This is a RUSH transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," November 12, 2013. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
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O'REILLY: "Impact Segment" tonight. Still no deal between Iran and the rest of the world over nuclear weapons -- apparently Iran agreed to expanded access to U.N. nuclear inspectors but not to total access. Reports say that American and Great Britain would have taken the partial access but the French -- the French said no, so the deal collapsed.
Joining us now from Washington with his assessment -- Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters, author of the novel "Hell or Richmond." Now the problem with this story Colonel for me is that I'm getting second-hand reports. I don't really know what happened in the room. And the second-hand reports make America look weak and France look strong. Do you think that's the case?
LT. COL. RALPH PETERS, FOX NEWS STRATEGIC ANALYST: Well I think it not only makes America look weak but it makes us look foolish. Now you're right it's second-hand, third-hand, fourth-hand reports.
So what you've got do Bill is put the jigsaw puzzle together from European reports, Iranian claims, American claims, Kerry's spin and when you do that, I think it becomes pretty clear. The European Union and the American diplomats were willing to accept a deal just to have a deal. Iran gave up really nothing. And we would lose sanctions.
Kerry interrupted his Middle East trip, flies to Geneva expecting to get off the plane, do the photo-op and sign the deal and thank God the French Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister, obviously with President Hollande, a socialist government by the way, said no. This is stupid. Iran is not giving up anything and threw a monkey wrench into the works. Then Kerry tries desperately to go back one time, more time to Iranians with the French demands that's when the Iranians say no, no, no and Kerry flies home.
O'REILLY: Ok.
PETERS: But the bottom line is this. You can't give the Iranians a free lunch just because they're willing to talk to us.
O'REILLY: But let's get very specific so folks know what we're talking about because nobody is in the dopey meetings in Switzerland. The crux of the matter is that Iran wouldn't provide the U.N. inspectors -- and that makes me nervous that we're depending on them. All of the facilities they say, you can see -- you can see some of them but you can't see all of them.
So what we're -- what we're getting told is that that President Obama and Cameron, the British prime minister would have said ok. It seems to me impossible to believe they would sign off on a deal that wouldn't allow the U.N. inspectors to look at all the nuclear facilities. That seems impossible to believe, Colonel.
PETERS: Well, one, I think we can all agree that a serious deal with Iran that had real teeth in stopping a nuclear program would certainly be better than military action. But the Obama administration is desperate for positive headlines after the debacle of Obamacare and frankly you want the facts about what Iran was not going to do, they were going to basically look in the shop windows and not enter the store and certainly not look in the stock room. We couldn't go into the (inaudible) complex, the parking military complex.
O'REILLY: I know, I know.
PETERS: And couldn't see any of the deep underground bunkers, the new rumored facility northeast of Tehran. We were going to look at some old centrifuges.
(CROSSTALK)
O'REILLY: But Colonel --
PETERS: And the thing is you've got to be able to get into every last bunker or it doesn't work.
O'REILLY: That's right you have to get in. But here -- here is my question. This is why I'm suspect of the reporting. If President Obama and Cameron had signed such a deal, the whole world would have laughed at them. You would have been leading THE FACTOR. I would have been out raising the "Talking Points Memo". Everybody would have said what the hell are you doing? This is insane. Israel would have blown that thing up. There's no way they could have gotten away with that, Colonel, which shows me that I don't know if this is true.
PETERS: Well, I can't explain Cameron's behavior. That surprises me. Catherine Ashton that old school liberal, the EU chief negotiator, President Obama needs a headline. Kerry wants an instant legacy to show us he's the greatest Secretary of State in history and frankly, nobody in this administration cares about Israel -- Israel at all.
Bill, I don't approve of everything Israel does, but Prime Minister Netanyahu is 100 percent right that this was a really bad deal, solved nothing, gave the Iranians time and my bottom line is this. The Obama administration doesn't care about Israel. Obama comes out of that left wing south side Chicago in which the six million Israelis are the imperialist aggressors and somehow 450 million Arabs and Persians are freedom fighters and innocent parties. I just don't think Obama even after five years understands how to play international hardball --
(CROSSTALK)
O'REILLY: You might be right.
PETERS: -- which is amazing because he knows how to play domestic hardball.
O'REILLY: But I'm a little suspect to this story because the President even if he isn't sympathetic to Israel knows -- he has to know how he would have been clubbed. It would have made Syria look like candy land if they signed this deal. Colonel --
(CROSSTALK)
PETERS: Bill I think -- I think he thought he would have a piece of paper in his hand guaranteeing peace in our time.
O'REILLY: All right, Colonel. Thanks very much.
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