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Good morning. Well, perhaps you could sum up your thesis for us
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and I appreciate it's in our book, and I'm asking you to sum it up in a sentence, but why is the West wrong about nuclear Iran
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The book was written about 12 years ago, and what I was stating in this book
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is that the claims by Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli leader who's wanted, basically
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to bomb Iran out of existence for about 30 years, He's persistently made the claim that Iran is building a nuclear weapons program
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Going back to the 1990s, and as I established, this claim was false
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It was written in 2012. It had no branding, and U.S. intelligence reports were quite clear that it was false
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And the most recent U.S. intelligence report last March says exactly the same thing
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And yet Mr. Netanyahu is making a whole series of false statements, the latest one, that Iran's planning to sort of build nuclear weapons and distribute them to terrorists
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That's the latest thing coming. And this is nonsense. Mr. Netanyahu is a proven liar with an agenda
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And the other point in my book actually I was advocating that it should happen and this did happen was a nuclear deal Iran could have peaceful nuclear development It would be fully inspected by the International Atomic Energy Authority
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completely open to international inspection, Iran's nuclear program. Britain endorsed this. Obama's America endorsed this
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And it actually happened. So that was Iran 10 years ago saying
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we're completely happy to be fully inspected. we don't have a nuclear weapons program
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And, of course, then Trump comes along, and under pressure, I suspect, from the Israeli lobby in the United States
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he tears up that agreement and leaves everything up in the air all over again
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And so the initial aggression came from the United States, which is wholly untrustworthy and unprincipled in this business
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And anyway, that is a brief summary. And much appreciated. Now then, let's go to the overarching question of this hour
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What role should Britain take? Should we get involved? Yesterday, we were told we weren't involved
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Today, we learned that our jets are moving to defend British interests, whatever they may be
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What do you interpret from that? Well, I think this is a very grave, as the previous speaker was making clear
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in a really terrifying moment in international affairs. Now my reading of the situation is that this was a preemptive strike from Israel and they want to decapitate the Iranian state
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Now, that will create total chaos. There's no obvious replacement. What we are seeing, what you're being dragged into by Israel
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is what Tony Blair was dragged into 20 years ago in Iraq
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which is an attempt to create regime change in a Middle Eastern state
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Now, the effects of Iraq, we're still feeling them today. They were the rise of ISIS
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They were the utter horror, millions of dead. Now, there are 90 million people in Iran
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It's a stable state against what a lot of the propaganda says
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And if you're going to create a civil war by attempting to decapitate the regime through violence
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God knows what will happen. I mean, I don't know how many refugees are going to come to the West
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Tens of millions. And by the way, then you've got the problem with the economy
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the Straits of Hormuz. If shipping is stopped there, the oil price will surge double, probably, and so on
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I must admit, I've been reading quite a lot that the anticipation will be that Iran and its proxies
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will focus on the Straits and to disrupt shipping. Specifically, though, Peter
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your thoughts on the UK sending jets to wherever somewhere in the Middle East we assuming Cyprus should we be doing that Is that the right thing to do Let us remind ourselves that we don know what Britain been doing
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with that Alta Criti base in Cyprus. We've certainly been helping Israel in its destruction of Gaza
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overflights, supply of arms, supply of materials. And now we're using that base to get involved
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in something I think Starr was totally out of his depth, by the way. He's not a serious figure in this field
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Britain is not going to allow itself to get sucked in to an aggressive war against Iran
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creating chaos across the Middle East, turbulence across the globe and mass migration, by the way
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into Europe and Britain. And I think I would like to have seen
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Starr condemning the Israeli aggression in Iran. And just as I'd like to have seen him being much tougher over the..
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Let's not forget Gaza. The horror in Gaza is continuing this morning
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and despite it, Keir Starmer is continuing to supply weapons for Israel to use in Gaza
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He did at least, Peter, in his address to journalists yesterday in the huddle
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acknowledge that all of this is linked to Gaza. Peter Oberlin, a pleasure talking to you
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Always appreciate your expert counsel as well