This is Remember When with Harvey Degan on Perth six PR.
And time for a regular chat that we have on Remember When with doctor Martin Drum, Professor of Politics and International Relations at Notre Dame University. Welcome to the show once again. Always a pleasure to have you on the show.
Martin.
Great to be joining you, Harvey, and.
There's plenty to talk about. We're going to try to delve into this very convoluted situation involving Iran and the American raids on the nuclear facilities in Iran and go back through a bit of the history of the relations I suppose you'd say, over many, many years between Iran and the USA.
But before we do, I'd just like you to perhaps.
Have a quick look at the budget, the result of the state budget. I guess we're fairly used to in Australia. We might be a bit cynical when we say this, but particularly with four year terms, the first budget after a government is elected or re elected is well can be a pretty tough one. There's no pork barreling, and there won't be for another three years. But do you think it was a tough budget? Was it a fair budget? What's your overall impression of Redasafiotti's budget the new.
Treasurer, well, I guess the one tough thing and maybe it was inevitable, but it's the removal of the electricity credits. That's the extra money that has been tipped into your energy bill by the government to try and help you with that. So our households are being weaned off that now, and it just means that there's some extra pain, I think, because the reality is that electricity devices have been going up simply substantially in a rising again, and there's some
look in terms of our other pain. The water bills are rising. I think, emergency service levy's going up. There's other charges that are going up as well here and there, like car red Joe. But I've looked probably slightly better for somehouseholds is a flat rate for public transport, which is probably good on the broad sense. Harvey, you're talking about a two and a half billion dollar surplus, which is pretty good. Figures in that sense. State debt those
on the rise. It's reality and a big focus on infrastructure. So a lot of it's around this sort of may made in wa sort of slogan that they're using and trying to stimulate the local economy there with a whole range of different infrastructure.
One of the real big tests for people in WI, of course, are those that can't afford to buy house. They have to rent, and rents are just absolutely through the roof. Did you see anything in the budget that might assist people who are in that situation.
Yeah, So they've got this sort of rent to buy program that they've rolled out, and there was an election commitment, so they're looking to fulfill that part and that's going to help some first home buyers certainly. There's also a lot of work trying to try and unlock supply, including supporting apprentices etc. And skilled shortages which have been a significant obstacle on the supply side. So that won't but the problem is that won't improve the housing supply straight away.
It's more of a pipeline issue, but it's probably going to pay dividends down the track.
We are one of the if not the fastest growing state population wise, of all the states of Australia. About three hundred thousand people have moved to Wa in the past five years, and of course that does put a lot of pressure, doesn't it on infrastructure?
And supply and all those sort of issues.
Do you think the government's done enough in this budget to decater for what will continue to be an exponential increase in our population.
Well, certainly, I think in some ways they're playing catch up because there has been a challenge to date in how many houses have been built. But I mean I think there is a much stronger focus on housing this time around than there has been probably in the past. So you know, you're getting a range of different measures that have been been touted to try and improve our housings are blight and I think it's around the supply side that the real works required, so hopefully they'll start
to make a difference. I still think probably more community social housing have be needed to try and help that waiting list. I think it's about twenty two thousand people, so there's still a lot of work to be done. In other area.
Have you yeah, a lot of opposition or some opposition, I supposely from the opposition to the Burswood supercar track.
What's your view on that, Well, it's not something I'll followed really closely. I think state governments have a responsibility to provide a range of different services and I think i'd be focusing it on value for money for that project. Is it going to be delivered on time and on budget? And is that entire area, because it's in quite a what's a bit of a prime real estate might describe it, is that is it going to sufficiently lift the entire area and make it a great place to come to?
Certainly not in our state, nowhere near our state. But I have to pass a comment that Tasmania is going through the mill at the moment, of course, with a snap election being called following the Premier Rockcliffe having had a successful no no confidence motion passed against him and he's rather than resigned, called us election. And part of the issue is the proposed stadium at a place called
Macquarie Point. And you know, I can't help but perhaps go back to you maybe Optus and the Belltower on that with you know, the opposition to those initially and now they're all part of the landscape. And I suspect that'll be the same in Tassy as well. I know Tassy's not your bailiwick, but I know you'd also be keeping a pretty good class eye on it.
Yeah, yeah, I'm quite intrigued to see how this all pans out. This is a really unusual election. It's borne out via no confidence motion against the premier that passed on the floor of their Legslith Assembly. So they forced back to the polls, you know, much earlier than they should have been. They were in the inn the polls
last year. I had an election in twenty four. I imagine there'd be a number of voters that are deeply unhappy with how maybe the government and opposition have contrived to get this result, because it seems that both of them relatively happy to go back to the polls. I just wonder if they might be punished by a round of people voting for other parties.
