sustain the position that is had so far. Given how clear it's been that they have desired this not to happen and given how many innocent people unfortunately are likely to die and such a thing. The episode with Iran has pushed back the Rafa operation. It probably has not pushed it back permanently. But I think it's been more difficult for the Israelis to go forward with that in the midst of this engagement that they've had with Iranians. Well, let's hope they don't. Yeah, and we will do everything we can. I know a lot of the people on this call have been active and calling their congressperson protesting, sitting in at offices, shutting down train stations. It's all really important and I thank everybody. And thank you so much, Trito Parsi. I know you have to go. It's half past the hour, but we really appreciate your insight and all the work that you do to advance peace in the world. So thank you. Thank you. And again, my apology that I have to leave. Thank you to Codepin for all the work you're doing. And you guys are in tremendously good hands with Asal. She's a brilliant, brilliant analyst and I'm sure she will be able to answer all your questions. Wonderful. Take care. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right. I'm Marcy Winograd, coordinator of Codepin Congress. Shout out to Grace Siegelman. She's navigating the tech for us tonight and thank you all for joining us and posting questions on the chat. Our next guest, our featured guest is Asal Rod. She works on US foreign policy, has worked at the National Iranian American Council or NIAC on US foreign policy vis-a-vis Iran. Her writing can be read in Newsweek, The National Interest, The Independent and more. She has appeared as a commentator on BBC World, Al Jazeera and NPR. Asal Rod completed her PhD in Middle Eastern history from the University of California at Irvine in 2018 and she has a forthcoming book titled The State of Resistance, Politics, Culture and Identity in Modern Iran. Welcome, Asal, to Codepin Congress. Thank you. Thank you for having me and I want to echo what Trita was saying about all the work that you guys are doing. I mean, I see, I'm following everything on social media and I see the activism of Code Pink every day and that impact, whether you think it's being felt in the halls of Congress, it's being felt on social media and it's bringing attention to something that's vitally important for attention to be brought to so I can't really echo what Trita said enough and thanking you guys for doing that. And also mentioning that I think I sent you an outdated bio because my book is actually out. It came out the end of 2022. Okay, well, we'll have to read it and review it post the rave review on Amazon or maybe not Amazon and Verso books or wherever we can. So, Asal, you heard the conversation that I had with Trita. Is there anything that you want to add or amplify that he said? I mean, there's nothing specific that comes to mind because I largely agree with everything that Trita was saying. Obviously, he's a brilliant analyst. And so there's nothing there's nothing I can really add to his comments. Overall, there was, you know, when we're talking about this idea of distraction, though, I would say, and I agree with his point that I think it's a temporary distraction because in reality, unless we see a full scale war, which is certainly not what Iran wants, it's not what anybody in the region wants, and at least I truly believe it's not what the Biden administration wants either. The problem is the disconnect between what the Biden administration wants and their actions on the ground and what will actually happen. Very, very similarly to his predecessor, right, which I would also argue, I don't think Donald Trump wanted a war with Iran or wanted Iran's nuclear program to expand. But those things happen, those threats came about because of the policies that were put in place. And I think that's the disconnect that we're seeing. But at the same time, I do think it was meant as a distraction. I do think it was meant to show this sort of the Iran is really Israel is being attacked. Israel is the victim. This is the threat. And now this will be used now whether it's not obviously doesn't exist within within reality because it ignores the fact that Iran was responding to an attack. But this will be used to justify weapons transfers and military aid to Israel. And that's the key because there was a lot of pressure building on this idea of conditioning military aid to Israel on why are their weapons transfers. You know, I've been watching the State Department briefings and a lot of the White House briefings over the last six months. And this has been a pattern of responses when reporters push back against the administration to say, well, you know, if Israel is killing aid workers, if Israel is accused of genocide, if Israel is, you know, if this many civilians have been killed, what is the justification for the U.S. continuing these weapons transfers? And oftentimes, especially in recent weeks, you've seen people like Matthew Miller in the State Department and John Kirby saying things like, well, Israel still has other threats, right? There's other groups and other malign actors in the region who are threatening Israel. And this will be what they will point to now. Right. So there's, in a way, I think that's a strategic win for Israel only, again, and I agree with Trita, only in the Western narrative, though. It only works in the U.S. It only works in European capitals. It doesn't work in the Global South because in the Global South, especially, and this is, by the way, not the entire population of these countries in the West, right? There are a lot of Americans, a lot of Europeans who do not agree with what their governments are doing, and that's why we have seen consistent protests for so many months, which I think is actually quite incredible. With the