 For those of you who are just joining us, this is a crazy time in the world who have ever thought we would be at this moment when the whole world is living in fear and uncertainty and we are feeling fear and uncertainty here in the United States. You know it's usually that our friends overseas are the ones that are feeling this and our government is often the one causing the problems but we're not feeling the results immediately in our daily lives and here we're all feeling the same and on the one hand it's terrifying on the other hand it does give a sense that the world is small and because of that talking about Iran and what the Iranians are suffering right now is so important to do so Trita we're really glad that you took time out of your busy busy schedule we want to thank the other co-hosts for joining us and I think we're going to have a good audience today and it will be online for you to tell your friends afterwards. Trita you're the founder of the National Iranian American Council and now involved in an exciting new venture the Quincy Institute. I wonder if you want to say a word or two about that and then we'll jump into what's happening in Iran. Sure thank you so much and thank you to Cote Pink and all the co-sponsors for organizing this and want to really commend you all for the work that you've been doing for the last two weeks in particular when it comes to lifting sanctions on Iran which I see has gotten a lot of traction on capital ale and hopefully will come to victory as well. The Quincy Institute was founded or was launched late last year it's a new think tank in town that unlike most of the other think tanks in Washington is on the one hand transpartisan in the sense that we do have support from both the left and the right but the most important aspect is that we are founded in order to rethink American foreign policy and question the first principles of American foreign policy. We want to shift the paradigm of American foreign policy towards a national security strategy that is centered on diplomacy and on military restraint meaning far far less military interventions than we have seen in the last 40 or so years and we're off to a good start and I think with the coronavirus it is a stark reminder to everyone that after spending all of this money and killing so many people against all of these kinds of threats from abroad many of them highly exaggerated look how vulnerable we are to a pandemic look how unprepared we are for dealing with it and look how our priorities are when it comes to how much money we're spending on healthcare and for preparation for a pandemic like this and how much money we're wasting on all of these endless wars and all of these foreign bases right now. So jumping right into it we wanted to ask you to give us an update on where things stand in Iran including with the pandemic but how does this change the correlation of forces inside Iran and then we'll go into the U.S. policy and the global level. Sure the pandemic hit Iran not only very hard but very early probably because of extensive contacts with the Chinese as a result of Trump leaving the nuclear deal the Iranians have become more and more dependent on the Chinese their economy in particular so the connections there are very very intense and that's probably why they were hit so quickly compared to other countries. The government clearly mismanaged the situation continues in many ways to mismanage it partly as a result of a power struggle within the country between the Rouhani faction and some of the more hard line elements we saw just in the last couple of days that that fight had actually led to the hard line elements telling the Medecins en Frontier that their help is rejected and you saw the Rouhani government overruling that and continuing to welcome the help from that organization and others as well so you have on the one hand for those who don't understand the French. Oh I'm sorry yeah and we see you know the continuation of how lack of preparedness lack of taking it seriously we see some parallels between what the Iranians did and what happened in this country in the sense that the Iranians were notified that there's something happening it's not entirely clear how well they understood the situation but they decided to go forward with the parliamentary elections anyways fearing that otherwise it would be a propaganda point for the west or particularly for the Trump administration if they had to postpone it and we saw the same thing happening here in the United States where the DNC going forward with some of the primaries in the midst of this pandemic so on the one hand they've handled it very poorly and you have a very large number of cases probably a very large undercounting of the cases as well as the undercounting of the deaths there's a lot of anecdotal evidence that many deaths that are corona related have been categorized differently perhaps in order to push down the statistics. So how able was the healthcare system in Iran to deal with people's needs before this happened? Well on the normal circumstances their healthcare system is is not in a bad shape actually it's quite good in many aspects but as a result of the sanctions from the United States for the last couple of years which have been immense just to give you a bit of statistics before Trump left the nuclear deal the Iranians were exporting roughly 2.2 million barrels of oil a day and that was one of the main if not the main source of income for the state it is after all in oil country. As a result of the sanctions the first round of it when Trump refused to renew waivers for several different countries this dropped down to 1.1 million barrels now as a result of him essentially not renewing any waivers at all the Iranians are most likely not exporting more than 260,000 barrels a day which means a more than or roughly 90% reduction in the main export of that country. Now imagine how that then spreads throughout the country and how that impacts the entire economy you cannot do something like this and say well this will only affect their military budget or this will only affect the regime but not the population that is just pure nonsense it is preposterous there is no case in history in which a downturn of economy or pressure of economy of this kind has happened that has not affected not only everyone