Tag Archives: JCPOA

Explain It to Me, Please

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If you want a war with Iran, Russia, China and Venezuela tell me why and how it would benefit Americans

By Philip Giraldi

Source: The Unz Review

So Honest Joe Biden is now going to give another $1.2 billion to the Ukrainians on top of the sixty or so billion that is already in the pipeline, but who’s counting, particularly as Congress refused to approve having an inspector general to monitor whose pockets will be lined. The money will be printed up without any collateral or “borrowed” and the American taxpayer will somehow have to bear the burden of this latest folly that is ipso facto driving much of the world into recession. And it will no doubt be blamed on Vladimir Putin, a process that is already well under way from president mumbles. But you have to wonder why no one has told Joe that the whole exercise in pushing much of the world towards a catastrophic war is a fool’s errand. But then again, the clowns that the president has surrounded himself with might not be very big on speaking the truth even if they know what that means.

Having followed the Ukraine problem since the United States and its poodles refused to negotiate seriously with Vladimir Putin in the real world, I have had to wonder what is wrong with Washington. We have had the ignorant and impulsive Donald Trump supported by a cast of characters that included the mentally unstable Mike Pompeo and John Bolton followed by Biden with the usual bunch of Democratic Party rejects. By that I mean deep thinkers about social issues who would not be able to run a hot dog stand if that were what they were forced to do to make a living. But they are real good at shouting “freedom” and “democracy” whenever questioned concerning their motives.

Indeed, opinion polls suggest that there is a great deal of unrest among middle and working class Americans who see a reversion to Jimmy Carter era financial instability, at that time caused by the oil embargo. Well, there is a new energy embargo in place brought about by the Biden Administration’s desire to wage proxy war to “weaken” Russia. Analysts predict that the costs for all forms of energy will double in the next several months and surging energy costs will impact the prices of other essentials, including food. Given all that, the fundamental issue plaguing both Democrats and Republicans is their inability to actually explain to the American people why the country’s foreign and national security policy always seems to be on the boil, searching for enemies and also creating them when they do not exist, even when the results are damaging to the interests of actual Americans.

That a serious discussion of why the United States needs to have a military that costs as much as the next nine nations in that ranking combined is long overdue and rarely addressed outside the alternative media. The 2023 military budget has been increased from this year’s, totaling $858 billion, and, if one includes the constantly growing largesse to Ukraine, approaching a hitherto unimaginable trillion dollars. The military budget has become a major driver of the country’s unsustainable deficits. The deaths of millions of people directly and indirectly in the wars started in 9/11 aside, the wars of choice have cost an estimated $8 trillion.

The Constitution of the United States makes it clear that a national army was only acceptable to the Founders when it was dedicated to defending the country from foreign threats. Do Americans really believe that bearing the burden of having something like 1,000 military bases scattered around the world really makes them safer? The recent rapid collapse of the security situation in Afghanistan suggests that having such bases turns soldiers and bureaucrats into potential hostages and is therefore a liability. One might also suggest that the insecurity currently prevailing in the country can in large part be attributed to the government’s depiction of numerous “threats” in order to justify both the commitment and the expense.

So where does all the money go? And what are the threats? Starting with a war that the United States is de facto though not de jure involved in, Ukraine, what was the Russian threat that demanded Washington’s intervention? Well, if one discards the nonsense of a “rules based international order” or a plucky little democracy Ukraine fighting valiantly against the Russian bear, Moscow did not threaten the United States in any way before the missiles starting flying. Putin sought to negotiate a settlement with Ukraine based on a number of perceived existential Russian national security interests, all of which were negotiable, but the US and its friends were uninterested in compromise while also plying the corrupt Zelensky regime with weapons, money and political support. The final result is a conflict that will likely only end when the last Ukrainian is dead and it includes the possibility that a misstep by the United States and Russia could lead to a nuclear holocaust. To put it succinctly, what is going on does not enhance US national security, nor does it benefit Americans economically.