fact that usually we have a very short attention span as a global community, right? What you see on social media, whatever the news cycle is, changes. In my case with Gaza, and I think that's a testament to just the sheer horror that people have witnessed over the last six months, and that's why I don't think that this is something that will go away, it will come back, and I agree with Trita on that as well. On that note, there was an article today that I read on the Intercept that the New York Times, the editors of the New York Times, and if you saw this, circulated a memo telling reporters they were not to use words like genocide, occupation, Palestinian territory. You know, it was stunning, I shouldn't be surprised, but such an obvious spin to bolster what we know is a genocide right now. So I think that it's because of Instagram, it's because of TikTok, which the house in the Senate want to ban, you know, that this is so much still in the news. Now somebody posted in the chat, I think something about, isn't the agenda, Israel's agenda to destroy Iran's nuclear program? Well that's long been a, yes, that's long been a point that Israel makes, right? Iran is an existential threat to Israel, according to Israel, and Iran having a nuclear weapon is and even makes it an even bigger threat. Now the problem with that is there was actually a deal in place, an international agreement that prevented Iran from getting a nuclear weapon that would therefore have thwarted that supposed risk to Israel, and yet it is Israel and Netanyahu who worked to undermine that very agreement, who pushed the Trump administration to withdraw from that agreement. So it begs the question, if in reality your concern is Iran having a nuclear weapon, which it has, which it currently does not, and which according to US intelligence, Iran has not pursued a nuclear weapons program, at least since 2003, then why undermine an agreement that according to non-proliferation experts was the strongest non-proliferation agreement in history? Right? It had the most oversight of any nation's nuclear program. Why would you undermine that? So, you know, and we can debate about what the reasons would be, but in part of course it's because Israel has to have this sort of boogeyman in the region. It has to say, look Iran is the threat, and this has happened repeatedly. We just saw it right now, right? We've witnessed this sort of shift to, well the issue isn't what Israel is doing in Gaza, the issue, it's not Palestinian liberation, it's not Palestinian oppression, it's Israel is always under threat, and that's why it has the right to self-defense, and all of the neighbors, right? Now we have normalization deals, so then, well, if there's normalization deals, is Israel under threat? Iran, Iran is the boogeyman. And so if you go back actually in May of 2021, this is the beginning of the Biden administration and another bombing campaign in Gaza, right? This was another bombing campaign in Gaza in May of 2021. There's a press conference where Blinken and Netanyahu are standing together, and the question is of course about Israel's use of force in Gaza, and Netanyahu immediately diverts the attention to Iran, not surprisingly. This is a repeated pattern. So why undermine a deal that protects you if in fact you are being threatened? Because that threat allows Israel to do anything it wants. As long as Israel is under threat, we're not talking about the occupation, we're not talking about the settlements, we're not talking about child detentions, we're not talking about them flattening Gaza every few years. We're not talking about continued occupation of more than five decades, if you count 1948 and the Machba, 75 years, right? You're not talking about those things because the Western narrative will always focus on the threat to Israel. And so I think that that is, you know, when you talk about this sort of nuclear threat from Iran, I don't think Iran should have nuclear weapons because I don't think any country should have nuclear weapons. That's my view as a peace activist and as someone who believes in nonproliferation. But for the state of Israel to have nuclear weapons that it refuses to acknowledge and have its nuclear arsenal protected by the United States, which also has nuclear weapons and also won't acknowledge Israel's nuclear weapons, shows you the sort of problematic nature of that language of Iran being this nuclear threat, and that's why you have Israeli historians, Israeli-British historian Avi Shlaim, who's talked about this before, and he says it's actually the reverse. It's Israel that's an existential threat to Iran. When you look at it, when you look at what's happening on the ground, when you look at the effects on these societies and the policies that Israel has pursued against Iran vis-a-vis the United States, really the threat is in the other direction. This is according to Avi Shlaim. So something that Trita said that surprised me, and I think that surprised a few of our participants, was that Iran had given Israel and the United States a heads up about these drones, or at least had given, well, I guess Israel 72 hours of warning. I think that's what he said before the missile strikes. I haven't seen this reported anywhere of you. I mean, in the Western media. There is a report in at least Reuters. Reuters reported about this. What's funny about the report from Reuters is it says, according to Turkish officials, Jordanian officials, and I forgot what the other country was that they named, they were given 72 hours notice, and they were meant to give this information to obviously their US counterparts. I mean, you're talking about states that are allies of the United States. The Turkey is a NATO ally. Jordan is an ally of the United States. What's funny about the report is the US denies this. They say that they were given no, they were given no warning that this