Larry Johnson discusses Iran walking away from US talks and threatening to retaliate against Israel
Glenn Diesen interviews former CIA analyst Larry Johnson on the rapid escalation between Iran, Israel, and the United States.
Summary
Former CIA analyst and State Department counterterrorism official Larry Johnson joins the program to assess the sudden collapse of US-Iran negotiations and the sharp escalation of hostilities involving Israel, Lebanon, and Iran. He reports that Iran has formally withdrawn from talks with the United States, citing Israel's continued attacks on Lebanon and Palestinians in violation of the ceasefire terms. He describes a warning issued by an IRGC spokesman telling residents of northern Israel to evacuate, which he takes as a credible signal of imminent Iranian missile strikes. He also relays unconfirmed intelligence — sourced through Pepe Escobar — that Pakistan's foreign minister warned Marco Rubio that Iran intends to withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty and set a date for detonating a nuclear device. The episode closes with a live development: Iran's IRGC announcing a cruise missile strike on a US-Israeli ship.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Introduction and Iran's Withdrawal from Talks
Glenn Diesen: Welcome back to the program. We are joined again by Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst who also worked at the US State Department's Office of Counterterrorism, and who is also a prolific writer on the website Sonar 21. Thank you for coming back on, Larry. There are a lot of things to go through here. It appears that the Iran war is escalating quickly now, and it seems very likely we're going to go back to large-scale warfare. Over the past few days we've already seen that the US has struck Iran, and Iran has retaliated. We see that Israel's bombing of Lebanon has intensified, and it now seems they will start bombing Beirut. The US apparently has given a green light to do so. Iran has then responded by arguing that all fronts are linked to the ceasefire — in other words, you can't attack Lebanon without Iran retaliating. Iran has then withdrawn from the talks with the US. There are rumors of a lot of things that could happen, for example Iran could shut down the Red Sea. It's hard to follow — this is all happening very, very fast. I was hoping you could give a nice overview of what we're looking at here.
Larry Johnson: Yeah. So it started off at about 10:00 this morning, Eastern time — so I guess that's like 4:00 your time. Which means you're up past your bedtime. Thanks for doing this.
Iran said, "Okay, we're done talking to the United States." Because the initial ceasefire agreement was that Israel would not attack Lebanon — not just Beirut, but all of Lebanon — and would stop its attacks on the Palestinians. Instead, they're continuing. So Iran said: we're out, we're not going to have any more talks. We're closing the Strait of Hormuz. Up to this point Iran had allowed a number of ships to go through, and now they said they're going to shut it down completely. Complete shutdown. And they're going to close the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb as well. They haven't shut it down yet. I think they were giving the United States basically 24 hours to see if they would go back to the original agreement that was signed.
This got Trump's attention, because within an hour of that announcement, Trump was on the phone with Netanyahu. Now, here's where it gets confusing. Trump's version is that he had a great call and that Netanyahu agreed they're not going to bomb Beirut. But that's not what Iran is asking for. This is not just "don't bomb Beirut." Stop bombing Lebanon and stop killing Palestinians. Stop. Well, Israel is not willing to stop. And since that phone call, Trump has given one version and Netanyahu has given a completely different version. Then you've got people like Smotrich weighing in, and Israel Katz the defense minister weighing in, and Ben-Gvir weighing in. It looks like Israel has not stopped.
And then here's the concerning point. One of the spokesmen for the IRGC — the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps — issued a warning: if you live in northern Israel, which they refer to as the occupied northern territories, you want to get out, because we're going to hit you. They made that unambiguous. So I think within the next 24 hours you're going to see Iran re-engage Israel with ballistic missiles and drones targeting northern Israel. This looks like it's heating up.
