Let's dive into the history between Iran, Israel, and Iraq. You probably won't be surprised to know that there has been conflict in the Middle East as long as there have been humans.
Let's dive into the history between Iran, Israel, and Iraq. You probably won't be surprised to know that there has been conflict in the Middle East as long as there have been humans.
Hi Friends! Our transcripts aren't perfect, but I wanted to make sure you had something - if you'd like an edited transcript, I'd be happy to prioritize one for you - please email doomedtofailpod@gmail.com - Thanks! - Taylor
Jim to Fail returns one week after the Air India crash
>> Taylor: In the matter of the people of State of California vs. Orenthal James Simpson, case number BA096.
>> Farz: And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. Boom. We are back. Taylor. And is two weeks later. How are you? Good.
>> Taylor: It's one week later.
>> Farz: You haven't changed. Oh yeah, it's one week.
>> Taylor: I haven't changed. I'm the same.
>> Farz: Sweet. Well, yeah, we had a fun story last week and you know what's funny is we talked about how we're going to release once a week and then I came up with like this topic for today and I realized that given the news cycles, this might be like not relevant anymore or.
>> Taylor: But honestly, you know what I was thinking the other day is that we didn't even talk about the Air India flight crashing.
>> Farz: I.
>> Taylor: Okay, wait, let me resist. Welcome to Jim to Fail. We bring you histories. Notorious disasters, failures, anything. We have a ton of episodes. I'm Taylor, this is Fars. And a lot of our episodes are about plane crashes. And the news is so crazy. We didn't even talk about the Air India crash in June. tell me what you think. Flaps. You said flaps.
>> Farz: It's flaps. It was super low and it wasn't climbing. It has to be the flaps. They had to have had the flaps retracted. I watch a lot of plane crash videos and like.
>> Taylor: Right. You would know.
>> Farz: Flap flaps not being extended at low speeds is like the number one way people get in trouble. But it's also a Swiss cheese thing which is like we got a triple, triple seven. That's fairly advanced. Like you would assume the plane has automations in place.
>> Taylor: That was. That's my question for you. Yeah, yeah. Like why wouldn't. Why would that be a thing like at all, you know?
>> Farz: Yeah, something. There must have been other factors that went into it, but just like pure physics and mechanics talk. Like, I think it was just the flaps weren't extended.
>> Taylor: I also cannot get over that man walking away. The guy who survived wasn't like found strapped to his seat on fire. He got out. He's in the exit row. He got out and he was like walking down the street dazed. And there's like a video of him walking down the street.
>> Farz: There was a thing I saw on Instagram which could be fake, but apparently there was another crash. I forgot what airline it was, but.
>> Taylor: It was the same seat.
>> Farz: It was the same seat. Some guys, there was the same seat.
>> Taylor: Okay, I'm going exit row from now on. Which makes sense because like in an emergency you want the quickest way out.
>> Farz: Well, my theory. My theory is, like, from a structural integrity perspective, the strongest part of the plane is always gonna be, like, where the wings are.
>> Taylor: Wings are. Yeah.
>> Farz: And so you kind of want to shoot for that area, but, like, realistically.
>> Taylor: I always shoot for the wings area because I feel like it's the least. Least bumpy that I can afford.
>> Farz: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
>> Taylor: Here it's less bumpy up front, but I'll never be able to sit up there. So how. What do I know?
>> Farz: You know, also, I think that you have a higher chance of death in the front than you do in the back.
>> Taylor: At least you were laying down.
>> Farz: At least you were laying down. You had leg space, like room, and you were comfy.
>> Taylor: But anywho, anyway, anyway, my point being. Yeah. Who the knows are gonna. What's gonna happen in two weeks?
>> Farz: Who let us live in interesting times? Right.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
This one shows how history can repeat itself in different ways, different formats
>> Farz: So, okay, I am going to weave several tales together in a slight little web that has to do with modern times and shows how history can repeat itself in different ways, different formats. But it's kind of always the same thing over and over again.
>> Taylor: What? First, that never happens.
>> Farz: That never ever happens.
>> Taylor: That isn't like the freaking story of our lives.