was going to happen. And they were given no warning that Iran was going to send these drones. Exactly. So they deny the reports that Iran had given warning, even though you have these officials from Turkey from Jordan saying, yes, Iran gave warning. In fact, Matthew Miller was asked by a Reuters journalist. Well, we're being told that these officials are saying that Iran gave the warning, and Matthew Miller again denies this. He says, well, they may have spoken to other officials, but the US was given no warning. The Jordanian foreign minister yesterday in an interview with CNN reiterated that Iran had given warnings ahead of time. And he made a very interesting point. And I say this because Jordan is not only an ally of the US, but one of the countries that helped shoot down, intercept many of the drones, right? The Jordanian foreign minister yesterday said that this is not about Iran. This is about Gaza. And that we shouldn't be losing focus. So he understood very well, this is someone who is a representative of the country that actually helped shoot down those weapons is still saying, but this isn't really about Iran. This is about Gaza. That is the core issue. That is what is causing instability in the region. And that is what we should be focused on. So there are reports that say that Iran had given, had given warning. And, you know, when you look at it, just, just logically, if you look at it as someone with zero expertise, Iran had publicly talked about like you can go on Twitter, the Iranian mission to the U.N. is publicly posting things. They're publicly talking about the fact that they're going to respond to Israel's attack. And the U.N. mission from Iran had said, if there would be no reason for us to respond, if the U.N. would condemn what Israel did. If the U.N. would simply condemn Israel's action on its consulate, then Iran would not have to respond. Again, Matthew Miller was asked this question days before the U.N. was asked this question days before the Iranian attack, days before. Why don't, why don't we just allow the U.N. to condemn this? And his response was that excuse from Iran is flimsy. If they don't want to attack, he said, if they don't want to attack and they don't want to escalate, they can just not do it. Now, today, when he's being asked about, what about Israel's response, his response is, well, Israel's a sovereign country. It's going to decide what to do. Israel's a sovereign state and they decide what they want to do. But you see that, right? The double standard in which apparently Iran is not a sovereign country and cannot make any decisions for its own self-defense, but Israel is a sovereign nation and thus can make decisions for themselves. So it's very interesting when you hear the reports, but certainly there was notice. This has been confirmed now by U.S. allies. And there was, the weapons were, there were hours before the weapons arrived. Like we, everybody knew, the whole world knew, hey, in five hours, weapons are going to arrive in Israel, giving ample time for the response. So it's very hard to believe the idea that Iran intended any real damage. It's all right. I've wondered and I imagine others also have wondered, who's really in charge here? Is it Netanyahu? Is it Biden? Does it change? We saw that under Obama, wasn't it? Netanyahu came and addressed Congress, a bipartisan convening of Congress over the Iran nuclear deal to say, don't approve this. And ultimately, I don't think Obama even went to a vote. I think Obama made a unilateral decision. Correct me if I'm wrong. Well, so the first thing is obviously the entire political system and this is not unique to the issue of Israel or foreign policy. Our entire political system is based on money, right? So if you have strong lobbies, then that is how decisions are ultimately made. They're not made based on the will of the people, despite the fact that they're supposed to be, right? In a democratic society, when 80% of the population thinks something, you would assume that would become policy. It doesn't, whether you're talking about healthcare, talking about gun control, whether you're talking about reforms to... I didn't remember. Okay, sorry. Sorry, I lost my shirt. But you can see that that is an issue generally within the political system. And of course that is the case within foreign policy as well. So we have obviously APAC, which is this huge strong lobby, which gives millions and millions of dollars to different candidates. And so it's not a surprise when those very candidates take the approach that they do vis-a-vis Israel. Israel has no red lines. It has a green light to do anything it wants. And so it's not just, I think, these individual leaders, but entire political system. That is, I mean, if it was another country, we would just easily call it corrupt, right? We would call it corruption. And that's what it is. We live, unfortunately, in a system that is politically corrupt, and that's why decisions are made much more... Politicians are concerned with their donors rather than the constituents. In terms of this specific moment, though, that we find ourselves in, I think it's interesting because Biden's policies, his foreign policies, especially his foreign policies in the Middle East, have been more similar to his predecessor, Donald Trump, than they have been to the administration that he served, Barack Obama. So he has maintained much of the Trump-era policies, such as not returning to the nuclear deal with Iran, maintaining sanctions and maximum pressure. And you see this... The Obama administration was a lot... I mean, I don't want to pretend like they stood in front of Israel. The Obama administration was the one that gave the largest military aid package to Israel, $38 billion over 10 years. But in reality, that was because Obama was sort of appeasing Israel because of the nuclear deal with Iran. It did take a different