Useful Idiots with Katie Halper and Aaron Maté (private feed for Mazurg@hotmail.com)

Professor DEBUNKS Trump’s Iran Nuke Lie, Ceasefire, & Israel-US Propaganda

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:The US-Israel-Iran conflict is changing fast with civilian strikes, ceasefire talks, sneak attacks, and coverups. And Western media is as war-mongering and dishonest as they have been since the beginning of the genocide and were during the Iraq War. Narges Bajoghli, Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, helps sheds light on the reality in Iran and parse through the propaganda.Useful Idiots: The big debate right now in Washington is the Trump administration claiming, ‘Yeah, we basically obliterated Iran's nuclear program.’ And the media saying, ‘No, you didn't.’ And that's the debate, not whether the U.S. had the right to do that, or whether it was right for Trump to pretend to engage in diplomacy just to help Israel kill a bunch of people in Iran, including many civilians. As you're watching all this unfold in Washington, what is your sense of what is missing from the public discussion?Narges Bajoghli: First of all, this was an unprovoked war that Israel launched inside of Iran. And as much as the framing around it by mainstream media was that Israel was just targeting military infrastructure, military officials, and nuclear facilities, from day one they were targeting civilian infrastructure. Lots of civilians ended up losing their lives in this twelve day war that we had. So the erasure of that and the focus on the civilian infrastructure in Israel, that is important to pay attention to.The other is that we still talk about nuclear energy as if nuclear energy can only be used to create a bomb. Not only did the IAEA and all US intel agencies say that they had no evidence that Iran was going for a bomb. But what we were not discussing is that nuclear energy is actually used for medical research, it's used for cancer research, it's used for electricity, it's civilian infrastructure. And so targeting civilian infrastructure in this way actually violates international law.Useful Idiots: There's a lot of talk right now about a ceasefire. Is there a ceasefire?Narges Bajoghli: So far, there's a ceasefire in the sense that both sides have ceased firing at one another. Trump’s base turned against him so publicly, so loudly that he could not risk starting another war or else he would have to risk losing his base. So it seems like he's put some pressure on the Israelis as well. But Israel is not known for abiding by and honoring ceasefires. I think to date with the ceasefire in Lebanon, it's already violated it over a thousand times. So I know that there's a lot of trepidation about how long this will actually hold. But for the moment, this is where we are.Subscribe to hear the full interview with Narges Bajoghli on the impact of US sanctions on working people in Iran, whether sanctions should be considered a war crime, what we can predict about Iran by analyzing the regime change operation in Syria, and a weird CNN propaganda video fear-mongering about Iranian sleeper cells in the US.Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Trump Thinks He’s Hotter Than Zohran MamdaniThanks for supporting independent media. Subscribe for the full interviews here:

Will the United States FORCE Iran into World War III?

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What Trump Is HIDING About Israel’s War on Iran – with Sina Toossi and Negar Razavi

