This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
We turn now to Iran. After weeks of escalating tensions, U.S. and Iranian officials have begun talks over Iran’s nuclear program in Muscat, Oman, today. Today’s negotiations to stave off another conflict are the first between the two countries since President Trump ordered airstrikes against Iran’s nuclear sites during Israel’s 12-day war with Iran last June. Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner are participating in the talks, which are being mediated by Oman.
The White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday that for President Trump, diplomacy is always his first option, whether dealing with allies or adversaries. But over the past month, President Trump has also openly called for regime change in Iran and described sending an armada of U.S. warships to the Persian Gulf. At the height of Iran’s crackdown on popular protests in January, he threatened to attack Iran to support the protests. On Wednesday, Trump renewed his threats, speaking to NBC’s Tom Llamas.
TOM LLAMAS: Should the supreme leader in Iran be worried right now?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I would say he should be very worried, yeah. He should be.
AMY GOODMAN: For more on the prospects of these negotiations and the tense situation on the ground in Iran, we continue with Nilo Tabrizy. She was the investigative reporter covering Iran for The Washington Post. They just laid her off yesterday in the mass layoff. We’re also joined here in New York by Arang Keshavarzian, professor of Middle East and Islamic studies at New York University, award-winning author of the books Bazaar and State in Iran and Making Space for the Gulf: Histories of Regionalism and the Middle East.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! We only have a few minutes at this moment, but we want to ask you about the significance of these talks, of President Trump’s threat to attack Iran, and the possibility of diplomacy.
ARANG KESHAVARZIAN: Thank you for having me.
Yes, as you explained, this is a very strange and contradictory situation. On the one hand, there are these negotiations, first time in several months. It does seem both parties seem — are interested. Donald Trump has repeated that he would like to have a negotiated settlement around the nuclear issue. But it comes right after seven months of where the United States engaged in military attack against Iran, as you mentioned, but maybe more importantly, it’s after yet another cycle of brave Iranian protesters taking to the streets in late December and January, that was yet again brutally repressed, with thousands killed, imprisoned, injured and so on and so forth. So, for both the Iranian state, but more importantly for Iranian people, it’s very unclear what all of this portends, especially since it doesn’t seem like these negotiations will go beyond the question of the nuclear program.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Professor, I’m wondering — you’re probably aware that Drop Site News is “reporting”: that senior U.S. military officials have informed the leadership of a key U.S. ally in the Middle East that the president could authorize a U.S. attack this weekend. I’m wondering your assessment of this dual policy of Trump: on the one hand, saying, “Let’s talk”; on the other side, amassing this armada again and threatening a direct attack.
ARANG KESHAVARZIAN: Yeah, so, there’s echoes of, obviously, what happened in Venezuela these past few months. So you have this talk of negotiations, but all of these threats.
But I also want to point out that this is in — we’re in a moment where there’s a real, deep information war, where there are many interested parties, governments and opposition groups, that are trying to feed information, misinformation. It’s a very confusing part. And it should be noted that for people inside Iran who are under still a internet blackout, it’s very confusing. They don’t know what pieces of information to believe, what not to believe. Is there a war on the horizon, or are these negotiations going to actually reach a sort of real, meaningful conclusion? But we are in a information war, as well as a threat of a real, kinetic war.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Nilo Tabrizy, I wanted to ask you, as well, the recent protests — of course, the Iranian government has said that the unrest was being manipulated by Israel and that there had been some reports of Mossad infiltrating Iran. Could you — from what you saw on the ground, was there any indication that a lot of — some of these protests may have been, in one sense or another, manipulated by outside powers?
NILO TABRIZY: No, that is a refrain that we heard, you know, very often. I think it goes back to, you know, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo coming out and telling Iranian protesters, you know, “Happy New Year! Mossad is on the streets with you.” That, I don’t — based on the visuals that we were investigating, there’s no validity to that statement. If only, comments like that from Western leaders make it exceptionally more dangerous for protesters on the ground. When I spoke with people who were protesting on the streets, they said that security forces on, you know, big speakers would say, “Anyone out on the street is a terrorist, and we’re going to respond to you as such.” That helps us understand the brutality, if the state is going to label civilians out on the streets fighting for a better future as terrorists, and partially because the West is saying, “Hey, Mossad is there.” We need to understand how dangerous that is for protesters.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you — in the context of history, the Dulles brothers in 1953, John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles, head of the CIA and secretary of state, sending in Teddy Roosevelt’s grandson and overthrowing the democratically elected leader, Mohammad Mosaddegh, basically on behalf of BP.
NILO TABRIZY: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Right through to now, what it would mean, regime change? And Trump saying — well, he said he was doing it for the protesters, if he was to push and actually achieve regime change. Now it’s talking about the nuclear program. But we talked to so many activists and academics who are saying, although they are very much against the regime, they don’t want the U.S. involved in attacking and removing that regime, that they see this as a popular movement.
NILO TABRIZY: This is absolutely a popular movement. I think that is really important. We need to give the agency to the Iranians who are on the streets fighting for a better future. This is absolutely a popular movement. And we can measure that based on the spread, you know, geographically, how many people were involved, and even with the mass arrests. If more than 50,000 people have been arrested, I mean, this points to this being absolutely a grassroots movement.
AMY GOODMAN: How many people do you think have died?
NILO TABRIZY: Well, these numbers are still in flux, but one of the best documentation groups, HRANA, Human Rights Activists News Agency, HRANA, they said that more — just about 7,000, they have confirmed, deaths, and there are more than 11,000 under review. They update these tolls daily.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Professor Keshavarzian, your sense of what the peace movement and those who want to reduce conflict in the world should be doing at this time in terms of Iran?
ARANG KESHAVARZIAN: Yeah, I want to underline what Nilo just said. I mean, I think, as progressives in the United States or in the broader outside of Iran, we should be able to do — hold two truths at the same time. Absolutely, war, U.S. intervention, is destructive. It’s counterproductive. It hurts, actually, the most vulnerable in Iran, protesters and others, just like the sanctions have. But at the same time, we have to acknowledge and listen to the large number of Iranians, from all different segments and sectors of society, that not only this past few months, but for now over 10 years, have been engaging in various forms of protest, whether it’s economic issues, whether it’s demanding accountability and responsiveness from their rulers. They have been making this demand. And the Islamic Republic social base has been whittled away gradually, but systematically, for over the past 15 years. It is vulnerable. But a U.S. intervention is going to be counterproductive to all of this.
AMY GOODMAN: Arang Keshavarzian, I want to thank you so much for being with us, professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University. We hope to have you on soon again. And Nilo Tabrizy, investigative reporter covering Iran, just let go from The Washington Post as part of the massive layoff of more than 300 journalists, about a third of The Washington Post staff. You will both be speaking together on a panel at NYU Wednesday, February 11th.
Coming up, why look at why Human Rights Watch blocked the release of a report on the right of return of Palestinians, and we look on the ground at what’s happening in Gaza today. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “Freedom Is Free” by Chicano Batman.
