nine not that the u.s. and u.k. didn't stop trying margaret thatcher's pal ronald reagan began to supply us saddam hussein with weapons to attack iran with saddam's massacres against his own people they were terrible and procure one hundred thousand people. used an objective fact the reagan administration blocked efforts in congress even to protest against and furthermore the support for saddam increased and continued in fact saddam was given an extraordinary privilege remarkable he was allowed he got away with attacking a u.s. naval vessel and killing thirty seven soldiers yes the u.s. didn't even seem to mind having its own soldiers killed by the leader which future pentagon boss donald rumsfeld delivered w n d to iraq but iran wasn't defeated in the iran iraq war by the time rumsfeld was helping tony blair destroy iraq iran's role in the region was significantly strengthened with allies in the international

nonaligned movement the most recently sent emergency supplies to save the people of one of the richest pick up in nations on earth as it was blockaded by british backed saudi arabia today though it is backed by the international community iran is again normal collision course with the usa on the dollar trump had ministration has acted decisively to confront the world's leading state sponsor of terror the radical regime in iran. it is a radical. regime well joining me now via skype from alter is ahmed with salvia professor of political science at the university of test run and thanks so much for coming on i know you're in sabbatical usually in tehran take us back forty years why did students and workers really think they could overthrow a u.s. u.k. back dictator who had run that country for decades and since the coup.

yes so are mohammad reza pahlavi commonly known as the uranian shar was a dictator but also at the same time he was a tool of imperialism or at these he was seen as a tool for imperialism especially american imperialism in the region the united states was giving iran a lot of advanced weaponry in iran was essentially the police of the middle east for on behalf of the united states and this angered a lot of people especially students. the middle class as well as even even even the academic of the to iran who were angry that iran was very close to israel which was not in sync with iran's character in the ideology of the people. but also iran was used as a tool to suppress both domestic protests as well as in a degree yes on the suppression give give us a kind of idea of the scale of the killing and torture by the british and american

backed death squads. ok so so when the second charge mohammad was a ballot he came into power after the second world war initially he wasn't as repressive as as he became during the sixty's and seventy's but he especially became group oppressive after the one nine hundred fifty three coup by the americans and the british. members of other he was only thirty something at the time and very inexperienced and the americans essentially using the cia and the british using the m i six they staged a coup d'etat in iran in one thousand nine hundred eighty three then over the through the democratically elected my met mossad death before the coup the iranian oil sector was completely controlled by the british and after the coup because of the role of the americans essentially uranian oil was divided in three parts forty percent for the british forty percent for the americans and twenty percent for

other countries in one thousand nine hundred fifty seven the united states what the help of the israeli mossad helped form the secret police of the shar known as the sun harp and this of ark was it was very brutal in its tactics i mean it tortured people students women and these were actually armed documented by many international organisations nevertheless the united states showed a blind eye to all of this they only acknowledged it and criticized it years later so i thought golly there though you're in canada so you know about the me too were going on in north america i thought her only talking about the revolution forty years ago said women were at the forefront of the revolutionary movement quite apart from the cross class nature of it why were women at the heart of this revolution the group that was perhaps the most oppressed for the women i'm it's

interesting to note that the true. the rate among adult women in iran in one nine hundred seventy nine was only about twenty two percent saw only less than one fourth of the female population in iran even knew how to read so you can imagine what the situation of women was like and comparatively speaking in the past forty years under the trees the rate of woman has gone up from twenty two percent to about eighty two percent arms all of the women in the revolution they were very angry with the shah with his imperialist policies and with the place of women in domestic society of course the situation of women even today is not ideal but i think it's perhaps on the right path you are probably observing from there. to in venezuela or iran as close to cuba or through things the revolution what advice do you think people in iran or the top of their revolution today would be talking

saying to venezuela or about being able to cope with an embargo like the suggesting the u.s. is suggesting the americans especially the liberals constantly claim that they are in support of democracy and the right to self-determination abroad nevertheless we have seen this continuation of u.s. foreign policy all over the world whether in south america or in the middle east where they completely our music all their means and power to undermine democratically elected leaders now what is interesting is that if we look at the experience of the past two decades where ever the americans have gone for regime changes what they call it the results have been completely and utterly destructive in terrible because of course here in britain or we hear about. the case of someone who worked the b.b.c. media reaction unit of the day but they did b.b.c.