And then there is China. Biden let the cat out of the bag on his recent trip to the Far East. He stated that the United States would defend Taiwan if China were to attempt to annex it. In saying that, Biden demonstrated that he does not understand the strategic ambiguity that the US and the Chinese have preferred over the past fifty years as an alternative to war. The White House for its part quickly issued a correction to the Biden statement, explaining that it was not true that Washington is obligated to defend Taiwan. Some uber hawkish congressmen have apparently found the Biden gaffe appealing and are promoting a firm US commitment to defend Taiwan, coupled with a $4.5 billion military assistance package, of course.

At the same time, some officials in the Pentagon and the usual gaggle of congressmen also keep warning about the over the horizon threat from China as an excuse to boost defense spending. Most recently, there was alarm over Chinese participation in a meeting in May in Fiji to consider a China-Pacific Islands free trade pact! In reality, the only serious current threat from China is as an economic competitor. A trade war with China would be a disaster for the US economy, which is heavily dependent on Chinese manufactured goods, but Beijing, with its relatively small military budget, does not pose a physical threat to the United States.

And let’s not ignore Iran which has been hammered by economic sanctions and also through the covert killing of its officials and scientists. The US/Israeli war on Iran has also spilled over into neighboring Syria, where Washington actually has troops on the ground occupying the country’s oil producing region and stealing the oil. Iran’s possible expansion of its nuclear program to produce a weapon was effectively impeded through monitoring connected to a multilateral 2015 agreement called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) but Donald Trump, unwisely and acting against actual American interests, withdrew from it. Joe Biden has been warned by Israel not to re-enter the agreement, so he will no doubt comply with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s determination to have Washington continue to apply “extreme pressure” on the Islamic Republic. Does either Iran or its ally Syria threaten the United States in any way? No. Their crime is that they are in the same neighborhood as the Jewish state, which finds the US government easy to manipulate into acting against its own interests.

Finally, in America’s own hemisphere there is Venezuela, which has been elevated to the status of Washington’s most hated nation in the region. Venezuelans have been subjected to increasingly punitive US sanctions, including some new ones just last week, which hurt the poorer citizens disproportionately but have not brought about regime change. Why the animosity? Because the country’s leader Nicolas Maduro is still in power in spite of a US assertion that the country’s opposition leader Juan Guaido should rightfully and legitimately be in charge after a possibly fraudulent election in 2018. The latest therapy applied by the United States on Caracas consisted of blocking the country as well as Nicaragua and Cuba from participating in the recent meeting of the Ninth Summit of the Americas which was held in Los Angeles. A State Department spokesman explained that the move was due to the three countries “lacking democratic governances.” Mexican President Lopez Obrador protested against the move and removed himself from his country’s delegation, saying “There can’t be a Summit of the Americas if not all countries of the American continent are taking part.” The despicable US Senator Robert Menendez of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee then felt compelled to add his two cents, criticizing the Mexican president and warning that his “decision to stand with dictators and despots” would hurt US-Mexico relations. So where was the threat from Venezuela (and Cuba and Nicaragua) and why is the US involved at all? Beats me.

What all of this means is that there is absolutely no standard of genuine national security that motivates the US’s completely illegal aggression in many parts of the world. What occurs may be linked to a desire to dominate or a madness sometimes described as “exceptionalism” and/or “leadership of the free world,” neither of which has anything to do with actual security. And the American people are paying the price both in terms of decline in standards of living due to the upheaval created in Ukraine and elsewhere as well as a completely understandable loss of faith in the US system of government. By all means, let us shrink the US military until it is responsive to actual identifiable threats. Let’s elect a president who will follow the sage advice of President John Quincy Adams, who declared that “Americans should not go abroad to slay dragons they do not understand in the name of spreading democracy.” At this point, one can only imagine an America that is at peace with itself and with what it represents while also being considered a friend to the rest of the world.

