Sanctions – Antiwar Radio with Scott Horton

Gareth Porter

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/12_06_25_porter.mp3]

Gareth Porter, investigative historian and journalist specializing in U.S. national security policy, discusses why the Obama administration is leaking their diplomatic strategy to the media prior to commencing Iran talks; how Obama’s hard-line on Iran sanctions allows him to claim that Israel’s demands are his demands; the IAEA’s real job: make Iran look uncooperative and suspicious; why the alleged “clean-up” at Iran’s Parchin site is as unbelievable as Iraq’s mobile germ warfare labs in 2003; and how election-year politics queered an Iran deal and hindered Obama’s ability to negotiate (but isn’t it always an election year, or something?)

MP3 here. (26:48)

Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specializing in U.S. national security policy, and was awarded the 2012 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism. The paperback edition of his latest book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, was published in 2006.

Trita Parsi

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/12_03_27_parsi.mp3]

Trita Parsi, founder and president of the National Iranian American Council, discusses how Iranian sanctions block peaceful diplomatic solutions, making war more likely; the “risk premium” in oil prices, exacerbated by hawkish foreign policy, that hurts Iranians and Americans alike; the daunting resources and time commitment required to eliminate Iran’s nuclear program through invasion and war; the media’s increasingly conflicted narrative on the Iran “threat;” and why the Obama administration is amenable to a deal centered on Iran’s re-implementation of the NPT’s Additional Protocol.

MP3 here. (19:33)

Dr. Trita Parsi is the author of A Single Roll of the Dice: Obama’s Diplomacy with Iran, Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States, and recipient of the Council on Foreign Relation’s 2008 Arthur Ross Silver Medallion and the 2010 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order.

He wrote his Doctoral thesis on Israeli-Iranian relations under Professor Francis Fukuyama (and Drs. Zbigniew Brzezinski, R. K. Ramazani, Jakub Grygiel, Charles Doran) at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies while heading the largest Iranian-American organization in the US, the National Iranian American Council (NIAC).

Gareth Porter

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/12_03_08_porter.mp3]

Gareth Porter, investigative historian and journalist specializing in U.S. national security policy, discusses President Obama’s speech and the AIPAC convention’s creepy atmosphere; how Benjamin Netanyahu’s leverage on Obama increases as the presidential election nears; why the AIPAC-championed sanctions on Iran’s oil exports could be part of a plan to increase gas prices and influence the 2012 election; and why Israel risks being blanketed with rockets and missiles from neighboring countries if it initiates war with Iran.

MP3 here. (20:18)

Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specializing in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, was published in 2006.

Hillary Mann Leverett

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/12_03_05_leverett.mp3]

Hillary Mann Leverett, former State Department official and co-founder of The Race For Iran, discusses President Obama’s interview with Jeffrey Goldberg – essentially a ploy to boost his pro-Israel credentials ahead of the AIPAC conference; why suffering Iranians are seen as a positive sign (to Obama) that sanctions are working as intended; the significance of defining the US “red line” on Iran’s nuclear program in terms of capability instead of action; the Obama administration’s fraudulent diplomatic outreach; and how sanctions are set up to fail, sowing the seeds of war and giving the next US president a streamlined path to attack Iran.

MP3 here. (28:50)

Hillary Mann Leverett has more than 20 years of academic, legal, business, diplomatic, and policy experience working on Middle Eastern issues. In the George W. Bush Administration, she worked as Director for Iran, Afghanistan and Persian Gulf Affairs at the National Security Council, Middle East expert on the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff, and Political Advisor for Middle East, Central Asian and African issues at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. From 2001-2003, she was one of a small number of U.S. diplomats authorized to negotiate with the Iranians over Afghanistan, al-Qa’ida and Iraq. In the Clinton Administration, Leverett also served as Political Advisor for Middle East, Central Asian and African issues for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, Associate Director for Near Eastern Affairs at the National Security Council, and Special Assistant to the Ambassador at the U.S. embassy in Cairo. She was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and a Watson Fellowship, and in 1990-1991 worked in the U.S. embassies in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Egypt and Israel, and was part of the team that reopened the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait after the first Gulf War.