I think that's what's going to happen over there for absolute sure and certain. All right, mate, well what we might do if you don't mind a clear a commitment And then I do want to have a look in detail at the Iran situation.
On Perth six PR. This is remember when with Harvey d Gan.
And doctor Martin drum has joined us Dtor Drumm from Notre Dame University. Well, I shouldn't imagine there's a country in the world that's not looking with some concern, some great concern over the situation in the in the Middle East, and of course the latest is that Donald Trump has again struck targets in Iran and well virtually has said that he's neutralized their nuclear capability.
Can we believe that, well, it's unclear, certainly unclear at this stage. I mean, it's only happened this morning about the complete fall out of this, so certainly the Defense Secretary has claimed that the US has destroyed those facilities. By a contrast, Iranian State TV is telling us that there's that minimal damage. Of course, we know the fog of war. Both sides will try and state their position
and convince us. I think we'll probably have to wait a little bit longer to see just how much difference that's made.
You mentioned the word war quite rightly, so I think there has been no declaration of war as such. What's the situation there? If we don't want this to happen, we desperately don't want this to happen. But if the situation escalates and it becomes war, my understanding, and I don't understand how politics works in the United States, to be perfectly honest, is that a president cannot declare war that has to be done with the approval of Congress.
Is that correct?
Well, the planet presidents can and do order strikes and individual individual activities, and they'll always claim that there's a reason for those. And certainly this was the Trump approach, that he's preventing the imminent, the imminent role of Iran and acquiring a nuclear weapon. But certainly Congress has to authorize the funding of war and the ongoing cost that's
likely to entail. So at some stage you'll need to go to Congress if indeed this becomes a full blown conflict, and of course that's certainly a risk following those strikes.
Today, another development is that the Iranian Foreign minister says that he has a meeting with Vladimir person of Russia, of course in the morning. So why do you think they are conversing and how does that impact on the rest of us.
Well, if this is part of the potential escalation that this event has, Iran and Russia are close allies. In fact, probably Iran is a size of Belarus, probably the closest that Russia has and has a system in drawing production and another means with the war in Ukraine, so Russia's condemned this attack unsurprisingly, and part of the reason for the Iranian Foreign minister is to try and secure Russian support.
But I mean, I do think Russia also is very reluctant to get into a direct conflict with the US.
Well, they would be wise to think about that, that's for sure. Iran history will show us that Iran won't just sit back and cop this, that they will probably strike back. How do you think they will affect that because they're just not going to Well, maybe they will lie down, and maybe they will surrender, as Trump has said that it's not negotiable.
But I've got my doubts.
What about you, Well, I mean they are back into a corner now, and the real danger for these strikes is that what it provokes. And there's certainly our real possibility that Aram's going to straight back. I mean, they've both from the eye tooler come any down. They've threatened retaliation if they if they were attacked, And the problem with that, of course, is that the credibility of your ragme in the eyes of its own citizens is linked to the threats that you made and whether you're going
to follow through with it. So if you're attacked, and don't respond. I think that that weakens for the whole ragime. Of course, the alternative, though it might be worse. If they respond to the US, then the US may just unleash full military power and you know, a fascinate the political leaders and destroy all forms of infrastructure they rely on, and that would make their position really really challenging. So they are in a really difficult bind. But it's not
inconceivable at all that they could lash it up. There's a lot of US assets in the region. There's troops all through Iraq, for instance, which are potentially vulnerable, and as of course US ships in the Gulf just south of Iran as well, so there's a lot of potential assets that could be the line fire.
Of course, the America's interest in Iran that didn't happen yesterday or the day before. This goes back, I believe, to the fifties, and it goes back as far as when Dwight D. Eisenhower was the President of the United States and they had an agreement I believe with Iran. It was called Atoms for Peace, in which developing countries received nuclear education and technology from the United States. So what happened was Apparently the US later provided Iran with
a nuclear reactor and weapons grade enriched uranium fuel. So that's kind of where the ball started rolling, wasn't it.
Yeah, So, I mean things have not always been the same between around in the US. Certainly during the rule of the Shah, which ended in nineteen seventy nine, the US and Iran weren't very good terms. And in fact, the US was the major armed supplier to Iran at that time, and they cooperated and collaborated in the whole
range of ways. And that whole situation turned one hundred and eighty degrees with the Islamic Revolution in nineteen seventy nine and the new raging coming in, and they've had no diplomatic relations since.