Now, what is the United States doing so far on the military side? They're not spinning up. What do I mean by spinning up? That's where the air tasking orders go out — you tell this squadron, these are your targets, this is where you're going to hit, this is when you're going to launch. A lot of that is pre-programmed, but you don't just grab a plan from six or eight weeks ago and say, "Okay, it was good then, let's launch." No, you have to go through and check them. That's how they got into trouble with killing those girls at the school at al-Mawasi on February 28th. They used existing plans that had been drawn up with dated information. They hadn't updated it, they hadn't checked it. So now I think one of the consequences of that is that for new air tasking orders, they have to go in and verify and double-check.
It was instructive that Trump didn't waste any time getting on the phone with Netanyahu. But Netanyahu was telling the exact opposite — that he's not listening to Trump, while Trump was claiming that Netanyahu listened to him. We'll know whether or not the attacks continue in Beirut and in southern Lebanon. If they do, I think we're going to see Iran strike Israel within the next 24 hours.
Israel's Strategy and the Limits of US Influence
Glenn Diesen: Well, this should have been the key lesson from the war — that the Iranians are able to deter by going up the escalation ladder with the United States. So this whole idea that the US and Israel can simply say, "We'll do a limited ceasefire, we won't strike Beirut if you don't hit Israel," but it's open season on the southern parts of Lebanon — the idea that they would be able to decide how the war should be fought, there are no indications that Iran would go along with this. This seems very predictable. But what do you think is the calculation now in Tel Aviv? Are the Israelis bombing Lebanon deliberately to prevent Trump from making any extended ceasefire or peace deal with the Iranians, or is this just them going along with their usual business?
Larry Johnson: Yeah, I think it's a combination of the two. I don't think it's either/or. They're convinced that they can beat Hezbollah, or they think they can, and that's why they want to bomb and destroy that suburb. As Katz and Ben-Gvir were saying — flatten it, flatten it, flatten it, give it the Gaza treatment.
But the thing we're seeing now with the tactics that Hezbollah has employed — the first-person-point-of-view drones that are fiber optic — number one, they are immune to electronic warfare countermeasures. Number two, the drone operators don't have to expose themselves. It's not like 2006 when they were firing an RPG from the shoulder. You had to get out and be visible. If you could see the tank, the tank could see you, and they lost some personnel that way. These fiber-optic FPV drones reduce Hezbollah's casualties, and the operators usually get to work from underground bunkers.
As for the volume of casualties — I don't know what percentage are killed versus wounded. Some public sources suggest it's well over a thousand wounded. The official death toll was listed at around 24, but I think that's entirely too low. An estimated 400 Merkava tanks have been destroyed. That's a lot of tanks. Israel has a couple of thousand, but this is still a significant loss. And if you're losing tanks, you're losing personnel — whether killed or wounded.
Hezbollah is not going to stop this until Israel withdraws from southern Lebanon and goes back into northern Israel. And that brings back Iran's threat, telling people to get out of northern Israel because they're going to hit it. You don't tell people to vacate an area just because you're trying to create business for a moving company. They're going to hit it.
Glenn Diesen: I saw that Israeli National Security Minister Ben-Gvir was making the point that they should say yes to the United States when possible and no when necessary. His argument was that when it comes to attacking Lebanon, it's time to say no to the American president — that this is something Israel will do irrespective of what Trump says. Which can be seen as another way of pulling the United States back into the war, because if they intensify the attacks on Lebanon, Iran will then retaliate. Do you think there's any chance the Americans will sit on the sideline?
Larry Johnson: Yeah, I think initially yes. Because America doesn't have any good military options. According to Robert Barnes — and I think Barnes has good enough contacts still, despite being seen as a critic of Trump now, having been Trump's lawyer — he said that Trump was terrified of getting back into a Jimmy Carter situation where you have American hostages being held in Iran. Because day one, day two, day three, the news media starts keeping track of how long they're being held hostage, which becomes a measure of your own incompetence. So Trump is not eager to get back into that.
And Iran has become pretty adept at shooting down drones. If you can shoot down a drone, you can potentially also take down an F-16, an F-18, an F-35, an F-22, or an A-10. Those are the five major categories of aircraft in theater.