around the world news in. in jail in iran we don't really hear about this revolution and. imperial power was over iran before the revolution one of the things that we should consider when talking about such issues is that there is a lot of espionage and a lot of pressure on iran right now and especially in the past decade one of the classified documents that was revealed by julian aside i mean this can be actually searched is a map that shows the amount of espionage the united states carries out in different countries around the world and if you look at that classified map iran and pakistan have the highest amount of u.s. intelligence gathering the united states and the united kingdom had this history in iran especially the m i six in the cia of deceiving people of intervening of creating khuda taz of paying people in this is very much documented. in academic

circles well there obviously been a huge advances in civilisation indicators that maternal mortality and whatever since the revolution but inequality has been rising in recent years do you think ironically as some people are saying a door trumps renewal of saying actions will bring iran again closer together whereas under obama and the relaxation of some things and there was a certain increasing of inequality some people made more money than than the masses . i'm so so so the reigning revolution has been successful in some aspects for example literacy rate has gone up from about thirty two percent in one nine hundred seventy nine to or ninety percent today the number of students that you know versus it is has gone up by more than twenty five times which is

a staggering number never that's one of the issues that iran has faced a lot of challenges and has perhaps been not very successful is inequality we have to consider the fact that sanctions alten you heard the iranian nation the most not the reigning state in that suffering the suffering of the lower classes is the most significant so this whole issue of the washington saying that you know we support the iranian people but we oppose this state is very hypocritical because i mean the sanctions are hurting the average iranian. also the second issue is that unfortunately iran is economy is very much dependent on oil it was this was the case before the revolution unfortunately it has been the case in the past four decades. and the result of that is that when oil prices are high in also when iran has access to the market then iran's economy is doing well because they are selling

a lot of oil but when the price of oil goes down or where and they are there are sanctions like the current circumstances then the revenue of the government declined significantly and just very briefly what do we the make of the iranian threat now to respond to any donald trump bow and the provocation with shutting down the entire persian gulf let alone destroying the whole of israel. the whole campaign of putting pressure on iran in print lead there is a lot of pressure it can only go on to some extent in the sense that iran has been showing a lot of restraint in the past nine months even though the trumpet ministration decided to withdraw from the dream and iran has not withdrawn from the agreement and perhaps this is something that these rabies want now if this trend continues and we see mounting pressure on iran especially regarding the sale of oil is especially since oil is the lifeline of iran's economy not allowing iran to export

it would essentially chalky iran's economy then it would be not viable for iran to continue in the deal in of course we are going to see responses by iran as well what their political economical or even military is especially if there is a provocation on the side of the americans and the israelis if this happens however this is going to be terrible for the region and i think it's going to be bad both for iran and the united states perhaps the only party that is going to benefit from this is the israelis or as a member of the everything very much of a reg when the bankers he's going to find out as others face famine is beyond the development banks we'll ask a former u.n. economic commission all of them are coming over by two of going on the ground.

the swarms of them so much. good news who was before. much of those who heard the food you must never see him with. who were going to. move. move with a thief. who showed you this new beautiful little. good looker a good. move just like most of these girls will give you phones for good girls. the british will say look but to assume you believe this will be stored or to actually go. to start ups to get it to need to fill it with the little mist thanks you look it is with. him stashed in understand just moved

there mashed on truck to stop the president on its control this morning comes to. those we have producers to post news for to snoop to come up to me with because that is the cousin with you swear you supporters to your machine station shouldn't be you should cook door for one who's devoted to the. country has gone into a nihilistic fever best trying to think and they got hit the road and get out the traveling across america to find what makes america take them to charlotte isn't this the genius of this question especially american hero this is every time they point about how much ultimate is going to something we always are on the bridge just a lot less hold down a culture parking lot. we're starting last

with. the beginning heading east into the swamp we're going into the belly of the beast i think i'm. getting more on that maybe completely different to. what politicians do. they put themselves on the line they get accepted or rejected . so when you want to be president and. somehow want to. have to go right to the press it's like the. three of them or people. interested always in the waters about how. they should.

