Raed Jarrar discusses the ongoing U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, the on-again, off-again negotiations, the escalating exchange of missile and drone attacks across the region and conflicting accounts from each side on whether or not peace talks will resume.
Democracy in the Arab World Now (DAWN) was founded by Saudi U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi before his assassination by the Saudi government in 2018.
SCOTT HARRIS: Right. Well, before we get to our discussion on this reignited Iran war, I did want to run through some of the latest news about the war. Donald Trump has once again threatened to take control of the Strait of Hormuz as he announced the reimposition of a naval blockade on Iran and demanded a 20 percent tariff on all cargo ships through the maritime passage. Declaring the strait open, Trump suggested in a post on his Truth Social platform that the U.S. should be known henceforth as the guardian of the Strait of Hormuz. More rhetoric from Donald Trump, which has many of us questioning his sanity. Trump has made numerous claims and threats during the war with Iran, including frequent claims of victory, many of which have had little grounding in reality. But on Monday evening, the U.S. Navy-led joint Maritime Information Center said the U.S. would begin enforcing a blockade on Iranian ports tomorrow, Tuesday.
The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen says air defenses have dealt with ballistic missiles launched by the Houthi rebels after Yemen’s internationally recognized government says it struck the runway at Sanaa Airport. Iran claims it has attacked U.S. military installations in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Jordan in retaliation for Washington’s renewed hundreds of air strikes in Iran. And then on Saturday, we had Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mujtaba Khamenei vow revenge for the killing of his father and other family members and government leaders in the U.S.-Israeli airstrikes in February, escalating tensions in a moment when a fragile ceasefire is already faltering and threat of renewed war looms. That ship may have already sailed. And we have news reports that say Israel shared intelligence with the U.S. that Iran had recently devised a new plan to assassinate President Trump. Then Trump suggested that he’s left standing orders for the U.S. military to destroy Iran at levels they’ve never seen before if Tehran follows through on its long-standing threats to assainate him.
And finally, tensions around the Strait of Hormuz continue to threaten global oil supplies and we’re seeing prices spike right now. Raed, before we get started on this reigniting of the war, I wonder if you would just say a brief word about the important work you and others do at Democracy for the Arab World Now or DAWN.
RAED JARRAR: Well, thanks for having me again on the show. DAWN is, it’s a hybrid organization. We do some work that human rights organizations historically did, like trying to document and research human rights abuses committed by the U.S. and its allies in the region. We also do some political work and advocacy. We advocate in Washington, D.C. to change our foreign policy and stop supporting abusive and apartheid regimes in the region. We file lawsuits in the U.S. and internationally to try to push in that direction. And we finally have some “think tanky” functions. We have some gatherings and workshops and we produce reports for that.
So second, all of the above approach to try to pursue our main goal here, which is reforming the United States foreign policy towards restraining policy, a policy that’s more restrained, that doesn’t interfere in other parts of the world. And more importantly, a policy that does not fund and aid and support and arm abusive and apartheid regimes in the Middle East and North Africa region.
SCOTT HARRIS: Thank you for that, Raed. So over the last several weeks, it’s become clear that the U.S.-Iranian memo of understanding is dead. In your view, Raed, what led to the collapse of this path that many hope would end this very unpopular and widely criticized war that was launched by Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu without pretext on Feb. 28?
They’re doing the same with Iran now, almost daily breaches of the framework agreement, daily breaches of the ceasefire framework. I wouldn’t say that the agreement is completely dead yet because Trump and Iran still have a lot to lose if they go back to full-fledged war. So it is still grounded in some sort of ongoing negotiations, but there is obviously a daily flare up, more bombing and more killings that are happening. And overall, I wouldn’t say the situation is very stable.
SCOTT HARRIS: Absolutely not. I wanted to ask you about some of the causes of why do you think this ceasefire agreement could not persist until they got a final agreement? They had 60 days to do it. There’s a lot of speculation that Trump’s erratic behavior is unhinged in toxic rhetoric and the incompetence of Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and his golfing buddy, Steve Witkoff, also contributed to the problems with these negotiations where they’ve now fallen apart.
RAED JARRAR: I mean, that’s a generous read. I think it’s worse than that because I don’t think what’s going on is based on incompetence and unhinged comments. It is based on a malicious agenda by Israel. And Netanyahu didn’t even try to hide any of this. He’s very honest about it. He’s honest that he would like to see this ceasefire agreement fail. He’s against it. He’s done everything possible to destroy it by attacking Lebanon. And when that front did not prevail, I think he is egging Trump on every day to see if that agreement could fail. Because Trump, he’s actually not interested in having a war with Iran. It’s not in his interest. It’s not in the United States’ interest whatsoever to go to war with Iran. And he was put into this war of aggression by Netanyahu who has a very clear agenda to destroy Iran. He said he wants to go against Iran for the past 30 years and he’s fighting Iran with our blood and treasure like he did with many other wars, including the Iraq war.