Ms. Leverett has published extensively on Iran as well as on other Middle Eastern, Central and South Asian, and Russian issues. She has spoken about U.S.-Iranian relations at Harvard, MIT, the National Defense University, NYU, the Norwegian Institute for International Affairs, and major research centers in China. She has appeared on news and public affairs programs on BBC, CNN, MSNBC, and Al Jazeera (Arabic and English), and was featured in the highly acclaimed BBC documentary, Iran and the West. Along with Flynt Leverett, she appeared in the PBS Frontline documentary, “Showdown With Iran”, and was profiled in Esquire magazine. She has provided expert testimony to the U.S. House Government Reform and Oversight Committee.

Ms. Leverett is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Brandeis University. She also studied at the American University in Cairo and Tel Aviv University. She currently teaches foreign policy at the American University in Washington D.C.

Robert Naiman

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/12_02_21_naiman.mp3]

Robert Naiman, Policy Director at Just Foreign Policy, discusses his article “Does AIPAC Want War? Lieberman ‘Capability’ Red Line May Tip AIPAC’s Hand;” how Joe Lieberman’s senate bill lowers the threshold for military action by adopting Israeli policy on Iran’s nuclear breakout capability; the dangerous ambiguity of the terms “vital national interest” and “nuclear weapons capability;” and how US diplomats have abandoned compromise in favor of “do what we say or else” bullying.

MP3 here. (19:18)

Robert Naiman is Policy Director at Just Foreign Policy. Mr. Naiman edits the Just Foreign Policy daily news summary and writes on U.S. foreign policy at Huffington Post. He is president of the board of Truthout. Naiman has worked as a policy analyst and researcher at the Center for Economic and Policy Research and Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. He has masters degrees in economics and mathematics from the University of Illinois and has studied and worked in the Middle East.

Katherine Hughes

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/12_02_06_hughes.mp3]

Civil liberties activist Katherine Hughes discusses her article “Anatomy of a ‘Terrorism’ Prosecution: Dr. Rafil Dhafir and the Help the Needy Muslim Charity Case;” the 22-year prison sentence Dr. Dhafir received for defying the Iraq sanctions and sending food and medical aid to malnourished Iraqi civilians; shutting down Muslim charities as part of the War on Terror; and the growing gap between law and justice in America.

MP3 here. (26:00)

Katherine Hughes has been passionate about the defense of civil liberties since seeing a documentary of the Allies going into Bergen-Belsen as a teenager 35 years ago. In the post-9/11 period, she became alarmed at the demonization of Muslims and it was this that prompted her to attend Dhafir’s 14-week trial. She took notes every day and filled eight notebooks. Her web site is: www.dhafirtrial.net

Jason Ditz

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/12_01_27_ditz.mp3]

Jason Ditz, managing news editor at Antiwar.com, discusses the African Union troops surging into Somalia; Burundi’s reliance on taxes from mercenary work to fund the government; the US Navy SEALs hostage rescue operation in Somalia, coincidentally conducted just before Obama’s SOTU address; why humanitarian interventionists aren’t bragging about the triumph of democracy and human rights in Libya anymore; and how the US has convinced European countries to shoot themselves in the foot by refusing Iranian oil exports (that will go to South and East Asia instead).

MP3 here. (28:57)

Jason Ditz is the managing news editor at Antiwar.com. His op-ed pieces have been published in newspapers and other media around the world.

Pepe Escobar

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/12_01_20_escobar.mp3]

Globetrotting journalist Pepe Escobar discusses his article “Sinking the Petrodollar in the Persian Gulf;” the increasingly divergent US and Israeli “red lines” on Iran’s nuclear program; proposed pipelines that would route oil around the Persian Gulf, marginalizing Iran’s ability to shut the Strait of Hormuz; how sanctions on Iran have lessened the US dollar’s dominance in global oil trading transactions; and the civil strife in Syria, where the opposition is no more credible than the reigning minority Assad regime.

MP3 here. (26:07)

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving Into Liquid War and Obama Does Globalistan.