>> Farz: This one, this one blew me away because there's a lot of stuff here. There's stuff that y' all are gonna have known about or heard about if you're like. If you keep with, like, world geopolitics, but like, if not, like, the. Some of this stuff is going to be kind of surprising and it's gonna involve several actors that are prescient, again, using that term a lot to modern times, such as Iran, Iraq, Israel in the US and it's gonna happen in the late 70s to the mid to late 80s, but it's gonna look crazy similar to, like, these times that we're in.
>> Taylor: Literally, when you saw that, I was like, thinking, you're talking about, like, actual actors. No, I was like, oh, Tom Cruise, I'm done. You keep going.
Iran and the U.S. had a great trading relationship pre1979
>> Farz: So real quick Overview Starting in pre1979, Iran. At that time, the ruler was this guy named Shah Reza Pahlavi. Shah means king. He was acting as the king of the US it was a monarchy. The US Loved him, the US Loved Iran. The shah was super friendly towards the US and the US interests. They had a great trading relationship. Iran was a huge purchaser of munitions and weapons from the U.S. and technology from the U.S. and just overall, it was like a really good dynamic that they had going for each other. In addition Iran bordered the Soviet Union during the Cold War. And the Shah provided resources, the US So US People could go be based there and, you know, do their spying stuff. Like, it was all very, like, friendly. The same cannot be said about Iran's neighbor, Iraq. Apparently, the tensions between Iran and Iraq go back to, like, ancient Persia and Mesopotamia times. So, like, it's been a long, long going thing. In 1979, when the Shah's regime fell to Ayatollah Khomeini fundamentalist, he was running the fundamentalist Islamic revolution. Saddam Hussein saw an opportunity. He took note that all the top military commanders for the Shah had fled the country or been executed. And he thought the Ayatollah's regime was too weak. And so, hey, we've hated these guys for 2000 years. Let's. Let's do it. Let's go for broke.
>> Taylor: Oh, totally. I feel like. Sorry to interrupt, but I feel like, you know, I was last. Whenever I talked about Sappho a couple weeks ago. Like, that island of Lesbos is in, like, the most ridiculous spot in the whole entire world. And when I was looking at it, I was looking at Constantinople, Istanbul. Like, that is, like, on the only little tiny spot connecting by land, like, the Middle east and Europe on, like, the west side, right?
>> Farz: I think so.
>> Taylor: So I'm just like, that. Well, of course, so many crazy things happened there, you know, because everybody's been fighting there forever.
>> Farz: Well, everybody's been there forever. It's been like they called it the cradle of society.
>> Taylor: Like, that's exactly that. That proves all the points that we're never going to do anything because we're all going to kill each other, you know, like. Like, the whole world, like, longer we're together, the more we hate each other.
>> Farz: No, it's so true, because, I mean, when I was reading this and they're talking, like, ancient Persia and Mesopotamia having beefs over, like, this one strait that runs between them. And, like, that's where all this kind of, like, happened and, like, where. Where all of this started.
>> Taylor: It's always the same thing.
>> Farz: We're just going to do what we've always done, except with different munitions. Like, that's all that's changing, is we're.
>> Taylor: Getting better and better until we can't do it anymore, you know? Yeah.
>> Farz: Yeah. So to add to Iran's dire situation after the revolution, immediately following the revolution was when the Iran hostage crisis happened. Right after that is when the US Under Jimmy Carter slapped sanctions on the country, including bans on all military arm sales. So they were about to go to war with less military power and an aging military structure that they could not update or purchase more to, to update for.
So in early 1980, Saddam launches his invasion into Iran and it really didn't go as planned
So in early 1980, Saddam launches his invasion into Iran and it really didn't go as he hoped. What he had hoped for was a super quick victory. Like, hey, we're going to cripple these guys. Because he was right. Like his military was way better than Iran's military. What ended up happening was it ended up dragging on for eight years and became just a war of attrition. I think I read somewhere around a million people died in this eight year time period. So this is like a big, big war in the, in the, in human toll. In the interim, Iraq did things that would be viewed as crimes against humanity. So they would deploy things like chemical weapons like mustard gas and nerve agents like sarin, which is like a war crime. Like you can't, like the UN recognizes that as such and you shouldn't do that. That's not even like you're attacking at that point.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: So in addition, Iraq had acquired a nuclear reactor from France of all places and established the two way the Nuclear Research Center.