Freedom Rider: The U.S. can’t control the world

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By Margaret Kimberley

Source: Intrepid Report

Slow-witted Joe Biden appears to think that we’re still in the age of the sole superpower, when in fact that era has come and gone.

As this columnist has pointed out, Joe Biden’s foreign policy differs little from that of his predecessor Donald Trump. The imperatives of the United States hegemon require treating the rest of the world as either willing vassals or as sworn enemies. Any nation that threatens economic supremacy or the ability to thwart foreign policy directives is labeled an adversary and faces an onslaught of governmental and corporate media attacks. This dynamic remains unchanged and the Biden administration has only worsened an already bad situation.

The troubles start at the top with the president himself. When asked by George Stephanopoulos in an ABC news interview if Vladimir Putin is “a killer” Biden answered in the affirmative. The president was never known for his intellect and thought that repeating Russiagate tropes would play well. It didn’t play well with the Russians who immediately recalled their U.S. ambassador back home to Moscow.

While Biden was dealing with foot in mouth disease regarding Russia, his secretary of state, Antony Blinken, was making a mess of relations with China. He invited his Chinese counterparts to a meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, and proceeded to offend them by scolding them in front of the press and repeating unfounded charges about human rights abuses against the Uyghurs.

“Well, I think we thought too well of the United States.  We thought that the U.S. side will follow the necessary diplomatic protocols,” said Yang Jiechie , director of the Central Commission of Foreign Affairs. It all went downhill quickly with very public bad behavior on the part of the amateurish and arrogant Americans.

It isn’t clear what Blinken hoped to achieve, but almost immediately after that debacle the Chinese began their own initiative with their partner nations. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was given a warm welcome on his trip to China. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi then departed for Iran where the two countries announced a 25-year, $400 billion partnership. Among other things China committed itself to buying Iranian oil, an agreement which diminishes the impact of U.S. sanctions.

Having squandered opportunity and lost leverage, the hapless Americans have been pressured by the Europeans to rejoin the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), popularly known as the Iran nuclear deal. Talks will resume in Vienna but the Iranians are neither impressed nor intimidated. Foreign Minister Javad Zarif stated in a Twitter post that the U.S. must remove all sanctions in order for the talks to move forward. He added for emphasis, “No Iran-US meeting. Unnecessary.”

The ongoing impacts of U.S. meddling are coming to fruition all over the world. Even U.S. ally Germany is moving ahead with the Nord Stream II gas pipeline with Russia, making a lie out of claims that Russia is a threat to Europe. Despite all of its schemes to dominate, nothing is working in this country’s favor on the diplomatic front.

The United States is still the most powerful country militarily, and can do great damage should it choose. It can sanction weaker nations, but that of course drives them closer to others. China and Russia supply Venezuela with medical equipment that would otherwise be impossible to obtain under U.S. sanctions. China also purchases Venezuelan oil and along with Russia, supplies that country with Covid vaccines.

Biden is dealing with the results of decades of the United States behaving as if its brief unipolar moment would last forever. China will soon surpass the United States economically and it is using that power to its advantage. Its Belt and Road Initiative involves countries on every continent and provides opportunity where the western nations offer only debt and subjugation.

The United States believes its own hype and thinks that its relatively brief period of domination would last forever. Instead the new president is rightly viewed as a paper tiger after just a few months in office.

Only propagandized and uninformed Americans believe that Russian meddled in not one, but two elections. They have no idea that their leaders are losing influence and making enemies. They don’t know that every act of aggression brings the targeted nations closer together.

Russia’s foreign minister recently said that relations with the United States had “hit bottom” and that there were no plans to send their ambassador back to Washington. The idea that Joe Biden is the most powerful man in the world is a fantasy accepted only because of endless indoctrination.