An extreme traveler, Pepe’s nose for news has taken him to all parts of the globe. He was in Afghanistan and interviewed the military leader of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, Ahmad Shah Masoud, a couple of weeks before his assassination. Two weeks before September 11, 2001, while Pepe was in the tribal areas of Pakistan, Asia Times Online published his prophetic piece, “Get Osama! Now! Or else …” Pepe was one of the first journalists to reach Kabul after the Taliban’s retreat, and more recently he has explored and reported from Iraq, Iran, Central Asia, US and China.

Flynt Leverett

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/11_12_28_leverett.mp3]

Flynt Leverett, former Senior Director for Middle East Affairs at the National Security Council, discusses Iran’s threat to close the Strait of Hormuz, as a response to sanctions that may eventually cut off Iran’s oil exports; why the US and Israel don’t really have a problem with Iranian nuclear weapons, just Iran’s refusal to submit to US regional hegemony; Israel’s “red line” on Iran’s uranium enrichment at Qom; why US foreign policy planners don’t learn from prior mistakes (because superpowers don’t have to); and why waging war with borrowed money is a sure sign of a declining empire.

MP3 here. (25:23)

Flynt Leverett runs The Race For Iran blog and teaches at Pennsylvania State University’s School of International Affairs. Additionally, he directs the Iran Project at the New America Foundation, where he is a Senior Research Fellow.

Dr. Leverett is a leading authority on the Middle East and Persian Gulf, U.S. foreign policy, and global energy affairs. From 1992 to 2003, he had a distinguished career in the U.S. government, serving as Senior Director for Middle East Affairs at the National Security Council, on the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff, and as a CIA Senior Analyst. He left the George W. Bush Administration and government service in 2003 because of disagreements about Middle East policy and the conduct of the war on terror.

Dr. Leverett’s 2006 monograph, Dealing With Tehran: Assessing U.S. Diplomatic Options Toward Iran, presented the seminal argument for a U.S.-Iranian “grand bargain”, an idea that he has developed in multiple articles and Op Eds in The New York Times, The National Interest, POLITICO, Salon, Washington Monthly, and the New America Foundation’s “Big Ideas for a New America” series.

Kate Gould

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/11_12_09_gould.mp3]

Kate Gould, Legislative Associate for the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), discusses her article “End of ‘Brown Rice Diplomacy’ with Iran?” that refers to the 45 total minutes spent in direct talks with Iran in the past 30 years; how Congress bill H.R. 1905 makes war more likely by outlawing diplomacy with any Iranian official who “presents a threat to the United States;” why there’s plenty of common ground for a uranium swap deal – if only the US would engage in meaningful talks and stop sabotaging the process; how the newest Iran sanctions hurt US relations with China and Europe; and why you should call your representative (1-877-429-0678) and tell him/her to oppose H.R. 1905.

MP3 here. (20:04)

Kate Gould is the Legislative Associate for Foreign Policy focused on Israel-Palestine, Iran, and other Middle East issues.

Kate began her career with FCNL as a program assistant, where she served in the foreign policy program from 2007-2009. Her lobbying work at FCNL inspired her to seek first-hand knowledge of the impact of U.S. policies by traveling and working in the Middle East for nine months.

Kate taught Palestinian schoolteachers for AMIDEAST, helped coordinate a joint Israeli-Palestinian radio show at the Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information, and worked as a freelance journalist in the West Bank. In Gaza, she documented the impact of the blockade on civil society organizations in a report for the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv in conjunction with the Rebuilding Alliance, a U.S. NGO. Kate also interned for Senator Jeff Merkley both in southern Oregon and in his Washington, DC office.

Prior to re-joining FCNL’s foreign policy program, Kate served as the Director of Advocacy and Outreach for Just Foreign Policy.

Kate completed her undergraduate study of International Development and Political Science at Western Washington University and studied abroad in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Zanzibar/Tanzania.

John Glaser

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/11_12_02_glaser.mp3]

John Glaser, Assistant Editor at Antiwar.com, discusses the connection between “crippling” new Iran sanctions and the storming of the British embassy in Tehran; comments from Ehud Barak and Meir Dagan that indicate Israel is backing away from war with Iran; the new WikiLeaks spy files that expose the “surveillance-industrial complex;” and how Nigeria’s Boko Haram became an official “emerging threat to the U.S. Homeland.”