welcome back of a tourism a bricks that defeat on thursday paves the way for a korban government what will be his economic strategy for britain central apparently will be a u.k. state bank advising corbin's shadow chancellor john mcdonald is a former un in the new official who worked with the again day government in chile before it was overthrown a pioneer of economic research whose latest book is co edited with nobel laureate joe stiglitz professor stephanie griffith jones financial markets program director at columbia university joins me now after the launch of an initiative with mcdonnell in the past few days stephanie welcome to going underground i understand you've been hanging out with the shadow chancellor of the exchequer what does he think of your wrists and wook on national development banks first of all i'm delighted to be here. has been very interested in the research of this book because he's thinking of creating an ambitious national investment. and he wants

to learn from the international experience to big advantage actually to be a late comer because the british can learn from the good and bad lessons mainly the good lessons from the international experience countries like germany the most successful country in europe has got this massive national development bank w france china south korea canada most developed countries have them many middle income countries have them and the u.k. is very much an outlier it's a sort of lone. among for example the g seven european countries that is really the only one that doesn't have a proper national development bank and so i think labor's proposal is is is straight in the mainstream in that sense is is is perfectly correct because if you have an ambitious program of structural transformation to green the economy to make

it more inclusive to to develop the poor areas of this country you need instruments to do that and the national investment bank would be a very powerful instrument to do that you know of course the real chance of extract a field when the learn to resume would say to you what are you talking about we already have a world we've got the british business started by vince cable used to be on this show a lot. of your ideas new as role models it's very small or if you have a list of the national development banks worldwide it's not even manage it's peanuts i think is done some good things and it would be a very small base but this is much more ambitious i mean in the long term they were thinking of about twenty five billion of paid in tapetum and the rest of the money will be raised on the markets but this is within ten years we would have a bank of twenty five billion and i think in the medium term we should be forty billion pounds to be equivalent to care w.

the space successful german development bank to britain go. the british business bank rate those around two hundred million million so it's a little p.r. operation oh i think they do some good things there but you slow but you know it's nothing compared to the level of investment and the problem is that the u.k. has the lowest investment amongst the seven among o.e.c.d. countries and how it has had so for a long time and it's got worse with austerity and the tory government when you say it's an outlier why do you think britain is an outlier you don't think it's because there's a huge amount of opposition to this idea from some interests in the city of london i think on a sort of intellectual level the right always used to talk about efficient private financial markets it sounds a bit of a joke after the global financial crisis so that argument is quite discredited but i think you completely right that the powerful interests of the city have been traditionally against it but yet the way we see it and we discussed this exactly

this launch is the literature the journalist shadow chancellor and we both agree that it's very much a complement with the private financial sector and of course with the private non-finite sector because although the capital is public if you take a bank like the cave w. european investment bank they actually loans are funded on the private capital markets and they lend mainly to private companies so it's a way of collaboration between the private in the public sector which is creative where you trying to to lies the best in both worlds as you said clearly very mainstream but if i'm dreaming champagne in a bar in the city of london already i'm a bit angry that i mean r.b.s. is still partly owned by the british taxpayer right now obviously labor and conservative government have been trying to privatise the post office which is kind of a bank i mean what's to stop a very successful bank that your foreseeing with that capitalization from taking over one of the private banks that failed but that may fail in the future. well i

think that it's not just necessarily a good idea to use existing failed banks i think it's better to build a new constitution with each of us it should be full not of financial engineers inventing silly derivatives that are dangerous for the economy but real engineers scientists people who know about risk management and to the newer ship who will work together with the private sector and with the financial markets to develop the new projects of the future who will take risks but not through financial risks but technical risks we want a u.k. economy that is on the forefront of innovation for the people of this country but you also know that i know it sounds odd to be talking about corruption given that interest libel rates were so obviously fraudulently done in the city there is another fear that people your point to any national bank of the kind you envisage

could be hanging out with vested interests that are very powerful which leads to corruption i think that's a real or a specialist in the subject given your latin american experience of your i think that's a very important point would win favor is good development banks which are well governed which are independent of government they serve government policy but they don't serve narrow public government interests of particular persons they work very closely with the private sector but again they're not captured by the private sector which is as corrupt if not more than governments and therefore you need to have this clever balancing whereby development bank is arm's length from the government but fulfills broad government policy but the government will not tell it led to this individual that would be done on on a strict risk assessment and on a technical assess for example the european investment bank has a shadow carbon price so the project is commercially attractive but it's going to