No one else lives in this dream land. Even dim-witted Joe Biden has to learn that he can’t call other presidents killers and have any expectation of good relations. Of course his definition of good relations means other countries obeying U.S. dictates. But that isn’t how the world works any more. He and his handlers must quickly disabuse themselves of any notion that the U.S. can continue to get away with these debacles of their own making. These “grownups” in the room had better grow up fast.

The American Exceptionalism of Secretary of State Antony Blinken

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By Kevin Gosztola

Source: Shadowproof

“American leadership still matters. The reality is the world simply does not organize itself,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken proclaimed at his confirmation hearing. “When we are not engaged, when we are not leading, then one of two things is likely to happen. Either some other country tries to take our place but not in a way that is likely to advance our interests and values, or maybe, just as bad, no one does and then you have chaos.”

Much like President Joe Biden, Blinken is a neoliberal Democrat who believes in the doctrine of “Manifest Destiny.” He thinks if the United States does not impose its will and shape the world then there will be no law and order. He cannot fathom how countries could survive on their own. At least, that is how he argues for greater American intervention in global regions.

Blinken was confirmed as secretary of state in a vote on January 26. Not a single Democrat in the Senate voted against Blinken.

He is a longtime ally of Biden, and during Biden’s first term as vice president, he was his national security adviser.

During President Barack Obama’s second term, Blinken was deputy secretary of state. He was also a part of President Bill Clinton’s National Security Council from 1994 to 2001.

Making Venezuela’s ‘Regime Enablers’ Finally Feel The Pain Of Sanctions

Blinken’s predecessor Mike Pompeo, a right-wing Christian reconstructionist, was involved in President Donald Trump administration’s failed regime change operation against Nicolas Maduro’s government in Venezuela. Yet, despite its failure, Blinken told Republican Senator Marco Rubio he thought the Biden administration should keep recognizing Juan Guaido as the one and only true “leader.”

“We need an effective policy that can restore democracy to Venezuela, free and fair elections,” Blinken declared. He even embraced sanctions, despite the fact that they have hampered the country’s ability to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Venezuelans.

“Maybe we need to look at how we more effectively target the sanctions that we have so that regime enablers finally feel the pain of those sanctions,” Blinken added.

However, a report [PDF] from the Congressional Research Service (CRS) dated January 22, 2021, indicates the sanctions by both the Obama and Trump administrations were targeted pretty well and imposed to inflict “pain” against 113 Venezuelans and 13 entities.

…President Maduro, his wife, Cecilia Flores, and son, Nicolás Maduro Guerra; Executive Vice President Delcy Rodriguez; Diosdado Cabello (Socialist party president); eight supreme court judges; the leaders of Venezuela’s army, national guard, and national police; governors; the director of the central bank; and the foreign minister…

Trump imposed sanctions to prohibit Venezuela from participating in U.S. financial markets and block the government’s ability to issue digital currency. Treasury Department officials prohibited corporations from purchasing Venezuelan debt. Venezuela’s state oil company, PdVSA, was aggressively targeted for seeking to evade U.S. sanctions and Venezuela’s central bank was sanctioned too.

Blinken Defends Being Wrong On War In Libya

Obama flouted the War Powers Act and launched a war in Libya against Muammar Gaddafi’s regime without the approval of Congress. It created a power vacuum filled by extremist militia groups and transformed the country into a failed state. Migrants are captured and sold in what the United Nations has referred to as “open slave markets.”

Despite the catastrophe sparked by war, Blinken defended his support for a regime change war. “I think it’s been written about. I — I was the president-elect’s national security adviser at the time. And he did not agree with that course of action.”

Biden was opposed to war in Libya. “My question was, okay, tell me what happens? [Gaddafi’s] gone. What happens? Doesn’t the country disintegrate? What happens then? Doesn’t it become a place where it becomes a petri dish for the growth of extremism? Tell me. Tell me what we’re gonna do.”

Rather than concede President Biden was right and he was wrong, Blinken signaled to Senate Republicans that he would be their hawk when Biden was too dovish.

