Few people know more about nuclear proliferation and the way to strip dangerous regimes of their nuclear weapons than Robert Joseph. When George Bush needed to find someone to talk Moammar Qaddafi into giving up his nuclear-weapons program, he sent Joseph as the lead negotiator. After that success, Joseph served as Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security at the same time that the Iranian nuclear-weapons program came to light, mainly from intelligence supplied by the MEK and Israel.
Robert Joseph has continued to work in nuclear security, all while keeping a very close eye on Iran and their attempts to manipulate and gaslight the West about the true nature of their nuclear ambitions. He works with the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) on these matters, which is one of the major opposition networks to the current regime. In their most recent declaration, the NCRI denounced polices of appeasement and called on all nations to stop working with the mullah regime so that the people can finally rise up to pull the regime down.
Joseph and I talk about appeasement in the context of Iran and of American policies. Over the decades, our refusal to confront the threat from Iran has forced us to participate in that appeasement, and in the Barack Obama administration, to actively fund the regime and turn a blind eye to its nuclear-weapons ambitions. Joseph backs the decision by Donald Trump to confront Iran at this point by force, but warns that Trump has to finish the job and preclude even the possibility of regime survival. A failure to finish the job now and push the regime past its tipping point will almost certainly result in a return to appeasement by future American administrations.
“I am of the school that there’s no learning in Washington DC,” Joseph quips near the end of our discussion. “There’s never an end to bad ideas. And I would anticipate,” he concludes, “that if we don’t finish the job now and we leave even the remnants of the regime in place, even the remnants, we’re gonna have a future administration that’s gonna go right back to, well – they’re telling us they’re not gonna have a nuclear weapon.”
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Here are a few highlights from the AI-generated transcript, with some light editing:
Q: This is a war that’s been coming on for, again, close to 47 years. But the primary objective of this is to stop the process of weaponizing that uranium and the creation of nuclear weapons, which would have made this a much more difficult challenge had we waited for that to happen. Are we going to be able to prevent that militarily? I’ll just put it this way. In your estimation, is it possible to prevent this militarily given where the uranium’s at, given where the facilities are at, or is this really going to require a regime change to fully secure those materials and put an end to those programs?
JOSEPH: Well, the question is not one because I think there’s no question when it comes to the capability of the men and women in uniform in harm’s way serving the United States. They have done a tremendous job. They have achieved the objectives. I mean, they’re continuing forward, but the fundamental military objectives have been achieved. The question is not capability as much as it is resolve.
And when the president laid out his military objectives, when we first began the conflict now some four weeks ago, he also raised the prospect of the need for regime change – regime change, not with American boots on the ground. That’s not the formula. But regime change by the Iranian people for the Iranian people. This is their country. This is their responsibility. Now, by going after the leadership, by going after the centers of power, whether it’s IRGC or MOIS or the Basij and others, we have, I think, provided the best circumstances for the Iranian people to rise up.
Q: Was this the right moment to try to change things? Would the regime have ever changed through any other means?
JOSEPH: The regime has been at war with the United States since its inception, since 1979. It has murdered literally thousands of Americans, starting in 79, into the early 80s with Beirut and the bombing, both of the embassy and of the barracks, and then much later, in Iraq and Afghanistan, when the IEDs produced by Iran killed thousands of our forces. It was one of the major contributing factors to our losses over those years.
I, from my experience, concluded long ago that murder and violence are in the DNA of this regime, and it’s not going to stop. Also in the DNA of this regime is the quest for nuclear weapons. And here we’ve had failed negotiations going back almost three decades. And it is very clear that the policies of the past, the appeasement policies, the belief that we can negotiate an agreement that would end this regime’s quest for a nuclear weapon, that has been proved to be a fallacy.
Q: What do you see as the end game here? How does a collapse start? What’s already happening within Iran based on the intelligence that the NCRI is seeing on this?
JOSEPH: Well, first of all, I would say that my reading of history, perhaps like yours, is that revolutions are very messy things. And they don’t unfold in a single direction or a predictable manner. What I see currently in Iran on the ground is a regime that has never been more desperate, never been more weak, but still capable of lashing out, particularly against its own population. I mean, the murder of execution, if you will, of the young wrestler and two other young men last week, that is a warning to the rest of the Iranian population.
If you protest, if you demonstrate, come out in any form and work against the regime, you will be killed. And I understand from NCRI sources and from other sources that there are thousands of Iranians that are being arrested. You know they’re being tortured and many are going to be executed because that is, as I said, in the DNA of the regime. So what you’re seeing on the ground with regard to the resistance units, let’s say, of the MEK, which is the major component of the NCRI, is pockets of resistance.
And what we need to do is see the people of Iran turn out in force as they did previously. But you know, if you got bombs, bombers overhead, and the bombs are falling, that’s probably going to be somewhat of a deterrent. The brutality of the because remember the regime has the guns. And we’re talking really about the IRGC in particular, and the Basij. But at the end of the day, it’s up to the Iranian people.
Q: Let’s talk about the NCRI and the MEK, because I mean, most of us are probably not going to be very, very familiar with this. I’m a little familiar with it, but I’m certainly not an expert in these sorts of things. Apart from the Pahlavis, there are other factions, I guess you can say, that are competing that, we can talk a little bit about that. And maybe talk a little bit about the opportunities for at least some of these different groups to work together to to help create an alternative or move people on the ground.
JOSEPH: I would think that once the regime implodes, and I think that’s the right word, I think that’s the best description, it will implode. If we stay the course, okay, which I’m optimistic like you that the president is going to do the right thing. But I think the NCRI MEK is clearly at the table, maybe at the head of the table, but there are others as well. And there is the Council of Resistance, and that is a broad sort of coalition of resistance groups. Most importantly, I think, in terms of what we’re seeing in Iran, the NCRI does have representation with the Azeris and the other sort of ethnic nationalities. And, you know, Iran is 90 million people.
But it’s a mosaic. It’s diverse in ethnicities, and that’s important. And it’s important to be able to work with those. The son of the Shah has declared them to be separatists and has asked the IRGC, if you can imagine, the IRGC to put them down. That’s not how you get to the end goal that I think we want. And that end goal government that is going to support our national security interests. I mean, you mentioned my background. The reason that I became associated with NCRI and the whole issue of Iran in terms of, you know, the regime and the need for regime change is because I concluded a long time ago, way back in the, you know, in 2003, 2004, you know, as long as this regime exists, we’re going to be challenged by it on the nuclear front.
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The discussion has much more on all of these questions, so be sure to watch it all. I hope to have Robert Joseph return when we come to the conclusion of the war, and we have so much more to explore about how we got here at all.
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Editor’s Note: For decades, former presidents have been all talk and no action. Now, Donald Trump is eliminating the threat from Iran once and for all.
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