So now Trump is getting to a point where this war is very costly on him and he doesn’t really want it. It’s a difficult year for him. It’s the midterm elections. There is World Cup going on in the US. He wanted to bring down the interest rate in the U.S. He wanted to do this, he wants to do that. And then this Iran war crossed the threshold that would make Trump stop going to war. And that’s a very low threshold. It’s inconvenience. This war is an existential war for Iran. Iranians are fighting to protect their country, their identity, their culture. There is a lot on stake there. And their threshold is very, very high. They’re going to go to war and fight and fight and fight and tolerate lots of pain because it’s an existential war for them. For the United States and Trump, it’s a side quest.
So for him, the inconvenience is a threshold to stop the war. That inconvenience was achieved. The oil prices went up, gas prices went up. There’s a lot headache. It became a headache. That’s why he didn’t want to continue the war. But now Netanyahu is egging him on every day, every day, every day. And as many people have said, including myself, we will see. This is the year to see if Trump is able to indeed prioritize the United States interest over what Netanyahu is asking him to do.
SCOTT HARRIS: Thank you for that, Raed. We’re speaking on Counterpoint this evening with Raed Jarrar, advocacy director with the group Democracy for the Arab World Now, otherwise known as DAWN. And of course we’re talking about the Iran war, which has come into a new phase of retaliatory missile strikes and drone strikes throughout the region. A lot of concern this may develop into a full-blown war. Raed, one of the major unresolved issues in the peace talks was control over the Strait of Hormuz. Iran clearly wanted to maintain some control over the strait, even if it was shared control with the Gulf nation of Oman. Before the Trump administration pressured Oman to demand unilateral control of the southern part of the strait, the Oman government had agreed to a joint control agreement with Iran. I wondered if you would comment on this issue about control of the strait. And I don’t know if there can be future talks to resolve that, but what’s your view?
So that’s the gist of what’s going on now. It’s one section out of the 13 or 15 sections that they agreed upon. And that seems to be the section that is being the most contested. And the United States is now doing its best to try to have a defacto new reality, force a new reality where Iran would submit to the U.S. power and allow vessels to pass through without Iranian control. And Iran is saying, No, we’re not going to do that. So we’re going to have daily skimishes where we attack ships that go outside of that secondary waterway. Because from an Iranian perspective, that is the most strategic strength that Iran has used to deter the United States and Israel from attacking it. It has proved much more powerful than any weapons from an Iranian perspective. So from their perspective, they want to defend that part of the framework agreement and keep the waterway going through their territorial waters to ensure control over all of the ships that go through there.
And the United States is trying to force their hand. I don’t think the U.S. will succeed because honestly, if the U.S. couldn’t succeed to push Iran to open the state of homos with a full-blown war, I don’t think they can do it with the war of attrition. Iran has much more patience. Iran has much more higher tolerance to pain. I don’t think they’re going to succeed, but I think it is negotiations with fire. I think Trump is trying to push Iran as far as possible during these negotiations and Iran is trying to push the US as far as possible. I don’t see the skirmishes as a sign of the collapse of the negotiations. I think the foundation is still there and both sides are still engaged. I think Israel would like to see the negotiations collapse, but we don’t see any imminent signs that that’s the case.
SCOTT HARRIS: Thank you for that, Raed. I also wanted to talk about part of the agreement, the original memo of understanding you mentioned a moment ago about Israel’s airstrikes and occupation of southern Lebanon, which has killed some 4,300 people, 12,000 injured, over a million people displaced. This is a major part of this regional conflict. And as you said earlier, despite ceasefire agreements, Israel has not honored them and the conflict goes on there. People are being killed in Lebanon every day.
It’s mind-boggling. It’s like watching a TV show. This is an administration that has absolutely no respect for any law or regulation or fairness or rules or anything. They are going to do whatever they can to get their goal of more control and more money and more power and more greed. And that’s what we’re seeing. They’re mirroring this Israeli model for regional foreign policy. I think Israel’s action in Lebanon are not an exception. It is actually the new rule for how Israel operates. Look what they’ve done in Palestine. Whether it is the genocide in Gaza or whether it is the slower “genocide-lite” in the West Bank or even against Palestinian citizens of Israel who constitute 20 percent of the population in Israel with citizenships. It is like a completely lawless war with no limits. Whether you look at what they did in Lebanon with the war crimes and crimes against humanity and illegal weapons and destruction of infrastructure and mass movement of civilians and ethnic cleansing, literally ethnic cleansing of certain Lebanese from certain villages.
