The East is a Podcast is a show that focuses a critical lens on the history of the present of West Asia and Other cultures. Interviews with experts and archival mashups.
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Sharmine Narwani is a freelance journalist based in London and Beirut. She blogs at mideastshuffle.com. You can follow her on Twitter @snarwani
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Sharmine Narwani: [00:00:00] I’m Sharmine Narwani.
I’m a London and Beirut based journalist. I focus on commentary and analysis and some investigative work. I’ve been covering the region since 2009 again, and, I, I have covered, I guess I’m known mostly for the serene conflict and covering that conflict. And then more generally, I’m covering the Lavant to the Persian Gulf because that’s where the action is in the middle East.
That’s where, everybody, global powers included are vested right now. So it’s, it’s, it’s the hot topic and I’m here in the roots trying to do the best I can.
Sina Rahmani: [00:00:41] Do you, do you want to talk? Can you, how did you get to what you’re doing like you want, do you want to stay a little bit about kind of your trajectory?
Sharmine Narwani: [00:00:48] how did I actually, I actually, I did my masters in, both journalism was my functional specialty and middle East was my regional specialty at Columbia University. And, I had an opportunity, during the time I was there, I did a number of internships. One was with ABC News Nightline, one was with the on times in Tiran and the other was with Reuters in Jerusalem.
So I got really good.
Diverse, you know, experience with media and really eyeopening for a young person. And, because they were such different experiences. I, I loved the region, the study of the region, and I didn’t go into journalism because. It was really hard to write about the Middle East in those days.
And I mean, it still is, you know, I mean, covering Syria, for instance, of the people who turned on me first from my peers in the media, you know, on Twitter, just having go at me over really factual stuff, factual reporting that has, born out these past nine years. So what I wrote in the early days was.
Subject to so much scrutiny. But now we accept these things as, as quite normal and fact. And, I remember, meeting the British ambassador in Beirut, when he first arrived, and then a couple of years later when he was leaving. I bumped into him at an Iranian embassy, what’s it called?
Anniversary of the revolution function. And the guy was standing alone and, you know, I think he was happy to see a familiar face and he said, you know what you were saying two years ago, just sounded like insane. And now we’re all talking the same tune. So, yeah, I started back into journalism in 2009.
When just, you know, when the Israelis attack to Gaza, the 2008, 2009 campaign, which was horrific, and it sort of brought me back into that space because to be honest, career wise, I had gone in many different directions, none of them journalism. And, that had happened and that Uranian elections in 2009.
And I remember writing a rant on Facebook. And it getting sent around to media. And, before I knew it, the huffing post had asked me to, blog for them. And, the USA today had asked me to do a piece on USC run relations. And, you know, I just slipped into it that easily. And that summer I decided to do a tour of the region again.
And, it was, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon. my first time in Lebanon actually, and, fell in love with that. Lebanon is very interesting because I’m sure there’ve been many capitals where Western media, have based themselves over the decades, but there’s no better place than Beirut for a journalist who’s covering this.
The geopolitics of this region, because you can find every viewpoint here. It’s a microcosm of the entire region. You’ll find the Saudi viewpoint, the Iranian viewpoint, you know, the Muslim brotherhood viewpoint, the American, French, British. So, so it’s very easy to cover the region here. You have plenty of quotable people right next door.
And of course travel-wise. So I very happily settled here. And then a few years ago started to go back between Beirut and London. and, that’s where I am now.
Sina Rahmani: [00:04:14] So I have a question about journalism. Why are they all so bad? Like almost without exception, like almost without exception, most like mainstream journalists, I’m talking like American ones and the ones who sort of venture out to our part of the world.
Most of them are pretty like, horrible.
Sharmine Narwani: [00:04:37] Yeah, look, we’ve seen some major transformations in the journalism scene, but you know, we’ve seen these transformations globally. I mean, we’re basically looking, you know, the world has become very polarized on almost any issue. and there are two camps, and I think journalism has dropped its mass.
You know, there are two camps in journalism too, on pretty much every issue, which is fine. You know, we’re people ultimately, and we have our opinions. The problem I find is when journalists try to conceal those opinions and portray themselves as absolutely objective, delivering facts to you, like you can read my work and you will know.
What I think of certain things, you know, I’m not hiding it, and it was certainly not hiding it in my tweets. Do you know? But if you look at my stuff, I’m, you know, I’m mostly, I do counter-narratives. Like there’s no point in you repeating stuff that’s in every major MSM publication. so you’re not going to see me repeating those, tired talking points.
I’m looking for a new angle, but I also think that in later decades, when journalism became very corporate, you know, and journalists stopped wearing flak jackets and started to wear suits. You know, we saw, we saw a different kind of journalism, one that was answerable to, to money and authority.
And, also, I think very importantly, journalists in recent decades have been hired because of the way they think. Okay. So you can’t say that those lousy CNN reporters have taken their jobs and then are deliberately lying, you know, about things deliberately concealing. They’re hired because of their worldview. So they come at the news stories with exactly the same agenda as their corporate bosses. So, you know, it’s unfortunate, but, there’s no money in journalism and the only money in journalism is as somebody willing to take a lot of losses and, and pay, you know, billions of dollars to keep an operation running to influence populations and journalism is an influence business. Now, you know, it’s quite horrible. but like I said, it’s okay if you know where the journalist is coming from. That’s fair enough. You know. but unfortunately, news reporting has been injected with heavy doses of, of, commentary, and opinion, in my view. And, and, and that’s, that’s problematic.
Sina Rahmani: [00:07:06] Well, I mean, historically, one of the most famous sort of founders of the field of modern journalism was Karl Marx.
Right. And so it’s incredible to me to think of like, the profession that he helped invent, or at least. And it’s modern guys, with like the kind of, professional activist, thinker, writer, intellectual sort of rep, our tour, that figure comes out of a lot of, a lot of those early sort of left critical moments.
Like it wasn’t in the interest of all the guards to talk anything about the sort of to share these things. It was good to keep just keep their sort of news in their own world and that’s all you needed and good written if most of the population can’t read. But where’s the history of the 19th century is about mass literacy.
All this other stuff. But long story short, today, we’ve reached the point where the vast majority of journalism is compromised politically and the difference between a, and that’s also true for the ver the related, but separate sort of human rights, industrial complex. And the cousin of that is the sort of university social science world.
Right? And so there are these massive institutions that have literally billions of dollars behind them, right? Corporations, universities, all geared towards, let’s say, managing the interests of, they’re oligarchic owners, right? And
Sharmine Narwani: [00:08:28] so. It’s all tied together. I mean, you know, Syria really, opened my eyes on a lot of issues that go beyond the political reporting of that conflict.
And, I began to understand propaganda in a different way. I mean, I began to understand how fundamental propaganda is to Empire’s ability to. Force, it enforces itself on the world. and I remember in 2012 reading the US military special forces, unconventional warfare manual, which had been leaked, I think, on the internet in 2010, like, you can buy it on Amazon now.