but primarily the weaker elements in society. And then you add to that the recent oil wars between the Saudis and Russia that has made the price of oil plummet and so they're getting even less than they were before that. Certainly and the budget of the country was based on a 50 dollars per barrel oil now it's below that and Iranians are probably offering discounts in order to get anything sold mindful of the risks that entails with buying oil from Iran mindful of the additional expenses for shipping and insurance that is taking place again as a result of sanctions. Now the administration of course claims that hey but you know medical equipment is not sanctioned and as a result this is nonsense the Iranians are lying about this that is clearly and disingenuous talking point from the administration because they know very well that by sanctioning the entire financial system and the banking sector in Iran it doesn't matter whether a specific good is sanctioned or not the transaction is already sanctioned and if this wasn't the case you wouldn't have seen some measures by OFAC earlier this year in which they were trying to change some things to be able to claim at a minimum that they're doing something to ease humanitarian trade. Office for foreign assets control yeah the office for foreign assets that would not have been necessary had it not been the case that this is affecting the health care sector and you know you don't have to take it from me or take it from other experts human rights watch itself issued a report about a month and a half or so ago I think it was that documented how this very much is not only affecting the health care sector in Iran but it actually is a violation of human rights you also have international courts having ordered the United States to lift these sanctions because of the impact that it has on the health care sector. So the the terrible situation of coronavirus in Iran has really led to new calls throughout the world for the US to lift these sanctions can you say how things have shifted just in the last two weeks? Well I mean there's been an outcry an organized outcry but also a very organic outcry because I mean how can you continue and not just continue impose new sanctions on a country in the midst of a pandemic I mean there's a a level of inhumanity I don't think we have the word for it yet we have to invent a new word in order to be able to describe this and in fact it's even worse I mean under these circumstances according to the New York Times Mike Pompeo took the opportunity to go to the president and say actually this is a really good time to bomb Iran because they're already suffering so much under these sanctions and under the pandemic it's the perfect moment to do so. That's our top US diplomat. The Secretary of State the very same guy who essentially held up an agreement within the G7 on how to deal with this issue by insisting that all of the countries would have to refer to corona as the Chinese or the Wuhan virus. I mean where our priorities are and this is just absolutely grotesque. Isn't he the same one who also wanted the US to hit back harder against the Iraqi militias that are lined with Iran again at this time of the coronavirus? Yes indeed there's been several occasions in the last 12 months in which a question has been you know an issue has come up to the table of the desk of the president and the question has been whether he would take military action or not in each and every one of those instances Mike Pompeo counseled war instead of other measures and I think in many different ways because of the presence of Bolton at least up until a couple months ago a lot of attention was taking away from the very equal if not worse hawkish sentiments and instincts of Pompeo because he could just hide behind Bolton. Bolton had that ability of just saying the most ridiculous things publicly and getting all the attention to go to him but in reality based on the record it does not seem as if Pompeo in any way shape or form is better in many ways he may actually be worse. So is it actually the Pentagon that is a more moderating force in terms of any kind of military action? In that specific case in an earlier cases that appears to have been the case but we still have to take it with a grain of salt in the sense that yes I don't think there's a lot of folks in the Pentagon who wants to have war but that is not the only issue and this goes into the work that we're doing at Quincy. It is not as if the Pentagon is pushing back against the idea that the United States needs to dominate the world militarily and particularly when it comes to dominating the Middle East militarily taking the side of the Saudis on many of these different issues because that approach in and of itself constantly puts the United States on the verge of war not just with Iran but with other countries it's a very aggressive foreign policy so as long as that policy still has more of a consensus within the government the fact that some of these elements at the last moment counsel against war which is obviously good but it's not good enough we need to fundamentally review our foreign policies so that we're not constantly in this position in which the question of war keeps on coming up. Now in terms of the crux of the supposed crux of the issue around the nuclear deal you wrote a piece that said this might be a time when hardliners in Iran are saying let's go for the bomb can you explain your analysis there. So I published a piece over the weekend that pointed out that there's some significant changes taking place in Iran I mean the hardliners are on the rise Trump has completely humiliated those in Iran who argued in favor of diplomacy with the United States who argued in favor of some form of reconciliation and modus vivendi between the US and Iran who saw the nuclear deal as just the beginning of a larger process in which other issues between the two countries would be dealt with as well diplomatically with the aim of coming to a resolution. They've been all proven wrong essentially in the eyes of most Iranians right now because the nuclear deal has not delivered in any way shape or form for them in fact Iran is under more sanctions now than it was before it signed the nuclear deal Iran is under more sanctions now when it is abiding by a nuclear deal than when