Yes, Well, that probably came out of left field. They may not have anticipated that was going to happen. That's what happens when you haven't Islamic state born of what was essentially a kingdom. We need to take another break, Martin, if you don't mind, then, I do want to ask you about the various roles that subsequent presidents, including Nixon and co. Have had to play in the Iran situation. When with Harvey Degan on Perth six PR I'm chatting
to Martin Drumm from a Notre Dame university. We mentioned, first of all White Eisenhower, President Eisenhower's involvement. Then the Richard Nixon went to Iran in the days when it was the Shah of Iran who was running the show, and he traveled, as I believed, to ask the Shaft for help protecting US security interest in the Middle East, and in return he promised that Iran could buy any non nuclear weapons it wanted. And then of course came
the Arab Israeli War of nineteen seventy three. So that was a really volatile time in the Middle Eastern affairs, as if it's not always a pretty volatile time.
Per certainly Harvey, and all the way through to nine seventy nine, generally the US had a pretty good relationship with Iran, and a number of presidents I think had had fairly good dealings with the Shower of Iran until nine and seventy nine, And of course that all changes and it's people will be aware of the Lame Revolution, but even in the very early days of the revolution, they took US citizens or US embassy staff hostage and Jimmy Carter had to try and release them, and it
had a lot of difficulty in doing so, which undermined his credibility and some say led to the loss of the nine eighty US presidential election.
Yeah, and Ronald Reagan, he what was his involvement in his relationship with Iran.
Well, he kind of tacitly sided with Iraq during the Iraq Iran War because they were stung by their experiences of the nineteen seventy nine revolution. And it's hard to believe that they supported and helped armed so they are the saying of all people against against Iran. So that's how much they disliked Iran. But there was a lot of dodgy stuff going on because there were some officials in the Reagan administration that secretly sold weapons to Iran.
It's known as the Iran Contra scandal in the mid eighties. So that was happening at the same time there was a general sanctions against the Irani Ragim.
Yes, and I think Oliver North was the guy, Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North. He was up to his easy in that one. But I understand that that the Iran contra affair was a bid to secure the release of several Americans, think seven I think held hostage by j Hesbalara in Lebanon.
That's right, it was the Contra rebels in Karagua. I think the links to Lebanon, yes, and Iran had influenced in Lebanon, so you know, there was a lot of murky connections at that stage. So yeah, there was, and I think even I think there was an accidental shooting down at one of the Iranian airlines in late eighties as well, so it was a very turbulent time.
Yeah, that was nineteen eighty eight I think, and was then the US Navy who managed to shoot down an Iranian passenger yet was nearly three hundred people on board are all killed. Of course, then of course came the Persian Gulf for more problems.
That's right. So there was another flashpoint again for their relations as well. And then if you're going through to Clinton's you know he reached out briefly when Katami was president of Iran and Tomi was a little bit more friendly to the West, but the Ila Coman he didn't really want to see in the way of thoring of relationships.
He put the kybosh on that and then George Bush famously styled around Iraq and North Korea as constituting in access of evil in two thousand and two, Harvey So, and that was some indication of just how bad the relationship had deteriorated to.
Wasn't Bush trying to do a sort of a backdoor deal to help well, it didn't happen, but to to help engineer what he hoped would be the defeat of the Taliban.
Well, he did. He did try. This is later on. He did try to enlist around support in that respect. I mean, they were bordering Afghanistan and some of the Azaris that were were not well treated by the Taliban had found refuge in Iran, and I think they were hopeful that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. But there's I don't think that there was a lot of co op cooperation. Not a lot came of that entreaty either.
And in his first term as as president, Donald Trump was up to his ears in the Iranian situation.
What were some of the key decisions that he made during that first term.
Well, I mean the most significant one was during the the Obarmer administration, they managed to have a joint brand they had I think it's called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, and they had a deal to limit Iranian nuclear and the Uranian in richment, and effectively Iran was granted relief from from part of the international and economic sanctions. And they had inspectors coming in regularly to certify this.
And that was probably a bit again, a bit of a thawing in that relationship temporarily, and but things quickly deteriorated again. They had in twenty twenty. You're probably familiar with Salamani, who is the leader of the Kods force. He was one of the leading sort of proponents of Hamas and Hesbalaa and some of those other offshoots of Iran,
and he got assassinated by the US. So again that probably put the kybosh on at the start of Trump's administrations, their attempts to any attempts they might have had to fall things out.
Well, it is a very very tricky situation. That is understating the case big time. But we'll just wait and see what happens. We hope for a peaceful outcome. We will see, I suppose. But look, Martin, thanks for analyzing all that for us. Tonight has put it really in perspective, we just want to be just as distant as we can be from this conflict, which we hope will be resolved to the satisfaction of all parts. He's made Thanks for your time, really appreciate it.
Pleasure Harvey.
That's doctor Martin drum And.
Martin, of course is from the Notre Dame University and he's a professor of politics and international relations.