But, at that point I had to look for it. And I mean, there’s so much in, at about propaganda, how to scene set. For an uprising. Okay. Before you get. Military on the ground, we’re talking about, you know, creating strikes and store shutdowns and, protests and holding up signs and, you know, very, very clearly stating, you know, we have to sway the perceptions of the majority.
Right. And, and I realized quickly that, that is actually, the frontline troops of the US military as propaganda. Okay. There’s no war. There’s no military confrontation. They enter, unless they’ve seen set for it. and, you know, once you’ve seen that lesson up close, you notice that everywhere.
So in fact, these institutions, have over time been subverted and, and, and altered to suit, you know, an American or Western agenda. of, you know, dominating financial net, global financial networks, global, you know, networks and networks of the world. So it’s not just about war and conflict, it’s about, you know, maintaining supremacy in all domains.
And once you see it like that, I mean, you understand what you’re up against. Now, for me as a journalist, I mean, you know, you follow me on Twitter as I do you, I’m quite mouthy on Twitter and I’m not as much in my normal life. I’ve discovered my alter ego through Twitter, unleashed my voice, if you will.
But, I really, you know, it’s an interesting platform because. I, you notice that within, you know, hours of a new development that depending on who sort of picks up the story different, I’m not talking about journalists now, but different people who tweet tweets, I guess we call them. you know, whether they challenge the notion or offer pictures to show otherwise or whatever.
It’s a narrative busting platform. It’s a very powerful tool. And if, you know, if, the US and, countries, you know, that, launched that, that are the countries where major social media platforms launched thought by doing so, they could. Learn the habits, the thinking, the locations of everybody.
It’s also had a, an unintended consequence of, in a way, democratizing, the ability to, to, contest narratives. You know, as one couldn’t in the media. so I find that very interesting. And if you want to, and this is why, frankly, the U S and British militaries and the Israeli military and stuff, and the Saudis now in the UAE, and God knows how many countries have launched operations rooms, with, you know, With the advanced software that allows, service men to, to take on 10 different social media pro, personas at a time to sway perceptions, that benefit their government’s agendas. So, you know, it’s a very interesting medium. And, I think one place where voices like yours and mine. Can, can inject some reality into, you know, the discourse on what’s happening in the region.
Right.
Sina Rahmani: [00:12:31] So that’s my next question. Now we sort of, we’re, we’re in this age where the institutions, the sort of normally institutions, newspapers, TV, like television stations. The big ones, right? These are, they are all on, they’re dying, dying breaths. Right? Like newspapers, just the profession of journalism and the institutions that have been sort of in charge of it for decades and decades now are virtually gone and consolidated into a few hands now in the meantime, and our sort of adult, I’m guessing you and I are around the same age, I don’t know.
But like in our, in our sort of growth. and the sort of experience that we have in our kind of careers, the internet plays the sort of big role, right? And the internet had this at the first time early on, this sort of liberatory force, right? Everybody could set up a blog. Everybody can today, everybody can set up a podcast today.
Everybody can do whatever they want. But as time has gone by, we begin to see that that, and the market has been closed down and not closed downstate. But like the frame for sort of the internet for digital reading, it has been curtailed to be under the purview of Instagram, Facebook, Google, all this sort of big media corporations that help establish the sort of internet, or at least sort of colonize it for themselves to the Khan Valley principally.
But. Now, like now those institutions are gone. And what’s filled that place is the sort of curatorial role of those big information super giants where they curate information that’s either good or bad information. So Mark Zuckerberg has the ability to determine, which is with God knows what calculus with the help of the Atlantic fucking Council, to say, what’s good news or bad information, right? I mean like that’s, that to me is a very dystopian, that’s actually worse than a corporate-dominated one because. Really the, it’s a kind of, but it has this kind of, it shrinks the world. Like the world for the American sort of newspaper paper reader, this sort of informed American or North American or Western consumer is extremely small, right?
It’s something that I always think of when, when I see people saying like, Oh, don’t show pictures of this or that, don’t show pictures of violence. Like, no, there are different reasons. So for instance, you know. This, the most recent sort of egregious murder on the part of the cops. People don’t want to see those images, but I can trust that with sort of the war, the stereo war were just images like that still fly around where we’re all very used to sort of the, just dead bodies and corpses and violence and all things like that.
It’s also Brown media who showed the violence. It’s also big, like it’s a more like you see the bodies on those, on, on Brown media because it’s mostly Brown people who do the diet, right? And so we have this kind of sanitized vision of war and violence and conflict that’s highly mediated along the sort of ideological lines of, of American society.
Right? So like that to me is something that. That it’s even more ideologically determined than it was in Marx’s day, where you had just kind of like direct stenography of power. Now it’s permeated through all the institutions of power through, through media, through universities, or schools, through NGOs.
Right. I mean, think of like, I think of the white helmets as the, sort of a puffy hostess of, AstroTurf. Sort of media, right? You have, you have, essentially, you have the worst kind of sort of terrorist jihadis, and I don’t use that word lightly, but like really terrorist yachties fascist. Who are held up as a liberatory force and they just so happen to be created by a former British intelligence officer and we’re supposed to believe.
And then they get, they get all this support, they get all this boosting. They’re on the news. Like the last time I was at the gym, I was running on my treadmill and that was like, what are the TVs that were in the gym? And they were reporting on the white helmets. Like it was still going on. That was January.
I mean, the theory of war has been done for months and they’re still doing AstroTurf. A lie is about the white helmets and I just, it blew my mind. Of course, the next thing was about Israeli raids into palace Palestinian Territories, and I was like, wow, like we are more ideologically overdetermined than any person in authoritarian countries, supposedly.
Right? Like, and that’s to me, like the sort of chronic. Illness of normally journalism is that they refuse to accept that their own worldview has bias them and has bled into their work, and that the search and the sort of need for American power because American power secures their own jobs, right? If the New York times collapses, then New York times reporter can’t Boulder.
Right? He’s, he’s a, he’s out of a job. So you need, like, it’s you, there’s a sort of, there’s a. Objectively, like, objectively compromised. Like one is objectively compromised, if that makes sense. And yet the, the audacity and the sort of gaslighting around fake news, around lie all this stuff. And, and we haven’t even gotten into like the sort of Zionist element of all this, which is a huge, huge network of media people who are dedicated to spinning and covering up every single crime committed by Israel.
Right? And so that’s a big jumble of a question. God, I’ve been talking for five minutes, but like, it’s more because it’s like there’s so few actual journalists who are actually interested in talking and I’m delighted at the fact that places like salon are still open to your work because I had the, I was, I was honestly shocked.
I remember when you, when you posted the interview, I was like, wow. They’re still open-minded enough to like, listen to this. Like I’m, that’s the surprise. You know, like
Sharmine Narwani: [00:18:06] the one interview was interesting. I, I didn’t quite anticipate how, you know, it would play out and that people would view it, how people would view it.