>> Taylor: Wait, so they just like borrowed one? No, but like mailed it to them.
>> Farz: So. So they actually had French scientists there working in this research facility because I guess you can't just ship it. I guess you set it up and like do things to it or.
>> Taylor: Nuclear reactor is arriving on Tuesday.
>> Farz: Little Amazon living room.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: Iran and a lot of other people saw this as a problem. Again, very interesting because they looked at Saddam Hussein who's been using weight weapons, like nerve gases and things like that. And they saw that this guy's working on the potential to develop a nuclear device, a nuclear weapon. And so they were like, we can't let this country have a nuclear weapon. That was like the entire premise of BE Rom was like, he's, he's too crazy, he's too unstable. We can't. It's so interesting. It's like, come on. Like, like. And then the other thing I was thinking about as I was like writing this was like Western democracies have like a feature or a bug, depending on how you look at it. We turn over leadership on a consistent basis, which has positives because it means that you can go one direction with the country, but then you can change it and then you can go back, then you can change it and all that stuff. The bad part is that there's no like historical consistency.
>> Taylor: Exactly, that's what I was going to say, consistency. You just redoing everything the last guy did.
>> Farz: But this, this happened like 40 years ago under the same people. It was like the exact same stuff that's happening today with the same actors. It's crazy. And so Iran was like, look, we got to. We got to figure out this nuclear research facility situation. We can't let him enrich uranium and build a nuclear bomb. He'll probably use it. And so they've launched airstrikes into Iraq to strike down this facility, which is interesting because another country in the region also had an interest in Iraq not obtaining a nuclear weapon. Can you guess who that is?
>> Taylor: Israel.
>> Farz: Yes. So Israel and Iran's relationship after the revolution was odd. Obviously, Iran's the fundamentalist Islamic country. They have always. Well, since the Shahs, I mean, since the revolution, they've always been for the destruction of Israel. And publicly the government of Iran would say that. They would call. They would say, death to Israel secretly and behind the scenes. They work together.
>> Taylor: Of course they did. That's exactly.
>> Farz: They would like, work together. They were like, look, we have this common enemy and we can use each other's resources to neutralize that enemy. And Israel's credit. They were less vocal in their opposition to Iran at this point. So their prime minister in 1987, guy named Yitzhak Rabin, stated publicly, quote, iran is our best friend and we don't intend to change our position, end quote. Unfortunately, it's like Rabin also was assassinated because he struck a deal with the Oster Arafat for like peace with the plo and some Jewish fanatics in Israel hated him for it and they shot him the head. So like, anyways, like, whatever, that, that was a state of affairs, though. Like it just to give you a little bit of context. Cool.
>> Taylor: I'm just doing long, drawn out size. Hope to have that recorded.
>> Farz: Yeah, my size. Really that long?
>> Taylor: No, I just did one. I hope that it was a good background noise to what you're saying.
Israel was tickled pink that Iran was attacking this facility
>> Farz: Great. So Israel was tickled pink that Iran was attacking this facility. Some countries, like France would later state that even this attack by Iran was done with coordination with Israel up to the point where the fighter jets were being flown by Israeli Air force. It was documented that they were Iranian fighter planes. But then some intelligence came out that, like, this was such a deep collaboration that they actually let the Israeli air force run the operation with their weapons. Because also they're like, trying to like, you know, mass the fact that they're working with Israel for one.
>> Taylor: Right.
>> Farz: Publicly. But they had better access to Iraq because they're Right there. So, right. The bombing knocked the facility out of commission, but it hadn't totally, irreparably damaged it. They knew this because Iran had taken high altitude reconnaissance pictures of the area and then relayed those to Israel. Like, that's the degree in which these two were working hand in hand. Israel started up planning a thing called Operation Opera, which was to further bomb the facility to knock its ability to be used completely off course. Go all the way in.
>> Taylor: What does France have to say for giving it to them?
