Historian and investigative reporter Gareth Porter discusses Iran’s need for civilian nuclear power, why U.S. belligerence is the most important factor in determining whether they will eventually seek nuclear weapons technology, how the gaining of atomic weapons encouraged caution in Chinese foreign policy in the 1960’s, the fact that the Ayatollahs are no less rational than the Cheney Cabal, Cheney’s pressure on Clinton to lift sanctions against Iran in the 1990’s, the corrupting influence of power on man’s reasoning abilities, Cheney’s impossible demand that Iran prove a negative, IAEA Director ElBaradei’s attempt to take the issue back from the UN Security Council by convincing the Iranians to answer the few remaining questions about their program, the election of reformer Rafsanjani to be chairman of the Council of Experts, the bogus accusations that the government of Iran is supplying the new and improved EFP land mines in Iraq, Cheney’s plot to use them as a casus belli, the possibility that General Casey had refused to go along with the February debut of this round of lies, the traditional split between the Sadr and Hakim factions and their relative states of allegiance to Iran.
MP3 here. (46:30)
Gareth Porter is an independent historian and foreign policy analyst. He is also a Foreign Policy In Focus scholar. His book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, is published in May 2005 by University of California Press.