The, the journalist, Patrick Lawrence, who, who, interviewed me and did a two piece, interview on salon about Syria, middle East, et cetera, in my, my journalism there, does long interviews, from time to time. And he hopes one day to put these in a book because they’re. Interesting, different people with different ideas.
And he had been following my work for some time. unbeknownst to me and, got in touch with me one day and asked if I’d been a long interview. Now I love long interviews. Let me say when I interview someone. Notable political leader. I ask for at least an hour, maybe two, and I ask if we can have a conversation instead because the question answer doesn’t work.
It just doesn’t, you know, you have to get into maybe a debate to get some stuff out of people, you know, to really, to really have a meaningful conversations that have question, answer. so, so yeah, Patrick, interviewed me. You know, we did it via email and Skype and WhatsApp and over the course of a month or two, and, it was fantastic, you know, but there are, there are really good journalists out there.
There’s, you know, Stephen Kinzer at the Boston globe asks a lot of questions, pushes back against narratives. Peter, Oh, born, you know, there’s, there, there are people, Seamus melon, before he, you know, joined the labor party and hopefully he’ll get back into writing. so there are people, and by the way, on the left and on the right, I’m not as worried as maybe I used to be a few years ago about, this whole fake news thing and, and, the censorship of social media platforms and of course, media in general.
Even in the West, we’ve entered this phase of deep polarization. So actually now you see Trump fighting the same forces. We are, you know, who wants to censor him and who wants to put a. notices on his tweets that, this could be fake information, right? So I think the battle is going to happen, doesn’t even need us, our kind of voices.
It’s going to happen within these countries anyways. You know, these countries that profess, freedom of speech and expression at every turn are the ones heavily censoring everywhere or attempting to, that battle will be fought in these countries as well. All right. The other thing that makes me hopeful and I really, really want you to like grasp this, put it on your head and know it’s true, is that it doesn’t matter what the West says any more about us, okay.
Western narratives no longer have the ability to impact us. Okay. they may. Dominate the narratives, but now in West Asia, we control the outcomes on the ground. Finished. Finished. That’s it.
Sina Rahmani: [00:21:11] People might need to unpack that on though. You might need to unpack that statement cause a little bit. I know you and I are we here, but yeah.
Can we, can we, can we explain that to people? Cause they might be confused. Like why do you say that? I actually, I actually really agree with you. I really do think, and I kind of said that I said this in my own way. I said that like it doesn’t matter what we do over here, nothing matters. What we do. Well we had our only job here.
I mean, when I say our, I mean media people, people who are people, people based here in the West. and saying that our job is to challenge our own government, get, get, like rectify, rectify the orientalist lies that, that our structure, our entire world and world of way of thinking and keep hammering on. I keep hammering on injustices at home.
Right? Like regime change begins at home. That’s kind of my expression. But let’s take it back to what you said. Like why do you, why do you say that? And when do you think, when do you think that that line was crossed of it mattered and now it doesn’t matter.
Sharmine Narwani: [00:22:08] Okay. So, so over the, I’ve, I’ve, I think in, in my Salon interviews I mentioned this as well.
I, you know, I think we entered world war three over the Syrian conflict, and, you know, I’m not trying to dramatize it but for me, the world Wars were major power Wars and after nuclear weapons came on the scene, we couldn’t have conventional , major power Wars any longer because it would end with, you know, global destruction.
So we knew the third world war would, be an unconventional war. Okay. Uses of proxies, propaganda, subversion, sabotage, sanctions, you name it. Okay. And which is what we’re seeing just globally anyways, with, with the sort of, you know the one superpower America, you know, handing these out in, all around and, But what happened over Syria is, other, other players became vested in such a way that they stepped into the Syrian scene, in a way they hadn’t and other conflicts. Okay. so we’re talking about the Russians and Chinese primarily, right? but this was a war. Where are the combined resources of NATO and the GCC.
Okay. All the weapons you need, all the money you want, all the jihadists you could possibly dream up from 80 countries. We’re just funneled into this one country and, and they lost. They also dominated the propaganda space, right?
Sina Rahmani: [00:23:40] Yeah. They, they won the media war, but they lost the actual one.
Sharmine Narwani: [00:23:44] Yes. And that was it.
That’s it. Okay. If you want any better example, what better example is there of, you know, of what I’d said about the West can dominate narratives, but they no longer control outcomes. The Syrian conflicts one. any potential conflict with Iran, Russia, China will be another, I mean, we’re seeing it all over the place.
I mean. American power is diffusing, after every threat, they, they throw it out at us because they’re no longer able, really to carry out these threats. so it’s not just in the region, it’s everywhere. That is Wila, you know, still stands strong somehow, despite every American effort to cripple that country, and bleed it.
So, Yes, they, they control narratives. They absolutely do not control outcomes any longer. Finished. Like we, you know, sometimes a new narrative has to be on the table for us to know that it’s, it’s, it’s on the table. Like we have to consider it. Right? And we just don’t hear these. And this is why it’s so important for us to have voices out there.
We put new ideas on the table and they will take hold because there’s a vacuum of ideas that work. So, yeah, I mean, that’s in a nutshell. I’m not so worried about Western propaganda anymore. I mean, friggin Washington post journalists here loud, the as lousy lousiest American correspondence in this region, Lebanon, Iraq, you know, live on to the Persian Gulf can say whatever they want.
They can shutter as much as they want. You know, Sydney, Shia, Arab versus Iran doesn’t matter. They don’t control the outcome. It must be very frustrating for them. You know? It’s wonderful.
Sina Rahmani: [00:25:30] Well, the, so the outcome, and so there’s two different things that you’re, you’re, the way you’re framing it though, presumes that the goal is to have an effect on the realities in the region.
I think, however, that, even though, even though they’re ineffectual in there, the strategic goals, right, the strategic us goals, they still were able to bleed Syria for a decade, and they were still able to. Ring, the sort of ring, this insane sort of Wagon train of idiots and morons and liberals and so-called leftist intellectuals and all these people, they were able to ring them around.
I mean, it’s more because remember where I’m based, it’s not where your base, so you don’t have to see it from where I, what I get all day long is, Oh my God, the white helmets got an Oscar. They got an Oscar like, like, and the people like, like I know somebody in my own life, I hope, I hope she doesn’t listen to this.
My sister, my sister will say things like, Oh, like we talked, it was like, Oh, Bashar is a monster. And I was like, what. Where did you, where did that come from? And it was like, she’s an engaged person, but most of it gets mostly gets from media online. Of course, I love my sister. I would never insult her or anything like that, but it’s the fact that that exposure is all she gets and that idea that she gets.
Now, does my sister have an influence on, on this, this, this realm of policy? No.
