Jay, why does a conversation about political prisoners inside Iran quickly become about what's happening in Washington or in Israel and American policy and etc.? ?

Well, I think because it is so ideological, like your other two guests have posted, the Iranian Republic presents itself as kind of the leading edge of the anti-imperial, anti-Zionist struggle.

And anything to impede that is seen as distracting from its mission, and its supporters do that.

I will say I'm not either Iranian or a human rights activist, but Kind of the callousness of it really shocked me.

It was the former head of the Princeton's Persian Study Center, Behrouz Gamari Tabrizi, who himself was a prisoner during the Islamic Republic.

He writes, essentially, it kind of sucks you're a prisoner, but...

You got to take one for the team.

Like, why is this happening?

¿Cuál es la relación entre el régimen islámico de Irán y los Estados Unidos de América?

Creo que una cosa que realmente mantengo, en la que me he centrado y que me resultaba muy llamativa cuanto más escribía sobre Irán, es que, ya sabes, la revolución islámica de 1979 fue una victoria para los islamistas, pero muchos en la izquierda, en particular, realmente gravitaron hacia la revolución islámica.

Quizás recuerden cuando el ayatolá Jomeini estaba en París antes del derrocamiento del Sha Tenías a todos estos periodistas occidentales que acudieron en masa a París y quedaron hipnotizados de alguna manera por este tipo.

Creo que la suposición general era que la comunidad se moderaría y que esto era una verdadera victoria para el anticolonialismo, el antiimperialismo, porque el Sha era esencialmente un hijo o tú fabricado por Occidente.

Así que creo que inherentemente tenías un segmento bastante grande de la sociedad occidental, ciertamente la izquierda, los progresistas que apoyaban a la República Islámica, lo vieron como una oportunidad para un cambio real.

Así que creo que mucho de eso nunca desapareció.

Creo que todavía sentías, a pesar de las historias de mujeres, la represión de las mujeres, la represión del movimiento por la libertad de la vida de las mujeres, las horribles historias de cómo los homosexuales fueron tratados en Irán.

Cincuenta años, sí.

Why this long-term investment strategy? What are they trying to achieve here?

Okay, well, I'd like to tell, we did a long investigation in the free press last year called How Qatar Bought America.

I think it came out last May.

It was one of the first real deep dives in the American media about what was going on.

And it was driven by just the fact that I, as a journalist who's covered a lot of foreign affairs, It was just amazing to me how deep Qatar had basically infiltrated.

This is how it started, our national security apparatus, because it started with, you mentioned the air base, the Al Udeid base, which the U.S. moved uh its biggest overseas base in the middle east to i don't know in 20 2002 it's kind of it was after 9 11 basically but by having our base there that that was kind of the original sin in a lot of ways It gave Qatar...

They were subsidizing the base, funding it, but it also gives them sort of a lot of insight, a lot of play on what we can and cannot do.

What are our options when they've become so entrenched? I mean, can we pull ourselves away from Qatar this far in the game?

Hmm

...

I think a lot of what Vance is talking about is this sh- kind of alt-right or MAGA right of the Republican Party that's not totally different from the DSA.

They see-- They think US power, they question US power.

They, they think the US is, you know, the biggest threat to stability.

They think Israel is, you know, an illegitimate state in a lot of ways, and we should-- The only reason we have these problems in the Middle East is because of Israel, and if we, if we detach from Israel, we will be, um, have a more stable Middle East.

So I, I think it shows that ideology, but I also know from my own reporting, like, Vance's office has, had been advised by this Quincy Institute, who, which is, their worldview is they want, it's, they're restrainers.

Yeah

Jay, tell us about this incredible piece of investigative journalism.

I think it comes into the context that Secretary of State Marco Rubio's office has definitely been looking over the past few months, certainly since the war broke out in late February, at people inside the United States that they think either have direct familial ties to the Islamic Republic, are sort of engaging in propagandistic information warfare on behalf of the administration in Iran, the Islamic Republic.

So we've seen over the past few months at least three cases where relatives or alleged relatives of senior Iranian officials who are sort of living in California or Florida had their green cards revoked and are being processed and deported.

The most kind of the biggest example of this were a niece and grandniece, allegedly of General Qasem Soleimani, the late commander of Iran's Quds Forces.