It is unbelievable. I mean, they’ve done the same in southern Syria as well. This is the way that they operate and Israel has absolutely no regard for international law. And Israel is incapable and unwilling to hold itself accountable. And that’s why many groups, including mine, DAWN, we have been calling on the world to step in, to stop Israel. Israel will not stop by itself. The same way that the apartheid regime in South Africa was not able to stop itself. It had no checks and balances left. And it had to have the entire world step in to impose sanctions and stop that regime and end it. That’s what we need. We need the world to step in. And unfortunately we are dealing with the reality now that the world has to stop both Israel and the United States because the United States to date is the number one and maybe only backer of Israeli crimes in the region.
And the United States is a part of the problem. And without the U.S. stopping its support to Israel, Israeli violations will not stop. So that’s the reality. The reality on the ground is that you have a rogue state that is funded and supported and armed and aided and abetted by the superpower of the world by the United States. And Israeli crimes will continue to happen until the United States stops them. But it doesn’t seem like there is an end in sight because the same way that Israel is incapable of investigating itself and holding itself accountable, we are now officially in an era where the United States is incapable of investigating itself and holding itself accountable.
SCOTT HARRIS: Well said, Raed. We only have a couple minutes left. You mentioned earlier the upcoming November midterm elections. One thing that’s hopeful is that the American people by and large, according to many polls, were opposed to this war that Trump and Netanyahu launched in February from the very start. And there’s an effort underway by the Trump regime to influence, manipulate or interfere with the election knowing that they’re not going to do well. The Republicans are not predicted to do well. Do you have any hope that if the Democrats do take control of the House and the Senate or take control of the Senate as well, that they could be effective in changing course in this regional war in Iran? But as you said earlier, this is something that the United States contributes to in Israel’s aggression in many countries in the Middle East.
RAED JARRAR: Well, let me give you a very short answer to this and I will comment on a related issue. My short answer is on my official capacity with DAWN, I can’t really comment on partisan issues with elections because we are a 501(c)(3), so we’re prohibited from engaging in electioneering and partisan conversations. My personal view is I would say we’ve seen how this government was operating under Democrats and under Republicans. And unfortunately that hasn’t been a good model coming from either of the two major parties in the United States when it comes to creating a foreign policy that is responsible. But the point that I want to mention why we have, do we have a minute or two for me to mention it?
SCOTT HARRIS: Yeah.
RAED JARRAR: It’s that today we woke up on an interesting update that many of your listeners might actually find it interesting. It’s related to this out-of-control government that has absolutely no respect to rule of law.
So Secretary Rubio, the secretary of state, he wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal. And in his op-ed, he proposes that the United States should completely dismantle the International Criminal Court, which is really pathetic to think about the biggest government, the richest and most powerful government of the world going after the world’s court. Instead of going after the criminals that they fund, they’re going after the court. They want to set the court on fire because the court is trying to hold their allies, especially Israel accountable. So he goes with this long tangent about how ICC this and ICC that. And in his op-ed, he mentions my organization by name. He says that some D.C. groups like Democracy in the Arab World DAWN, they did this and that to try to hold the United States accountable with the ICC. I was really shocked.
I mean, I was shocked honestly that the level of intimidation that this administration uses to attack its partners around the world is one thing. But for the sitting secretary of state to name a little nonprofit like us with 10 staff members as an example for why this administration should destroy the ICC is truly pathetic. Our crime is that we have asked the International Criminal Court to step in and hold all warring parties, whether it’s during the most recent war or whether it’s Israel, to hold them accountable for any violations. That is the crime that my organization has committed. So imagine what kind of an environment that this administration is creating here in Washington, D.C., like the chilling effect on nonprofits and advocates like myself and my organization who are trying to bring around, bring about some accountability domestic and internationally, that we are attacked in op-eds and mainstream media.
I do encourage your listeners to go to our website, dawnmena.org. We have a statement answering the secretary of state’s attack on us and taking a few jabs at him. So I think you will enjoy it.
SCOTT HARRIS: Okay. So the website for the response to the Wall Street op-ed by Rubio is DAWN MENA, M-E-N-A.O-R-G. Is that right?
SCOTT HARRIS: Right. Thank you so much for spending time with us and providing your analysis of what’s going on in this renewed conflict in the Middle East and its relationship to U.S. policy and what’s happened with Israel, as you mentioned, in its behavior as a rogue state. Thank you again, and we’ll stay in touch. Look forward to our next conversation, Raed. Thank you.