>> Farz: So I never researched why France got involved in this, but I know that they were very much on the side of Iraq in this situation, and they were really p***** about what Iran and Israel were doing. And that's why a lot of the intelligence that came out that, like, showed the collaboration came from French intelligence because they were very interested in what was going on to the point where, like, we'll get into it later, but, like, after this next round of bombings occur, like, French nationals are killed on site because they are there as scientists to, like, get this thing up and running.
>> Taylor: Wow.
>> Farz: Yeah. So Israel is starting to launch this thing called Operation Opera, which was to just bomb this thing into oblivion. And they would have to fly super deep in Iraq. It's in the middle of Iraq. They had to fly super deep in Iraq to do this. And so they needed timing, cooperation with the Iranian air force because they needed the Iranian air force to be, like, really hammering the Iraqi air force so that they would be too distracted to, like, pay attention to what was going on on the other side of the border. That was the idea. And nine months after that initial bombing, Israel took on that mission and completed it. Apparently they had to carry additional gas tanks on their jets to make. Make the flight all the way there. They had to do some weird routing through this one corridor that's, like, between Iraq and Saudi Arabia that they didn't have any radar for because Iraq thought, we're never gonna go to war. Saudi Arabia, so just leave this as a dead zone. So they literally flew down this corridor until they were like, well deep within Iraq. And then at that point, Iran was distracting their military with their air force. And so they just got in. Bomb the h*** out of this thing.
>> Taylor: All I'm picturing is, like, for some reason, that last Top Gun movie where he does that, like, ridiculous thing where he goes through the mountains.
>> Farz: Yeah, that was so stupid. Like, we all know what age does to you. Like, come on. It was the dumbest scene that took me out of the reality of it.
>> Taylor: But whatever.
>> Farz: Go ahead. Sorry.
>> Taylor: Okay. I thought I had a question, but I don't know. Please continue. I'll come back to it.
The United States was having a hard time with its relationship with Iran
>> Farz: So amidst all this that's going on, we're going to transition to the other player and actor in this, the United States. The US was having a hard time with its relationship with Iran and almost more important than that, it was having a hard time with its relationship in Nicaragua with some left wing groups that were taking control of government there called the Sandinistas. A group operating out of Honduras was intent on pushing back the influence of this group, the Sandinistas out of Nicaragua because the Sandinistas were focused on. You know, it's interesting, they always call it left, left wing ideology and like, I don't know how much I buy into that framing of it.
>> Taylor: It was like full on communism.
>> Farz: It's full on communism. Yeah, yeah. But like, I don't know, culturally we just call it left wing ideology. But to me it's like its own separate thing over there because I don't think Kim Jong Un is like a super left progressive.
>> Taylor: No, I think. Yeah, exactly.
>> Farz: So anyways, the Contras, they were trying to push back to Sandinistas and Ronald Reagan who was president defeating Jimmy Carter after, after the Iran hostage debacle, he very much wanted to do everything he could to repel communism out of every region of the world that he could. So he was very interested in trying to support the Contras. He had one problem, a thing called the Boland Amendment. This was a law that was passed by Congress making it illegal for direct financial support from the United States or any of its agencies to support the Contras.
>> Taylor: Tell me what a Contra is again. I think of like the video game.
>> Farz: Oh no, it's, it's a rebel group. It's a rebel group that is a bunch of Nicaraguans who are trying to push back the incursion the government by the Sandinistas. But they're operating out of Honduras.
>> Taylor: Is Contra like a proper noun or is it like a thing?
>> Farz: Yeah, I think, I think it's a proper noun. I think it's a name. Yeah, it's all, it's always capitalized when I read it. So. So this Boland Amendment came about because first off the American people were still suffering the hangover brought on by the Vietnam War and trying to defeat communism there and just meddling in other countries affairs which like was growing out of fashion, I guess.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: Also the Contras weren't like some amazing noble group of like freedom fighting farmers like they, they were kidnapping and assassinating people, they were leading civilian massacres, they were doing terrorist attacks on villages and infrastructure within the country. Like they weren't good. So, so that's why they passed the Bolan Amendment because they're like, hey, we, we know Reagan's going to try and go do, do this stuff and we don't want any of this stuff to happen because we need to stop meddling other, other countries affairs. And Reagan and his team had to come up with an idea with a way to provide resources to the Contras and off their books so that it's not in direct violation of this law. Because presidents obey the law.