it was accused of having violated the NPT it is as bizarre of a situation as you can imagine some of those circumstances the argument of the hardliners that you know the mistake of the Rouhani government was that they actually believe that a deal with the United States could be struck and that you could trust the US to implement it you know hardliners warned already during the debate of the nuclear deal that the US is going to betray this agreement and stab Iran in the back and in the eyes of many it seems like that argument that line has been vindicated now these forces are now rising in Iran we saw what happened in the parliamentary elections it's likely going to repeat itself and then in the presidential elections in Iran next year meaning the hardliners getting the upper hand they're going to get the upper hand and probably win the presidency as well and the likelihood is that they're going to be pursuing a much much more hawkish line than what the Rouhani government has pursued I mean they're still sticking to the nuclear deal they're trying to see if the Europeans can come in and aid them and in that circumstance there's also now rumors and murmurs that the debate and the conversation inside the regime itself has changed in the sense that the argument in favor of leaving the npt or building a bomb was a very very very small minority within the regime and this is corroborated by US intelligence European intelligence even Israeli intelligence who all agree the Iranians never made a political decision to build the bomb and certainly leaving the npt would be a massive step but also dashing for a bomb would be a massive step as well and I've not seen any indications that early around they had the intent or the desire to go in that election now it appears that things may be changing that the conclusion for the Iranians are that if they only had the bomb or if they at least left the npt and use that as leverage they might be in a more similar situation as with the North Koreans and we've seen how Trump is treating the North Koreans compared to the Iranians and the danger here is this Pompeo thinks that the coronavirus is making Iran very very weak and in this way and I think he's actually correct in that it is making Iran much weaker but the coronavirus is and it's toward it cuts both ways because at the end of the day it's also spreading global chaos and it may actually also provide the Iranians with opportunities that they earlier on did not desire nor need now however with the coronavirus with the additional pressure from the United States the hardliners may come forward and say well this is actually the best moment to withdraw from the npt kick out all the inspectors and dash for a military bomb what is the United States going to do it's going to be dealing with its own coronavirus its own elections international community doesn't have an appetite for a conflict with Iran under these circumstances and as a result see this as a small opportunity within a larger crisis this is very dangerous in my view I think would be very bad if the Iranians got a nuclear bomb it would be very bad to see further proliferation of nuclear weapons and none of this would be happening had it not been for Trump doing this huge huge disfavor to US national security by pulling out of the nuclear deal and starting to wage economic warfare against Iran well I'm glad you went back to that because it's so important for people to understand that this is a manufactured crisis and also how much it's affecting next door in Iraq we're just this week we see US soldiers two US soldiers killed in a British soldier in an attack how much of the of those attacks are do you think really directed by Iran and how much is there really a danger of this what's been called a tit for tat I don't like to use those terms because it's people's lives turning into a much larger conflict we don't know for certain how much controlled Iranians have the US intelligence believes that some degree of control that they had probably has been lost as a result of Soleimani Muslim Soleimani being assassinated by the United States we also know that even if the Iranians were completely against any of these actions the Iraqis have themselves their own incentives to do what they're doing because together with Soleimani was also the head of one of these militias Mohandas who was killed and there is likely a desire among some of those Iraqis to avenge his death and we don't know if they're acting completely independently or not now Pompeo thinks that if they do something the US should target Iran both the military as well as Trump himself pushed back against that knowing very well that that would lead to a major military confrontation a full-scale war but the question that we also have to ask ourselves is that the Iraqis have now asked the US to leave the fight against ISIS is something that Iraq together with the help of a couple of other countries can handle on its own the United States is not needed there any longer why is the United States staying when the fight against ISIS according to the president is over the Iraqis are asking the US to leave why do we still have troops there that essentially are just a tripwire if some Iraqi militia completely independently from Iran chooses to attack those US troops the US may end up in a war with Iran and now we have because of coronavirus a lockdown of US troops that will not be leaving anywhere they are for the next what is it three more months except from Afghanistan that withdrawal appears to still be taking place so in our remaining less than 10 minutes at this point let's move towards the international scene what people are calling for how this growing chorus both outside the US and within the US might be used as a time to really get some kind of lifting partial lifting of the sanctions it's been interesting you see the spokes you know the EU foreign policy chief borrell explicitly blaming US sanctions for the devastation and disarray in Iran when it comes to the coronavirus saying that it's made the situation much much worse you have the Pakistani prime minister on twitter urging the United States to lift sanctions you have the brits privately lobbying trump to lift the sanctions they're not doing it just out of a sense of humanity which of course is very critical but i think