Glenn Diesen: Well, Trump took to social media as well. He was making the point that because of his call to Netanyahu, they're not going to march on Beirut. So essentially he took care of business. But where did that come from? Who was talking about marching on Beirut?
Larry Johnson: Yeah, I mean, the last time Israel did that was 1982 — 44 years ago. They've done it before. They go up, get picked off, killed and wounded, and then retreat back into Israel.
Diplomatic Collapse and the Nuclear Question
Glenn Diesen: But what is the negotiation tactic here? Because it looks like Trump is sabotaging himself at times. They're trying to move along the negotiations with the Iranians, and then suddenly Trump decides to escalate the demands of the United States when the initial demands weren't acceptable to the Iranians anyway. It's not as if the Israelis are alone in sabotaging these talks — he seems to be doing quite well on his own. There are eerie parallels with the negotiations with the Russians over Ukraine, because the Iranian position has been unchanged since the outset of the war. They laid out their ten-point and fourteen-point plan — immediate sanctions relief, return the frozen assets, recognize their control of the Strait of Hormuz, delay comments on the nuclear program. They haven't deviated from that. It's the United States that keeps trying to change what we're going to talk about. And Iran thought they actually had some agreement on that, and then the United States walked it back again.
Larry Johnson: Yeah, that's why Iran withdrew. The frustration with Trump, coupled with the actions of Israel in Lebanon that have become untenable — they've killed close to 4,000 people now just in the last four weeks. This ceasefire really went into effect around April 15th, so it's lasted about seven weeks. But now Iran has been dealing with the United States trying to get ships through the Strait of Hormuz, which has led to new confrontations and to Iran hitting the base in Kuwait.
Notice it doesn't appear that any of these flights are originating out of Saudi Arabia or Qatar. If they were, Iran would be targeting those bases. So far, the only country it's targeting is Kuwait. And I'm told this has been one of the issues being worked behind the scenes with the Pakistanis, the Saudis, and the Qataris — they're negotiating to get the US out of the Persian Gulf. If you get this new security architecture, sort of a NATO-light for West Asia, which would include Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Pakistan as the big four, then Iraq could join in as well, along with Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, and Oman — making them all jointly responsible for security with no US presence.
Glenn Diesen: Well, the NATO analogy might not be ideal, because in a security arrangement like NATO, you typically have country A and B seeking security against country C — which was Russia in NATO's case. But in this other security arrangement being discussed in the Middle East, it's not security against a non-member but security with the other members. I don't think anyone would suspect that Iran and Saudi Arabia would ally against the United States. So it is different. But I agree — I think this is very significant and it's in the interest of Iran as well to reduce the zero-sum aspect of this.
So what do you think is the significance of Iran walking away from these talks? I sometimes think about the way Trump was negotiating with the tariffs — first he'd say "I'll put 50% tariffs on you," then he'd scale it back to 15%, and the counterpart should walk away feeling happy even though there was nothing there before. It seems a little like that's what was tried with Lebanon: "Okay, we're not going to bomb the southern suburbs of Beirut, so now Iran should be happy — at least we'll give you that, and you should meet us halfway and let us bomb the hell out of southern Lebanon." But the Iranians walking away — they've so far kept talks open for a variety of reasons. They were willing to talk to the Americans. Do you think this is just a pressure tactic, or have they given up on diplomacy?
Larry Johnson: No, I think they've reached a moment of clear break. If the United States is not going to be serious, they're not going to stay tied to this.
Pepe Escobar and I received some information the other day. We have it, and Pepe is in the process of confirming it. What we heard was that last Friday, the foreign minister of Pakistan spoke to Marco Rubio and told him in no uncertain terms: here is where Iran is right now. If this does not get resolved, Iran is going to withdraw from the talks — which has now happened — it's going to withdraw from the NPT, the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and it's going to set a date for the detonation of a nuclear device.
