8/20/21 Trita Parsi on the True Drivers of Middle East Instability

8/20/21 Trita Parsi on the True Drivers of Middle East Instability

Scott interviews Trita Parsi about his paper concerning the intervention of Middle East powers over the last decade. Parsi and his coauthor Matthew Petti found that, contrary to the picture often painted of one malign actor driving all the instability, there are really six Middle Eastern countries engaging in a lot of foreign intervention. Iran, which is currently the U.S. foreign policy establishment’s favorite villain, is no more interventionist than the other five. And that most instability in the modern Middle East can be traced back to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Finally, Parsi talks about the Iran Nuclear Deal, which he says was gravely threatened when Biden dragged his feet at the beginning of his presidency. 

Discussed on the show:

  • “No Clean Hands: The Interventions of Middle Eastern Powers, 2010-2020” (Quincy Institute)
  • “How to Make Iran Trust a New Nuclear Deal” (Foreign Policy)

Trita Parsi is the president of the National Iranian American Council and the author of Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran and the Triumph of Diplomacy. Parsi is the recipient of the 2010 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. Follow him on Twitter @tparsi.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: The War State and Why The Vietnam War?, by Mike Swanson; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; EasyShip; Green Mill Supercritical; Bug-A-Salt; Lorenzotti Coffee and Listen and Think Audio.

Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjYu5tZiG.

About Scott Horton

Scott Horton is director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of Antiwar.com, host of Antiwar Radio on Pacifica, 90.7 FM KPFK in Los Angeles, California and podcasts the Scott Horton Show from ScottHorton.org. He's the author of the 2021 book Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism, the 2017 book, Fool's Errand:Time to End the War in Afghanistan, editor of the 2019 book The Great Ron Paul: The Scott Horton Show Interviews 2004–2019 and the 2022 book Hotter Than The Sun: Time to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. He’s conducted more than 6,000 interviews since 2003. Scott lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, Larisa Alexandrovna Horton.

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