damage the environment very much it will not fund it. yeah environment as well knows as at the heart of it but then of previous labor leader and prime minister gordon brown wanted to create something independent the bank of england i don't know what your views of the former goldman sachs banker work on he was predicting problems maybe ahead for this country the bank of england is supposed to be independent and that's come under some controversy over its independence or whether it sees the world in the way that you want a national developer back i'm not a big fan of a central bank in paris i think it's been a bit overrated especially if it's combined with only having an inflation target i think the u.k. should have much more interest on growth and employment as the us fed us so but i think when you come when you analyze this development of course it should work well of course they should be transparent and accountable they should have a we are proposing and labor's proposing as well the first amp or there should be

trade union representatives consumer presenters on the board as well as government representative and they see me so it and that is a process that is transparent but you know i find it very annoying when when the conservative people criticize these banks as potentially corrupt when there is so much corruption and lack of transparency in private finance i mean if you ever gone on the web page of a hedge fund it has zero information that the u.s. is also an outlier arguably but that's a constitutional reason maybe way doesn't it maybe it's again a bit ideologically the u.s. doesn't have in its tradition a public investment bank of course housing has been heavily dominated by government institutions and the number of states that have development banks and the left wing democrats are working also on and on and a national investment bank it would have a very bizarre fight between the the say the bank of england and this national

development it would be five it would be working together i mean labor. has developed a framework where they would collaborate and indeed they want to change the the mandate of the bank of england so that focuses not just inflation but on things like productivity or growth work early we're good at say already concentrated but his mandate is mainly inflation menu station. but he now it would have much more real economy monday and it would try and direct also the credit from private banks a bit more towards the real economy because one of the speakers in the launch of this book yes. made the point that only ten percent ten percent of total bank lending in the u.k. today goes to corporate lending most of it goes to basically speculative activities within the financial sector or to mortgage lending so you know and that is a moment merely to rich people you know making of things you know making of things and this is the beauty of this investment i visit them and all the people you talk

to interested in improving the real economy that's what they live for you know and they're experts and they work with the companies. of my previous launch in paris the head of the b.p.i. france the development bank front said you know we want to make the intrapreneur as dreams come true and we want them to dream more you know it's how you stimulate entrepreneurship have you stimulate innovation how you work with the private sector but it's not for short term profit you know this is a that's the other thing that's very important about these banks is the raise long term money and they lend long term because you need this kind of long term patient mature capital you don't need speculative. credits for three months or six months we're trying to maximize your profit and your bonuses for your traders here so it's a completely different criteria and you channeling the money from the private

sector for example from pension funds which are of course very long term especially for young people like you. you know so you want to i'm sure some pension fund managers are we likely worried about this and why do they prefer to invest in speculation of goes wrong lehman brothers and that kind of hedge fund or do they preferred investing in green infrastructure. you know like like say care w that's i think a very interesting thing it was a cave w. catalyzed completely lending to the solar sector there was no private lynch german in germany and then the chinese took it the chinese development bank which is a trivial amount of two trillion dollars of assets two trillion dollars of course it's a very big economy. they took the idea they helped develop the help the government developed the policy framework and then they lend massively for solar and in between germany and china they have managed to reduce dramatically the cost of

solar by about seventy five percent which is making solar competitive with fossil fuel again which is five if this hasn't frightened the city of london who are happy with the status quo with the possibility of a bank like that issuing their own currencies or security instruments no really terrify the private no no on the contrary they would they for example the european investment bank if they issued bonds which are in high demand all the institutional investors chasing them because they're safe they would have a rating which is the u.k. current rating the cave of it has to play a rating and investors love it i mean the city wouldn't there's no reason why the city should be afraid i mean this is about crowding in private investors it's not about crowding out here it would give them a new row and therefore a new business it just was channel the funds towards things that are useful society because we need a financial sector the serve society not that undermines the economy we don't want

something where the private sector makes a profit and and the public sector. takes the risk professor step to give a chance thank you that's of the show will be back on wednesday with the u.n. independent expert. on u.k. attacks on venezuela. twenty eight years to the day the british backed war planes launched laser guided bombs at the air raid shelter in baghdad incinerating four hundred eight civilians men women and children. simply. didn't have been miles from. that day. we were meeting

they. were sort of my love and respect him to me or the now with jamie as a hunk on the only. now at the five. am only for that matter i see let him to make the point of me or the enemy merrill have been closer here not because of me. change going in venezuela a few snags a few bumps in the road and can we believe some u.s. troops will leave the middle east and much much more in this edition of crossfire.

top stories on venezuela's president. initiate. in preparation for a possible u.s. military intervention. with efforts to rebuild the war torn iraq a city of mosul under way the situation on the ground remains locals told us the

city is.