they're also doing out a sense of self-interest particularly if you're sitting in in Pakistan you're not going to be safe if the coronavirus can fester in Iran in fact if the virus can fester anywhere it will be a threat to everywhere that is the reality of these pandemics and these viruses so as a result seeing the United States and the Trump administration imposing more sanctions in the midst of the pandemic is something that is not just seen as inhumane by a lot of countries including close US allies but it's also something that is seen as a danger to themselves so there are because of the lack of revenues that the Iranian government has and because of these new needs now to fight this pandemic they have gone to the IMF and asked for a loan of five billion dollars can you say where that stands now and can the US actually veto that the US can veto that they've signaled that they're going to veto that that's also something that the Europeans have pushed back against this is a specific loan that was announced just a couple of weeks ago for countries to be able to get help in order to deal with the virus and the idea that the United States actually would specifically block a loan aimed for the virus by the IMF tells you how disingenuous the administration is when they're saying that nothing they're doing is actually impacting the medical sector in Iran it clearly is it clearly is intended to because you would not have a scenario in which Pompeii would argue this is a great moment to bomb Iran if he didn't want to see this degree of disarray inside the country these sanctions are not as a side effect affecting the medical sector in the country and the population so negatively that is the intent it is not a byproduct it is not a bug this is what always happens and what is the intent of broad-scale sanctions in fact the theory behind it is that once the population as a whole is on the data amount of pressure they will pressure their government to change the policies in order to get rid of those sanctions that's the entire thinking behind the very idea of sanctions so just to play out that scenario there are people in the US government that are always saying the government of Iran is about to topple about to topple now there are those who say this is just going to force an explosion in Iran if indeed the government were to topple at this point in time what would happen well I mean that's the other thing that is kind of interesting we don't have a lot of cases in history in which sanctions as a result of economic warfare get toppled or collapse but I do believe that that is part of the intent behind this that they are not so much looking for regime change as they're looking for regime collapse meaning the US doesn't have any responsibility for what comes afterwards which means that it can just wash its hands and then see the chaos in Iran essentially consume that country and this is the idea of it before the pandemic post pandemic obviously the situation is a hundred times worse and this is part of the fear that a lot of pro-democracy defenders and activists in Iran have that as much as they are opposed to the government they're opposed to the repression of the government the mismanagement and the corruption of the government seeing the country's state and central authority completely collapse will only lead to chaos and democracy does not tend to come out of chaos in fact it rarely comes out of chaos and as a result on the these circumstances where you clearly need a central authority in order to be able to make sure that the pandemic is defeated and that the virus is isolated and contained and we can make a parallel to the United States which has a tradition of having a lot of this authority be delegated to the states and and more local services we see how chaotic that is compared to a South Korea that has a very strong state and I can impose a statewide response very quickly well if you don't have a state at all imagine what will happen then so that brings us back to what can we do in the US and there are some letters there there's some movement within congress not much not enough but can you say what is happening and what can we do I think what several of these organizations called bank nyak and others have done is absolutely fantastic the leadership shown by AOC, Bernie, Ilhan Omar and others and taking the lead on this is absolutely needed this is not going to be a quick fight the the pressure here has to keep on building up if it wasn't effective you would not have had editorial pages on the wall street journal and others arguing please don't lift the sanctions even for a pandemic they're only writing this because they do understand that what is happening right now and the continuation of the sanctions and the efforts by these different groups and lawmakers is really undermining the support for this ridiculous and inhumane sanctions policy at this point my hope is also that this will really wake us up not just in the case of Iran or Venezuela or others but also for us to really rethink this idea of sanctions it has been presented and oftentimes on Capitol Hill you see that a lot of folks a lot of folks that are on the right side of most issues I would say still have a tendency of viewing economic sanctions as an alternative to war but it's important to understand that economic sanctions particularly broad-based economic sanctions actually are war they're not an alternative to war and the academic literature also shows that they oftentimes lead to military war afterwards so after we say goodbye to you Trita Ariel is going to stay on for a while with those who can stay with us just to talk a bit more about what we can do but before you leave us is there anything else that we have uncovered that you would like to say? I would just like to thank Code Pink and all of your supporters and all of the grassroots that are following your work and engaging your work the mobilization you all have done in favor of lifting these sanctions and making sure that our response to the coronavirus in Iran and elsewhere is not just going to avoid putting civilian populations there on their threat but also make sure that it doesn't do anything that puts the United States itself on the threat or US personnel that are around the region very close to these different places so thank you so much