MP3 here. (22:16)

John Glaser is Assistant Editor at Antiwar.com. He is a former intern at The American Conservative magazine and CATO Institute.

Kate Gould

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/11_11_17_gould.mp3]

Kate Gould, Legislative Associate for the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), discusses her article “‘Nuclear Option’ Against Iran’s Economy Paves Way for War;” the harshest sanctions yet making their way through Congress, designed to shut down Iran’s central bank and crush their currency; language that prohibits Obama from making national security exemptions on Iran sanctions; Rep. Brad Sherman’s open admission that sanctions are designed to hurt civilians, in order to effect political change (sounding much like the definition of terrorism); and the research that shows sanctions are far more effective at starting wars than solving problems.

MP3 here. (19:57)

Kate Gould is the Legislative Associate for Foreign Policy focused on Israel-Palestine, Iran, and other Middle East issues.

Prior to re-joining FCNL’s foreign policy program, Kate served as the Director of Advocacy and Outreach for Just Foreign Policy.

Kate completed her undergraduate study of International Development and Political Science at Western Washington University and studied abroad in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Zanzibar/Tanzania.

John Glaser

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/11_08_10_glaser.mp3]

John Glaser, Assistant Editor at Antiwar.com, discusses his article “Senators Want ‘Crippling’ New Iran Sanctions” about the 92 senators eager to punish Iranian civilians (the neocons want in on it too); the staggering price Iraqis paid for twelve years of sanctions; a reminder that “terrorism” means inflicting harm on civilians to effect political change – even if a state does it; and the effective difference between limited sanctions in the Cold War era (when the Soviets would aid Cuba, for example, despite the US embargo) and today’s complete shutdowns.

MP3 here. (15:59)

John Glaser is a former intern at The American Conservative magazine and CATO Institute.

Anthony Gregory

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/11_04_01_gregory.mp3]

Anthony Gregory, Editor in Chief of Campaign for Liberty, discusses his article, “America’s Peacetime Crimes against Iraq,” a review of Joy Gordon’s book Invisible War: The United States and the Iraq Sanctions; the slow death of Iraqis from entirely preventable diseases and malnutrition during the 1990-2003 sanctions; the double-whammy of an international blockade and UN-administered economic central planning; the Clinton administration’s focus on regime change, not disarmament, as a condition for dropping sanctions; and why the collective punishment of Iraqi civilians – in order to provoke an uprising against Saddam Hussein – is aptly described as terrorism.

MP3 here. (18:28)

Anthony Gregory is a research analyst at the Independent Institute, Editor in Chief of Campaign for Liberty, moderator of the Beacon, policy adviser to the Future of Freedom Foundation and columnist for LewRockwell.com. He guest edits Strike the Root. His writing has appeared in such places as the Christian Science Monitor San Diego Union Tribune, Antiwar.com, the Journal of Libertarian Studies, Counterpunch, the American Conservative, Liberty Magazine, the Mises Institute blog, the Stress Blog, The Libertarian Enterprise and Liberty and Power, as well as in textbooks, journals and other outlets, and has been translated in several languages.

He wrote for Michael Badnarik’s 2004 campaign. He got his B.A. in history at UC Berkeley in 2003, where he wrote his thesis on the 1993 Waco disaster. He sings and plays in a rock band, the Melatones, and is an Eagle Scout. He gives talks frequently and is now writing an Independent Institute book on habeas corpus, detention policy and individual liberty.

Hillary Mann Leverett

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/10_12_04_kpfk_leverett.mp3]

This interview is from the KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles broadcast of December 3rd, available here.

Hillary Mann Leverett, former State Department official and co-founder of The Race For Iran, discusses Obama’s campaign rhetoric about diplomatic engagement with enemy states and his subsequent appointment of advisers with contrary views; WikiLeaks cables that clearly show the duplicity of Obama’s dealings with Iran; how the 3-party enriched uranium swap deal was deliberately sabotaged – in part by the US rebuff of Turkey’s mediation efforts – in order to get support for new Iran sanctions; how Iran’s nuclear program is used to check its rise as a regional power – which is the primary US concern; how the Iraq invasion shifted the balance of Mideast power away from autocratic US allies; and the evidence that Islamic countries have no problem putting their national interests ahead of religious concerns.