>> Taylor: Right. They're gonna do it anyway.
>> Farz: And their solution was Iran. So shortly after the Iran Iraq war had started and the Iranian hostage crisis was underway, the Reagan administration had called around other countries and demanded that they not provide weapons or munitions to the Iranians in their effort to repel the Iraqis. They were like, we're not for these, like whatever. My theory on this was let them kill each other. Like we don't want to support the Iraqis, but like now we have a very obvious geopolitical reason not to support Iran either. But as time went on, the administration realized two things. One, that arms embargoes don't work. The countries that have no interest in appeasing the US or whatever the country is that issues the embargo, they step in and fill the vacuum like the ussr, which could further deteriorate US influence within, during the, during the Cold War, which ironically enough I read an article earlier today after the bombing of the Iran nuclear sites that literally Russia came out and was like, you really said other countries can just give them a bomb. Right. Like, I mean, like I don't know how well this is going to play out.
>> Taylor: So the other thing totally, and it always. I'm so sorry, I always forget how close the Middle east is to Russia. Yeah.
>> Farz: Iran shares a border with it.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: The other thing that the Reagan administration realized in the middle of all this going on was that they had a money problem. The Boland act had passed and on paper and legally the administration could not fund the Contras, which he desperately wanted to do. Enter the solution. Israel and a secret group of non agency employed but administration connected staff who would call themselves quote the Enterprise.
>> Taylor: From where?
>> Farz: From the United States, the U.S. so these are not people, they're not acting on behalf of the administration, they're not acting on behalf of the agencies like the NSA or the CIA or any of that. But let's just call them really close friends of people within the agency who want to do favors for the administration. They decide to break the embargo indirectly. So the US Policy was still that we will not supply weapons to Iran. Instead, they would sell weapons from, quote, the enterprise to Iran, facilitated through Israel, to provide cover in case anybody started digging into this again. This weird interplay where, like, there's. There's collaboration, but we hate each other, but we'll work together.
>> Taylor: Like, totally enemy of my enemy.
>> Farz: Exactly. And then the enterprise would then take the funds generated from Iran, pass through Israel, and then funnel them to Contras in Honduras for their battles with Nicaragua. And it went on for years, until 1986, when a Lebanese magazine revealed that the weapons used by the US Were new and could only have been sourced by the US And Iran. And so. So this went on to be like, a huge deal for Reagan and obviously his vice president, George H.W. bush, saying they knew nothing about any of this.
>> Taylor: Mm.
>> Farz: Oliver north goes to trial for 16 felony counts, all kinds of violating this statute and that regulation. All kinds of.
>> Taylor: Tell me. Oliver north is again, so he was.
>> Farz: A general who was kind of like the fall guy for this whole enterprise. Well, literally the enterprise, because what are you going to do? You're going to pin on Reagan, you're going to put on Bush, Bush goes on to become president. Like, I mean, you need a fall guy. He ended up getting convicted on, I think it was three felony counts, and then that ended up getting overturned on appeal. Like, he ended up just going home. So, like, he literally nothing happened. Which, like, honestly, in my mind, I'm like. I'm like, I don't know. Like, why do you need a fall guy? Like, you know, who made it this happen, but you can't do anything about the guy who made it happen, so why do you need to punish anybody? Like, so. And Reagan, actually, to his credit, he turned out to be right. Because after news broke of this and before the Iran Iraq war had concluded, Iran went on to source weapons from the ussr, from China, from North Korea, and to some extent, from Israel itself. So that ended up happening. That was actually the outcome that they anticipated. Ultimately, as I mentioned, a ceasefire was reached between Iran and Iraq after eight years. And the camaraderie they shared with Israel obviously deteriorated to the point that we're at today with the exact same thing involving the exact same countries as. As we go on and keep repeating the same history.
>> Taylor: I. Yeah, I think that's. That's what's gonna happen.
>> Farz: It's Wild.
