…by Jonas E. Alexis, VT Editor

This interview has been published by Nader Talebzadeh and his wife. Talebzadeh is an Iranian researcher, film director and producer, chairman of International New Horizon Conference and documentary filmmaker known for his 2007 film entitled The Messiah. Talebzadeh studied at Columbia University Film School. The interview has been translated to Farsi (it started at 28:28):

https://www.telewebion.com/episode/2441794.

Question: The American mainstream media is covering the assassination of the top nuclear scientist very heavily i.e by covering Netanyahu portraying this man as his potential target. What does this reveal about the intentions of the West?

Answer: That simply tells us that Netanyahu still has a grip on much of the West. Netanyahu tells the entire world that Mohsen Fakhrizadeh is actually his target; Fakhizadeth ended up being assassinated, and no politician in the entire Western world has the political and intellectual courage to stand against Netanyahu and declare that these activities are contrary to the moral and political order. Former CIA boss John Brennan did say that the killing of Fakhrizadeh was “a criminal act & highly reckless,”[1] but Brennan didn’t name names or calling out the Israelis, largely because he knew that would get him in deep trouble with the Zionist superstructure. I do give Brenan some credit for saying that “Iranian leaders would be wise to wait for the return of responsible American leadership on the global stage.”[2] He certainly knew that Biden would never accept such a diabolical maneuvering.

The killing of Fakhizadeth by the Israelis is against what Immanuel Kant would have called the categorical imperative. In other words, we cannot universalize what the Israelis just did.[3] In fact, if the Iranian government happens to exterminate an Israeli scientist, much of the West would go up in flame saying that Iran needs to be bombed. So why isn’t any politician in the West even asking probing questions?

The second thing we need to point out is that it is generally agreed among US and Israeli intelligence that Iran stopped its nuclear push in 2003.[4] As Gareth Porter rightly points out  in his study Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare, the prevailing vision among Israeli officials that Iran has been trying to acquire nuclear weapons is pure fiction, and it has been deliberately concocted by the Israeli regime itself. Listen to Porter:

“These IAEA investigations generated one round of news stories after another that portrayed each activity under investigation as suggesting that Iran’s nuclear program was a cover for nuclear weapons. To the chagrin of the United States and Israel, however, these investigations ended in early 2008 without having found any evidence to support that charge. But Israel and the United States had a more potent weapon for consolidating the nuclear scare over Iran.

In 2008, they quickly shifted the focus of the IAEA inquiry to a collection of documents, purportedly stolen from a secret Iranian nuclear weapons program, which had been given to the United States by an unknown party. Thus began the second stage of the crisis, from 2008-2011, ostensibly aimed at holding Iran ‘accountable’ for what the IAEA called the ‘alleged studies’ documents. But the actual aim at that stage was to maneuver Iran into a position where it could be accused of noncompliance with the resolutions of the US-dominated IAEA Board of Governors.”[5]

Patrick Buchanan has rightly pointed out that “Since 2015, Iran’s nuclear facilities, under the Iran nuclear deal, have been subject to U.N. surveillance and inspections. And Iran has neither produced plutonium nor enriched uranium to the 90% level needed for a bomb. Israel claims Iran never stopped working on a bomb, but US Intel agencies and UN nuclear inspectors have agreed that the military nuclear program that Fakhrizadeh oversaw was ended in 2003.”[6]

The logic is pretty simple here: Netanyahu has been lying to the West about Iran’s nuclear program. Politicians in the West need to distance themselves from this man because he has caused nothing but trouble over the past thirty years or so. The Iraq war is a classic example because this war alone will cost America at least six trillion dollars.[7] And the entire war was based on a total lie.[8]

Question: Who is more desperate Netanyahu or Trump to initiate or provoke a crisis with a dimension of war?

Answer: Netanyahu. Trump is just a puppet. Keep in mind that Netanyahu has been trying to provoke a war with Iran since 1995. For him, wars seem to be like playing video games. Here is what Netanyahu said way back in 1995, and you can find the following quote in his own book, Fighting Terrorism: How Democracies Can Defeat Domestic and International Terrorists:

“The best estimate at this time place Iran between three and five years away from possessing the prerequisites required for the independent production of nuclear weapons. After this time, the Iranian Islamic republic will have the ability to construct atomic weapons without the importation of materials or technology from abroad.”[9]

It’s been twenty-five years! And we’re still talking about Iran acquiring nuclear weapons! Obviously we have a problem here.