Now, when I went to process that, I asked: are you saying that Iran has its own nuclear device now, or have they been given one by another country like Pakistan or North Korea? Our source said he would get back to me. So that's one thing we're trying to verify. But so far, what we were told on Friday about them withdrawing from the process — they did that today. That turned out to be true. We'll see if the NPT thing is true. And if those two things are both true, then I'm going to say they may not be bluffing about the other. I can't confirm that yet, but it shows that the frustration level with Iran is real.
And they are not acting alone — they've had the full backing of China and Russia up to this point. The Chinese are working primarily through Pakistan, so Pakistan has played a lead role. This has created some confusion in the West, because people say, "Well, Pakistan is so closely aligned with the United States." And that has been true historically — going back to the 1950s with the CIA, the role Pakistan played in supporting CIA operations against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and all the Pakistani contractors who made millions off the US government trucking supplies from Karachi into Afghanistan to support the 20-year US presence there.
But there's also been a close relationship between Pakistan and Iran, particularly in fighting against the Baluchis. The Baloch population and the Baloch movement has been a thorn in the side of both Pakistan and Iran, and they've actually cooperated on that. And then there's Pakistan's relationship with the Saudis — they've actually signed a security deal with the Saudis in the last two or three weeks.
What's happening is that the ineffectiveness of the US military attack on Iran has awakened a lot of doubts about the reliability of the United States. That's having a rippling effect across a variety of these different relationships. This same source also told us that the Saudis, Qataris, and Oman have made a decision to distance themselves from the United States. Qatar is talking about closing Al Udeid Air Force Base. That would be huge if it takes place, because that is the largest US base in that region — and has been for about 30 years. This thing is in flux. But the fact that Iran withdrew from the process — we were told on Friday that was going to happen, and it did today. So that source got that right. I can't tell you about the other two yet.
Glenn Diesen: Well, I truly hope they're not going to use a nuclear device. That would be very disruptive, and it would alienate their partners. Also, they've been scoring a lot of points in terms of how people view Iran. I've never seen this kind of support for Iran. This was unthinkable. I remember 20-odd years ago during the invasion of Iraq — if anyone had said there would be this much sympathy for Iran, it would have been very hard to believe.
But I can understand why the Iranians are at least walking away from these talks now, saying enough is enough. It's worth remembering that the US agreed to use Iran's ten-point plan as a point of departure and then walked it all back. And now they're slowly introducing more and more violence — a little bit like in Gaza, where there's a ceasefire but they still kill Palestinians every day. Now essentially it's the same thing with the attacks on Lebanon. There is no real ceasefire. What they're demanding from the Iranians is: you live by your commitments while we walk away from ours.
Larry Johnson: Right. And let me emphasize — they weren't talking about using a nuclear device against somebody. It was to demonstrate "we've got it, so leave us alone" — as a deterrent against a future attack. That was how I understood the intent. But again, we don't know if it's their own device or if it's been provided — we know North Korea has been providing some missiles. I got into a discussion about this, and I said, well, Iran can't hit the United States. But if the latest missile that North Korea has been providing — if they've given that to Iran — from Tehran, that missile covers the distance to San Francisco. So they absolutely could hit New York or Washington DC.
We're getting into some territory that sounds extreme, but put yourself in their position. We know how America reacts when we get attacked on 9/11 and perceive a foreign threat — we go around the world to track down and kill the people responsible. So why do we think Iran won't do the same thing?
Escalation Scenarios and Economic Consequences
Glenn Diesen: What do you think is likely to happen now? Iran has said they're walking away from the talks and has more or less warned that they are prepared to retaliate against Israel. I don't see any way to get back on the diplomatic track now. The most likely scenario seems to be that Iran begins to launch missiles towards Israel, the US will then have to decide whether or not it gets pulled back in, and then we're back into full all-out war.
Larry Johnson: Yeah, we may very well be headed there. And only this time the growing economic pressures on the global economy will become more and more important. Trump has been playing games with the oil situation, asserting that America is energy independent. Well, we're not. Yes, with light crude — we're energy independent with that, but that's used to make gasoline and maybe aviation fuel, and that price is going up because there's about a 20% shortage around the world.