Iran did exactly to Iraq what the US Just did to Iran
When I. When I started, like, going into this and was like, I wonder how far this I can scratch the surface. And it's like, all right, so Iran, Iraq. Okay, wait, Israel helped. Wait, the US Helped, but they did it indirectly. Like, it's like. It's so weird and convoluted, and it's like. I don't know, it, like, writes itself, like a story. Like a. Like a narrative story of, like, a fictional book or something. I don't know.
>> Taylor: No, totally. You'd think, like, we wouldn't do it again, but we can consistently do it.
>> Farz: Like, Iran literally did exactly to Iraq what the US Just did to Iran. Like.
>> Taylor: Yeah, but.
>> Farz: But again. But again, like, it's the same leaders. Like, on the Iranian side, there's only been two leaders of Iran. One was Ayatollah Khomeini after the revolution, and then the guy who's in office now, who's right.
>> Taylor: Like, and we've turned over so many times. It feels. I feel we feel so distant from Ronald Reagan, you know, in some ways.
>> Farz: Yeah. Like, anyways, I. I thought that was absolutely fascinating and how. How we're here and. Yeah, we'll see where it goes. But to the. That old quote, the World War III will be fought with nuclear weapons and World War 4 will be fought with stones.
>> Taylor: Yep.
>> Farz: That feels like we're closer to that reality today than we ever been.
>> Taylor: Yeah, I. I totally agree. It's not great.
>> Farz: So.
>> Taylor: But continues.
>> Farz: But stay positive, everyone. Stay positive.
>> Taylor: I mean, find a joy. You can't be unhappy.
>> Farz: Get a turtle.
>> Taylor: I don't. Yeah, heat up.
>> Farz: Heat up a potato.
>> Taylor: Yeah. Have a big potato. And then, I don't know, run for.
>> Farz: Office, have a baked potato and chill. Yeah, but that's my story. I thought it was super interesting. The more I dug into it, the more I found. Honestly, if I spent, like, another 10 hours on this, which I easily could, I could probably find 15 other strings that are kind of connected to this that come out. But we'll leave it. We'll leave it for that. With that.
>> Taylor: I love it. No, it's super interesting. And, like. Yeah. I mean, again, we could do, like, generation by generation who was fighting in the area.
>> Farz: Yeah. Yeah.
>> Taylor: All the way back till we. The people. We came out of Africa through that area and then dispersed.
>> Farz: God, it's so weird. It's so weird. Especially because, like, culturally, there's so much shared heritage. You know, it's funny, when I. Whenever I would, like, when I was in college, I had a lot of, like. Like actual Israeli Friends. And, you know, we had no reason to, like, not like each other, obviously. And so we talk and we'd learn about each other's culture and, like, oh, y' all do that. We do that, too. Oh, y' all do that. We do that, too. Oh, you eat that? Yeah, we have that, too. Like, it's literally the exact same thing, but for some reason, it's like, let's kill each other.
>> Taylor: Let's kill each other. Or like. Yeah. Or in Europe. But it's like, you're a different kind of white than me.
>> Farz: I know, I know. It's like you're all. Your food is bland. Like, I get it.
>> Taylor: You need.
>> Farz: You need war to feel alive because you can't eat. So, like, it is what it is. But.
>> Taylor: Yeah, yeah.
>> Farz: Any who, that's the story. Let's see what happens by the time this is released. Maybe I'll have an amendment to this, but tbd.
Doom to Fail pod: Anything can happen this summer
>> Taylor: I know. We'll see. I mean, who knows? It's been. Anything can happen.
>> Farz: Yeah. Legit.
>> Taylor: For real. Well, cool. Well, thank you.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: Appreciate it. If anyone has any thoughts or ideas, send us a note. Doom to fail pod gmail.com. doom to fail pod on all the social media. We'll see you next week. I'm having a good summer.
>> Farz: Hope you're having a good summer. And you know what? If you have the space and you have the time, get yourself a turtle.
>> Taylor: Yeah, the tortoise. Because he's.
>> Farz: Tortoise. I'm sorry. Turtle is the one that swims, right?
>> Taylor: Yeah. But we do put him in water. And we put him in water, he poops.
>> Farz: Oh, he's very cute.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: Sweet. You're good.
>> Taylor: I'm good.
>> Farz: All right, we'll go ahead and cut things off there.