Question: You have recently written a book about the Talmudic ideology and how it undermines Western culture today. Please elaborate. For instance, how does Talmudic ideology affect Zionist paranoia about Iran becoming armed with sophisticated weapons at the end of times?

Answer: Zionism vs. the West is the final book in a trilogy. It can be read independently. In that book, I argue that the Israel/Palestine issues are very deep. In fact, they have theological, philosophical, historical, and political ramifications. When we apply the historical and political ramifications to Iran, the issues even get more interesting. Why? Well, consider this.

Even by the fall of 2011, after the Libya war, neoconservatives such as Bill Kristol were still on the front lines pushing for a military strike against Iran. Neoconservative Jamie Fly of the Foreign Policy Initiative even encouraged Obama to approve what seemed to be perpetual wars in the Middle East. “It is time for President Obama to follow in the footsteps of his predecessors and stand up to tyrants who kill Americans and threaten our interests. It is time to take military action against the Iranian government elements that support terrorism and its nuclear program. More diplomacy is not an adequate response.”[10]

Yet while the neoconservatives push for war, some members of the CIA stated that the evidence for war as non-existent. “Fishy, fishy, fishy,” declared Bruce Riedel, a veteran of the CIA. A military strike against Iran is a “truly awful Hollywood script.”[11] Other CIA members such as Colonel Pat Lang were of the same opinion.[12] Paul Pillar, a twenty-eight-year CIA veteran and author of the ground-breaking book Intelligence and US Foreign Policy, was skeptical of the alleged plot.[13]

Michael Scheuer, former CIA agent and author of a number of ground-breaking books, also found the allegation irresponsible. The plot was indeed fishy, but not for neoconservative newspapers such as the Weekly Standard.[14] The Israel Lobby and others moved into new territory by the fall of 2011 when the IAEA falsely declared that Iran has the capability to build nuclear weapons.[15] It has been pointed out that the IAEA did not base their assessment on evidence but upon hearsay.[16] Israeli historian and flaming Zionist Benny Morris declared that some of the “evidence” came from “the Israeli intelligence in the first place.”[17] Later discoveries indicated that the IAEA claim was a forgery.[18] Robert Kelley, a retired IAEA director, noted that there was virtually nothing in the report that was new.[19]

Iran has done its best to reach out to the West for decades, but the neoconservative hawks have given the country no chance. Flynt Leverett, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and a professor at Pennsylvania State University, declared that Iran is a rational country and has made several attempts to make rational deals with the West, most particularly America, but the United States has reversed those deals and continued to propound the neoconservative mantra that Iran is a suicide country. In 2008, CBS did an interview with Ali Akbar Salehi, who got his Ph.D. from MIT in nuclear engineering. Once he was done with his studies, Salehi moved back to Iran for an administrative career at the Sharif University of Technology. During the interview, Salehi declared:

“I have a lot of respect…for the people of the US and I’ve always said this: I do not consider the US as a country. I think the US belongs to the whole human kind. It’s a human heritage. I don’t think history will be able to produce another country like the US Because it’s a country that has served humanity so much, in terms of technology, in terms of science…Most of my professors were from the US Even my bachelor’s degree is from the American University of Beirut. Again I had a lot of US professors there. I feel indebted to them. This is part of my religion. You know, whoever teaches you something, you are indebted to them for your life. So my respect goes for the entire US people. But you see this is different when it comes to the actions of their government.”[20]

This certainly does not correspond with neoconservative ideology. What makes it even more interesting is that Salehi was appointed by Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Khamenei, two rulers the neoconservatives have labeled as irrational. Khamenei even declared: “Certainly there are conditions where our ties with the United States could be normalized.”[21]

Prior to Ahmadinejad, Mohammed Khatami, then president of Iran, made several attempts to reach out to the US. In a 1998 CNN interview, he claimed “an intellectual affinity with the essence of American civilization,” a reference to Alexis de Tocqueville. He further declared that both America and Iran are intrinsically religious and that both countries ought to find common ground for fruitful dialogue and relationship. He even apologized for “the 1979-1981 hostage crisis” that “left Americans with negative feelings toward the Islamic Republic.”[22] But the Zionist machine shut him down.