Blinken bafflingly blamed Gaddafi, who was summarily executed, for what happened in Libya after his death.

“We didn’t fully appreciate the fact that one of the things Gaddafi had done over the years was to make sure that there was no possible rival to his power. And as a result, there was no effective bureaucracy, no effective administration in Libya with which to work when he was gone,” Blinken argued.

The Bothsidesism Of Blinken’s View Toward War In Yemen

Sarah Lazare recalled for In These Times the horrors unleashed on the people of Yemen, as a result of the Obama administration’s support for Saudi Arabia’s war against the Houthis.

“The coalition bombed a center for the blind, a funeral, a wedding, a factory and countless homes and residential areas, and blockaded Yemen’s ports, cutting off vital food and medical shipments — all while the Obama-Biden administration was in power,” Lazare wrote.

“Indeed, the Obama White House was so complicit in war crimes in Yemen in that its own State Department internally warned key U.S. military personnel could be subject to war crimes prosecution, according to a Reuters investigation published in October 2016. By July 2015, a United Nations official was already warning that Yemen was on the verge of a famine, a premonition that horrifically came true.”

One of Pompeo’s final actions was to sanction Houthis, which caused a disruption to aid groups delivering humanitarian assistance. Biden froze the sanctions for one month the same day the Senate confirmed Blinken.

Asked about the intense humanitarian crisis in Yemen, Blinken drew a false equivalency between the actions of the Houthis and the Saudis.

“We need to be clear-eyed about the Houthis. They overthrew a government in Yemen. They engaged in a path of aggression through the country. They directed aggression toward Saudi Arabia,” Blinken contended. “They’ve committed atrocities and human rights abuses and that is a fact. What’s also a fact though is that the Saudi-led campaign in Yemen to push back against

the Houthi aggression has contributed to what is, by most accounts, the worst humanitarian situation that we face anywhere in the world.”

The Houthis were part of the Arab Spring uprising in Yemen against the corrupt government of Ali Abdullah Saleh. State Department officials generally backed these rebellions against autocratic rulers.

According to a 2017 post from Bruce Riedel of the Brookings Institution, “American intelligence officials said that Iran was actually trying to discourage the Houthis from seizing Sanaa and openly toppling Hadi. Iran preferred a less radical course, but the Houthi leadership was drunk with success. Moreover, Undersecretary of Defense Michael Vickers said on the record in January that Washington had a productive informal intelligence relationship with the Houthis against al-Qaida. He suggested that the cooperation could continue.”

The Obama administration, which included Blinken, did not want to jeopardize a 70-year-plus alliance with Saudi Arabia and backed the monarchy’s intervention.

‘Very Much’ Supporting U.S. Arms Shipments To Ukraine

Blinken expressed his support for arming Ukrainian groups a total of three times. He even reminded Republican Senator Ron Johnson he had the opportunity in 2018 to write an op-ed for the New York Times promoting what senators euphemistically describe as “lethal defensive assistance.”

He told Republican Senator Rob Portman, “I very much support the continued provision to Ukraine of lethal defensive assistance and, and indeed, of the training program as well.”

“To the extent that across a couple of administrations, we’ve been able to effectively train and as well as assist in different ways the Ukrainians, that has made a material difference in their ability to withstand the aggression they’ve been on the receiving end of from Russia,” Blinken asserted.

It is difficult to gauge whether the policy has been effective or helped Ukrainians withstand battles with pro-Russian separatist groups. There is not a whole lot of reporting.

But Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, who was the commander of the U.S. Army in Europe, stated in 2015, “If the U.S. policy changed to provide, say, Javelins, for example, that would probably lead to increased lethality on the battlefield for the Ukrainians. It would not change the situation strategically in a positive way, because the Russians would double down. They would dramatically increase more violence, more death, more destruction.”