for all of that. Thank you and I just want to you know we had a tremendous response to your coming on we have other groups like Pax Christie, Peace Action, co-hosting Metro DC for the Democratic Socialists of America, Popular Resistance, World Without War and we all thank you for the work that you're doing and we look forward to continuing to work with you and figuring out ways that we can put enough pressure on our government to stop these sanctions and move back to where we were under the last administration which is into a normal relationship with Iran so that people inside Iran can determine what kind of government they want. Thank you so much for all you do thank you thank you so much thank you so Ariel you have been doing a lot of work in the last couple of weeks well the last years and been to Iran recently so maybe you can follow up with what you heard from Trita anything you want to add as well as what is the work that is being done what can people do what are you watching or listening to in the chats or questions that you might want to let everybody know about. Well it's been devastating to watch what's happening in Iran right now with the coronavirus after having been there recently and met people there and to say I worry you know daily about people's safety and the medical care because of the sanctions even before these sanctions many life-saving medicines were being blocked from the country it is heartening to see right now voices from around the world countries and organizations even the new york times today calling for sanctions to be lifted and this is fairly new we've been working on this and struggling against this so one of the exciting things right now is that many of the people watching and with us here on zoom right now have likely been emailing congress both recently and for a year and more asking for congress to speak out to do things to get these sanctions lifted and there has been a response a number of members of congress Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Bernie Sanders Ayanna Presley Ilhan Omar Elizabeth Warren and others have released a letter to the White House calling for the sanctions to be lifted and if you go to our website code pink.org and I'm also going to show that page then you can contact your member of congress and ask them to add their names to this well I'm trying to go to that page but that looks like it isn't happening so that's fine um but if you go to code pink.org you can contact your member of congress directly you can send them an email and say please add your name to the AOC Bernie Sanders and more letter calling for the sanctions to be lifted code pink.org you'll see it right on the top of our website at code pink.org and you can also after you sign that it will direct you to a petition that is over 11,000 signatures right now to the World Health Organization and to the Secretary General of the United Nations asking them to speak out and call for these sanctions to be lifted this is so urgent. So that is an action that is important to take and the other thing if you're watching and not signed up to our website we'll put out future actions I also recommend people go to the National Iranian American Council and sign up for theirs as well as a number of groups that are the co-hosts and we listed the co-hosts for today in the chat box if you want to see that and all of them have been doing work on this issue and are great groups to be part of. It's pretty amazing how many groups are getting into gear doing this in-house kind of education and organizing and in lieu of being together usually code pink we would be working right out of the Rayburn Cafeteria and Congress right now so as we're doing this virtual education and lobbying we hope you'll stay in touch with us and before we close this out Ariel is there anything else you wanted to add? Well I wanted to say that people are also calling the Treasury Department and that we encourage you to do that you can look up their number because I don't have it on my fingertips but I encourage you to call the Treasury Department and ask them to lift the sanctions and I see that Medea is pulling up that number for us right now I know Medea well I know how quickly she does that and so maybe as we're ending this call before we end it we can have everybody type that number into their phone but not yet push dial until we get off and then they can call the Treasury Department and ask them to lift those sanctions. This is such a time for our world to be coming together and in the midst of this horror watching this worldwide there are these silver linings that we see how important it is for us to come together as one world we see how important it is not to be tearing each other apart destroying entire regions of the world but instead to be building global health and safety and this opportunity in the midst of everything that is so heartbreaking now to move towards that world that we want to be. Medea did you get that number? Well I see a couple of different numbers but I think I can pull it up actually. Okay and while you're doing that just a couple of other things we have put together a number of wonderful films on Iran that people can watch while you're home if you want to learn more and you can go to the Code Pink website to get a list of those. You can also send work here. I've got that number. Okay. So everybody get your phones out. The number is two zero two six two two two zero zero zero. I'm going to put that in the chat box as well as well as a little script for you to say. Tell them what city you're from that you are gravely concerned about U.S. sanctions especially in this time of the coronavirus pandemic and that these sanctions need to be immediately lifted. Great well thank you everybody for joining us. We will have this available on our Facebook for anybody who wants to go back over what was discussed or send it to your friends to watch it. Tree Days I would think the one of the best analysts in the United States on Iran. We were very lucky to have them on and we're very thankful to have all of you joining us today. And it will also be on YouTube and for everybody who signed up through Code Pink's website for the webinar so we have your emails collected. We will send out the link to the YouTube recording so that you can send it around. Great thank you.