Sharmine Narwani: [00:26:53] Well, I say, you know, they’re busy talking while we’re busy walking. So I mean, it doesn’t matter when I go. when I’m in London and my wife’s family’s Holy grail of facts is, the Sunday times and the ft, you know, imagine what, you know, our lunches are like, and, I, I realized that some point, like, why am I getting agitated by this?
It doesn’t matter what they say. It absolutely doesn’t matter anymore. I mean, basically what their governments have done is, is bought their consent. Okay. and, but, but can their governments actually implement, you know, or execute? And I don’t think they can any longer in Syria was the turning point for this because Syria, drew the Russians and the Chinese to the international stage, they became important intermediaries in many conflicts and many, you know, heated situations around the world.
They’re not going back into a box. And so U S power is now. absolutely contested, by not just those two major powers, but by smaller countries like Iran, who I’m, you know, we’re, we’re going to be discussing Iran U S and a bit, and it’s just fascinating how he won’t just, you know, steps up to meet every American challenge.
And go, yeah, you did that and I’m going to do this, and now what are you going to do? You know, it’s shocking even to me. He was so gleeful about it. I am shocked, you know, jaw dropped to the floor, kind of shocked, and it’s wonderful. So I, I’m, I’m not worried about, yes, they can, they can bleed Syria. And one of.
the reasons I not so against a, a quick and hard conflict is because, we, it will stop the heavy bleeding in my view. but don’t forget Siena that, just a decade or so ago or two ago, and American military operation of any kind. Would overthrow a government in two seconds and they would, dominate a country.
And that’s not what happens. Serious. So yeah, there was bleeding, but you know, the, the global South and through the certain example has been able to staunch that bleeding by, you know, drawing a line under it and saying, you cannot do what you did in Iraq anymore. It’s not possible. You know? I mean, the U S Canada, Venezuela, they can’t do it.
Do you realize that they can’t do it with all their propaganda and all their media outlets.
Sina Rahmani: [00:29:20] But they can, but they can starve the country. And that’s the big deal. Right? So like,
Sharmine Narwani: [00:29:24] this is another phase of phase where the Americans have had their legs cut off. Okay. They, they are unable to act in the way they did two decades ago.
Change is very painful and we’re learning the lessons, on this side as well as we engage in these global battles. Right. so, you know, new lines of, what do they call it? no, what do they call it? do new rules of engagement, if you will. You know. but, I think after Syria, after Venezuela, we’ll have new tools in our, in our, our toolkit to stop that bloodletting, much earlier on the process and be able to act more.
More, not offensively, like on the offensive, instead of just, I mean, proactively proactive. Thank you. Thank you. Proactively mind.
These are not empires. These are not powers any longer. They cannot take on a pure adversary. End of story.
Sina Rahmani: [00:30:19] Thank you. My, my PhD in conflict comes in handy sometimes. All those years of graduate school. yeah, no, I, I hear that. I hear that. And I think, I think we should, maybe we can kind of take it out of the theoretical realm.
So we’ve seen how. We seen the sort of toothlessness of American military mites on display in and, in the waters around Venezuela recently. So can you, for anyone who hasn’t been paying attention, can you fill in on what’s been happening?
Sharmine Narwani: [00:30:48] Venezuela’s oil sector has been crippled along with its every other sector, you know, Since the US decided to put the screws on the country, sanctions again, sabotage, subversion, you name it. And so, although it is a major oil producer, it produces, I don’t know, something like 200,000 barrels a day. very, very little and, and, and now requires, oil and gas from, from other producers.
And so, Iran. Decided to send seven ships, sorry, five ships or shipments of fuel to Venezuela. And the Americans threatened this because, the U S sanctions both countries, but this is not, these are not internationally accepted sanctions. These are not us. Sorry, UN security council mandated sanctions.
These are just unilateral American sanctions. and so Iran decided to sanction bust, you know, openly in daylight. Right. But with this, the slow move of five ships to the Atlantic, I mean, it’s kind of
like a, what
Sina Rahmani: [00:32:02] it would make, it would make for a terrible action movie.
Sharmine Narwani: [00:32:04] Exactly. So you know,
Sina Rahmani: [00:32:06] people
Sharmine Narwani: [00:32:07] watched and watched and watched and watched, and then the first ship. entered Venezuelan waters and the second ship and the third ship. And, the U S was proven even more to, so it’s,
Sina Rahmani: [00:32:17] it’s just, well, so the scariest thing you can do to a bully is pretend they don’t
Sharmine Narwani: [00:32:21] exist.
Yes.
Sina Rahmani: [00:32:22] Yeah. Right? And so this is, this is what’s our, take
Sharmine Narwani: [00:32:24] them up on their challenge, take them up on their challenge because, you know, they bluff and there’s a lot of bravado, and nobody’s challenged them on this. And so actually, what are you going to do? You and who’s army, you know, is, is quite something.
and I mean, I’m telling you, I am still in shock from 20 plus Iranian ballistic myth files. Smashing into US bases in Iraq, you know, and shaking the ground. I, it’s who did that? Who did that? But guess what? Now it’s done.
Sina Rahmani: [00:32:59] The thing though is that remembered like, okay, like we all watch the, we all watch the thing that happened at the, at the airbase, the Alaska airbase, right?
Yeah. I saw it. It’s, I ended up, I said, I want to say I saw it. They named it after I said, Oh, the different ones, different ones in my head. But like, like we’ve watched, we watched that and like, you know, we can kind of like, you know, we can kind of, you know, I mean, I hate to say this because you know, the human beings being hurt here, but like, you can rejoice at an enemy being slapped back, right?
Like putting aside the loss of life, human beings. Okay, fine. No, no, no. But there’s another one. No, but there’s another thing though. No, no, no, but I know. I don’t know. No, I agree. I agree. I agree with everything you’re saying. No, no, no, no. That’s true. But there’s a followup. There’s a followup though, which is, they have gotten so many Shia fighters in months and months and months.
That the L that the Iranian response has. Like if you’re, you know, there are people in Iran, like my Twitter feed sometimes wants like blood, right? And I’m not saying go and satisfy that, but I just want to push back on you a little bit and that’s all I’m, it’s just, I’m just playing devil’s advocate, cause I actually agree with you emotionally, but there is a part of me that questions like, but you know, how many Pakistani is Afghans, Iranians, Syrians like die and Israeli strikes.
Right? Like every week. And that go on answer, right? So like, maybe we should, like, I like, maybe I’m just saying like, is it, are you being overly rosy and you’re in your like, assessments that, Oh, this military fight is over because they serve, they can, they can tally up. They can tell you up, kind of, they can tell you up death pills a lot, right?
Sharmine Narwani: [00:34:40] But that, you know, again, it’s, it’s the bully’s behavior. That’s what the bully does. They hit it low hanging fruit. I mean, that’s what America is doing. You have to recognize it and you have to put that narrative on the table. The Americans hit only at low hanging fruit. The Israelis only hit at the weakest spots.
