June 15, 2019
Who is attacking oil tankers in the Gulf between Oman and Iran? So far, the answer is still a mystery. The US, of course, accuses Iran. Iran says it’s the US or its local allies Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Magnetic mines are blamed for the damage, though there have been claims of torpedo use. Last month, four moored tankers were slightly damaged, though none seriously. This time the attacks were more damaging but apparently not lethal.
A few cynics have even suggested Israel may be behind the tanker attack in order to provoke war between Iran and the United States – a key Israeli goal. Or maybe it’s the Saudis whose goal is similar. The Gulf is an ideal venue for false flag attacks.
One thing appears certain. President Donald and his coterie of neocon advisers have been pressing for a major conflict with Iran for months. The US is literally trying to strangle Iran economically and strategically. By now, Israel’s hard right wing dominates US Mideast policy and appears to often call the shots at the White House and Congress.
However, this latest Iran `crisis’ is totally contrived by the Trump administration to punish the Islamic Republic for refusing to follow American tutelage, supporting the Palestinians, and menacing Saudi Arabia. Most important, the Gulf fracas is diverting public attention from Trump’s war with the lynch mob of House Democrats and personal scandals.
Many Americans love small wars. They serve as an alternative to football. Mussolini’s popularity in Italy soared after he invaded primitive Ethiopia. Americans cheered the invasions of Grenada, Haiti and Panama. However, supposed ‘cake-walk’ Iraq was not such a popular success. Memories of the fake Gulf of Tonkin clash used to drive the US into the Vietnam War are strong; so too all the lies about Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction.
Curiously, Trump’s undeclared war against Iran has had unanticipated effects. Japan, which relies on Iranian oil, is furious at Washington. Last week, Japan’s very popular prime minister, Shinzo Abe, flew to Tehran to try to head off a US-Iranian confrontation and assure his nation’s oil supply – the very same reason Japan attacked the US in 1941. Abe warned an accidental war may be close.
Canada used to have warm relations with China. They are now in shambles. Canada ‘kidnapped’ Chinese bigwig Meng Wanzhou, the crown princess of technology giant Huawei, at Vancouver airport while changing planes on a US arrest warrant for allegedly trading with…wait for it…Iran. Canada foolishly arrested Meng on a flimsy extradition warrant from the US.
This was an incredibly amateurish blunder by Ottawa’s foreign affairs leaders. If they had been smarter, they would have simply told Washington that Meng had already left Canada, or they could not find her. Now Canada’s relations with Beijing are rock bottom, Canada has suffered very heavy trade punishment and the world’s biggest nation is angry as a wet cat at Canada, a nation whose state religion is to be liked by everyone.
Now, Japan’s energy freedom is under serious threat. China mutters about executing the two Canadians it arrested for alleged espionage. Meanwhile, US-China relations have hit their nadir as Trump’s efforts to use tariffs to bully China into buying more US soya beans and to trim its non-trade commerce barriers have caused a trade war.
The US-China trade war is badly damaging the economies of both countries. President Trump still does not seem to understand that tariffs are paid by American consumers, not Chinese sellers. Trump’s nincompoop foreign policy advisers don’t understand how much damage they are doing to US interests. Putting gambling mogul Sheldon Adelson in charge of US foreign and trade policy is not such a good idea.
A good way to end this growing mess is to fire war-lover and Iran-hater John Bolton, send Mike Pompeo back to bible school, and tell Iran and Saudi Arabia to bury the hatchet now. Instead, the White House is talking about providing nuclear capability to Saudi Arabia, one of our world’s most backwards and unpleasant nations. Maybe Trump will make a hell of a ‘deal’ and have North Korea sell nukes to Saudis.
And now we wait the all-time bad joke, the so-called ‘Deal of the Century,’ which Trump and his boys hope will get rich Arabs to buy off poor Palestinians in exchange for giving up lots more land to Israel. It’s hard to think of a bigger or more shameful betrayal by Arabs of fellow Arabs, or a more stupid policy by the US. But, of course, it’s not a made-in-the-USA policy at all.
Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2019
This post is in: China, Iran, Japan, Persian Gulf, USA
From the BBC:
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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-48700965
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There should be radar or satellite imagery available. It should be easy to determine where the drone was. I wonder what it was doing there?
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Dik
It would make no sense for Iran to conduct silly, small tanker strikes knowing it will result in a crippling military attack on Iranian nuclear reactors. Unfortunately the truth matters little, as was the case in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq. Any military provocation with Iran will ignite their regional proxies (and there are many) to destabilize the Gulf region. Saudi Arabia may very well see an internal civil uprising that will start with a few provinces and eventually turn to a full-fledged conflict like Syria. Every Muslim nation will be forced to step into such a conflict, including non-Muslim regional state actors like Russia and China. This will be bad for the entire globe. But it will be great news for those Zionist movements, many of whom have not even visited the Holy Land, to speed things up for the second coming. No turning back now.
Plausible, and I hope you’re wrong.
Dik
This is similar to the American ‘run up’ to starting the war with Iraq. No weapons of mass destruction, yet. Any day now, the Americans will claim they have found them.
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The Americans continue to make accusations against Iran, because it suits their purpose. The Iranians are in proximity to the one tanker; I couldn’t tell from the photos what they were doing. This is convenient for the Americans to make baseless statements that this proves beyond doubt that they were the perpetrators. They, conveniently, have ‘film’ of Iranians in proximity. This is used as a pretext of Iran involvement.
