Iran has set a new daily record for new coronavirus infections amid a surge of cases following the Norouz holiday.
The Health Ministry said on April 7 that in the previous 24 hours, 20,954 new cases had been reported, breaking the record set a day earlier of 17,430 infections.
Deputy Health Minister Iraj Haririchi said on state television that some members of the country’s coronavirus task force were to blame for the surge by “preventing us from using the golden opportunity of [the holiday] to extinguish the flames of the coronavirus.”
Last year, the two-week Persian New Year celebration was a muted affair after officials enacted tight restrictions on gatherings and the movement of people around the country.
Haririchi said similar measures weren’t enacted this year because of some officials, whom he did not name. Instead, millions of Iranians hit vacation hotspots across the country to celebrate the holiday, despite health guidelines warning them not to.
“Travel should have been stopped,” he said.
Iran has struggled for months to curb the worst outbreak of the coronavirus in the Middle East.
Official figures on April 7 put the total number of cases in the country at 1,984,348, with the death toll at 63,699.
Some critics say they believe the government has suppressed reporting and that the actual numbers are much higher.
An Iranian ship long anchored off Yemen and used by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has reportedly been damaged by an explosion in the Red Sea.
The hard-line Tasnim news agency, which is affiliated with the IRGC, reported late on April 6 that the vessel, a cargo-category ship identified as Iran Saviz or MV Saviz, was targeted on April 6 by a mine that was attached to it.
It said the ship “has been stationed in the Red Sea for the past few years to support Iranian commandos sent on commercial vessel [anti-piracy] escort missions.”
Earlier, Saudi broadcaster Al Arabiya quoted unidentified sources as saying the vessel was attacked off the coast of Eritrea and was affiliated with the IRGC.
Iranian officials did not immediately comment on the reports, which followed a reported series of attacks on Israeli- and Iranian-owned cargo ships since late February in which the two archenemies accused each other of responsibility.
But Iranian state television later tacitly acknowledged the incident, citing foreign media.
The New York Times cited IRGC-linked social-media accounts alleging that Israel had carried out the attack. The newspaper noted that Israel had not confirmed that information.
But it quoted an unidentified U.S. official as saying that Israel had informed the United States of its role after the early morning attack on April 6.
The incident comes amid years of naval skirmishes between Iranian, Israeli, and Western forces. But it also coincided with the start in Vienna hours later of tense international talks involving the United States, Iran, and other countries intended to revive the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal that Washington withdrew from nearly three years ago.
U.S. President Joe Biden took office in January with a commitment to revive that deal if Tehran returned to full compliance.
Iran has responded to the reimposition of crippling U.S. economic sanctions by gradually reducing its commitments under the accord.
Israel has been a strident critic of the JCPOA, which aimed to ease economic sanctions on Iran in return for curbs on Tehran’s disputed nuclear program.
“We must not go back to the dangerous nuclear deal with Iran, because a nuclear Iran is an existential threat to the state of Israel and a great threat to the security of the entire world,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told party colleagues on April 6 after being picked to form a government following inconclusive elections.
The Saviz was placed back under U.S. sanctions by Donald Trump’s administration following the JCPOA withdrawal in 2018.
The U.S. military’s Central Command said it was “aware of media reporting of an incident involving the Saviz in the Red Sea,” adding, “We can confirm that no U.S. forces were involved in the incident.”
Representatives from Britain, China, France, Germany, and Russia met with Iranian officials in Vienna on April 6 in an effort to revive the deal.
Iranian and U.S. officials called the meetings “constructive.”
With reporting by The New York Times, Tasnim, AP, and Reuters
Facebook has removed hundreds of fake accounts linked to an Iranian exile group that posted content critical of Iran’s government.
The accounts were supportive of Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), which is seeking to overthrow the Islamic republic, Facebook said on April 6.
Facebook determined the accounts were being run from a single location in Albania by a group of individuals working on behalf of the MEK.
The United States considered the MEK a terrorist group until 2012. Its designation was removed following a lobbying campaign and pledges to end its violent militancy.
While not successful in building significant audiences, Facebook said the operation appeared to be a “tightly organized troll farm” in which people were paid to post content that was often misinformation to social media.
The network of fake accounts was most active in 2017 and again in late 2020, Facebook said. In all, more than 300 accounts, pages, and groups on Facebook and Instagram were removed as part of the company’s action.
Facebook also noted that some of the fake accounts used photos of Iranian celebrities or deceased dissidents. A small number of the Instagram accounts appear to have used profile pictures that were computer generated.
Facebook said it has disrupted seven operations since 2019 that used such photos and it will continue to refine its enforcement.
“We know that influence operations will keep evolving in response to our enforcement, and new deceptive behaviors will emerge,” it said.
A dispute within Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has spilled into public view with a deputy commander lashing out at an aide to the IRGC’s commander in chief who has ambitions to win the presidency in a June election.
Divisions within the IRGC over the vote became public when Yadollah Javani, an IRGC deputy commander for political affairs, gave an interview with the Fars news agency on April 3.
Javani accused Saeed Mohammad, the former commander of IRGC’s construction conglomerate Khatam al-Anbya, of “violations” and said he had been dismissed due to his pursuit of the presidency.
Mohammad has been raising his profile ahead of the June 18 vote, which could bring a hard-liner to power.
“The IRGC does not and will not support Saeed Mohammad or any other candidate in the election,” Javani told Fars.
Javani also said the IRGC opposes members of its ranks entering the election arena without going through “legal processes.”
Mohammad announced his resignation from the construction conglomerate in early March, suggesting that he could run for the presidency.
Following his resignation, he was appointed as a special adviser to IRGC Commander in Chief Mohammad Salami.
Mohammad has hit back at Javani — denying he committed any “violations” and saying that Javani is not a spokesman for the IRGC. Mohammad said Javani’s criticism was “his personal” view.
A statement from Mohammad’s office published by Iranian state media charged that Javani’s interview has created public distrust and undermines the “maximum participation” in the election that has been demanded by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
No Agreed Candidate?
Washington-based analyst Ali Afshari says the public dispute suggests the IRGC leadership has not agreed upon a single presidential candidate.
Afshari told RFE/RL that Mohammad, 53, does not appear to be the establishment’s preferred candidate — despite speculation that his profile fits Khamenei’s call for a relatively young and ideologically hard-line president.
“The attacks against Saeed Mohammad do not come only from senior IRGC officials and hard-line figures,” Afshari said. “Some in the [IRGC’s] Basij force have also launched heavy attacks against him while calling for the Guardians Council to disqualify him” from the election.
In his interview with Fars, which is affiliated with the IRGC, Javani said Khamenei’s call for a “young and Hezbollahi” government means the Iranian leader is seeking a government with “an Islamic approach.”
“Therefore, being young is a symbol of dynamism and [hard] work,” Javani said.
A day after Javani’s interview, IRGC spokesman Ramezan Sharif denied that there were divisions within the IRGC. Sharif said the IRGC will not “approve or destroy” any candidate.
He also would not confirm whether Mohammad had violated the IRGC’s legal procedures, saying: “An IRGC deputy perceived that a violation took place, but this may not be the IRGC’s official view.”
Saeed Mohammad (file photo)
“If [Mohammad] committed any violation, then why did an IRGC commander appoint him as his adviser,” Sharif said, referring to Salami’s decision to designate Mohammad as his special adviser.
There are reports that several former IRGC members could contest the presidency in June.
They include parliamentary speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf and former IRGC commander Saeed Dehghan, who serves as a military adviser to Khamenei.
Other conservatives have also signaled their intention to run for president, including the former head of the state television, Ezatollah Zarghami.
Hard-liners aim to unify power in Iran after having taken control of the parliament in 2019 elections characterized by mass disqualifications of candidates by the hard-line Guardians Council.
Turnout in that vote was the lowest in the history of the Islamic republic.
Swiss-based political analyst Mehdi Talaati said the hard-line faction of the Iranian establishment is attempting to restrict the number of candidates to create unity and raise its chances of winning the election.
“If the hard-line faction, which has several military candidates, enters the election with multiple candidates, they could be defeated by the reformists. Therefore, they’re trying to resolve this issue before the vote,” Talati said in an interview with the BBC.
The younger brother of Khamenei, a reformist cleric named Hadi Khamenei, said in an April 5 interview with Enetkhabnews that the future president could come from the Iranian establishment’s hard-line faction.
“It’s still not clear. But it is very likely that the future government will be from the [faction] that already controls everything,” he said.
Iran says it has charged 10 officials over the crash of a Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) jet that was shot down last year, killing all 176 people on board.
Gholam Abbas Torki, the former military prosecutor for Tehran Province, said on April 6 that the 10 have been “brought to responsibility” and will face trial to determine “the necessary conclusions” over the incident in January 2020, the semiofficial ISNA news agency reported.
Torki, who made the comments at a ceremony where he was handing over the office to his successor, gave no further details.
Tehran initially claimed the plane had crashed, but admitted three days after the tragedy that Flight PS752, which was headed to Kyiv, had been shot down “unintentionally” by the country’s air defenses.
Iranian forces say they downed the Boeing 737 after mistaking it for an incoming missile at a time of high tensions with the United States.
Iran later called it a “disastrous mistake” by forces who were on high alert.
Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization’s interim report blamed the tragedy on the misalignment of a radar system and lack of communication between the air-defense operator and his commanders.
Those who died in the crash included citizens of Afghanistan, Britain, Canada, Germany, Iran, Sweden, and Ukraine.
The United States expects talks set to begin on April 6 on reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal to be “difficult” and does not foresee any early breakthrough.
U.S. and Iranian officials are scheduled to take part in the talks in Vienna – the first serious effort to revive the pact – with European officials expected to act as intermediaries.
Iran has ruled out face-to-face bilateral discussions, and last week denied reports that indirect negotiations would take place between the two countries’ negotiators.
U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said on April 5 that the United States does not “underestimate the scale of the challenges ahead.”
“These are early days,” Price said. “We don’t anticipate an early or immediate breakthrough, as these discussions, we fully expect, will be difficult.”
Under the deal, formally named the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), economic sanctions on Iran were eased in return for curbs on the country’s nuclear program, which Tehran denies is for weapons development.
The United States unilaterally pulled out of the agreement in 2018 under former President Donald Trump, who reimposed crippling economic sanctions. Iran reacted by gradually reducing its commitments under the deal, including higher uranium enrichment.
U.S. President Joe Biden has signaled his readiness to revive the accord, but his administration says Iran must first return to its nuclear commitments.
“We certainly expect that the primary issues that will be discussed over the course of the coming days are the nuclear steps that Iran would need to take in order to return to compliance with the terms of the JCPOA and the sanctions relief steps that the United States would need to take in order to return to compliance as well,” White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.
She added that the U.S. side doesn’t anticipate that there will be direct talks with Iran “though we remain certainly open to that prospect.”
Price said the United States is approaching the talks in Vienna “with urgency,” saying the “breakout time” if Iran decides to pursue a nuclear bomb had diminished since the U.S. withdrawal.
He reiterated that the United States is ready to look at lifting sanctions – but only those related to the nuclear issue.
Referring to the accord’s text, he said, “The original formulation is one that still holds today – it’s the limited lifting of nuclear sanctions in return for permanent and verifiable limits on Iran’s nuclear program.”
U.S. Special Envoy for Iran Rob Malley will lead the U.S. delegation, and diplomats from the other countries that signed the JCPOA – Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia, and Iran – will take part in the EU-brokered talks.
The four nuclear powers plus Germany, the so-called 4+1, are eager to see the return of the United States, but technical and political challenges remain for all parties that could easily scuttle any progress.
Iran has said it wants the United States to lift all sanctions and rejects any “step-by-step” easing of restrictions.
“We have only one step, not step-by-step, (which) includes the lifting of all U.S. sanctions,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said, speaking in Tehran on April 5.
Khatibzadeh said experts from the Iranian delegation would explain how Iran plans “to stop our remedial measures,” adding that whether the agenda produces a result “depends on the Europeans and the 4+1 reminding the U.S. of its obligations and the Americans acting on their commitments.”
OK, it’s true that stupid, self-defeating policy toward Iran is an American tradition of more than 70 years standing. And yes, it has had some short-term benefits, enriching the Shah’s thugocracy and its American supporters like the Rockefellers and other oil interests. That’s a plus in some books, just not in Iranian books. There it looks more like colonial exploitation laced with crimes against humanity.
Wait a minute: didn’t they take our diplomats hostage in 1979? As well they might. Get over it. Some of you should be particularly grateful for that hostage-taking, since Iran did the US the great “favor” of holding the hostages till their captivity helped elect Ronald Reagan. Ever since then, most Americans have been the hostages of the American right.
Once in power, Reagan showed US gratitude by supporting Saddam Hussein’s war on Iran. Iraq had invaded Iran in September 1980 and the Reagan administration backed Iraq’s eight-year war against Iran. Iraq sometimes used chemical weapons, with US blessing.
Over the last thirty years, US policy has largely consisted of a cold war typified by demonization of anything Iranian and by repeated sky-is-falling cries of Iran getting nuclear weapons as soon as next month. That it never happened has done nothing to quell the cries of wolf. From time to time the US and Israelis assassinate Iranian officials and nuclear scientists, but we don’t call that terrorism. What we call terrorism is any Iranian support for its allies in the region.
The US broke diplomatic relations with Iran in 1979 and has not attempted to restore normal diplomatic dialogue since then. No wonder, then, that American policy toward Iran has long since lost touch with anything resembling intellectual integrity, never mind moral authority. American policy toward Iran is little more than chauvinistic resentment supported by tenacious bigotry against non-white Shia Muslims with a civilization millennia older than ours.
The present moment, the early Biden administration, presents the US with a rare opportunity to re-think our Iran policy and at least attempt to create a relationship with Iran based on mutual respect, honesty, and a recognition of our own historical culpability. This is an opportunity that is not likely to last for long. And it will likely lead nowhere unless the US takes the initiative. So far, that appears unlikely.
At the core of the present moment is the Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed on July 14, 2015, by the US, China, France, Germany, Russia, UK, the European Union, and Iran, after almost two years of negotiation. The joint treaty established limits on Iranian nuclear development, enforced by inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). In exchange for signing the agreement, Iran was to be relieved of various sanctions imposed by the other parties. (Only three countries in the world opposed the JCPOA at the time – Saudi Arabia, United Arab Republic, and Israel.)
In October 2017, the Trump administration unilaterally violated the agreement by refusing to lift agreed-upon sanctions. In May 2018, the Trump administration violated the agreement again, by unilaterally withdrawing from it despite opposition from all the other signatories. No other signatory has withdrawn from the JCPOA. The US has acted in bad faith toward Iran at least since 2017, and that bad faith continues under the Biden administration.
According to the IAEA, Iran remained in compliance with the agreement through May 2019. Two months later, Iran announced that it had breached its limit on low-level enriched Uranium, which the IAEA confirmed: Iran had 205 kg of enriched Uranium, 2.2 kg above the agreement’s level of 202.8 kg. This is not a significant difference, it was self-reported, and it is meaningless in relation to nuclear weapons.
In January 2020, the Trump administration assassinated an Iranian general at the Baghdad airport in Iraq, deemed a violation of international law by the UN. In response, Iran said it would not continue to comply with the agreement without US assurance that it would rejoin the agreement and lift the sanctions it had previously agreed to lift. The Trump administration maintained its hard line. The IAEA has maintained a partial verification with Iran through March 2021. The Biden administration has maintained the Trump administration’s hard line. Despite President Biden’s expressed intention to rejoin the JCPOA, he has taken unilateral inaction to maintain President Trump’s unilateral action to disrupt the agreement.
In addition, in late February, Biden used disputed assertions of “Iranian influence” to launch a dubiously-legal attack on a base in Syria said to be the source of attacks in Iraq on US mercenaries there. The US attack came in the midst of intensified Israeli bombing of “Iran-backed” forces in Syria, along with Israel’s announced contingency plans for bombing nuclear facilities in Iran. For more than two years, Israel has carried on an undeclared war on Iranian shipping (according to Haaretz and the Wall Street Journal): “several dozen attacks were carried out, which caused the Iranians cumulative damage of billions of dollars, amid a high rate of success in disrupting its shipping.” Haaretz has also reported two unconfirmed “Iranian missile” attacks on Israeli ships in the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman.
US intelligence on Iran has been politicized and unreliable for decades. Iran is a country of fifty million people on the other side of the world, ringed by US military bases and the US Navy. Iran is under the threat of nuclear attack from US forces every minute of every day. Iran is struggling under crippling economic sanctions imposed and enforced by the US. Despite this longstanding reality, US senators Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) recently wrote to President Biden affirming the deep-seated lie that “Iran continues to pose a threat to US and international security.” Whatever sliver of truth may lurk in that assertion, it’s minuscule compared to the threat the US continues to pose to the rest of the world.
AP sources: Iran threatens US Army post and top general
The breathless lead gave no clue that the “threats” were already two months old, as well as virtually impossible to carry out:
Iran has made threats against Fort McNair, an Army post in the U.S. capital, and against the Army’s vice chief of staff, two senior U.S. intelligence officials said.
The most serious question raised here is why the AP, much less anyone else, should take seriously a story leaked by anonymous sources offering no evidence of any credible military threat by a country thousands of miles away from a US fort on an inland waterway in Washington, DC. How scared are we supposed to be? Intelligence agencies refused to respond to press queries. The local military commander, Gen. Omar Jones, had already managed to reduce the threat to absurdity: “The only specific security threat he offered was about a swimmer who ended up on the installation and was arrested.”
In a rational world, a story like this would go unpublished. Or it would be written in its real context: a local zoning dispute between the city and the Pentagon.
The same day that the AP was indulging in Iranophobia, Iran was reiterating its position with regard to US sanctions and entering new negotiations. As reported by Al Jazeera, Iran said that, first, the US should restore the JCPOA to its pre-Trump status and lift all Trump-imposed sanctions, then Iran would return to full compliance. In an hour-long address marking the Persian new year that coincides with the spring equinox, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in part:
… that previous fool [Trump] … went away in that infamous way, bringing disgrace to his country…. [The US] must know ‘maximum pressure’ has failed so far, and if the current US administration wants to continue, it will also fail.
Loss of trust in the US is the crux of the Trump legacy. The US has demonstrated that it cannot be trusted to abide by international agreements. The US has demonstrated that it cannot be trusted to protect its own citizens from a pandemic. Biden cannot evade this multifaceted reality by pretending it doesn’t exist. Restoring trust is not likely to be quick or easy, but it won’t be possible without determined effort.
The Biden administration has made some progress on the pandemic front. So far, some of the Biden administration’s cold war mentality hardliners seem to have stymied progress on Iran. There can be no break with the past as long as the US continues Trump’s policies, which are themselves breaks with the past.
Biden’s special envoy to Iran provides reason for hope. Robert Malley is generally respected for his nuanced understanding of Middle East politics. He is a veteran diplomat and mediator who served in both the Clinton and Obama administrations. His appointment sparked right-wing accusations that he has too much sympathy for Iran and an “animus towards Israel,” even though he is of Egyptian Jewish descent. Malley has a record of challenging Washington orthodoxy. In a lecture in 2008, Malley acknowledged that US actions abroad have often been “destructive,” and that the US:
… anoints preselected leaders, misreads local dynamics, misinterprets local balances of power, misuses its might, misjudges the toxicity of its embrace, encourages confrontation, exports political models and plays with the sectarian genie.
Although that analysis has been true since long before 2008, it still raises hackles in that part of US leadership still guided more by ideological fantasy than complex reality.
That reality added a new complexity March 27, when China and Iran announced a new economic agreement for the next quarter-century. Five years in negotiation, the pact provides $400 billion in Chinese investments in Iran in exchange for a steady supply of Iranian oil at a discounted price. At a minimum, this agreement seems to offer Iran some breathing room and stability as well as real relief from economic sanctions.
The Biden administration continues to take positions designed to assure failure to resolve the issue. Maybe that’s the Biden goal, in which case all the posturing is time-wasting theatre. When the US Secretary of State is publicly saying, “The ball is really in their court,” he sounds like he’s mired in mindless denial, not making any gesture to restore broken trust. But if Biden actually wants rapprochement of some balanced nature, he has to decide just how long it’s in US interests to continue to accept the damage of prolonging Trump policies. How is that such a hard choice?
OK, it’s true that stupid, self-defeating policy toward Iran is an American tradition of more than 70 years standing. And yes, it has had some short-term benefits, enriching the Shah’s thugocracy and its American supporters like the Rockefellers and other oil interests. That’s a plus in some books, just not in Iranian books. There it looks more like colonial exploitation laced with crimes against humanity.
Wait a minute: didn’t they take our diplomats hostage in 1979? As well they might. Get over it. Some of you should be particularly grateful for that hostage-taking, since Iran did the US the great “favor” of holding the hostages till their captivity helped elect Ronald Reagan. Ever since then, most Americans have been the hostages of the American right.
Once in power, Reagan showed US gratitude by supporting Saddam Hussein’s war on Iran. Iraq had invaded Iran in September 1980 and the Reagan administration backed Iraq’s eight-year war against Iran. Iraq sometimes used chemical weapons, with US blessing.
Over the last thirty years, US policy has largely consisted of a cold war typified by demonization of anything Iranian and by repeated sky-is-falling cries of Iran getting nuclear weapons as soon as next month. That it never happened has done nothing to quell the cries of wolf. From time to time the US and Israelis assassinate Iranian officials and nuclear scientists, but we don’t call that terrorism. What we call terrorism is any Iranian support for its allies in the region.
The US broke diplomatic relations with Iran in 1979 and has not attempted to restore normal diplomatic dialogue since then. No wonder, then, that American policy toward Iran has long since lost touch with anything resembling intellectual integrity, never mind moral authority. American policy toward Iran is little more than chauvinistic resentment supported by tenacious bigotry against non-white Shia Muslims with a civilization millennia older than ours.
The present moment, the early Biden administration, presents the US with a rare opportunity to re-think our Iran policy and at least attempt to create a relationship with Iran based on mutual respect, honesty, and a recognition of our own historical culpability. This is an opportunity that is not likely to last for long. And it will likely lead nowhere unless the US takes the initiative. So far, that appears unlikely.
At the core of the present moment is the Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed on July 14, 2015, by the US, China, France, Germany, Russia, UK, the European Union, and Iran, after almost two years of negotiation. The joint treaty established limits on Iranian nuclear development, enforced by inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). In exchange for signing the agreement, Iran was to be relieved of various sanctions imposed by the other parties. (Only three countries in the world opposed the JCPOA at the time – Saudi Arabia, United Arab Republic, and Israel.)
In October 2017, the Trump administration unilaterally violated the agreement by refusing to lift agreed-upon sanctions. In May 2018, the Trump administration violated the agreement again, by unilaterally withdrawing from it despite opposition from all the other signatories. No other signatory has withdrawn from the JCPOA. The US has acted in bad faith toward Iran at least since 2017, and that bad faith continues under the Biden administration.
According to the IAEA, Iran remained in compliance with the agreement through May 2019. Two months later, Iran announced that it had breached its limit on low-level enriched Uranium, which the IAEA confirmed: Iran had 205 kg of enriched Uranium, 2.2 kg above the agreement’s level of 202.8 kg. This is not a significant difference, it was self-reported, and it is meaningless in relation to nuclear weapons.
In January 2020, the Trump administration assassinated an Iranian general at the Baghdad airport in Iraq, deemed a violation of international law by the UN. In response, Iran said it would not continue to comply with the agreement without US assurance that it would rejoin the agreement and lift the sanctions it had previously agreed to lift. The Trump administration maintained its hard line. The IAEA has maintained a partial verification with Iran through March 2021. The Biden administration has maintained the Trump administration’s hard line. Despite President Biden’s expressed intention to rejoin the JCPOA, he has taken unilateral inaction to maintain President Trump’s unilateral action to disrupt the agreement.
In addition, in late February, Biden used disputed assertions of “Iranian influence” to launch a dubiously-legal attack on a base in Syria said to be the source of attacks in Iraq on US mercenaries there. The US attack came in the midst of intensified Israeli bombing of “Iran-backed” forces in Syria, along with Israel’s announced contingency plans for bombing nuclear facilities in Iran. For more than two years, Israel has carried on an undeclared war on Iranian shipping (according to Haaretz and the Wall Street Journal): “several dozen attacks were carried out, which caused the Iranians cumulative damage of billions of dollars, amid a high rate of success in disrupting its shipping.” Haaretz has also reported two unconfirmed “Iranian missile” attacks on Israeli ships in the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman.
US intelligence on Iran has been politicized and unreliable for decades. Iran is a country of fifty million people on the other side of the world, ringed by US military bases and the US Navy. Iran is under the threat of nuclear attack from US forces every minute of every day. Iran is struggling under crippling economic sanctions imposed and enforced by the US. Despite this longstanding reality, US senators Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) recently wrote to President Biden affirming the deep-seated lie that “Iran continues to pose a threat to US and international security.” Whatever sliver of truth may lurk in that assertion, it’s minuscule compared to the threat the US continues to pose to the rest of the world.
AP sources: Iran threatens US Army post and top general
The breathless lead gave no clue that the “threats” were already two months old, as well as virtually impossible to carry out:
Iran has made threats against Fort McNair, an Army post in the U.S. capital, and against the Army’s vice chief of staff, two senior U.S. intelligence officials said.
The most serious question raised here is why the AP, much less anyone else, should take seriously a story leaked by anonymous sources offering no evidence of any credible military threat by a country thousands of miles away from a US fort on an inland waterway in Washington, DC. How scared are we supposed to be? Intelligence agencies refused to respond to press queries. The local military commander, Gen. Omar Jones, had already managed to reduce the threat to absurdity: “The only specific security threat he offered was about a swimmer who ended up on the installation and was arrested.”
In a rational world, a story like this would go unpublished. Or it would be written in its real context: a local zoning dispute between the city and the Pentagon.
The same day that the AP was indulging in Iranophobia, Iran was reiterating its position with regard to US sanctions and entering new negotiations. As reported by Al Jazeera, Iran said that, first, the US should restore the JCPOA to its pre-Trump status and lift all Trump-imposed sanctions, then Iran would return to full compliance. In an hour-long address marking the Persian new year that coincides with the spring equinox, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in part:
… that previous fool [Trump] … went away in that infamous way, bringing disgrace to his country…. [The US] must know ‘maximum pressure’ has failed so far, and if the current US administration wants to continue, it will also fail.
Loss of trust in the US is the crux of the Trump legacy. The US has demonstrated that it cannot be trusted to abide by international agreements. The US has demonstrated that it cannot be trusted to protect its own citizens from a pandemic. Biden cannot evade this multifaceted reality by pretending it doesn’t exist. Restoring trust is not likely to be quick or easy, but it won’t be possible without determined effort.
The Biden administration has made some progress on the pandemic front. So far, some of the Biden administration’s cold war mentality hardliners seem to have stymied progress on Iran. There can be no break with the past as long as the US continues Trump’s policies, which are themselves breaks with the past.
Biden’s special envoy to Iran provides reason for hope. Robert Malley is generally respected for his nuanced understanding of Middle East politics. He is a veteran diplomat and mediator who served in both the Clinton and Obama administrations. His appointment sparked right-wing accusations that he has too much sympathy for Iran and an “animus towards Israel,” even though he is of Egyptian Jewish descent. Malley has a record of challenging Washington orthodoxy. In a lecture in 2008, Malley acknowledged that US actions abroad have often been “destructive,” and that the US:
… anoints preselected leaders, misreads local dynamics, misinterprets local balances of power, misuses its might, misjudges the toxicity of its embrace, encourages confrontation, exports political models and plays with the sectarian genie.
Although that analysis has been true since long before 2008, it still raises hackles in that part of US leadership still guided more by ideological fantasy than complex reality.
That reality added a new complexity March 27, when China and Iran announced a new economic agreement for the next quarter-century. Five years in negotiation, the pact provides $400 billion in Chinese investments in Iran in exchange for a steady supply of Iranian oil at a discounted price. At a minimum, this agreement seems to offer Iran some breathing room and stability as well as real relief from economic sanctions.
The Biden administration continues to take positions designed to assure failure to resolve the issue. Maybe that’s the Biden goal, in which case all the posturing is time-wasting theatre. When the US Secretary of State is publicly saying, “The ball is really in their court,” he sounds like he’s mired in mindless denial, not making any gesture to restore broken trust. But if Biden actually wants rapprochement of some balanced nature, he has to decide just how long it’s in US interests to continue to accept the damage of prolonging Trump policies. How is that such a hard choice?
William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. A collection of his essays, EXCEPTIONAL: American Exceptionalism Takes Its Toll (2019) is available from Yorkland Publishing of Toronto or Amazon. This article was first published in Reader Supported News. Read other articles by William.
Iran says it will not engage in negotiations with the United States at the planned talks in Vienna next week on reviving the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and global powers.
“We will not talk directly or indirectly with the United States in Vienna,” Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on April 4, denying reports that indirect negotiations would take place between the two countries.
“Iran’s policy in this regard is clear and simple: the United States must return to the Vienna nuclear agreement, fulfil the deal in accordance with the treaty, and lift sanctions against Iran,” said Araqchi, who heads the Iranian delegation.
On April 3, Iran’s Foreign Ministry rejected any “step-by-step” lifting of sanctions imposed against it, saying “the definitive policy of Iran is the lifting of all U.S. sanctions.”
Diplomats from Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia, and Iran will take part in the EU-brokered talks in Vienna on April 6. The six countries have remained in the accord, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which bound Iran to nuclear restrictions in return for relief from U.S. and international sanctions.
The United States unilaterally pulled out of the nuclear agreement in 2018 under former President Donald Trump, who reimposed crippling economic sanctions on Tehran.
Iran reacted by gradually reducing its commitments under the deal, including higher uranium enrichment.
U.S. President Joe Biden has signaled his readiness to revive the accord, but his administration says Iran must first return to its nuclear commitments.
Last month, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei announced that Tehran is in “no hurry” to return to its obligations under the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, and is prepared to wait until the US lifts its illegal sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi has stated that a possible US decision to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal, also known asthe Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), does not require any talks.
Speaking to the deal’s remaining signatories during a virtual meeting on Friday, Araqchi added that “Iran will suspend its steps [scaling back compliance with the deal’s terms] as soon as [US] sanctions are lifted and this is verified”.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry rejects any “step-by-step” lifting of sanctions imposed against it, the state-funded Press TV quoted the ministry’s spokesman as saying on April 3.
“The definitive policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran is the lifting of all U.S. sanctions,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said in an interview with Press TV.
U.S. State Department deputy spokeswoman Jalina Porter said on April 2 that talks next week in Vienna on reviving the 2015 nuclear deal will focus on “the nuclear steps that Iran would need to take in order to return to compliance” with that agreement.
The United States unilaterally pulled out of the nuclear agreement in 2018 under former President Donald Trump, who reimposed crippling economic sanctions on Tehran.
Iran reacted by gradually reducing its commitments under the deal, including with a higher uranium enrichment.
U.S. President Joe Biden has signaled his readiness to revive the accord but his administration says Iran must first return to its nuclear commitments.
The head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Akbar Salehi, said on April 2 that Tehran is optimistic about the course of the negotiations in Vienna on April 6 during which Tehran and Washington will negotiate indirectly.
“We are about to get out of the impasse,” Salehi said in a conversation on the social-media app Clubhouse.
Earlier, U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price called the resumption of negotiations, scheduled in Vienna, “a healthy step forward.”
But Price added, “These remain early days, and we don’t anticipate an immediate breakthrough as there will be difficult discussions ahead.”
Price said next week’s talks will be structured around working groups that the European Union was forming with the remaining participants in the accord, including Iran.
The United States, like Iran, said it did not anticipate direct talks between the two nations now. Price said the United States remains open to that idea.
“This is a first step,” Biden Iran envoy Rob Malley said on Twitter on April 2. He said diplomats were now “on the right path.”
Twenty-five-year old Pegah plays music on the street, gathers with friends in the park, and dresses as she pleases — all things that were difficult or impossible in her native Iran. She fled to Georgia following repeated arrests for violating Iran’s dress code, and after she appeared in a documentary that put her on the authorities’ radar. RFE/RL’s Georgian Service spoke to Pegah about her new and sometimes difficult life in a very different culture.
The OPEC+ group of oil producing countries, led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, has agreed to increase oil output gradually over the next months.
Signaling expectations of rising post-pandemic demand for oil, ministers noted in an April 1 statement “improvements in the market supported by global vaccination programs and stimulus packages in key economies.”
The OPEC+ group — made up of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, including Russia — has been coordinating about 7 million barrels per day (bpd) in production cuts to maintain prices in response to lower demand during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Under the latest agreement, OPEC+ countries agreed to increase production by 350,000 bpd in May, 350,000 bpd in June, and 450,000 bpd in July, Kazakhstan’s Energy Ministry said.
Iran’s oil minister, Bijan Zanganeh, confirmed the group would boost output by a total of 1.1 million bpd by July.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak told the Rossia-24 TV channel that his country would increase oil production by 114,000 bpd in the May-to-July period within the OPEC+ framework.
However, with coronavirus case surges in Europe and elsewhere potentially impacting energy demand, Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman cautioned that any decision could be “tweaked” in the alliance’s monthly meetings.
Before the meeting, Abdulaziz said that “the reality remains that the global picture is far from even, and the recovery is far from complete.”
Saudi Arabia, which in previous OPEC+ talks had agreed to make steep cuts to maintain oil prices, will phase out its additional voluntary cut by 250,000 bpd in May, 350,000 bpd in June, and 400,000 bpd in July.
Oil prices have been on a run in the past six months, with benchmark WTI and Brent crude jumping from around $40 per barrel in November to above $60 today.
Novak was more optimistic about rising demand.
“Today, there are figures that are much more positive concerning the market, including the level of stocks, which have considerably fallen as demand increases,” Novak said.
“Vaccination is already yielding positive results so that demand is recovering,” he added.
With reporting by AFP, Bloomberg, Reuters, and TASS
On 15 July 2015 — the day after the United States agreed to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA; also called the Iran nuclear deal) along with China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, plus Germany — then US president Barack Obama said in an interview that Iran was “a great civilization.” Without listing any of the great attributes of Iran, Obama then proceeded to criticize Iran, saying, “but, it also has an authoritarian theocracy in charge that is anti-American, anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic, sponsors terrorism, and there are a whole host of real profound differences…”
That is American exceptionalism. The US is a country whose sense of diplomacy deems it appropriate to openly criticize other nations. And because of this self-bestowed exceptionalism, it need not substantiate any criticisms it makes, and, of course, no such accusations could be leveled against the US.
However, soon after Donald Trump won the electoral college vote to become the US president, the days of the US abiding by the JCPOA were numbered. The US State Department said that the JCPOA “is not a treaty or an executive agreement, and is not a signed document.”
Apparently, US and international definitions on what constitutes a treaty differ. Since the JCPOA had not received the consent of the US Senate, as per domestic US law, it was not considered a treaty. Another instance of US exceptionalism — how the US legally separates itself from the international sphere.
On 8 May 2018, the US pulled out from the Iran nuclear deal.
Even though the US had withdrawn, Iran made it known that it would continue to comply with its commitments to the JCPOA if Europe also complied with its commitments. One important condition was that Europe must maintain business relations with Iranian banks and purchase Iranian oil despite US sanctions. Europe, however, failed to uphold its commitments.
China stood steadfast with the JCPOA. Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, called upon the US to quickly and unconditionally return to the Iran nuclear deal. Wang also called on the US to remove sanctions on Iran and third-parties.
Wang also urged Iran to restore full compliance with the JCPOA. China, though, has made it clear that the US “holds the key to breaking the deadlock” by returning to the JCPOA and lifting sanctions on Iran.
*****
When the Trump administration slapped sanctions on Iran, a devastating result was expected.
The effects of sanctions are lethal. Americans professors John Mueller and Karl Mueller wrote in their Foreign Affairsarticle:
economic sanctions … may have contributed to more deaths during the post-Cold War era than all weapons of mass destruction throughout history.
The lethality has been borne out. A large-scale human suffering was part of the plan to topple the government in Iran, which secretary of state Mike Pompeo admitted to. Not even the serious outbreak of COVID-19 would stir mercy in the hearts of American politicians. Included in the sanctions were medicines and food.
*****
When targeted by a hegemonic military superpower, the importance of powerful friends cannot be underestimated. China seems like a natural ally for Iran.
Like Iran, China has historically been targeted by brutish American imperialism. China, like Iran finds itself ringed by American militarism. China also has US sanctions levied against it. Western governments and their mass media bombard readers and viewers with disinformation to demonize China. US warships ply the South China Sea as they ply the waters of the Persian Gulf. Both China and Iran deal with domestic terrorism (undoubtedly abetted by western foes).
Thus, the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), designated as a terrorist group by the US in 1997, would be dropped from the US terrorist list in 2012. Later, the “cult-like” MEK would be embraced by right-wing Americans such as Rudy Giuliani, John Bolton, and Mike Pompeo, in hopes of furthering US aims of “regime change.” In a similar move, the separatist East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) in Xinjiang, China was removed from the US terrorist list.
US machinations have only served to hasten closer relations between China and Iran.
On March 27, Iran and China signed the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, a $400 billion 25-year agreement that includes oil and mining, promoting industrial activity in Iran, and collaborating in transportation and agriculture.
It’s a win-win. Iran gets a market for its commodities and investment. China gets access to needed resources and a partner for its Belt and Road Initiative, a multi-trillion-dollar infrastructure scheme to encompass Eurasia and abroad.
Iran also has economic and technology agreements with another US-sanctioned country that is a close ally of China, Russia. In February 2021, there was the important symbolism of the Iran-China-Russia collaboration on naval maneuvers in the Indian Ocean.
Iran does not have nukes, but it has powerful friends.
On 15 July 2015 — the day after the United States agreed to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA; also called the Iran nuclear deal) along with China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, plus Germany — then US president Barack Obama said in an interview that Iran was “a great civilization.” Without listing any of the great attributes of Iran, Obama then proceeded to criticize Iran, saying, “but, it also has an authoritarian theocracy in charge that is anti-American, anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic, sponsors terrorism, and there are a whole host of real profound differences…”
That is American exceptionalism. The US is a country whose sense of diplomacy deems it appropriate to openly criticize other nations. And because of this self-bestowed exceptionalism, it need not substantiate any criticisms it makes, and, of course, no such accusations could be leveled against the US.
However, soon after Donald Trump won the electoral college vote to become the US president, the days of the US abiding by the JCPOA were numbered. The US State Department said that the JCPOA “is not a treaty or an executive agreement, and is not a signed document.”
Apparently, US and international definitions on what constitutes a treaty differ. Since the JCPOA had not received the consent of the US Senate, as per domestic US law, it was not considered a treaty. Another instance of US exceptionalism — how the US legally separates itself from the international sphere.
On 8 May 2018, the US pulled out from the Iran nuclear deal.
Even though the US had withdrawn, Iran made it known that it would continue to comply with its commitments to the JCPOA if Europe also complied with its commitments. One important condition was that Europe must maintain business relations with Iranian banks and purchase Iranian oil despite US sanctions. Europe, however, failed to uphold its commitments.
China stood steadfast with the JCPOA. Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, called upon the US to quickly and unconditionally return to the Iran nuclear deal. Wang also called on the US to remove sanctions on Iran and third-parties.
Wang also urged Iran to restore full compliance with the JCPOA. China, though, has made it clear that the US “holds the key to breaking the deadlock” by returning to the JCPOA and lifting sanctions on Iran.
*****
When the Trump administration slapped sanctions on Iran, a devastating result was expected.
The effects of sanctions are lethal. Americans professors John Mueller and Karl Mueller wrote in their Foreign Affairsarticle:
economic sanctions … may have contributed to more deaths during the post-Cold War era than all weapons of mass destruction throughout history.
The lethality has been borne out. A large-scale human suffering was part of the plan to topple the government in Iran, which secretary of state Mike Pompeo admitted to. Not even the serious outbreak of COVID-19 would stir mercy in the hearts of American politicians. Included in the sanctions were medicines and food.
*****
When targeted by a hegemonic military superpower, the importance of powerful friends cannot be underestimated. China seems like a natural ally for Iran.
Like Iran, China has historically been targeted by brutish American imperialism. China, like Iran finds itself ringed by American militarism. China also has US sanctions levied against it. Western governments and their mass media bombard readers and viewers with disinformation to demonize China. US warships ply the South China Sea as they ply the waters of the Persian Gulf. Both China and Iran deal with domestic terrorism (undoubtedly abetted by western foes).
Thus, the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), designated as a terrorist group by the US in 1997, would be dropped from the US terrorist list in 2012. Later, the “cult-like” MEK would be embraced by right-wing Americans such as Rudy Giuliani, John Bolton, and Mike Pompeo, in hopes of furthering US aims of “regime change.” In a similar move, the separatist East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) in Xinjiang, China was removed from the US terrorist list.
US machinations have only served to hasten closer relations between China and Iran.
On March 27, Iran and China signed the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, a $400 billion 25-year agreement that includes oil and mining, promoting industrial activity in Iran, and collaborating in transportation and agriculture.
It’s a win-win. Iran gets a market for its commodities and investment. China gets access to needed resources and a partner for its Belt and Road Initiative, a multi-trillion-dollar infrastructure scheme to encompass Eurasia and abroad.
Iran also has economic and technology agreements with another US-sanctioned country that is a close ally of China, Russia. In February 2021, there was the important symbolism of the Iran-China-Russia collaboration on naval maneuvers in the Indian Ocean.
Iran does not have nukes, but it has powerful friends.
The European Union says Iran and a group of world powers will hold virtual talks on April 2 about the possible return of the United States to a landmark 2015 nuclear deal.
The move was welcomed by Washington, which said it was ready to take “mutual steps” to return to the nuclear deal.
The virtual meeting will be attended by representatives of China, France, Germany, Russia, Britain, and Iran — all signatories of the agreement — the EU said in a statement released on April 1.
“Participants will discuss the prospect of a possible return of the United States to the” landmark nuclear deal and “how to ensure the full and effective implementation of the agreement by all sides.”
The U.S. State department on April 1 welcomed the announcement of the meeting.
“We obviously welcome this as a positive step,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters, adding that the United States was in discussions on “initial mutual steps” to restore full compliance with the 2015 accord.
The deal was meant to provide relief for Iran from international sanctions in exchange for limitations on its nuclear program, which Tehran says is strictly for civilian energy purposes.
But the United States unilaterally pulled out of nuclear agreement in 2018 under former President Donald Trump, who reimposed crippling economic sanctions on Tehran.
U.S. President Joe Biden has signaled his readiness to revive the accord, but his administration insists Iran must first return to its nuclear commitments, most of which Tehran has suspended in response to U.S. sanctions.
Iran’s commitments include limits on the amount of enriched uranium it can stockpile and the purity to which it can enrich it.
Iran began restricting International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections of its nuclear facilities in February.
On March 21, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Washington must lift all sanctions if the United States and its allies want to see Iran return to its commitments under the deal.
The announcement of the virtual meeting came as a report by the IAEA said that Iran had breached more of its commitments.
The confidential report, obtained by Reuters and dated March 31, said Iran had begun enriching uranium using advanced machines at its underground Natanz plant, in violation of the agreement.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has presented “some points” of a landmark cooperation deal that was recently concluded between Beijing and Tehran.
In a message posted on his Instagram account on Thursday, Zarif underscored that the Sino-Iranian Comprehensive Strategic Partnership focuses on a “practical promotion” of bilateral ties and provides “a roadmap and long-term horizon” toward such relations.
According to him, the accord paves the way for full-blown collaboration between the two sides in the fields of politics, economy, trade, culture, defence, and security.
The Iranian foreign minister added that the agreement envisages the principles of “mutual respect and the pursuit of common interests in a win-win manner regarding bilateral, regional, and international relations”.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif took to the new Clubhouse social media app on March 31 to defend Tehran’s controversial recent strategic cooperation pact with China — a deal criticized for lacking transparency and “selling out to China” amid crushing U.S. sanctions.
In past days, small scattered protests against the 25-year China deal have been reported in Tehran and several other Iranian cities — with protesters warning that “Iran is not for sale.”
Zarif’s use of Clubhouse, an audio-based social media application, is seen as a way to counter those critics in Iran and abroad.
Zarif, a prolific Twitter user with a significant following on Instagram, said in his Clubhouse message that he was in discussions with Chinese officials to release details about the agreement.
He described the deal as a road map for relations between Tehran and Beijing. Zarif also noted that China has not published details of similar agreements Beijing has reached with other countries.
An 18-page document leaked online in 2020 outlined future cooperation between the countries, including Chinese investment in Iran’s energy sector.
Zarif said that, despite the agreement, there are still “barriers” that make it difficult for Iran to “look to the East” and expand ties with China and other countries.
He said those obstacles include ongoing U.S. sanctions and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) — an international financial crime watchdog that Iran has failed to comply with.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has offered to resume negotiations over a 2015 nuclear deal, which President Donald Trump withdrew from while imposing sanctions.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (file photo)
But Tehran has rejected direct talks with U.S. officials and has called for the removal of all sanctions.
“I don’t believe in the [policy] of looking to the East or the West,” Zarif said on Clubhouse, adding that Iran’s foreign policy should be balanced and engaged with the whole world.
Disillusioned Iranians
Zarif’s decision to join Clubhouse highlighted the growing popularity of the social media application in Iran.
In recent weeks, Iranians have joined discussions in virtual “rooms” about diverse issues that have included the country’s June presidential election.
Critics say Iranian authorities are using Clubhouse to present the appearance of free debate and to encourage increasingly disillusioned Iranians to vote.
Iranian Clubhouse talks have usually been attended by a few hundred people to as many as 2,000.
But Zarif’s presentation quickly attracted the maximum number of 8,000 listeners in the virtual “room.”
The moderator of the discussion with Zarif was later quoted as saying that officials had agreed to participate in the discussion under the condition that reporters with Persian-language media based outside of Iran would not be allowed to ask questions.
Also using the app during Zarif’s presentation were Foreign Ministry Spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh and Iran’s Minister of Information and Technology Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi.
Reporters with the Persian Service of the BBC and others confirmed that they were not called upon to ask questions even though they had signaled that they wanted to ask questions.
During the discussion, Zarif reiterated that he is not planning to run as a candidate for president in June – an election which comes amid a power struggle between moderate and hard-line factions of the Iranian establishment.
Following the discussion, some observers inside Iran suggested that hard-liners could push for filtering the Clubhouse app to prevent moderates and reformists from using it ahead of the vote.
One drawback for Iranian users of the Clubhouse social media app has been its availability only for those with an iPhone. (illustrative photo)
Others, however, said that banning Clubhouse could turn away potential voters.
Zarif said that neither he nor Iran’s information minister support the idea of filtering, “nor do we have the power to filter.”
Twitter and Facebook are already filtered in Iran. Hard-liners have made calls for the blocking of the popular Instagram.
Despite such restrictions, Iranians continue to use banned social media and websites via anti-filtering tools.
Numerous Discussions
Iranian activists and journalists have in past weeks organized numerous discussions on Clubhouse on issues such as the mandatory Hijab law — which requires women to cover themselves in public.
Iran’s use of solitary confinement against political prisoners has also been a topic on the new social media app.
There have also been discussions with human rights advocates, including Narges Mohammadi and politicians like former Interior Ministry official Mostafa Tajzadeh.
But the June presidential election has so far garnered little interest among ordinary Iranians who are struggling to make ends meet amid a deteriorating economy.
Earlier this week, former oil minister and Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commander Rostam Ghasemi, a potential presidential candidate, joined a Clubhouse discussion where he answered questions from participants — including a reporter with RFE/RL’s Radio Farda.
The Clubhouse virtual “rooms” have brought together Iranians from inside and outside the country, including those from opposing political sides, reformists, and advocates of regime change.
One drawback to the social media app has been its availability only for those with an iPhone. That has limited the number of Iranians inside the country who can join.
Zarif said he joined Clubhouse with an Android phone, saying he used beta software that allows Android owners to use it.
Eghtesadonline.com predicted recently that the number of Iranians using Clubhouse could increase significantly if the social media application became available for Android phones — the type of devices used by the majority of Iranian cell phone users.
French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have discussed possible cooperation on vaccines with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the French Presidency said on March 30.
In August, Russia approved the world’s first COVID-19 vaccine, Sputnik V, prompting scientists around the world to question its safety and efficacy because it was registered before the results of Phase 3 studies were made available.
However, peer-reviewed, late-stage trial results published in The Lancet medical journal last month showed the two-dose regimen of Sputnik V was 91.6 percent effective against symptomatic COVID-19, about the same level as the leading Western-developed vaccines.
Macron and Merkel also urged Putin during their video call to respect the rights of imprisoned political opponent Aleksei Navalny and to preserve his health, the Elysee Palace said in a statement.
Hundreds of Russian physicians signed an online petition demanding that authorities provide immediate medical assistance to Navalny amid growing concerns over the state of his health.
Navalny’s health condition became an issue last week after his allies said they were concerned over his deteriorating health and called on prison authorities to clarify his condition.
Navalny said he was suffering from severe back pain and that “nothing” was being done by prison authorities to solve the problem other than being given some ibuprofen.
The three leaders also discussed the situation in Ukraine, Belarus, Libya, and Syria and agreed to coordinate efforts so that Iran returns to full compliance with its international obligations, the statement said.
The Kremlin confirmed in a statement that “prospects for the registration of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine in the European Union and its possible supplies and joint production in EU countries” were discussed, as well as the situation in Syria.
The Kremlin statement also said that Putin had explained the situation around Navalny’s case.
“In relation to the issue of A. Navalny raised by partners, appropriate explanations of objective circumstances of the case were given,” the Kremlin noted.
There’s a new dawn evident: China is not putting up with what it sees as hypocritical Western interference in its sovereign affairs. Sanctions are being met with rapid counter-sanctions, and Chinese officials are vociferously pointing out Western double standards.
There was a time when the United States and its allies could browbeat others with condemnations. Not any more. China’s colossal global economic power and growing international influence has been a game-changer in the old Western practice of imperialist arrogance.
The shock came at the Alaska summit earlier this month between US top diplomat Antony Blinken and his Chinese counterparts. Blinken was expecting to lecture China over alleged human rights violations. Then Yang Jiechi, Beijing’s foreign policy chief, took Blinken to task over a range of past and current human rights issues afflicting the United States. Washington was left reeling from the lashes.
Western habits die hard, though. Following the fiasco in Alaska, the United States, Canada, Britain and the European Union coordinated sanctions on Chinese officials over provocative allegations of genocide against the Uyghur population in Xinjiang. Australia and New Zealand, which are part of the US-led Five Eyes intelligence network, also supported the raft of sanctions.
Again China caused shock when it quickly hit back with its own counter-sanctions against each of these Western states. The Americans and their allies were aghast that anyone would have the temerity to stand up to them.
Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau bemoaned: “China’s sanctions are an attack on transparency and freedom of expression – values at the heart of our democracy.”
Let’s unpack the contentions a bit. First of all, Western claims about genocide in China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang are dubious and smack of political grandstanding in order to give Washington and its allies a pretext to interfere in China’s internal affairs.
The latest Western sanctions are based on a report by a shady Washington-based think-tank Newlines Institute of Strategic Policy. Its report claiming “genocide” against the Uyghur Muslim ethnic minority in Xinjiang has the hallmarks of a propaganda screed, not remotely the work of independent scholarly research. Both China and independent journalists at the respected US-based Grayzone have dismissed the claims as fabrication and distortion.
For the United States and other Western governments to level sanctions against China citing the above “report” is highly provocative. It also betrays the real objective, which is to undermine Beijing. This is a top geopolitical priority for Washington. Under the Biden administration, Washington has relearned the value of “diplomacy” – that is the advantage of corralling allies into a hostile front, rather than Trump’s America First go-it-alone policy.
Granted, China does have problems with its Xinjiang region. As Australia’s premier think-tank Lowy Institute noted: “Ethnic unrest and terrorism in Xinjiang has been an ongoing concern for Chinese authorities for decades.”
Due to the two-decade-old US-led war in Afghanistan there has been a serious problem for the Chinese authorities from radicalization of the Uyghur population. Thousands of fighters from Xinjiang have trained with the Taliban in Afghanistan and have taken their “global jihad” to Syria and other Central Asian countries. It is their stated objective to return to Xinjiang and liberate it as a caliphate of East Turkestan separate from China.
Indeed, the American government has acknowledged previously that several Uyghur militants were detained at its notorious Guantanamo detention center.
The United States and its NATO and other allies, Australia and New Zealand, have all created the disaster that is Afghanistan. The war has scarred generations of Afghans and radicalized terrorist networks across the Middle East and Central Asia, which are a major concern for China’s security.
Beijing’s counterinsurgency policies have succeeded in tamping down extremism among its Uyghur people. The population has grown to around 12 million, nearly half the region’s total. This and general economic advances are cited by Beijing as evidence refuting Western claims of “genocide”. China says it runs vocational training centers and not “concentration camps”, as Western governments maintain. Beijing has reportedly agreed to an open visit by United Nations officials to verify conditions.
Western hypocrisy towards China is astounding. Its claims about China committing genocide and forced labor are projections of its own past and current violations against indigenous people and ethnic minorities. The United States, Britain, Canada, Australia have vile histories stained from colonialist extermination and slavery.
But specifically with regard to the Uyghur, the Western duplicity is awesome. The mass killing, torture and destruction meted out in Afghanistan by Western troops have fueled the radicalization in China’s Xinjiang, which borders Afghanistan. The Americans, British and Australians in particular have huge blood on their hands.
An official report into unlawful killings by Australian special forces found that dozens of Afghan civilians, including children, were murdered in cold blood. When China’s foreign ministry highlighted the killings, the Australian premier Scott Morrison recoiled to decry Beijing’s remarks as “offensive” and “repugnant”. Morrison demanded China issue an apology for daring to point out the war crimes committed in Afghanistan by Australian troops.
It is absurd and ironic that Western states which destroyed Afghanistan with war crimes and crimes against humanity have the brass neck to censure China over non-existent crimes in its own region of Xinjiang. And especially regarding China’s internal affairs with its Uyghur people, some of whom have been radicalized by terrorism stemming from Western mass-murder in Afghanistan.