“The conflict in Ukraine’s mostly Russian-speaking industrial east, called Donbass, erupted in April 2014, weeks after Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula,” according to the Associated Press. “More than 14,000 people have been killed in fighting between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatists.”

Professor Stephen Cohen called attention to the role of neo-Nazi forces in Ukraine. The overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych was a “violent coup” led by fascist conspirators opposed to Russia. They conducted exterminations of ethnic Russians. The Azov Battalion, part of Kiev’s armed forces, is pro-Nazi and was banned from receiving U.S. military aid, but it almost certainly obtained weapons shipped by the Trump administration from the black market.

“We are left then not with Putin’s responsibility for the resurgence of fascism in a major European country but with America’s shame, and possible indelible stain, on its historical reputation for tolerating it, even if only through silence,” Cohen concluded.

US Return To Iran Nuclear Deal Not Happening Soon

It was the United States under Trump that ditched the Iran nuclear deal, not Iran. Still, it is the Biden’s administration position that Iran should first “comply” with U.S. demands before the U.S. rejoins the deal.

“If Iran returns to compliance with the JCPOA [nuclear deal], we would do the same thing and then use that as a platform working with our allies and partners to build longer and stronger agreements — also capture some of the other issues that need to be dealt with, with regard to missiles, with regard to Iran’s activities and destabilizing activities in the region,” Blinken said.

“There is a lot that Iran will need to do to come back into compliance. We would then have to evaluate whether it actually [did] so. So, I don’t think that’s anything that’s happening tomorrow or the next day.”

Meanwhile, as CBS News described in November, Iran has endured a “harrowing, sanctions-fueled coronavirus catastrophe.”

Doctors experience shortages of every supply necessary for fighting the pandemic. “U.S.-led sanctions have choked off Iran’s access to foreign-made chemicals and equipment.”

Iran has begged Biden to lift sanctions that prevent Iran from accessing COVID-19 vaccines.

***

Melodramatically, Senator Marco Rubio feverishly asked Blinken has any doubt that the Chinese Communist Party’s goal is to be the “world’s predominant political, geopolitical, military, and economic power and for the United States to decline in relation.”

“I do not,” Blinken replied.

“You have no doubt?” Rubio chimed.

“I have no doubt,” Blinken restated.

From Obama to Trump, U.S. empire has prepared its forces for what it calls “great power competition” between China and Russia. It fears China will take the place of the U.S., leading to one of Blinken’s nightmare futures.

Much of the public is wary over military interventions in the Middle East. The threat of terrorism is no longer enough to justify expenditures toward an ever-gargantuan military-industrial complex. Countering China, however, is an easier sell.

“Forcing men, women, and children into concentration camps, trying to, in effect, reeducate them to be adherents to the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party, all of that speaks to an effort to commit genocide,” Blinken remarked.

Human rights abuses under Biden will increasingly be weaponized to defend policies and operations that ramp up tensions with China. Whether descriptions of China’s acts are accurate or not, the point will be to silence anyone who questions whether the violations are enough to warrant increased conflict. (Of course, how dare anyone raise the matter of U.S. deportation camps and their horrors or America’s mass incarceration of 1–2 million people to point out any sort of hypocrisy.)

After the House of Representatives voted to arm so-called rebel groups in Syria in 2014, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough asked Blinken about concerns that arms “could end up in wrong hands.” Blinken brushed aside concerns and maintained the U.S. would vet and give arms to “the right people.”

In March 2016, the Los Angeles Times reported “CIA-armed units and Pentagon-armed [militias had] repeatedly shot at each other while maneuvering through contested territory on the northern outskirts of Aleppo” in Syria.

Blinken may not be rapture ready like his predecessor, Mike Pompeo. He may be more willing to wave the LGBTQIA+ rainbow flag when arming proxy forces or backing regime change operations. However, they are both devout believers in American exceptionalism.