MP3 here. (27:58)

Hillary Mann Leverett is a Middle East analyst and former State Department and National Security Council official. She is currently the chief executive officer of STRATEGA, a political risk consulting firm. She worked for many years in the US government on a number of Middle East issues, including as Middle East expert for the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff; political adviser on the Middle East, Sudan, and Central Asia at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, and in U.S. embassies in Egypt, Israel, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia; and Director for Iran, Afghanistan and Persian Gulf Affairs at the National Security Council. As one of a small number of U.S. officials authorized to negotiate directly with senior Iranian officials she participated in a number of secret negotiations on Afghanistan, al-Qaeda and Iraq.

Hillary is a Senior Fellow at the Yale Jackson Institute for Global Affairs. She writes frequently on Middle Eastern, Russian and South Asian issues in publications such as the New York Times, The National Interest and The Wall Street Journal.

Andrew Cockburn

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/10_10_20_cockburn.mp3]

Andrew Cockburn, author of Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall and Catastrophic Legacy, discusses his review of Joy Gordon’s Invisible War: The United States and the Iraq Sanctions, how innocuous-sounding sanctions fail to engender the popular opposition that a war does even though the death and destruction levels are on par and how the Clinton administration changed the requirements to end sanctions to depose Saddam Hussein and score domestic political points.

MP3 here. (20:19)

Andrew Cockburn is the author of Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall and Catastrophic Legacy, and co-producer of American Casino, a documentary on the origins and consequences of the financial crash. He is a writer and lecturer on defense and national affairs and has written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, Playboy, Vanity Fair, and National Geographic, among other publications.

Muhammad Sahimi

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/10_09_09_sahimi.mp3]

This interview is excerpted from the September 9 KPFK Los Angeles radio broadcast. The entire show can be heard here.

Muhammad Sahimi, Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Southern California, discusses new accusations – from the NCRI (or MEK) terrorist group – that Iran is building secret nuclear enrichment facilities near Tehran, the moderate interpretation of the accusations from the usually-alarmist Institute for Science and International Security, current claims of obstructionism that ignore Iran’s legal rights under their safeguards agreement and the limitations of IAEA authority, how numerous debunking attempts have failed to kill the “smoking laptop” narrative, how Iran’s crisis of theocracy (the government’s challenge to the ayatollah’s monopoly on religious authority) is misinterpreted by the West as an aspiring global Islamic Caliphate and why a clear understanding of modified Code 3.1 (of the Subsidiary Arrangements of the Safeguards Agreement) perfectly refutes the Qom facility “gotcha” stunt.

MP3 here. (54:10)

Dr. Muhammad Sahimi is a political columnist for Tehran Bureau. He is a professor of chemical engineering and materials science, and the NIOC Chair in petroleum engineering at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. In addition to his scientific research, which has resulted in four books and nearly 300 published papers, he has been writing about Iran’s nuclear program and its internal developments for many years.

His articles have appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, the International Herald Tribune, the Wall Street Journal, Harvard International Review, the Progressive, Antiwar.com and Huffington Post. Muhammad has been a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists since 1986, and a contributor to its Partners for Earth program.

Michael O’Brien

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/10_09_06_obrien.mp3]

Michael O’Brien, author of America’s Failure in Iraq, discusses the media’s focus on troop escalations while ignoring the larger private contractor surges, the ease of starting wars and keeping them going since Congress abdicated its Constitutional responsibility, the inexcusable failures of the Coalition Provisional Authority and Paul Bremer, the primary purposes of contractors in Iraq: generate billable hours and stay alive, the critical questions not asked in the Fox News poll about U.S. opinion on the Iraq War, how Gen. Petraeus got promoted twice after losing 190,000 weapons meant for Iraqi security forces and why the surge’s success (even supposing it worked) in 2007 doesn’t retroactively justify the 2003 invasion.

