COMPLETE CAPITULATION': Jeremy Scahill Breaks Down Iran

Very excited now to be joined by Jeremy Scahill, great friend of the show, co -founder of Dropside News.Good to see you, Jeremy.Great to see both of you.Jeremy, let's dig into it.Let's put this up here on the screen.We have the 14 points released here by Iranian Mayor News Agency as of last night.

We broke down some of these clauses.How does it fit with the many senior Iranian officials and members of the delegation who you've been speaking to over the last 48 hours or so?

Yeah, I mean, there is caution that there are some details that are yet to be worked out.And the big wild card here is what the Israelis and Netanyahu are going to do regarding Lebanon.You know, last night when I was speaking to an Iranian official after the Israelis had bombed Dahiya, the southern suburb of Beirut, and they said that it's going to be within the next three or four hours that we're going to launch retaliatory strikes against Israel in response to this bombing.And I was actually preparing a post that I was going to put up quoting the Iranian official, explaining some of the concerns they had about what this says for an agreement.And then Donald Trump comes out and says this is going to be imminent.And then the Pakistani prime minister.

posts what he posted.And I was told by a source, wait, hold off.There's a meeting going on right now.And what I'm told happened.And again, this is Iran's narrative.We're going to see what happens when we see the formal text.

But what they're claiming is that there was a flurry of activity.The mediators on behalf of Trump were begging the Iranians not to actually bomb Israel, and the Iranians claim that they were able to win some last -minute concessions in some of the language.One of them involved a more swift reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and the pullback of some American military assets from the region.But the other is that they say that mediators told them that the United States was going to compel the Israelis to pull their troops out of southern Lebanon.That was not in the draft text that I saw a few days ago.So if the Iranian version of this is right, What they're saying is that Trump is saying he's going to force the Israelis to pull

out of southern Lebanon.And what's most significant, I think, about the structure of this proposed memorandum of understanding is that the Iranians seem to have been able to build in terms that if the United States doesn't complete them or enforce them, the Iranians can say, well, then we're not going to move toward the 60 days of negotiations on the nuclear issue.On a basic surface level, if you look at this, This does look largely like a Trump capitulation, because the Strait of Hormuz was open before.This idea that it's some great victory to get the Iranians to say that they won't develop or seek in any way to acquire a nuclear weapon, if you go back and read the preamble to the 2015 JCPOA, that was in there.And so on one level, you can look at this and say, The Iranians have managed to set things back to the state that they were prior to the war, but with more leverage.On the other side, Iranians' prize here would be a comprehensive lifting of sanctions.

Yes, they're going to get some of their assets unfrozen, but it's really a relatively small amount of money compared to what they would get if the sanctions were lifted.And all of that depends on what happens during those 60 days of talks.Trump is saying if they don't make a deal, he's going to resume the war.I'm skeptical of that for reasons that you guys have talked about before.The midterm elections are coming up.And the reality is that Iran fought the United States for roughly 100 days, both militarily and diplomatically, to a standoff where the president of the United States is desperate to try to spin capitulation as victory.

Can you talk a little bit more about the money piece of this for Iran, because I think this is a particularly sensitive issue for Trump and his coalition, because they made a big deal about the assets that were unfrozen under the JCPOA, the pallets of cash being shipped to the Iranian terrorist regime.We heard all kinds of rhetoric about that.So can you speak to what is being contemplated here with regards to Iran having their assets unfrozen, sanctions lifted?and also receiving compensation for the damage that was done to their country.

I mean, there's some interesting things that if you read between the lines of some statements that Vice President J .D.Vance made recently, if you look at some of what Iran is saying, it's interesting.Let's start from the biggest sort of perspective on this.Iran has said that it wants at least $24 billion in its frozen assets.This is Iranian money that's been frozen, repatriated to Iran.

at the front end of a deal.That was Iran's opening position.Behind the scenes, there was discussion of phasing it, where half of it would occur during the initial period of the memorandum of understanding, and the other half of it would occur as sort of a benchmark process during the 60 -day negotiation.But behind the scenes, there's been a flurry of activity involving Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, reports of money already changing hands.The Emiratis are denying that.But Iranian sources have told me that Trump wants to find a way to give us our money without saying that he gave us our money.

So it's it's possible that this will kind of not become entirely public right away for the reasons you just mentioned, that Trump wants to be able to say, I didn't do what Barack Hussein Obama did and give them cash at the front end of this deal.The other day, J .D.Vance posted on X a remarkably kind of diplomatic statement about the state of affairs.And within that, he said, you know, no money is going to exchange hands at the beginning of this.Iran's not going to be given money for showing up to a meeting or signing a document.

That's very different than Trump saying no money is ever going to exchange hands.What I think Vance is indicating is that there is this alternative process going on.We'll have to see when we see the actual text how the Trump administration tries to finesse this.There's also a discussion of maybe some of it being framed as loans or some of it being humanitarian in nature or some of it being portrayed as financing that's coming from Gulf countries out of the goodness of God.their hearts.But the reality is the Iranians aren't going to move forward unless a significant portion of that $24 billion is in one way or another repatriated.

And the whole thing really is about narrative spin right now.But J .D.Vance's comment, I think, was really interesting because it was taking a more nuanced position than Trump.And I think indicates that there is an alternative process playing out that may not appear in the document where Iran ends up getting its money without Trump having to say we gave it to them.

Got it.There's a lot of face saving going on, isn't there?Last question, Jeremy.The Iranians claim that they were able to extract at the very last minute the lifting of the total blockade upon some signing as a result of their willingness to strike Israel after they struck Lebanon.How does that comport with what you heard?Because I think that's pretty extraordinary that they were able to extract that if it's true.

Yeah.I mean, I had been shown language two nights ago that was pretty close to that.When I went back then, so I was questioning at first, you know, was this really a concession?And then late last night when I was talking to the Iranians, they said, yeah, there are some technical details that shifted that we had been pushing for.And Trump, in the end, came through and said, yes, it's going to happen.I mean, there is the issue of demining.

We're going to see.They're saying that it's going to be lifted as of Friday, not immediately, as Trump said.But, Segar, I think the bigger issue, and I think this is going to be the center of the whole ballgame, is going to be Lebanon.Israel, the defense minister and others are saying we aren't bound by this agreement.This is going to be a real test of if Trump Trump actually wants this deal.Because if the Israelis continue their siege on Lebanon, the Iranians have shown quite clearly that at least right now, they are not going to sit on their hands.

They're saying they didn't strike for the reason that you said, because they got capitulations from Trump at the 11th hour and they wouldn't have done it otherwise.I think that there's real risk for Iran here.There's a ferocious internal debate.People were calling for the head of Galibaf and Arachi, saying that this is a bad deal for Iran.And the center of that is they feel that Iran has more strategic leverage over the United States than it's had in many, many years.And the concern is that if Iran gives up too much and gets bogged down in a process without comprehensive sanctions relief, the Iranian economy continues to suffer.

The Israelis escalate their covert Mossad operations inside of Iran.and Iran's rally around the flag effect starts to diminish.That's a real concern that we're hearing from some Iranians who oppose this deal.