Yet Iran never gave up on engaging America on a fruitful relationship. In 2003, the Iranian government re-energized the peace talks and even made it clear that Iran would allow full transparency of their nuclear program. They also vowed to fight terrorism “including decisive action against any terrorists—above all Al-Qaida—on Iranian territory.” They further agreed to cooperate “for actively supporting political stabilization and the establishment of democratic institutions and democratic government representing all ethnic and religious groups.” Iran also made it clear that the United States must take action against terrorist organizations such as the MEK, which the US was supporting at the time.[23]

But the US once again turned all those opportunities down precisely because the neoconservative/Zionist machine allows no peace talks. As Leverett puts it, “The proposition that the Islamic Republic is implacably and unreasonably hostile to the United States is, of course, a staple of neoconservatism.”[24] I have thoroughly discussed many of these fundamental and profound issues in the book.

• [1] https://news.yahoo.com/ex-cia-boss-says-ted-003906165.html.
• [2] Ibid.
• [3] “World Should Thank Us for Killing Iran’s Top Nuclear Scientist, Senior Israeli Official Tells NYT,” Haaretz, November 28, 2020.
• [4] See for example Greg Miller, “Iran halted nuclear push in 2003, U.S. now says,” LA Times, December 4, 2007; Mark Mazzetti, “U.S. Finds Iran Halted Its Nuclear Arms Effort in 2003,” NY Times, December 4, 2007; “U.S. report: Iran stopped nuclear weapons work in 2003,” CNN, December 12, 2007.
• [5] Gareth Porter, Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare (Charlottesville: Just World Books, 2014), kindle edition.
• [6] Patrick Buchanan, “Has Bibi Boxed Biden in on Iran?,” Antiwar.com, December 1, 2020.
• [7]  David Lazarus, “Iraq war cost: $6 trillion. What else could have been done?,” LA Times, March 18, 2013; Ernesto Londono, “Study: Iraq, Afghan war costs to top $4 trillion,” Washington Post, March 28, 2013; Michael B. Kelley, “The Iraq War Could Cost More Than $6 Trillion,” Business Insider, March 14, 2013.
• [8] See for example John J. Mearsheimer, Why Leaders Lie: The Truth About Lying in International Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011); Paul R. Pillar, Intelligence and U.S. Foreign Policy: Iraq, 9/11, and Misguided Reform by Paul R. Pillar (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011).
• [9]  Benjamin Netanyahu, Fighting Terrorism: How Democracies Can Defeat Domestic and International Terrorists (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995), 121.
• [10] Jim Lobe, “Hawks Behind Iraq War Rally for Iran Strikes,” Asia Times, Oct. 19, 2011.
• [11] Ibid.
• [12] Ibid.
• [13] Paul R. Pillar, “Stoking Nationalism in Iran,” National Interest, Oct. 26, 2011; Paul R. Pillar, “Bizarre Responses to a Bizarre Plot,” National Interest, Oct.13, 2011; Paul R. Pillar, “How Liberals Buy into Stupid Wars,” National Interest, Oct. 18, 2011
• [14] Thomas Joscelyn, “More on Iran’s Brazen Terrorist Plots,” Weekly Standard, Oct. 12, 2011.
• [15] Isabel Kershner, “Israel Lobbies Discreetly for More Sanctions After U.N. Report on Iran,” NY Times, Nov. 13, 2011
• [16] Patrick J. Buchanan, “The Return of the War Party?” American Conservative, Nov. 14, 2011
• [17] Benny Morris, “The Coming Israel-Iran War?,” National Interest, Nov. 15, 2011
• [18] Gareth Porter, “Ex-Inspector Rejects IAEA Iran Bomb Test Chamber Claim,” IPSNews.com, Nov. 19, 2011.
• [19] Seymour M. Hersh, “Iran and the IAEA,” New Yorker, Nov. 18, 2011
• [20] Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett, Going to Tehran: Why the United States Must Come to Terms with the Islamic Republic (New York: Henry Holt, 2013), 81.
• [21] Ibid., 84
• [22] Ibid., 92
• [23] Ibid., 100-101.
• [24] Ibid, 81.

Jonas E. Alexis, Senior Editor

Jonas E. Alexis has degrees in mathematics and philosophy. He studied education at the graduate level. His main interests include U.S. foreign policy, the history of the Israel/Palestine conflict, and the history of ideas. He is the author of the book, Kevin MacDonald’s Metaphysical Failure: A Philosophical, Historical, and Moral Critique of Evolutionary Psychology, Sociobiology, and Identity Politics. He teaches mathematics in South Korea.

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