MP3 here. (44:03)

Michael O’Brien spent 14 months as a DoD (Department of Defense) contractor in Iraq. He was the Real Estate Adviser to the Iraqi Ministry of Defense. Mike had previously spent over 20 years in commercial real estate, most of that time working in various areas of US Government real estate and facilities, to include nearly a decade with the US General Services Administration (GSA). Mike was assigned to the Ministry of Defense Transition Team (MODTT), part of the Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq, or MNSTC-I. This was the Coalition command element responsible for ‘standing up’ the Iraqi Ministries of Defense and Interior after they had been disbanded by Paul Bremer, the former head of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA).

Mike O’Brien was on the Bush-Cheney 2000 Campaign in its national headquarters in Austin, Texas, and participated in the vote recounts in Florida. He was a political appointee in the administration of President George W. Bush, serving in the US State Department’s Overseas Buildings Operations Bureau, where he was responsible for the planning and development of US embassies and consulates around the world. He was in Dacca, Bangladesh, on September 11, 2001. After 9/11, Mike went to the White House as the Senior Director for Administration in the Office of Homeland Security, the predecessor to the Department of Homeland Security we have today. Mr. O’Brien was one of the first 50 staff to arrive there.

Michael O’Brien is a graduate of West Point and served in the Infantry in Fort Benning, Georgia; the Canal Zone, Republic of Panama; the Demilitarized Zone, Republic of South Korea and Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, Texas. He is a graduate of the US Army Ranger and Airborne schools at Fort Benning, Georgia, and is a former commercial helicopter pilot. He lives in Arlington, Virginia.

Eli Clifton

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/10_08_19_clifton_donate.mp3]

Eli Clifton, writer on U.S. foreign policy at the Washington bureau of IPS News, discusses LobeLog’s Daily Talking Points on Iran-U.S. relations, the designed-to-fail nature of sanctions meant to justify military action, why Israel isn’t threatened or worried about Iran’s nuclear program and why there’s no law preventing Iran (as a sovereign nation) from withdrawing from the NPT and building nuclear weapons.

MP3 here. (19:20)

Eli Clifton writes on U.S. foreign policy as well as trade and finance at the Washington bureau of IPS. His articles have also appeared on Right Web and in the South China Morning Post. Eli has a B.A. in Political Science from Bates College and an MSc in International Political Economy from the London School of Economics.

Dahr Jamail

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/10_08_03_jamail.mp3]

Dahr Jamail, author of The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, discusses how U.S. involvement in Iraq intensified after 1958, continued U.S. support for Saddam Hussein during his worst atrocities, the April Glaspie moment and infamous Madeleine Albright soundbite, the 1990s decade of bombing a sanctions-crippled Iraq, what Obama really means by “withdrawal” and how Nouri al-Maliki continues to wield power while the rest of Iraq’s government remains impotent.

MP3 here. (31:21)

Dahr Jamail is an independent journalist and author of Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches From an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq, and The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight In Iraq and Afghanistan. His Mideast dispatches can be found at his website, Alternet.org and Antiwar.com.

Joy Gordon

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/10_07_02_gordon.mp3]

Joy Gordon, author of Invisible War: The United States and the Iraq Sanctions, discusses the comprehensive sanctions imposed on Iraq in the 1990s that killed 500,000 children, the US led effort to literally starve Iraq by cutting off food importation, how the Gulf War and subsequent sanctions destroyed Iraq’s modern infrastructure and prevented rebuilding, contradictory US and UN policies on rewarding compliance of Security Council resolutions and how the US “reverse veto” power guaranteed the sanctions would never be lifted while Saddam Hussein remained in power.

MP3 here. (18:46)

Joy Gordon is a Professor of Philosophy at Fairfield University. Her work focuses on human and economic rights, particularly economic sanctions. She has been published in Harper’s Magazine, Le Monde Diplomatique, Yale Journal of Development and Human Rights Law, and The Nation. She holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Yale University and a J.D. from Boston University School of Law.

Gareth Porter

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/10_05_19_porter.mp3]

Gareth Porter, independent historian and journalist for Inter Press Service, discusses the just-disclosed US demand that Iran must stop all uranium enrichment before any negotiations are conducted, why further UN Security Council sanctions would need to be toothless to gain support from Russia and China, Hillary Clinton’s bad faith diplomacy that is weakening the US sphere of influence, parallels between US mission creep in Vietnam and Afghanistan and increasing evidence that US foreign policy decisions are made without regard for consequences.