He views Biden as a president who will put the “globe back on its axis” after Trump. He will spend his time at the State Department working to “restore democracy” and “renew” America’s “leadership” in the world. Which means Blinken will continue the many callous, cold, and calculating traditions of U.S. imperialism, promote hubris over humility, and commit himself to cloaking ignoble acts in the rhetoric of human rights.

US Sanctions Symptomatic of a Failing Empire

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By James ONeill
Source:  New Eastern Outlook

On 26 July 2017 the US Congress overwhelmingly approved a Bill providing for fresh sanctions against North Korea, Russia and Iran. The passage of this Bill , and its level of support in the US Congress, is instructive on a number of levels.

The first point is that the US, or more accurately factions within the US establishment, are prepared to pursue policies irrespective of the lack of an evidential foundation; run counter to the interests of its supposed friends and allies, and completely lacks any knowledge of or reference to historical realities. The net result of the latest sanctions is to create a singularly dangerous situation that could very easily lead to a nuclear war. Contrary to the bizarre beliefs of some US policy makers, there would be no winners in such an outcome.

These points may be illustrated by reference to the sanctions applied to Iran. For years, the rhetoric from the US and its close ally Israel was that Iran was on “the verge of developing a nuclear bomb”. For more than a decade, the Israel government was saying that Iran was “only months away” from such a development. That the deadlines came and went without incident did not deter the repetition of what were manifest falsehoods.

Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu appeared before the UN General Assembly brandishing a cartoon depiction of the alleged “imminent threat”. The western media largely omitted to mention the fact that it was Israel that was the Middle East’s sole nuclear power; that Israel was not a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; and that it was Israel that consistently refused to allow inspections by the IAEA of its nuclear facilities.

Not only was there no evidence that Iran had or wished to develop a nuclear weapons capability, it was the unanimous view of all 17 US intelligence agencies on two separate occasions that Iran was not developing a nuclear weapons program.

To head off the prospect of the constant anti-Iran propaganda escalating to an attack by the US and its allies upon Iran, the Russian government was instrumental in achieving an agreement in 2015 that prevented an alleged non-existent nuclear weapons program becoming a justification for war. The recent historical example of Iraq was illustrative of how constant demonization, undermining by sanctions, and overblown false allegations of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction could quickly lead to the utter devastation of a previously prosperous nation.

The lessons that should have been learned from Iraq, Libya and Syria are determinedly ignored by the western media that is currently beating the drums of war over North Korea, again ignoring history, logic and military realities.

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) negotiated in 2015 and agreed by the participating parties, including the United States, provided an instrument through which it became virtually impossible for Iran to become a nuclear-armed power. The mechanisms for ensuring compliance included regular IAEA inspections, and six-monthly reports certifying Iran’s compliance. Those reports went to the US Congress.

For the Americans and their allies however, it was not enough. Although the JCPOA deprived them of an immediate casus belli for war, the anti-Iran rhetoric continued non-stop. One example of the false propaganda was the constant claim that Iran was a supporter of Shia groups, intent on fostering terrorism and destabilization across the Middle East and elsewhere.

This allegation bore no resemblance to the facts. The US Carnegie Foundation, for example, in a report entitled “Iran’s Small Hand in Yemen” criticized the depiction of Iran as supporting “Shia rebels” against the forces supporting the deposed President Hadi. The reality is that Hadi was a dictator, elected in an election where he was the only candidate, and whom popular opposition forced him to flee to Saudi Arabia.

The Houthis, who are the main opposition to Hadi, are Zaidi Muslims, much closer theologically to the Sunni branch of Islam than they are to predominantly Shia Iran. The brutal war currently being waged on Yemen is led by Sunni Saudi
Arabia, supported by the UK, US and a heavy involvement of mercenaries, including Australians, about which the Australian government is silent. The reality has more to do with Yemen’s strategic location overlooking the narrow outlet from the Red Sea to the Arabian Sea and its massive oil reserves coveted by the Saudis than it does with any alleged Iranian support. Djibouti, across the strait from Yemen, has similarly attracted US and Chinese strategic involvement, without as yet being ravaged by war.