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One would think that with the area being ‘hot’ that there would be continuous satellite monitoring. The imagery should show who was in the area and might even show the trajectory or location of the torpedoes or mines. I suspect it is a false claim because this information is likely available; it would be ‘put on the table’ first. There was a recent incident of an American warship cutting off a Russian warship. From the photo produced, it appears the Russian boat swerved to avoid the American one, missing it by a few metres. According to maritime law, ships of equivalent size have to yield to the boat to the starboard; it appears that the Americans failed to do this. The press, true to fashion, vilified the Russians. It would be great to have a satellite ‘instant replay’ to see how the two ships travelled and see the relative speeds, locations, etc. No one seems to be offering this information up. I would suspect that, like the Middle East, there is continuous satellite imagery of the South China Sea.
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There could be several reasons why the Iranians are present in the strait.
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If the Iranian ship was in the area, they may simply have been offering assistance.
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They could be removing some unexploded ordinance. Iran could be deactivating the devices to protect their coastline from environmental damage. It’s their water, too. The above humanitarian reasons don’t help to vilify the ‘enemy’.
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They may have been curious to see what the devices were. The devices could have been photographed to prove the attack was not Iranian based. No one knows what happened, but, the American sabre rattlers have it all worked out.
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The Americans state the Iranians were to blame because the devices were manufactured by Iran; this proves nothing.
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The country of origin of the devices has no meaning when it comes to who ‘did the deed’. Using the same logic, because Boeing 747s were used for the destruction of the twin towers, then the Americans were to blame for the action. This logic is conveniently overlooked by the press.
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The pot slowly simmers and there is no peaceful end in sight. The fault lies with press who seem to not be interested in logic. They would rather ‘fan the flames’. The fault also lies with the rest of the world in not keeping the Americans in check. They allow the Americans to run roughshod over international affairs without taking them to task. It is their world the Americans are putting at risk.
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The UN sits idly by and does nothing. It needs a new charter to give it a purpose. No one seems to challenge American politicians when it comes to keeping the world in a state of impending war.
Excellent column! I agree – the latest attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman seem mysteriously like the fake Gulf of Tonkin incident of 1964. At least one of the tankers had Iranian oil on it that was said to be destined for Japan, so it would would have made no sense for Iran to have attacked it. There is certainly a lot of suspicion as to who really perpetrated these attacks, but I doubt that it was Iran, which would stand to gain nothing by provoking a war with the US and Saudi Arabia. And yes, it’s quite possible that Israel (and likely the Mossad, if true) is behind these incidents, for the reasons Eric mentions above.
The question now is what Russia might say or do. Perhaps Putin has already warned Trump not to attack Iran. If he hasn’t yet, he likely will warn him to back off and Trump is likely to heed him.
As for the Meng Wanzhou situation, I agree that it has been badly mishandled by Canadian authorities. They could simply have given quiet advice to Meng, once Canada knew about the warrant and in advance of her travels, not to land in Vancouver or anywhere else in the country, in order to avoid being arrested. Now, it appears that Canada’s diplomatic and trade relations with China have been permanently damaged.
Pretty simplistic… some jobs come back, and the American consumer does pay through the nose. All items will cost more with the consumer paying for them, if they want them. There may, however, be Japanese, or or other products that are less costly. The Americans can always put tariffs on these other countries, too. This is one of the downsides, with an ever escalating cost to Americans.
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The countries, in turn, can put Tariffs on American produce, with lesser amounts being sold to the harm of the American producer. If the US extends tariffs to other countries, the effects are multiplied.
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The reason for the tariffs was due to the ‘balance of payment’ a value of goods being exported less the value of goods being imported. The American consumer caused a huge unbalance. Since the tariffs, the values for both export and import have diminished, but the net difference has increased. This is not the intended goal.
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To make their country ‘safe’ they have essentially boycotted Huawei, forcing other companies to quit supplying them with components and operating systems and applications. All in the name of American business. Ever wonder if another, say European country, gets in the way of American business. Will the US use the same tactics to prevent the sales of their products? Other countries are well aware of this and it will be affecting their dealings with the US.
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The same thing goes for Treaties the Americans have abandoned. Do you think the rest of the world trusts the US anymore. There was a news article a couple of days ago stating that Iran was about to exceed their agreed production of enriched uranium in about two weeks. This is incorrect, with the Americans walking away from the agreement, it has gone… the Iranians do not have an agreed to limit. The Western press fails to note the difference, and vilifies Iran. They do not point the finger where it truly belongs.
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Trump’s economic meddling may have serious long term effects on the US, but, ‘Billy Jim Bob’ laps it up like it’s gospel.
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Dik
That comment was to John M. and not Steve M. Sorry Steve… I concur with your statements.
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Dik
US consumers do pay for tariffs but jobs come back to the US because of them and wages rise. Definitely an overall win for the USA. We can’t continue to let consumerism guide national policy. China used those exact policies to build their manufacturing and technology base in a lightning 30 years. Nations are more than markets.
See my comment above… in the same vein, from CTV News,
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” WASHINGTON — The United States is blacklisting five Chinese organizations involved in supercomputing, calling them national security threats and cutting them off from critical U.S. technology.
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The move Friday by the U.S. Commerce Department could complicate talks next week between President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, aimed at de-escalating a trade dispute between the world’s two biggest economies.”
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Trump’s foolishness continues… wait until he starts picking on Volkswagen.
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Dik
I find the most interesting aspect of this is watching the American newscasts on this. Isn’t it amazing how the American corporate media says Trump lied over 10,000 times,4 but when he is trying to take America to war with Iran he is suddenly the most trustworthy person on earth?
Maybe the American corporate media which has strong ties to the war manufacturers just want another war.