These are not empires. These are not powers any longer. They cannot take on a pure adversary. End of story. Okay. So, so, you know, despite the threats and the bravado and the bluster, it’s over. Now, of course, they can cause a lot of damage and continue the bloodletting, but we’re getting to a point where we’re not going to allow it.
We’re, you know, at some point, in Lebanon, and Israeli fighter jet is going to be shot out of the air for violating, yeah. Lebanon’s airspace on a daily basis. And Lebanon will have. Legally under international law, the absolute right to do so.
Sina Rahmani: [00:35:41] It’s just a matter of when did the, when did the Zionist ever appreciate international law?
Sharmine Narwani: [00:35:45] No, they don’t, but see what happens is, you know, the Americans could do anything, right? You had that Bush dog trend, like preemptive, preemptive, whatever acts against a country that may. One day attack us, and then it just went wild. Like the Americans could do anything anywhere at any time. and now that’s, that’s stopped.
That stopped. They cannot, they cannot end. They are restrained, not just by international law, but by the disfavor of other nations. Okay. So, I mean, Trump has helped to a great extent in this regard.
Sina Rahmani: [00:36:18] He’s been, but he’s. Like the joke was a Donald Rumsfeld is an Iranian agent. Like that was like a joke from the Iraq war.
Now Donald Trump isn’t, or like John Bolton is possibly like an IRC IRG spy. Like that’s my new theory that he’s
like, like really like that’s the sort of like as an English teacher, I think of sort of historical or sort of ironic that I irony of all this is that the, the opposite of the intended effect. Right? Like you, you, you, you go after Syria on the basis of sectarianism. And that unites huge numbers of people from around the region to throw out, not just in Iraq, not just in Syria, but also Iraq.
Anyone who challenges. That had Gemini, right. So it makes your, it makes, it makes it even stronger, right? Like that’s a cost of a lot of human life and destruction. Sure. But like, that’s an ironic outcome from the people who,
Sharmine Narwani: [00:37:13] well, but we drink talking about unintended consequences of American actions for a long time now.
I mean, that’s like a phrase that’s, you know. Used in almost every scenario where the U S tries to do something in the middle East. But you know, back to what you were saying earlier, these poor people dying, et cetera, meaning U S military forces ha, like, really? we have a problem in, in the global South and not just globally that you can’t, you can’t kill an American soldier.
Okay? You cannot retaliate even though retaliation self-defense is. Absolutely legal. And usually the American aggression is not okay. the act of retaliation, self-defense is frowned upon when the, target of retaliation are Americans, right? So, we have to change that thinking. I mean, here’s a rock, a country that was devastated.
Okay. An oil rich country of around, I don’t know, 35 million. I don’t know what it is now. that was devastated by a U S an illegal U S invasion and occupation that continues to this day. And, you, you know, half of the Iraq Iraqi body politic is, you know, trying not to fund the Americans. Possibly even more than half, you know?
Sina Rahmani: [00:38:30] Yeah. But that’s also just a reflective of the American ability to find allies and then promote them to places of prominence.
Sharmine Narwani: [00:38:37] Oh, no, no. It’s not that. I mean, like I remember talking to, someone in his bull logs years ago, and I said, well, you know. The, the, the Marine or the bombing of the Marine base.
Right. The U S Marine base in 1983 in Lebanon was, you know, one of the great acts in this region. He looked shocked and looked around him
and I remember I’m an R his bylaws, television channel. This is when I first moved here and I done. I think I’d done an article on something and they were doing a documentary in the same subject. So they asked if I’d be one of the interviewees. And, I remember talking about, treason, the treason of people, like one Legion blots and others who actually shared Lebanese, has below his military, whatever targets with the Americans.
And therefore the Israelis, you know, in 2006 war, but camera was stopped. And he said. Are you sure you want to say that? You know, there is like it or not and I don’t. There is, there’s been so much propaganda that we have started to think in the language of our adversaries. We do. This is a fact. This is a fact.
Okay.
Sina Rahmani: [00:39:52] Yeah. No, that’s the, that’s how they win the media war. It’s true. They have, they have discursive power.
Sharmine Narwani: [00:39:58] Yeah. But what would happen if you shut down the American embassy here? You know you’d have sanctions. Big deal. You know what? You don’t have broke. Lebanon is right now loving on so against the law that it can’t.
Get more against the wall. Okay. There’s like an body in Prince of Lebanon, the wall. There’s no further it can go. You’re going to have sanctions. Big deal. You know, what will, what will sanctions do to you? It will help you finally make that decision to trade eastward in your own currency where you don’t need to use the U S dollar with Turkey, with Syria, with Russia, with China, with Iran, with India, you name it.
Okay. So, it’s, there’s, there, this region is full of colonized minds, even within the resistance access. You know, these things have penetrated deep. And, you know, without even thinking, because I’m genuinely interested in journalism and genuinely interested in this region, wanting to cover it, wanting to, expose readers to opinions that are real on the ground here as opposed to manufactured outside.
I talked to the taxi driver and he said this, therefore all of the country thinks that way, you know, and has, has turned me into an advocate and I haven’t hidden that either. Now, you know. I do wish for the, for, for us influence in this region to dissipate entirely. I don’t think Americans, know how to treat their own civilians in their own country, let alone in other countries as civilians and other countries.
So I don’t want them here. They’re bad news on every level. There’s nothing, there’s no aid. That comes to this country that justifies any U S involvement because it’s all, you know, aid that’s tied to something that’s tied to an American agenda, a benefit for the U S that probably doesn’t benefit the country itself.
So I want them out and in, in that sense, you know, you know, people. Say I’m pro Iran pro center. I’m not, you know,
Sina Rahmani: [00:41:50] no, they’re the pro us ones. They’re pro us. That’s what it is. And that’s what they, because of Orientalism and because of sort of Western chauvinism, they just think that’s the neutral position.
You know what it’s like? It’s like when you do a, when you like are baking something and then you like weigh it and you have to like put the thing down and press zero. Unlike, that’s the like baseline thing and if you take it off, it’s like negative. That’s exactly how they think. Like it’s just like, Oh, the baseline is this like absurd.
Sort of the baseline sort of way of thinking is that American interests are important and they live in a democracy and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And like just sort of, we’re now down to like the kind of brass tacks of Orientalism. Like all they have left, all they have left is naked racism. That just says Iranians are gross, they’re dirty, they’re just get them out of here.
They don’t belong on this work, clean wear area and we’re good. Join us or stick with them. Like that’s all they have now. That’s all they can relate to. And which is why like, which is why Netanyahu is what he is. I mean, he’s just, he’s the biggest sports right now in like American foreign policy in the region because he’s, all he is is just congealed racism.