Iran also offers political and moral support for Hamas in Palestine, Muslims in Kashmir and the Rohingya in Myanmar, all of whom are overwhelmingly Sunni. The feature they all have in common is that they are repressed and subject to genocidal policies by other political and religious groupings.

The Trump administration is demonstrating the truth of President Putin’s observation about the previous Obama administration, that they “are not agreement capable.”

Trump told the Wall Street Journal “if it was up to me I would have found (the Iranians) non-compliant 180 days ago” (when he was sworn in). According to an article in the US Journal Foreign Policy Trump threw a tantrum in the Oval Office and berated his three senior foreign policy advisers (Tillerson, Mattis and McMaster) for not having found a way to claim that Iran was in breach of the provisions of the JCPOA. The New York Times ran a similar story.

In fact it is the United States that is in violation of the JCPOA, both the letter and the spirit of the agreement, and also of UN Security Council Resolution 2231 (2015) that approved the agreement. Article 29 of the JCPOA commits the US to refrain from any policy intended to affect the normalization of trade and economic relations with Iran.

The latest round of sanctions, and the bellicose rhetoric accompanying them are manifestly not in compliance with Article 29.

Among the many falsehoods asserted against Iran is the claim that Iran’s missile tests are a violation of the JCPOA. There is nothing in the agreement that inhibits Iran from developing a self-defence capability, including the use of anti-aircraft and anti-missile technology. That is also a right enshrined in the UN Charter.

Iran took delivery of the Russian made S300 anti-missile system in 2016, also in pursuance of its right to self-defence. Given the bellicose threats made against Iran on an almost constant basis; the two recent incidents of “warning shots” being fired at Iranian vessels by US Navy ships operating close to Iran’s territorial waters; and the recent history of American actions in Iran’s neighborhood, self defence measures are at the very least a prudent course of action.

Iran’s compliance with the terms of the JCPOA has enabled action in another area arguably more important than military self-defence measures. Rapid progress has been made by Iran in strengthening its economic ties to China, India and Russia. Memoranda of Understanding worth $40 billion have been signed with Russia or Russian companies. The Russian company Gazprom has signed a multi-billion dollar deal to develop Iran’s Farzad B gas field. Gazprom is also helping to develop the Azar and Ghanguleh oil fields in Lurestan province where there is an estimated 3.5 billion barrels of oil reserves.

Iran similarly has $7 trillion in natural gas reserves. The $200 billion needed to develop those reserves will come from Russia, China and other non-western sources. Iran has announced that it will give preference in infrastructure and other development deals to those nations who were supportive through the years of sanctions and other forms of warfare.

China, that is currently building a high-speed rail link between Mashad and Tehran (to link with other Central Asian lines) sees Iran as a key player in its massive Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) that is transforming the Eurasian economic and geopolitical landscape.

Iran is similarly a key player in the North South Transportation Corridor that links India via Iran and Azerbaijan with Russia, transporting goods at a fraction of the cost and time of existing conventional routes that are vulnerable to US Navy interference.

Also of major significance is Iran’s associate membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, with full membership highly likely in 2018. The SCO is a central component of the BRI with ever growing trade and security links with the Russian initiated Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). Russia is the common denominator of BRICS, the SCO, the EEU, the SCO and the NSTC. The countries in these four groups, as well as other nations (now more than 60) who have joined the BRI, are increasingly trading in other than dollar denominated arrangements. The days of the US dollar’s dominance are clearly numbered.

It is this combination of major economic and geopolitical shifts in the balance of power away from US dominance that has prevailed for the past seven decades that is the key to understanding why the Americans are reacting in the desperate, dangerous and irrational manner that they are. It is the classic end of empire syndrome. One hopes that the adults in the room will constrain the US from traveling further down a path that could spell the end of humanity.