to answer that more i was joined earlier by jim di he's the policy director for the national iranian american council i first asked him if we should be surprised that the fuel for these afghan security forces could be coming from iran. i don't know that it comes as too much of a surprise no matter how much you isolate iran economically the fact the matter is iran is going to remain on the physical border of afghanistan it's not going away and so when you have you know tens of thousands of troops amassed there there is a potential that you can end up relying on iran for certain goods certain energy resources so i don't think this is a surprise it's when we've actually seen before in i think december november of last year it actually was revealed that the pentagon is dependent on iran for antivenom in you know anti snake venom. medicine for troops and there was this it was revealed and it's sort of became a controversy that ok potentially we're also violating our own sanctions in order to treat wounds that u.s. troops experience in afghanistan because of snakebites and again what do you do about that y

policy director for the national iranian american council thank you so much for joining us thank you. still ahead here on our t.v. today hillary clinton serves her last day has secretary of state coming up we'll take a look at her tenure as america's top diplomat and examine her legacy. let me let me i want to know will let me ask you a question. here on this network is what we're having a debate we have our knives out. to do this right space thing there's again here in this story we're being racist talk about the surveillance me. moving on to turkey to now two people are dead after a suicide bomber attacked an american embassy and carra a turkish guard and the visiting turkish journalist were the victims the obama administration has now called this an act of terror turkey's interior minister says that the bomber was a known member of the leftist radical group known as the revolutionary people's liberation party front he went on to say that the motive may have been different then motives of as militants now this comes on the same day that hillary clinton steps down from her post as se

. >> will speak with president of the national iranian american council. and historian on the largest and unconventional life of misses paul robeson. this is "democracy now!," democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. the vatican has announced pope an addict will step down as head of the catholic church later this month. it's a surprise move makes benedict the first pontiff to resign in nearly six centuries his policy has been marked by a range of issues and a number of child molestation scandal and the catholic church including allegations he ignored at least one case of abuse while serving as a cardinal. in a statement, benedict, 85, cited ill health of some reason for his departure. the conclave to elect a new pope will be held by the end of march. president obama reportedly is preparing to announce new reductions to the country's arsenal of nuclear weapons. in his state of the union address tuesday night, obama is expected to announce plans to cut the number of deployed warheads to just over 1000. one-third reduction from the current

from the national iranian american council says washington is so addicted to punishing iran it's forgotten why it's doing it what we need to remember is that the same sions are supposed to be. protecting us national security interests the problem is that we have lost sight of what those sanctions are supposed to achieve the same ones have become sort of an interest unto themselves we've lost sight of the fact that so actions are supposed to be sort of a tactical form of getting leverage over iran that is then used at the negotiating table to try to carve out a deal to try to you know have something to offer and give and take and they've become a strategic objective unto themselves if you look at the last twenty years of. u.s. policy on iran we haven't actually achieved the whole of why we've done a lot of things in terms of we continue rons economy and sort of ratcheting up the pressure but iran centrifuges are still still spinning we're on the precipice of a war and now with stan we're facing these really tough questions about can we continue to be enemies with iran and not engaging with

and in the meantime a beef in the national iranian american council he says that washington are so addicted to punishing iran that it's ultimately forgotten why it's doing it in the first place what we need to remember is that the same sions are supposed to be. protecting us national security interests the problem is that we have lost sight of what those sanctions are supposed to achieve the same ones have become sort of an interest unto themselves we've lost sight of the fact that sanctions are supposed to be sort of a tactical form of getting leverage over iran that is then used at the negotiating table to try to carve out a deal to try to you know have something to offer and give and take and they become a strategic objective unto themselves if you look at the last ten years. u.s. policy on iran we haven't actually achieved a whole lot we've done a lot of things in terms of we can in iran's economy and sort of ratcheting up the pressure but iran centrifuges are still still spinning we're on the precipice of a war and now with afghanistan we're facing these really tough questions about ca

iran economically into another you know north korea to malabo a policy director for the national iranian american council thank you so much for joining us thank you. from afghanistan to cuba now where the judge overseeing the second round of pretrial hearings for the nine eleven terror suspects has ordered the u.s. government to remove the offstage censorship equipment from the court room army colonel james poles decision to remove the equipment came after the white noise machine was suddenly activated in a pretrial hearing without the consent of judge poll earlier this week in happened when the defense attorney mentioned the names of several secret cia prisons overseas where the five defendants were held before they were taken to guantanamo bay it turns out that an identified a security officials outside of the courtroom could censor the proceedings that the public and the media view on a forty second delay colonel cole went on to say quote this is the last time that any party other than a security officer inside the courtroom who works for the military commission will be permitted to unilaterally decid