Sharmine Narwani: [00:42:56] I love Netanyahu, Trump, Mohammad bin Salman. I love these people because. They, they really, you know, they show the real face of, of what we’re dealing with. And, same like what we’re talking about John Bolton a minute earlier, you know, do these guys work for the IRG GC or the Kremlin? Because, you know, you could have fooled me.
you know, our stock has risen, every single year, since these people have been in power. You know, and distrust of these people and their countries has increased everywhere. Alliances have frayed because of these leaders. I mean, you know, if we talk at some point about whether the U S and Iran will get into a confrontation, I’d like to say one of the reasons, that will make it very difficult.
That has. Nothing to do with Iran is, well the American, the polarization, the American body politics. So an unsupportive Congress, a Congress that is unlikely to Greenlight a war against Iran, a country that is not, you know, launched any acts of aggression directly at the U S you know, that hasn’t been Meredith.
Okay. And then the other thing is, the U S becoming more isolated internationally, and. Lacking the major ally support that they’ve had in, you know, every one of their major military adventures in the last few decades. Right. So they can count on England and Macau, you know what I mean? So it’s kind of over.
so before we even get to talking about USC, Ron, it’s like, can the U S launch a an a military aggression against any country. Anymore. and I would say internally it would be very difficult. And in terms of it’s, NATO alliances or other special relationships, again, very difficult. Right?
Sina Rahmani: [00:44:47] So maybe we should sort of get into the next phase.
maybe we should, I think a lot, I think in a lot of your time, so I appreciate it. I don’t know it’s late there. but this is very fun. Thank you. I, I largely agree with what you’re saying. I do. I, there is a nagging voice in the back of my head that’s, that that tells me you’re a little rosy and you’re in your assessments about the sort of general, not, not the great trends, like the sort of macro trends.
I agree with you, but I think in the meantime, like empires take a long time to fall and they do a lot of damage to the worlds around that. Yeah, I mean, that’s the auto, like the Ottomans.
Sharmine Narwani: [00:45:23] Yeah. But I, I mean, I recognize the pain, which is again, why I’ve sometimes advocated for a hard fast war. Because,
Sina Rahmani: [00:45:31] because it’s a natural response.
You want to see a bully each shit. I mean, I agree. I agree. Like that emotional part of me,
Sharmine Narwani: [00:45:38] it’s not just that, you know, I know I sound emotional about these things because I’m advocating for a position, but actually very unemotional. I mean, you know, if you want to stop the bloodletting, you have to take an action.
You have to be. Proactive instead of reactive. And I would argue that the resistance access until recently and continues to be so in most respects, is almost entirely reactive. Now I understand why, because they’re, you know, the U S is not a pure adversary. It’s a much larger power that can. In the short term, you know, pummel your country into the ground if it’s so wishes, right?
But then it will lose a longer war, but then who wants that much pain? Right? So they very gingerly deal with the Americans, but you know, with, with, with, they, they have a strategy and they have efficiency. This is why they will continue to win against the Americans. The Americans lack strategies.
Sina Rahmani: [00:46:39] I’m going to interrupt you here, cause I think that there’s.
There’s a kind of like a bigger sort of macro question of like, what is your kind of the telos of this is it could there be something bigger than simply intentions of the actors, right? That like, or skills and strategies of the actors. Because maybe like, and this is the HIG Galean me talking, so I apologize, but maybe there’s a kind of historical development to say military technology that favors the smaller countries against the stronger ones.
Let’s say, you know that, that there is a kind of, that there’s something bigger than both Iran. God, listen to me. There’s something bigger than both Iran and the US then just, and then in so far as the kind of, the historical leap forward that Iran has Islamic Republic specifically made against the U S from say 1979 right?
Like, people forget that the tanker Wars. Right? They just, the US just destroyed tankers, right. I don’t remember how many, but there was a, there was a few of them. Right? I mean they, they, they just run rough shot over Iran. Now of course, we all remember like Carter’s failed raid and how that was like portended the future because Iran’s a big country, right?
Iran has size on its, on its, on its side, so to speak. And it’s also, it’s location, it’s geostrategic location. The straits of Hormuz the country is a fortress. Right? Like geographically, like geo, physically, I don’t know, is that a word?
Sharmine Narwani: [00:48:04] One could, one could argue it shouldn’t be a fortress because it has all these lengthy borders, with, you know, adversaries on the other side.
But actually it has done an amazing job considering those things.
Sina Rahmani: [00:48:16] But it’s also like the mountains have an organic, have an organic border, right? Like, it’s a mountainous country. That, you know, you couldn’t, you couldn’t do what the Americans did to Iraq, to Iran, it would be a disaster. Right? Let’s just, and even then, that’s presuming that Iran pursued the same stupid strategy of waiting for the US to show up at its door with its huge arsenal.
Right? Like that would never happen in the case of Iran an Iran war. So maybe, and this will, this, this is going to be for the bonus. Maybe not. I dunno. Who cares? But I was thinking, you, you and I both know, we both have been interested in the millennium games. Maybe we can talk a little bit about what would, like, what has changed is the millennium games, maybe, what were they. For people who aren’t interested. Well, people who are interested, they could listen to my episode. I did an episode a while back, but, maybe we can kind of, if you want, or we can kind of think about like, what is it about Iranian defense that neutralize the US hardware?
Sharmine Narwani: [00:49:08] Well, look, first of all, the middle millennium challenge isn’t even such a big deal because the US has.
has run many war games, over the years, with Iran playing the red team. So in war gaming, usually the blue team is the home team, and the red game is the evil other one. And the millennium challenge was a 2002. A war game, and it was the biggest ever at the time. So about $250 million was spent on this war game preparation for this war game…that was, and it was to last over two or three week period. So in, After 48 hours, the, the red team, which was not specified to be Iran, but understood to be Iran because, this was an adversary’s date in the Persian Gulf with certain capabilities. There’s only one, it’s Iran. after 48 hours, second day.
The red team had destroyed 16 US warships in a massive, salvo cruise missiles and, with an Armada of small boats, destroyed basically the US Naval presence in the Persian Gulf. And if this was a real scenario, the equivalent of 20,000 us forces would be dead.
Sina Rahmani: [00:50:29] And the first day and the first day,
Sharmine Narwani: [00:50:31] No, second day, second day, first day, the American side of the blue team took down all of Iran defenses that it could, you know, electro, what’s it called?
Cyber electric, whatever, you know, like the military jargon. but, but no, in all seriousness. They, the Iranians apparently, because they couldn’t, you know, their communication systems were taken down. They, they used motorcycle messengers
Sina Rahmani: [00:51:02] to
Sharmine Narwani: [00:51:03] reach people at the front lines and like light signals from world war two.
To, to pass messages through. And then by day two, they taken out everything they needed to write.
Sina Rahmani: [00:51:15] you for a second, there’s something in the background. Yeah.
Sharmine Narwani: [00:51:17] Can you hold on? Can you actually put this on pause? So after this happened, the, the folks in charge decided to stop the game and reset it. Okay.
But not just reset it, they decided to take away. Some abilities of the red team. Okay. so that, for instance, you know, moving air defenses so that the, the us army and Marine units could land, you know, we’re, we’re directed to turn air defense systems off and, and basically, you know, it became a scripted war game.
Okay. because. You don’t want blue team to lose, and this is a problem with the U S war gaming scenarios. so the, the retired Marine Corps Lieutenant, who. who was in charge of the red team, that Iran side, Paul van riper. Is that how you say his name riper? You, you actually, yeah, he, he quit. He quit and he decided to go public with it.
And now I actually wrote about this war game in an article I did three years ago for the American conservative, where I argued that, the conflagration between Iran and the U S was. Most likely, if all scenarios, most likely to happen in waterways because the U S and Iranian, navies and IGC, whatever, and, U S Navy’s are increasingly in, they’re in more waters together, all the time.
So, you know, it used to just be the Persian Gulf, straighter hormones, whatever. And now. Iran has gone beyond that because, well, I’ll get to that in a moment, but let me just tell you. So. So van riper quit, and he basically went public with this information and he said, you know, the war game is now scripted and all the red team’s capabilities have been removed so that the scenario cannot be repeated.
Okay. And, I had, I had looked this up. Because a friend of mine who is a consultant for the Pentagon for a long time, once told me that the U S has never won an asymmetrical war game against Iran. And I was like, what? Who knows is, does anyone know this? You know? And of course, the millennium challenge came up, but when I wrote the article.
Someone commented in the comment section, someone who had run many word games and said, I can attest to this. Absolutely true. We learned nothing from these games because we always stack it or rig it so we can win it, you know? And, and this is why the U S military is, I think always going to be, is always going to push back against any.
U S president that wants to launch war against Iran because they know inside that they’ve never won against Iran. Now, Iran is not a pure adversary. so Iran has had to find other ways in which to establish the Terrance. Okay. And, and, and you know. Constantly move the goalposts for the rules of engagement against a very big superpower.
And, you know, I sometimes think that one of the like crazy as the sound because so many people died and continue to die from the horrible Iran Iraq war, but that was probably the. Biggest and best lesson Iran learned at the beginning of its revolution, you know, it was attacked. It was attacked brutally from everywhere.
And you know, with all the resources of its enemies, and oil was artificially, brought down to $8 a barrel. It had no money. Right. And it learned how to, Work on a dime, you know, work cheap and smart and efficiently. And this became the basis of the, these elite, you know, units and thinkers of the Iranian military establishment.
and, and so Iran, 40 years on is a, is a sort of well-honed machine. You know, it knows how to do these things in many different. territories in many different conditions, as we keep witnessing, you know, but the other thing you Ron does is it holds its cards close to its chest. It always has some secrets and surprises, and that has always been worrying for, for, the Americans.
I remember, I think it was in 2013 after the, Alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria, just outside Damascus. The one that you know, had the whole international community flailing about. and Obama threatened to launch strikes against Syria. I had someone within the resistance access. who off the record, told me that.
if one, if one American massage, one, he CA, this is someone who never told me anything. I’ve known this person for a while, but never told me anything of interest as a journalist. You know, frustratingly comes to me and says, if one American MOSOP one hits Syria, the entire access will and get no. He said, what did he say?
He said, sorry. He said, Syria and his Bulla. Will attack Israel. That’s what he said. And what was, I was like, should I write this? You know, is this real? He kept repeating it, so I thought he wants me to write it, you know? But also I’ll tell you, at the time, everyone in Beirut was running around. Asking everyone they could, what would, what would a response be to an American airstrike on Syria?
Okay. Every Western diplomat in PEI route was running around trying to find through any source, what would the response be. And this, like for around three weeks, this was going on. And, so I wrote this, it was an important thing to write because someone from this axis had come to me, you know, and said something very specific at a time where everyone was asking that question.
And, and of course the airstrikes never happened because for three weeks, the reason the Western diplomats, Americans were running out around trying to find out what the resistance access response would be was because they don’t know. They don’t know. And they know that, that access keeps things close to its chest and will deliver surprises.
As you know, I think the Lebanese witnessed in 2006 when Hassan Nasrallah. I’m said, look out your windows. And was that 2006, 2006. Right? And everyone witnessed a missile hitting a, an Israeli ship and yeah. And so, you know, that’s what they do. And it’s smart. It’s a smart strategy because it also keeps your enemy off kilter the West with all its firepower.
Doesn’t, doesn’t know, you know, and it’s big conventional forces doesn’t know how to do asymmetrical war very well yet. You know, it has done it many times. I mean, they didn’t Vietnam, they’ve done it, you know, they have their special forces that operate that way. But, you know, what is U S military might, it’s the firepower.
You know, it’s not, it’s not the tactics, it’s the firepower.
Sina Rahmani: [00:58:32] Well, the point of spending all those trillions is to ensure that if an enemy does, if there is a kind of conflict, if there is a war, you’re assured victory. However, American military procurements and buildup is largely done for economic purposes.
It’s not done for military purposes. Right? Like they do it. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s economic production. It’s not Burr. It’s not for, actually, it’s like, it’s like the joke, there’s a Simpsons joke where they’re like at NASA and he’s like, Oh, and they like launch. They launched them so shuttle and they said, Oh, how was the shit like after they celebrated it, like, wow, this launch got us so many ratings.
And then somebody in the room asked like, how is the, how is the ship doing? They’re like, I don’t know. All these tools are just to measure ratings. And it’s like, I feel like that’s like the centerpiece of American military thinking and that as a result, foreign policy
Sharmine Narwani: [00:59:22] and a lot of it is propaganda. We’re so big, we’re, we’re so far ahead of everyone else.
Nobody can reach us technologically and this and that. And of course they have like these, Full spectrum. You know, they, they, the military language is so fascinating. the, these, full spectrum attacks where they use cyber and this and that, and they come at you from all angles and you’re just going to be defeated so badly.
You never stick your head up again, you know? But actually, I tweeted about this in the last week, a year ago or so, at a Washington think tank meeting a senior Rand researcher along with others on the stage. sad and in our war games with, when we fight Russia and China. So we’re talking about pure adversaries now.
Okay. Blue, meaning the American team gets its ass handed to it. Okay. So against Russia and China, America gets its ass handed to it. Fine. All right. So they talked at length about what the U S needs to do with its massive military dinosaur to change. Change of focus, change strategies, change. You know. but I don’t think, I’ve always said the Americans are, are so big now that they’re, they, they can’t get off their trajectories.
Like, you can’t, you can’t,
Sina Rahmani: [01:00:37] well, what are you going to, what are you going to do with aircraft carriers that are useless? Are you going to scrap them for metal? Well,
Sharmine Narwani: [01:00:43] they were saying we do not have maritime superiority. Our space assets are under attack. You know, Iran also launched a, it was an April, launched its first military satellites.
So now I can like peek over Israel or any country really, right? So we’re, our space assets are under attack. Our command and control is under attack by electromagnetic. You know, in cyber, we do not have space, air superiority over these things anymore. therefore, basis will be taken out instantly.
You know, these are the places where the U S forces, you know, frontline forces can operate their critical points of operation, right? Where they. where they launched their, their, their battles. those will be taken out. all their, their fighter jets, you know, this guy was saying, this Ron guy was saying, in every case I know of the F 35 rules of sky when it’s in the sky.
Questionable if you ask me, but it gets killed on the ground in large numbers. So, you know, if you look at Iran and the various us military bases surrounding that country, and they’re quite a few, you know, U S CENTCOM headquarters or just across the Gulf and in Doha, in Qatar. And, they have, they have all their, their, their hardware in these places.
If these haven’t taken off. They’re dead on the ground, you know?
Sina Rahmani: [01:02:03] And you can’t run a missile. You can’t outrun a missile. Like that’s, that’s it.
Sharmine Narwani: [01:02:07] And us air aircraft carriers, the entire us Navy is a sitting dock. And those waters,
Sina Rahmani: [01:02:13] the slow Mo, like that’s the, that’s one of the things is that like the uselessness of air power expired long ago, decades ago.
Right. Or the usefulness that is to say, and, and yet it’s still just this cash cow for American oligarchs. And you know, it’s a, what’s the term, pork? It’s just, it’s just more pork, right? You’re from Washington. That’s the city of pork, right? that’s the term people use for like pet projects. The politician, then it’s, and it’s just, it’s just pork, but of course it’s, yeah.
The Muslims, the Muslims tune out. We lost the Muslims.
Sharmine Narwani: [01:02:51] It’s the projects of congressmen that get padded into bills that have nothing to do with the, you know, the, the, the padding. So, yeah, no, I agree with you. And the thing is also where Iran is concerned in terms of. Electromed not magnetic attacks and cyber warfare.
They know they’re not. They’re dealing with an adversary that has invested heavily in, smartly in this domain. You know, there’ve been many drones and even, fighter jets that have inexplicably landed in the water or landed without crashing. do you remember that incident? Was that like, it was years ago, within the last decade where.
Iran, remote control landed a us drone and the U S was like, no, no, no. It didn’t happen. Then the next story was like, yes, it says it happened, but there was a, a fault and it crashed. And then Iran unveils like a perfectly unscaved drone.
Sina Rahmani: [01:03:42] Well, and then they did it again before the, the ILS that, attack, right?
Like they, that was, that was part of the attack was disabling those, there was kind of drones in the sky that protected. That would protect an alert,
Sharmine Narwani: [01:03:54] can communication systems and cause the Americans to no longer have the command and control. So it’s not just Russia and China, but Iran that actually has these capabilities.
But America wouldn’t dare to carpet bomb Russia and China. They may crazy as it sounds, dare to carpet bomb Iran. I don’t think it’ll happen, but that’s the only way they have any kind of initial. Ha look at what we did. You know, we’re winners. kind of effect for their domestic audiences, you know, is, is, you know, the Blitzkrieg, right?
Like what they did to Iraq. but they can’t do it because like I said, international law is now counting more and more. The U S is. more isolated and it’s acts of aggression, white cat act out in the way it did with Iraq and Afghanistan in the past. And so because of those, you know, subtle shifts in perception, people’s perception and also, their readiness to accept, you will not.
Be able to see American fighter jets or missiles bombard a highly populated city like tech rod, 1212 plus million people and the way they seem to get away with it and bump that, you know? So I think the room for military maneuvering against Iran is very low. However. It’s my view again, from this article I wrote three years ago, that the room for, a confrontation that just gets triggered by maybe countries like Saudi Arabia, Israel, whatever, who were, who were trying to start a conflagration between the two, increases because Iranian vessels are now in so many waterways, that U S vessels are in.
And I actually. From that article, I pulled a quote because I interviewed, a gentleman called dr Saddler Zari, who is, an analyst. He’s the head of a think tank and research center in Iran. That is. W is, is believed to be very close to the IRG sea command. And he said, when I asked him about, you know, waterways, confrontations, he said to me three years ago, U S actions give us a behavior precedent in our Naval reach.
And he was saying like, the American excuse for being in all kinds of weird waterways really far away from American territory is. Piracy and terrorism. Okay. So with piracy and terrorism are legitimate reasons to be in waterways in which you don’t naturally belong. Well, we also, you know, the Americans set the precedent and we also say, yes, we’re going there to prevent piracy and terrorism, right?
Who’s, who can argue that, right? And he said this, these reasons give us even more right to be active in the Persian Gulf, in the Gulf of Adam and other waters. And he said, we are now in the Gulf of Bengal and the Indian ocean because of this. So that you run into, try to. Yeah, very gingerly, parent the Americans or mirror the Americans and their actions.
I’m sure psychologically there’s actually a good reason for that. Cause if you mirror someone, then something changes in their behaviors, you know? but it has been very effective. but again, those, the waterways are the most natural places for a confrontation and take place between the U S Iran, in my view.
Sina Rahmani: [01:07:23] Right. Okay. That was very good. I’m going to let you go. That’s been, I kept you for over an hour. 15 minutes. Thank you. That was a lot of fun. So do you want to tell us about your Twitter stuff, what you’ve been up like where you can find your work?
Sharmine Narwani: [01:07:35] Where do you find member? Okay, so, To be honest, I haven’t written for quite a while because I’m, I don’t know, I kind of like watching, I’m, I’m also a reader.
Myself and I have been in watching mode much more in the last year or so. I, all my articles for various publications can be found on my blog. it’s not really a blog. It’s more of an archive. It’s called Mideast, shuffle.com not middle East. Shuffle mid East, shuffle.com. And I’m very mouthy on Twitter, and my Twitter handle is at @snarwani
Sina Rahmani: [01:08:18] good,
Sharmine Narwani: [01:08:18] yeah, that’s a good one. Yeah. So, yeah, that’s, I mean, that’s where you can find me. And, you know, I guess when I do interviews from time to time, I post things there, but I think we’re entering a new era in the region and I’m looking at starting something up with some colleagues, you know, to create a space where you can get real analysis from this region.
from a particular worldview that we don’t read about in English, because, you know, people always talk about failed us policy in the middle East. It’s because, you know, information about the middle East comes through very, very, strict discourse filter. And this is why Americans get things wrong about the region because they live in a bubble of their own creation and they don’t actually know what’s happening in the region.
So, you know, we hope to reach readers and listeners. From around the world in English, who were interested in understanding the world view, and, and hearing about events in the region, through the perspective of that worldview. So, I let y’all know when that happens.
Sina Rahmani: [01:09:21] Thank you. Okay, perfect. Thank you so much.
Thank you so much. That was a lot of fun. I’m going to release this fairly quickly cause it’s pretty fresh and, I’m not gonna, I’m not, I’m only gonna edit out that little bit where.