Watch our full, unpaywalled interviews with Sina Toossi and Negar Razavi here:As Israel ramps up its Trump-backed, unprovoked war on Iran, warmongering U.S. politicians, Western media, and the “experts” they turn to are revealing that they have no idea what they’re talking about.So we at Useful Idiots decided to do something crazy and interview people who actually do know what they’re talking about: Iranian-American analyst and Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy Sina Toossi and Iranian-American Associate Research Scholar at Princeton University's Iran and Persian Gulf Center Negar Razavi. We are releasing them unpaywalled so their messages can be heard.Useful Idiots: What do you think is the most important thing for people to know right now about what is happening [with Iran, Israel, and the United States]?Sina Toossi: This is a completely unnecessary, unjustified war. It is objectively a war of aggression on Israel's part. Iran had just done five rounds of negotiations with Trump, and Trump was adamant that he wanted a deal. And all of a sudden, they're surprise-attacking Iran. So this is a war of choice.This could be potentially catastrophic for American interests and stability in the Middle East and the world. And it is entirely due to the recklessness and impunity by which the Israeli government has been acting.Useful Idiots: I want to show you a headline from the New York Times. This is just shocking: “Israeli strikes kill civilians across Iran.” After a year and a half of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, a headline like this, just a straightforward, factual headline that applies agency to Israel as it kills civilians is a rarity. It's almost unheard of. What are your thoughts on this and the overall media climate in this Israeli assault on Iran?Negar Razavi: The fact that we are all shocked by this headline is in itself shocking. We have come to expect the mainstream media to always center Israeli lives when they are lost and to always put the losses of Palestinian lives, Lebanese lives, Yemeni lives, and now Iranian lives in the passive tense. They have somehow died without the aggressor being named.The fact that this was just given straightforward, and then they took one step further and interviewed fifty people inside Iran to actually add some texture to those losses and tell the stories of the people who have been killed, this is unprecedented. And the fact that we are starting with this and remarking on how exceptional it is in itself, it tells us a lot about the Iran discussion and the Iran debate.Useful Idiots: Here's a video of Netanyahu: “The nation of Iran and the nation of Israel have been true friends since the days of Cyrus the Great. And the time has come for you to stand up for your freedom from an evil and oppressive regime. This is your opportunity to stand up and let your voices be heard. Woman, life, freedom. Zan, Zendegi, Azadi. Israel's fight is not with you, the brave people of Iran, whom we respect and admire. Our fight is with our common enemy, a murderous regime that both oppresses you and impoverishes you. Brave people of Iran, your light will defeat the darkness. I am with you.”Okay, so I know it's laughable. I heard you laughing. It's like we're watching a standup routine. But what are your thoughts on this [standup] set?Sina Toossi: It's ISIS with nukes with the backing of the entire West: They're religious fanatics, they engage in genocidal slaughter, they're trying to destabilize the region. I don't think there's that much moral difference between what they're doing.And so Netanyahu right now is acting like he's liberating Iranian women. I saw a tweet that said that they're liberating Iranian women from their lives.Check out the full episode, completely free. Thanks for supporting independent media, subscribe for more extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and other bonus content.Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Trump Outsources Iran WMD Lies to Israel This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

Is Iran-Israel About to Go Nuclear? with Professor Vali Nasr

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:Hours after we spoke to Johns Hopkins Professor of Advanced International Studies Vali Nasr, Israel killed multiple Iranian military officials in a strike against “Iranian nuclear sites.” Both Israel and the United States threatened “even more brutal” attacks to come.Professor Nasr, whose latest book is Iran’s Grand Strategy: A Political History, explains why Israel benefits from attacking Iran, and why they can’t do it without US assistance and consent.Useful Idiots: Are you expecting some sort of military strike from Israel against Iran?Professor Vali Nasr: I don't think Israel is actually able to take out Iran's nuclear facilities on its own without US assistance. It could perhaps hit Iran and then hope the Iranians would retaliate and then bring the United States into a war with Iran. But even in order to get to Iran, Israel cannot surprise the US. It has to go through US radar lines. This idea that Israel would attack Iran on its own without telling the United States, without US cooperation or US support, is just not credible.Useful Idiots: From Iran's perspective, can you explain why enrichment is a red line? Why they insist on what they see as their right to enrich and how they would respond to an argument from the outside saying, ‘Why can't you meet your energy needs through some other means that doesn't include enrichment, which could put you one day on the path to a nuclear weapon?’Professor Nasr: They view it as an inherent right. To say that Iran does not have a right to enrich is basically singling out Iran as a special case in the international community. There are other signatories to the non-proliferation treaty agreement, which also enriched uranium. So the Iranians are basically saying, ‘We're happy to give you inspections, we're happy to be transparent with the inspections, but this is an inherent right.’Secondly, the Iranians have spent billions of dollars over two decades building essentially an industrial capacity enrichment program. And it's now very much embedded in Iran's economy with tons of companies, businesses, et cetera, tied to it. And thirdly, I think they believe that if they gave up enrichment, the United States would not abide by any deal that is signed. They have zero trust in the US, particularly given that this is the very president who walked away from the previous deal. What guarantee do they have that after they gave up all of their enrichment that any country will supply them with their fuel? And then the United States says, ‘OK, we took everything out of Iran. Now let's renege on the deal like last time, reimpose maximum pressure sanctions on them, and then go after the regime.’So for varieties of reasons, they don't think it's a good idea to give up the right to enrich. And that's their red line.Subscribe to hear the full interview with Professor Vali Nasr on the validity of the claim that Iran’s aim is to destroy Israel, whether Iranian tensions would cease if Palestinians were freed from Israeli occupation, and the true nature of Iran’s relationship with Russia and China.Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Trump Claims No One Wants to Protest His Birthday Parade (but threatens them just in case)Thanks for supporting independent media. Subscribe for the full interviews here:

Why is the National Guard in LA?

Useful Idiots is an audience-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe