3 December 2016
President-elect Donald Trump vows to either tear up or rewrite the recent international nuclear deal with Iran, calling it ‘disastrous,’ and ‘the worst deal ever negotiated by Washington.’
Iran, which has closed important nuclear facilities, shut down half its centrifuges, and neutralized its stores of nuclear material under the international agreement, must be wondering if it’s nuclear deal was not really, really disastrous.
In his rush to condemn the Iran deal, Donald Trump seems to be forgetting that the pact was co-signed by Britain, France, Russia, China, Germany and the UN. Backing out of the pact will be no easy matter and sure to provoke a diplomatic storm.
The outgoing CIA director, John Brennan, calls Trump’s plan to junk the Iran deal ‘the height of folly.’ Brennan warns that doing so would further destabilize the Mideast and embolden hard-liners on all sides. He could have added that if Iran resumes nuclear enrichment, Israel’s far right government will likely go to war with Iran in order to preserve its Mideast nuclear monopoly.
An Israeli attack on Iran could quickly drag in the United States and become a major Mideast conflict. The Pentagon is not anxious to get involved in yet another war in the Muslim world. Interestingly, some Iranian hardliners actually hope the US will attack Iran: ‘America will break its teeth on Iran, and that will be the end of its Mideast empire,’ as one overconfident Iranian told me.
Adding to tensions, the Iranian nuclear deal has been under heavy attack in the US that may sabotage the pact even without Donald Trump’s intervention. The US Israel lobby has made sabotaging the deal with Tehran a priority. Equally important, Israel’s extraordinary influence over the US Congress and media has been directed at overturning or at least derailing the nuclear accord.
Iran is loudly accused of sponsoring ‘terrorism’ for supporting the Palestinian cause and Lebanon’s resistance movement Hezbollah and Yemen’s shadowy Houthi tribal movement. This while the US is arming, supplying and financing ultra-violent anti-regime jihadists in Syria and waging war in East Africa.
US Congressmen and senators hypocritically blasted the late Fidel Castro for being a dictator while hailing Egypt’s brutal dictatorship of Field Marshall al- Sisi and, of course, China’s dictatorship. At least Castro was esteemed, even loved, by most of his people. One seeks in vain any traces of affection for US-backed dictators like Sisi or the Saudi royal family.
Meanwhile, Israel’s partisans have been waging what they call ‘Lawfare’ against the Iran deal by trying to obstruct it in many legal and bureaucratic ways, particularly by refusing to removed most of the US trade and financial embargo on Tehran stipulated in the agreement. Europe is also forced, unwillingly, to comply with many of the US trade sanctions against Iran.
One of the more egregious examples was recent efforts by Israel’s supporters in Congress to thwart the sale of some 200 commercial US and European jets to Iran. Over 30 years of US embargo have left Iran with a dilapidated and often perilous transport fleet that has killed large numbers of Iranians in crashes caused by mechanical failures.
Iran seeks to renew its civil fleet by ordering $25 billion of new aircraft from Boeing and Europe’s Airbus. But Republicans in Congress voted to block the sale, clearly choosing Israel’s demands over jobs for tens of thousands of US workers. Rarely have we seen so raw an exercise of power.
Abrogation of the international nuclear deal with Tehran would almost certainly undermine the dominant moderates in Iran’s government and boost the hardliners back into power. They have all along claimed that the US cannot be trusted. Besides, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un has nuclear weapons and no one dares attack him.
But Trump will need Russian and European support for America’s other foreign policy headaches. Europe is totally behind the Iran deal and fears its rejection will ignite yet another crisis on its doorstep.
Mr. Trump is strongly advised to leave Obama’s Iran deal alone. It’s one of the outgoing administration’s few real foreign policy successes.
Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2016
There’s a downside to ‘p*ssing’ off the Americans; there’s a good reason they are referred to as the Ugly ones… Canada cannot afford to do that.
Dik
American reprisal didn’t stop Dief the Chief rejecting American nukes in CanaDa on Principle. The Yanks hated him for that.
I agree CanaDa should be pushing the sale of Bombardier aircraft to Iran, and that is a possibility now that CanaDa restored Diplomatic Relations. It would make economic sense to boost Bombardier Global sales, instead of continuing with government subsidies.
The problem is the Americans would not be too happy, and the government would have to calculate the cost-benefit is pursuing the business now that the Americans rejected it.
There would also be logistical problems. The US is still holding Iran’s money seized with the sanctions not yet released to Iran. Iran is still shut out of the Global Banking system so it would take pallets of cash to pay.
Because of that reality, Obama had to send cash to Iran to pay for the weapons bought and paid for by the Shah, International Courts ruled the US must pay. Politically, Obama was pilloried for doing what the Realities dictated as the only way to transfer the monies.
I totally understand the hardliners in Iran would be strengthened seeing the US dragging it’s feet in living up to an binding agreement it made
My view of what’s unfolding in the Middle (just corrected typo – Missile) East is understandably different from the experts and Intelligence Agencies Today.
THE KANSAS CITY TIMES published this Vision of the Future on September 13, 1976. That 1976 Future is unfolding NOW.
“He came to town for the Republican National Convention and will stay until the election in November to do God’s bidding: To tell the world, from Kansas City, this country has been found wanting and its days are numbered […] He gestured toward a gleaming church dome. “The gold dome is the symbol of Babylon,” he said.”…………….He wanted to bring to the Public’s attention an “idea being put out subtly and deceptively” by the government that we have to get prepared for a war with Russia.”
On the 1st part, Donald Trump essentially campaigned on the idea the American workers are wanting, and the Days of the US are numbered if he is not elected President. He used other words and pictures, but it is the same General Idea and spirit of that 1976 letter he Trumpeted that got him POWER.
On the War with Russia part just read the MSM and alt-Media THESE DAYS.
AS if to confirm, THE KANSAS CITY TIMES published a 2nd report after the Republicans left town on ALL SOULS DAY, November 2, 1976.
I was probably the only human on earth to notice at the TIME of the 1983 TV movie ‘THE DAY AFTER’ Kansas City was destroyed in a Nuclear Holocaust, the movie pauses at the exact same picture frame THE KANSAS CITY TIMES used in their follow up ALL SOULS DAY report 7 years earlier.
Only the wilfully blind will not recognize the demonization of Russia-Putin, increasing in the US media, history has always shown is a necessary prelude to war in dumbing down the population to not question the direction the leaders are leading to that could result in the death of millions of ordinary people in a Day
If the direction is not changed the Day Before, it will be too late THE DAY AFTER.
Maybe one or two readers will recognize these words, “this country has been found wanting and its days are numbered” as the first 2 parts of the 3 part ‘Writing on the Wall’ from Daniel 5 and the Captivity of Babylon some 2600 years ago.
The whole world saw The Writing on the Wall for the 1st TIME at the same TIME with the Global Financial Meltdown-Economic Pearl Harbour in September of 2008, even if the world did not recognize it as such.
The 3rd part of the Writing on the Wall tells of the decline of Ancient Babylon, the 1st Biblical model of the Nation that reached Imperial Military-Economic Superpower Status, the US being the latest, greatest of them all, and the rise of Persia.
Ancient Babylon is now Iraq, and ancient Persia is now Iran.
The US is the latest, greatest of all the Nations reaching Imperial Military-Economic Superpower Status in the 2600 year old Biblical Babylonian superstructure.
The Tail struck the Head, causing the unravelling of the Earthly Babylonian systems
The Iranian Revolution happened in 1979, after the record in the 1976 KANSAS CITY TIMES Timeline. All the chaos in the Middle East since then, including the carnage in Syria, is the consequence of the vain attempt to reverse that repeat of History.
The 2 original 1976 KANSAS CITY TIMES records can be expanded and read following the link. There are brief video clips from ‘THE DAY AFTER’ movie and more, to compare with the unfolding realities these 40 years later.
https://ray032.com/2013/09/01/signs-of-the-times/
I thank God I’m still alive these 40 years later, to draw attention to that Chronology of Time.
I have read a lot of articles on this point and find yours very compelling. I had not seen that the deal with Boeing had been defeated-the small-mindedness and counterproductive behavior of the present crop of Republicans in Congress are mind-boggling. I read that even Netanyahu has decided that the attempted overthrow of the JCPOA would not be the best thing for Israel (not sure if that was correctly reported), and since there is no other beneficiary except the hardliners in Iran, it should be avoided.
I think Trump said alot of things to get elected. Canada should jump in on the selling things to Iran bandwagon. Oil field equipment sales, Bombardier aircraft, etc… it would be a very welcome boost to our economy.