I will say they're denying they have any familial ties.

So that's playing out in the Texas courtroom.

But Trita Parsi is another person that...

Would you agree with that? And can you maybe expand on that idea?

Well, why don't you tell us what your reporting showed?

Well, I think that the bombings on- on Saturday probably did destroy the ability of Iran to enrich uranium at Fordow, which was this underground facility, at, uh, Natanz, which was kind of the biggest enrichment site, and also this- the ability to convert, uh, n- nuclear materials at Isfahan.

So, I think when they described that they've essentially destroyed Iran's capabilities in this site, even though battle assessments still need to be done, I think probably that's true.

But the question the story really raised is, A, the Iranians have been pretty vocal since mid-May, late May, that they were gonna move equipment, nuclear materials out of these sites, and we had this kind of interesting int- opening in the story today about cargo trucks moving up to Fordow, um, at the end of last week.

There's also reports of trucks moving around Isfahan, where probably most of the highly enriched uranium was being held.

So there's immediate questions about, you know, what happens to Iran's fissile material, its stockpile of highly enriched uranium? And Vice President Vance kind of raised that yesterday in some of his TV appearances, saying, "We need to find out where there's- where they are." Then the other qu- question is, you know, Iran has had this nuclear program, uh, going overtly, covertly since the late '90s, and there was almost always a very secretive part of this.

Um, and you know, the- the Iranian officials have said publicly, "We have a third site." Um, they said that, I think, in late- late May, and people are trying to understand wh- where that might be.

Let's start with politics here at home, Jay.

Jay, would you tell us a little bit about the Al Thanis and just the Qatar of today? Paint a picture for us.

us.It is a very modern state.

You think of Dubai, Qatar is very similar.

They have gleaming towers, they have these world-class museums.

But at the same time and I- and I've been to Qatar, I've seen it, they have sort of these encampments of whether it's Pakistani, Nepalese, Filipinos.

They built the stadiums, that- that drew a lot of attention because laborers died in this incredible heat building the stadiums and the world still, you know, welcomed Qatar and welcomed the World Cup.

So you have this kind of real divergence between this glitter and then what you called inde- you know, indentured servitude.

I wondered if you guys could tell us the story of, uh, Yousef al-Otaiba, I hope I'm pronouncing his name correctly, and Project Endgame.

What did you discover about the ties to those in public office today?

I mean, we lay it out pretty, pretty clearly.

It's, it's a really, it's a stunning, what I would call an information operation, influence operation, where they've really reached out to both political parties going back decades, but I would say really since 2017 when they had a, a real kind of standoff with the Saudis and the Emiratis.

They, they were angry at, at Qatar for supporting Muslim Brotherhood organizations, supporting the Al Jazeera, you know, funding Al Jazeera.

But it really is, on the political side, it's both parties.

We had a interesting example, I think, to show how it works, where J- Lindsey Graham, who's very pro-Israel, very hawkish on Islamic extremism, shows up in Doha just a few weeks after the 10/7 attacks on Israel, and I was expecting him to sort of lower the boom on the royal family for supporting Hamas.

Instead, (laughs) he, he praises them.

And how do you see now, with Turkey's growing influence in Syria, the, um, the fact that the Gulf States seem to be backing off, although they still espouse privately their animosity toward and fear of, of Qatar? Um, h- how do you see that formulating in the future and, and creating, you know, a Muslim Brotherhood ring of fire like the Iranians created Shiite ring of fire?

Much more of this tonight.

I mean, we lay it out pretty, pretty clearly.

It's, it's a really, uh, it's a stunning what I would call an information operation, influence operation where they've really reached out to both political parties going back decades, but I would say really since 2017 when they had a, a real kind of standoff with the Saudis and the Emiratis.

They, they were angry at, at Q- Qatar for supporting Muslim Brotherhood organizations, supporting the Al Jazeera, you know, funding Al Jazeera.

But it really is, on the political side, it's both parties.

We had a interesting example, I think, to show how it works where J- Lindsey Graham, who's very pro-Israel, very hawkish on Islamic extremism shows up in Doha just a few weeks after the 10/7 attacks on Israel.

And I was expecting him to sort of lower the boom on the royal family for supporting Hamas.