MP3 here. (26:22)

Gareth Porter is an independent historian and journalist. His articles appear on Counterpunch, Huffington Post, Inter Press Service News Agency and Antiwar.com.

Grant F. Smith

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/10_02_16_smith.mp3]

Grant F. Smith, director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy in Washington, D.C., discusses the US Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (TFI) that is closely allied with the Israel lobby and enforces sanctions on Iran, how sanctions and embargoes punish the law abiding and make billionaires out of black market operators, Israel’s importation of Iran-sourced pistachios that violates its own “Trading With the Enemy Act” and how the debate over Iran’s nuclear program diverts attention away from the intractable Palestinian problem.

MP3 here. (28:17)

Grant F. Smith is the author of Spy Trade: How Israel’s Lobby Undermines America’s Economy, America’s Defense Line: The Justice Department’s Battle to Register the Israel Lobby as Agents of a Foreign Government and Foreign Agents: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee from the 1963 Fulbright Hearings to the 2005 Espionage Scandal. He is a frequent contributor to Radio France Internationale and Voice of America’s Foro Interamericano. Smith has also appeared on BBC News, CNN, and C-SPAN. He is currently director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy in Washington, D.C.

Muhammad Sahimi

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/10_02_02_sahimi.mp3]

Muhammad Sahimi, Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Southern California, discusses the newest round of proposed US sanctions on Iran, the odd idea that choking off supplies of refined petroleum will pressure Iran to give up uranium enrichment, how sanctions will effectively impose a gasoline tax on ordinary Iranians and consolidate the power of the Revolutionary Guard, generous concessions made by moderate Iranian presidents that were rebuffed by the Clinton and Bush administrations and the new doubts about Iran’s supposed nuclear “breakout” capability.

MP3 here. (31:34)

Thanks to Anders for the video.

Muhammad Sahimi is NIOC Professor of Petrolium Engineering and Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Southern California. He has written extensively on Iran’s nuclear program and its political developments. His article “Sanctions Only Hurt Ordinary Iranians” is available on Antiwar.com.

Philip Giraldi

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/09_12_29_giraldi.mp3]

Former CIA and DIA officer Philip Giraldi discusses evidence that documents touted by the London Times contradicting the 2007 US National Intelligence Estimate on Iran are forgeries, the history of Rupert Murdoch-owned media passing along propaganda from Israeli and British intelligence, how bogus news stories create a deeply ingrained false narrative and distort public perception, the overwhelming Congressional support for warlike sanctions on Iran, the possibility Osama bin Laden is long-dead and how ending military occupations would almost completely eliminate terrorism. (The other bogus article Scott was trying to think of.)

MP3 here. (53:05)

Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is a contributing editor to The American Conservative and a fellow at the American Conservative Defense Alliance. His Smoke and Mirrors column is a regular feature on Antiwar.com.

Scott Ritter

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/09_12_02_ritter.mp3]

Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter discusses the post-Gulf War politicization of United Nations weapons inspections, the rigid 100 percent compliance mandate that guaranteed Iraqi failure, how Madeleine Albright halted invasive inspections that could have verified Iraq’s disarmament, Bill Clinton’s determination to keep sanctions on Iraq until Saddam Hussein was deposed, the misuse of UN inspectors as intelligence agents and provocateurs, the attempt to assassinate Hussein during Operation Desert Fox, Ritter’s personal attempts to debunk the propaganda leading up to the 2003 Iraq War, Colin Powell’s much ballyhooed and easily disproven (even at the time) 2003 UN presentation and why the US is populated with sheep instead of citizens.

MP3 here. (58:21)

Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer and a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq. He writes for truthdig.com and is the author of numerous books, including Waging Peace: The Art of War for the Antiwar Movement and Target Iran: The Truth About the White House’s Plans for Regime Change.

Update: Your host mis-paraphrased the reporting of Andrew Cockburn. What he said was that the UN that was preempted from telling the truth by Albright, rather than her being preempted by Bill Clinton. –S.H.