approach. There was a different approach on Cuba, for instance. So it's really interesting to see Joe Biden act more similarly to Donald Trump than to Barack Obama. I think that a lot of the policy that we're seeing, honestly, is just that of Joe Biden himself. He has talked publicly, proudly, about being a Zionist. And so he's very much... To me, it takes on an air of ideological fervor, almost. The way that you've seen the support for Israel from this administration. Because while I'm not surprised by its support for Israel, I am a bit shocked at the extent to which it has gone. Because I am shocked to see that Israel is on trial in the world's highest court for genocide. The worst crime against humanity. And that was not enough to push this administration to take a different approach. Then if that's not enough, then nothing exists under the sun. The only crime that Israel has yet to commit is in using a nuclear weapon. Do you think that there would be any difference between a Biden presidency and a Trump presidency on Israel and Iran? That's a difficult question because it's frustrating to have to answer it, honestly. Which is, I don't see how. I don't see how it can be different. I don't see how it can be worse. That's maybe the way I can say it. I mean, short of honestly using nuclear weapons, I don't see what can be worse than genocide. What can be worse than, you know, allowing just mass slaughter unchecked. Weapons transfers that bypass Congress. More military aid. I mean, the reason I say it's difficult to answer is because I was and will continue to be a very strong critic of the Trump presidency for many reasons, especially domestic policies but also foreign policies. And it's frustrating to be caught in a situation where we're basically reliving the same election. But neither option in the question specifically that you asked, neither option seems to be very different from each other. If anything, Trump seems more anti-war than Biden at this point. I mean, if I'm being honest, you know, and that's why I said it's frustrating because it sounds like I'm advocating somehow for Donald Trump, which I'm absolutely not doing. Yet if you look at their foreign policy record, Trump seemed to want to avoid war a lot more than Biden does. It's under Biden that we have Ukraine and Russia. It's under Biden that we have this war on Gaza. And it's under Biden that we're... Iran's nuclear program has continued to expand and we live in fear of an entire regional conflagration. So the prospect is not great. I have to grease that Trump set in motion a lot of what we're seeing today, you know, moving the capital to Jerusalem and sending lethal weapons to Ukraine whereas Obama didn't... Absolutely. And actually... You know that Trump's base, his base of Christian evangelicals are solidly behind Israel as an ethno-state. So this is exactly the problem with the Biden advent. And this is why I said they have seemed to... There's more continuity between Trump and Biden than there is change. And on Israel specifically in September. So this is before October 7th. In September, Matt Lee from Associated Press was pushing State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller on the question of the goal on heights. Who has sovereignty over the goal on heights? Clearly, it's Syria. The goal on heights are occupied by Israel. And it was Trump-era policy that basically said, no, you know, that they accepted annexation of the goal on heights, which no U.S. administration can do because it's a question of international law. The U.S. doesn't decide international law. But in that conversation in September, Matthew Miller actually said, leaving legalities aside, practically, as long as you have the threat of Bashar al-Assad and Iran, practically it makes sense for Israel essentially to control the territory. And the pushback was, well, that is Trump. That's the same policy. Then are you saying that Israel has sovereignty? And he refused to answer that question by saying leaving legalities aside, as if you could do that in a legal question. The question is legal. Who has legal sovereignty over land? So you see that there's a lot of consistency, and that's the concern you would have in going into the next election is, you know, if the argument is Donald Trump on this particular issue will be worse, I don't see, I don't necessarily see how that's possible or if that's the case. I agree. Well, we have a few more questions, and then we're going to get to our capital calling party, but people have a lot of questions for you, Dr. Ad. So one of the questions, well, a couple of the questions pertain to the domestic situation in Iran, with 60, about 65%, being under the age of 35, 88 million people, do you see change coming domestically in Iran? I wish I had better news in general. I feel like all the questions I'm answering, I'm answering with not a lot of optimism, and that is unfortunate, because one of the criticisms or one of the concerns, I should say, of analysts back in 2017 and 18 when they were concerned about the U.S. pulling out of the nuclear deal was that A would just expand Iran's nuclear program. It would undermine the moderates and reformist voices in the country who really, with the nuclear deal, from the Iranian perspective, right? This is not the same case for other countries, but from the Iranian perspective, it was a watershed moment, because you'd finally, after the revolution, seen this moment of detente between the U.S. and Iran, this adversarial posturing had cooled down, and there was the belief that this was the beginning of a shift. And so when that was undermined, the concern was, well, sanctions are just going to hurt ordinary civilians, people are going to become more poor, there's going to be more domestic pressure, hardliners will consolidate power, and things will be much worse for Iranians. And that is 100% in the case. Every