But diesel comes from heavy crude, and the United States is a net importer of that. It imports from Mexico and from Canada — Canada has been the number one source. Venezuela used to get it from the Saudis. It could have gotten it from the Russians, but we stopped trading with Russia on that. And Russia is sending more of it to China. So here in the States — I don't know what the situation is for you in Norway — the discrepancy between your petrol price and your diesel price is about a dollar fifty to two dollars, because diesel has to be processed differently and comes from a different source. As that price continues to go up, this is where we get into the impact on the global economy.
You've got the price of computer chips going through the roof. Why? Because 44% of the helium used to make computer chips came out of Qatar, and it's not coming out anymore. Without the helium, you don't make computer chips. So this whole economic cloud hanging over the world will be another factor here. We're in unprecedented territory. We don't have any historical example to point to. There's never been a period in modern history — at least none I can recall — where you've lost 25% of the liquid natural gas supply, 20% of the oil, 35% of the urea and sulfur used to make fertilizer, and 44% of the helium, all at once. These go to different sectors of the economy. Never have we had that kind of shock.
And now, against the backdrop of this war, instead of being on the cusp of peace, we're going back to war. That is the signal — unless we get a complete reversal in position. But we've got the IRGC spokesman telling people in northern Israel to get out for their own safety. I would take that seriously.
Glenn Diesen: Now, it doesn't seem like a bluff — it wouldn't make any sense for it to be one. But my last question is about Israel. Why this enthusiasm to restart the war with Iran? As I understand it, even from statements from the IDF, they are very overextended. And they also know that the United States, irrespective of any will to support Israel, doesn't actually have the capabilities — the 40-year war drained the US to a large extent. If the US can't achieve its objectives in terms of defeating Iran, and the Israelis are already overextended, why go into this? There's a lot to lose here in what appears to be quite predictably a losing bet.
Larry Johnson: Okay, so your problem is that you are a rational, logical person. You don't think with emotion. I'm not saying you're unemotional, but you know the difference between your brain and your heart. Israel doesn't.
From my own personal experience having worked with them and done some training — I did some training for Israeli police about 20 years ago — there is an arrogance factor where they just assume that they know more than you, that they're smarter than you, and that they know what they're doing. Even if you could objectively sit down and show them that they're wrong, they won't listen. They don't think things through two or three steps ahead.
Let me illustrate with something as simple as a semi-automatic pistol. Anybody familiar with one knows it has a magazine that holds ammunition. You insert the magazine, grab the back of the slide, pull it back and release it like a slingshot, and it chambers a round. The Israeli army trains everybody not to do that. They walk around with an unloaded gun and wait until they have a threat, at which point they pull it out and quickly cycle it to chamber a round. The reason they do that is their training is so poor that in the past people would shoot themselves because they'd put their finger on the trigger when they weren't supposed to. So instead of properly training them, they came up with this workaround. I can show them with a stopwatch that doing it that way adds at least half a second from when you draw to when you can engage a target. And if that target is within arm's length of you, when you're up there trying to cycle your gun, they can grab it.
That same mentality transfers over to the broader strategic picture. "Oh yeah, we're going to go in and kill Hezbollah, we'll stop them." And you say, "But they've got more fortifications underground after 2006, and now they're using FPV drones with fiber-optic cable — you're going to face a tougher fight." And the response is, "No, no, no, they're no good." They always underestimate the enemy. I don't know if that helps explain it, but that's been my experience with them.
Live Escalation: Iran Strikes US-Israeli Ship
Glenn Diesen: I see up on my screen here that Iran's IRGC has announced it targeted a US-Israeli MSC Sarissa ship with a cruise missile. So yeah —
Larry Johnson: Here we go. Here we go.
Glenn Diesen: Here we go. Well, it seems at least more likely than not that this escalation cannot be stopped now. Again, I hope I'm wrong. Thanks again — I know you have a lot of commitments today, so I'll let you go. Thanks again for your time.
Larry Johnson: Hey, my friend. I always appreciate the invitation, Glenn. Thank you so much.