Tag Archives: Iran Deal

Political Rants

Behind us all the way.

Apparently Bibi Netanyahu really, really wants us to start a war with Iran. That’s the ultimate goal of his little English-language TED talk this past week. As a piece of warmonger propaganda, it was pretty unconvincing, particularly in the post-Iraq war era, so it seems reasonable to assume that he was performing for an audience of one: that one named Trump. Iran lied, says Bibi, so Trump should tear up the JCPOA; tearing up the JCPOA means an end to diplomatic solutions, which means, ultimately, war.

Sage advice from our "friends"It’s a war that Bibi doesn’t want to fight, and with good reason. Sure, they have undeclared nuclear weapons – hundreds of them – but those are pretty much useless beyond their value as an end-of-the-world threat. The fact is, Israel can’t win a conventional war with Iran, and they know it. Iran would be a difficult adversary, as well as a vast territory to subdue and occupy – it has “strategic depth”, as Col. Lawrence Wilkerson has pointed out. But honestly, when was the last time Israel won an actual war? 1973? Don’t say Lebanon – sure, they drove the PLO out of Beirut (at an enormous cost to the population), but by no means did that end positively for them. Their armed forces have suffered from too much colonial population control – thugging the Palestinians, in essence. But they still want to overthrow the Iranian regime. That’s where we come in.

Bibi and his allies are happy to expend our blood and treasure on an insane war against Iran. Same with Mohammed Bin Salman (or “MBS” as our press affectionately calls him). He very much wants us to neutralize Iran, just as they were supportive of Saddam Hussein when he launched his eight-year war on Iran that ended in a bitter stalemate. You can see him and Bibi sitting in the stands, sharing the same muffler, cheering us on as we take to the field of battle. They’ll be behind us all the way (about five hundred miles behind us). While not formally allies, Saudi and Israel go way back. Israel did the oil kingdom a solid when they destroyed Nassar’s army in 1967. (Mohammed Bin Salman’s progenitors had been engaged in a regional struggle against Arab nationalism for a number of years as it was a direct threat to their illegitimate existence as autocratic rulers.)

Is the JCPOA flawed? Only inasmuch as it’s somewhat unfair to the Iranians. As long as Israel maintains a massive nuclear arsenal, there will be a strong incentive for them to develop a deterrent. That’s the inescapable logic of the nuclear age, whether or not you own up to your H-bombs. That said, the JCPOA is acceptable to Tehran and the rest of the world, so it should stand … regardless of what our “friends” want us to do.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Persian rug.

Trump and Macron had their meeting of the tiny minds this last week, and it doesn’t look good for the Iran nuclear deal (a.k.a. the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – JCPOA). The French president appears to think he can save it by expanding it, but that’s not likely to happen; Iran may be less than a democracy, but its leaders have constituencies just the same as ours do, and I can’t think the Iranian people are going to be willing to trust this process a second time – not when they’ve checked every box, met every requirement, and continued to suffer as Trump calls them every name in the book and hires a National Security Advisor who gave a regime change address to the terrorist MEK last year.

There are also the other parties to the agreement to consider, two of whom (Russia and China) are adamant against changing the deal. As Juan Cole has pointed out, the Russians are calling bullshit on Trump’s vacuous claim that the U.S. gave Iran $150 billion as a kind of signing bonus. I heard some cat calls about this on Facebook when the deal was struck, and it’s frankly laughable. These were Iranian assets in U.S. banks, unilaterally frozen by the U.S. government as punishment for stepping out of line. Whatever you may think of the government of Iran, any capitalist should understand that they have every right to that money. (Good luck finding that kind of capitalist in Washington D.C.)

The unknown countryIt’s not hard to see why Trump is on the same page as practically every political leader in America in treating Iran like a muck room rug. Israel wants us to attack them. Saudi wants us to attack them. The UAE wants us to attack them. And the majority of Americans are under the spell of the propaganda campaign about the incomparable evils of Iran. We’ve been fed this with a fire hose since the immediate aftermath of the Iranian revolution and the “hostage crisis” – basically my entire adult life. It has been reinforced over the intervening decades, through the Iran-Iraq war years (recall the “hostages” in Lebanon), the confrontations in the 90s, their inclusion in the “Axis of Evil”, and so on. Trump is a product of the same smear campaign.

Scuttling this deal will likely make the current confrontation with Russia deteriorate even further. Worse than that, it sets us on a short path to the war John Bolton has wanted practically forever. That war would make the Iraq conflict seem like a folk dance, and could easily trigger a response from other world powers.

In short, let’s keep the JCPOA. If it’s a bad deal, it’s only bad for the Iranians. It gives us way more than we deserve.

Peace in Korea? Just a brief coda – I’m very hopeful about the prospect for peace on the Korean peninsula. When the dust settles a bit, I’ll return to this very important question.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Hostage to history.

I’m going to rant about something that has really gotten under my skin this week, and I want to say up front that I am not raising this in defense of Obama’s foreign policy so much as in response to a thirty-five year hyper-nationalist obsession that shows no sign of abating. I’m referring to the recent stories about the $400 million transfer to Iran coinciding with the release of some key detainees, and the consequent hysterical response and cries of “ransom!” on the part of center-right pols and pundits. Even purported liberals have adopted some of the language of this crusade, pointing out apparent “linkage” between the payment and the release. Let me make just a few points in response.

Yes, it's been 37 years of this crapFirst, the $400 million is not our money; it is Iran’s money. It represents funds paid by the Iranian people for arms sold to the despotic Shah before his overthrow; the arms were never delivered, and with the application of sanctions, the money was frozen, like the proceeds from oil sales. As a component of the nuclear deal, the United States and its partners agreed to free up this money while keeping the bulk of the sanctions in place. Once the agreement was settled, the administration apparently reserved delivery of these funds – the $400 million in cash, since Iran still can’t use the international banking system – as some surety that the prisoner release (negotiated as a side agreement) would actually happen.

So let me put this as simply as possible. Giving people back their own money is not the same as paying them ransom. I know it’s fun to play with the word “ransom”, but it simply doesn’t apply here.

Ironically, many of those who are now calling it “ransom” are the same fuckers who complained during the nuclear negotiations that Obama’s administration was not working hard enough to release the prisoners. Clearly they were working on this. But the return of Teheran’s money was not payment for the release; it was compliance with the terms of the nuclear agreement.

Lastly, this is not like the Iran/Contra scandal; not at all. Reagan was trying to find off-the-books ways to fund his terror army in Nicaragua, since funding had been prohibited by Congress. He arranged a sale of arms to Iran (while in the midst of helping Saddam Hussein attack Iran) as a payment for release of prisoners captured in Lebanon, then funneled the proceeds of the sale to the Contras. There was a quid pro quo there – arms for hostages – but also the broader crime of illegal aid to the psycho killers attacking community centers and health clinics in Nicaragua.

None of this will appear in the media coverage. That’s because the war party in the U.S. – Democrats and Republicans alike – have had Iran derangement syndrome since 1979. Iran took something from us back then and we have never forgiven them for it – something very valuable, namely, Iran. That means endless demagoguery on this issue, regardless of the facts.

luv u,

jp