piece of that prediction has come true. Every piece of that analysis was correct. And so Iranians are much worse off today than they were back in 2015 when they were really hopeful that this would be a moment of change. And we know, obviously we've seen protests in Iran, we know that there is vast, vast dissatisfaction across the country, across segments of the society, across generations, because the system is failing across the board. People are hurting economically, they are politically repressed, and they are socially repressed. And that is the unfortunate reality on the ground for Iran, so there isn't, it doesn't feel like there's a lot of space for change because the space is becoming more narrow, right? It's becoming more repressive, more sort of a mafia that's consolidating power within the country. And that's, that is one of the consequences of, and it's not, I don't say this to say this is the fault of the US, right? The leadership in Iran is responsible for their own actions and their own decisions. At the same time, there are events when you have powerful countries who can impose, impact and influence on other countries, there are events that set things in motion. Much like if you go back to the 1953 coup, right? There are things that happen that have long-term consequences and I think that's what we've seen in recent years and it's a very difficult situation for that country. And I imagine the repression would get worse with escalation with Israel. I mean, this doesn't seem like a, clearly the people who are currently in power are not flexible or are willing to relent anything to the will of the actual people. I think in Iran what you'll see the sort of opening that may exist to see some kind of a shift will be the death of Fominay, who's the current supreme leader and I think he's 83 or 84 years old. One would think and he's been rumoured to have died many, many times. He's had health issues. There have been attempted assassinations years ago but he's still there and so that I think will give an opportunity and won't necessarily be a positive shift but at least you can see a space where some kind of change will inevitably happen because the person who's basically ruled over the country for more than three decades will be gone. Before you go Dr. Rad what news sources do you rely on or where do you get your news? I do I'm very, very critical of mainstream media mostly the the language and the narrative that they use. What I will say is the information the facts that they provide is accurate. If I want to know something that's happening on the ground I will go to sources like Reuters, Associated Press because they have factual information. The problem is the way that they present that factual information if that makes sense. They'll give you the information that is true and that's been verified in many ways but they'll frame it in a way where if you're not privy if you're not familiar with it as closely then it will shape the way that you think in a very specific way and so that's why I also really love independent media and journalism that supplements that. Things like the intercept podcasts like Katie Halper Left Reckoning you know you have podcasts by people like Aaron Halick Aaron Maté. These are all really great sources of independent journalism. I really really do like the intercept specifically as well. So there's a lot of space to see other journalists trying to do the work that disentangles the narrative that I think mainstream media misses a lot. And there's a lot of names by the way. I'm not naming everybody. There's a lot of great stuff out there but those are the ones that I thought of off the top of my head. Dr. Rod, there are more questions for you still perhaps before you go you can put an email in the chat and people can ask you directly because I think people are very engaged and want to continue. We do have a calling party coming up and we want to take action tonight. So I'm afraid we're going to have to say good night but you're welcome to join us for the action no pressure, no worries. Dr. Asal Rod is the author of the book The State of Resistance, Politics, Culture and Identity in Modern Iran. Let's read it. Let's review it. So thank you so much. By the way, I'm sorry to interrupt you. I was just going to say I just opened the chat and I can see that there's a lot of people giving a lot of great sources. Manda Weiss, electronic and taffata also great. Truth out, common dreams. I see all of these and I just wanted to say I agree. These are all great sources and I just put my email in the chat as well. Excellent. Thank you. Let's all unmute and thank our guest Dr. Asal Rod, Middle East expert. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you to all of you. I will emphasize again what Trita said. You guys are doing such important work, such important work and I see it every day. I see it every day. So thank you. Keep doing it and we'll try to keep doing our part. Tud Pink rocks. It does. Bye. Now we're going to move on to the action portion. We call it the capital calling party but you can also call it a Twitter party. If you're on Twitter, you can send a tweet. If you want to email, you can do that. Grace is going to put the script up and I know that we've done this before but you know you have to keep doing it. You have to keep calling it. You have to keep emailing. You can't just say well, did that. Did it once. I'm done. No. One of the things I remember reading about the National Rifle Association was that they were really able to mobilize people to call every day Washington district offices. If we don't have the money that APAC has, we should have the resources and the votes. Certainly more. Hello, my name is, I'm your constituent. We're calling the house, right? Because the house is not voted. The house is not voted. The house is not voted. The house is not voted. The house is not voted.