China is, however, not letting this Western hypocrisy pass. Beijing is hitting back to point out who the real culprits are. Its vast global economic power and increasing trade partnerships with over 100 nations through the Belt and Road Initiative all combine to give China’s words a tour de force that the Western states cannot handle. Hence, they are falling over in shock when China hits back.
The United States thinks it can line up a coalition of nations against China.
But Europe, Britain, Canada and Australia – all of whom depend on China’s growth and goodwill – can expect to pay a heavy price for being Uncle Sam’s lapdogs.
Finian Cunningham has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. He is a Master’s graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism. He is also a musician and songwriter. For nearly 20 years, he worked as an editor and writer in major news media organisations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. Read other articles by Finian.
There’s a new dawn evident: China is not putting up with what it sees as hypocritical Western interference in its sovereign affairs. Sanctions are being met with rapid counter-sanctions, and Chinese officials are vociferously pointing out Western double standards.
There was a time when the United States and its allies could browbeat others with condemnations. Not any more. China’s colossal global economic power and growing international influence has been a game-changer in the old Western practice of imperialist arrogance.
The shock came at the Alaska summit earlier this month between US top diplomat Antony Blinken and his Chinese counterparts. Blinken was expecting to lecture China over alleged human rights violations. Then Yang Jiechi, Beijing’s foreign policy chief, took Blinken to task over a range of past and current human rights issues afflicting the United States. Washington was left reeling from the lashes.
Western habits die hard, though. Following the fiasco in Alaska, the United States, Canada, Britain and the European Union coordinated sanctions on Chinese officials over provocative allegations of genocide against the Uyghur population in Xinjiang. Australia and New Zealand, which are part of the US-led Five Eyes intelligence network, also supported the raft of sanctions.
Again China caused shock when it quickly hit back with its own counter-sanctions against each of these Western states. The Americans and their allies were aghast that anyone would have the temerity to stand up to them.
Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau bemoaned: “China’s sanctions are an attack on transparency and freedom of expression – values at the heart of our democracy.”
Let’s unpack the contentions a bit. First of all, Western claims about genocide in China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang are dubious and smack of political grandstanding in order to give Washington and its allies a pretext to interfere in China’s internal affairs.
The latest Western sanctions are based on a report by a shady Washington-based think-tank Newlines Institute of Strategic Policy. Its report claiming “genocide” against the Uyghur Muslim ethnic minority in Xinjiang has the hallmarks of a propaganda screed, not remotely the work of independent scholarly research. Both China and independent journalists at the respected US-based Grayzone have dismissed the claims as fabrication and distortion.
For the United States and other Western governments to level sanctions against China citing the above “report” is highly provocative. It also betrays the real objective, which is to undermine Beijing. This is a top geopolitical priority for Washington. Under the Biden administration, Washington has relearned the value of “diplomacy” – that is the advantage of corralling allies into a hostile front, rather than Trump’s America First go-it-alone policy.
Granted, China does have problems with its Xinjiang region. As Australia’s premier think-tank Lowy Institute noted: “Ethnic unrest and terrorism in Xinjiang has been an ongoing concern for Chinese authorities for decades.”
Due to the two-decade-old US-led war in Afghanistan there has been a serious problem for the Chinese authorities from radicalization of the Uyghur population. Thousands of fighters from Xinjiang have trained with the Taliban in Afghanistan and have taken their “global jihad” to Syria and other Central Asian countries. It is their stated objective to return to Xinjiang and liberate it as a caliphate of East Turkestan separate from China.
Indeed, the American government has acknowledged previously that several Uyghur militants were detained at its notorious Guantanamo detention center.
The United States and its NATO and other allies, Australia and New Zealand, have all created the disaster that is Afghanistan. The war has scarred generations of Afghans and radicalized terrorist networks across the Middle East and Central Asia, which are a major concern for China’s security.
Beijing’s counterinsurgency policies have succeeded in tamping down extremism among its Uyghur people. The population has grown to around 12 million, nearly half the region’s total. This and general economic advances are cited by Beijing as evidence refuting Western claims of “genocide”. China says it runs vocational training centers and not “concentration camps”, as Western governments maintain. Beijing has reportedly agreed to an open visit by United Nations officials to verify conditions.
Western hypocrisy towards China is astounding. Its claims about China committing genocide and forced labor are projections of its own past and current violations against indigenous people and ethnic minorities. The United States, Britain, Canada, Australia have vile histories stained from colonialist extermination and slavery.
But specifically with regard to the Uyghur, the Western duplicity is awesome. The mass killing, torture and destruction meted out in Afghanistan by Western troops have fueled the radicalization in China’s Xinjiang, which borders Afghanistan. The Americans, British and Australians in particular have huge blood on their hands.
An official report into unlawful killings by Australian special forces found that dozens of Afghan civilians, including children, were murdered in cold blood. When China’s foreign ministry highlighted the killings, the Australian premier Scott Morrison recoiled to decry Beijing’s remarks as “offensive” and “repugnant”. Morrison demanded China issue an apology for daring to point out the war crimes committed in Afghanistan by Australian troops.
It is absurd and ironic that Western states which destroyed Afghanistan with war crimes and crimes against humanity have the brass neck to censure China over non-existent crimes in its own region of Xinjiang. And especially regarding China’s internal affairs with its Uyghur people, some of whom have been radicalized by terrorism stemming from Western mass-murder in Afghanistan.
China is, however, not letting this Western hypocrisy pass. Beijing is hitting back to point out who the real culprits are. Its vast global economic power and increasing trade partnerships with over 100 nations through the Belt and Road Initiative all combine to give China’s words a tour de force that the Western states cannot handle. Hence, they are falling over in shock when China hits back.
The United States thinks it can line up a coalition of nations against China.
But Europe, Britain, Canada and Australia – all of whom depend on China’s growth and goodwill – can expect to pay a heavy price for being Uncle Sam’s lapdogs.
Tehran won’t agree to stop its 20 percent uranium-enrichment work before the United States lifts all sanctions, state television quoted an unnamed official as saying, after a U.S. media report said Washington would offer a new proposal for talks to resolve the standoff over Iran’s nuclear program.
“A senior Iranian official tells Press TV that Tehran will stop its 20 percent uranium enrichment only if the U.S. lifts ALL its sanctions on Iran first,” the state-run TV channel reported on its website on March 30.
The report quoted the official as saying that Tehran will further reduce its commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers if the United States does not lift the sanctions.
“Washington is rapidly running out of time” as Iran holds a presidential election in June, with campaign season kicking off in May, it added.
The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has been seeking to engage Iran in talks about both sides resuming compliance with the international nuclear agreement.
The accord provided relief for Iran from international sanctions in exchange for limitations on its nuclear program, which Iran says is strictly for civilian energy purposes.
But Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, withdrew the United States from the pact in 2018 and reimposed crippling economic sanctions on Iran.
Tehran responded by violating some of the accord’s nuclear restrictions, including a 3.67 percent limit on the purity to which it can enrich uranium.
The media outlet Politico on March 29 quoted “two people familiar with the situation” as saying that U.S. administration officials “plan to put forth a new proposal to jump-start the talks as soon as this week.”
The proposal would ask Iran to halt some of its nuclear activities such as work on advanced centrifuges and the enrichment of uranium to 20 percent purity, in exchange for some relief from U.S. sanctions, according to one of the people, who said the details were “still being worked out.”
Iran’s mission at the United Nations tweeted that “no proposal is needed for the U.S. to rejoin” the nuclear agreement.
“It only requires a political decision by the U.S. to fully and immediately implement all of its obligations under the accord,” it added.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on March 21 reiterated Iran’s “definite policy” that the United States must lift all sanctions if Washington wants to see Iran return to its commitments under the 2015 agreement.
With reporting by Reuters and RFE/RL’s Radio Farda
President Joe Biden’s domestic policies, especially on the economic front, are quite encouraging, offering plenty of hope for a better future. The same, however, cannot be said about the administration’s foreign policy agenda, as Noam Chomsky’s penetrating insights and astute analysis reveal in this exclusive interview for Truthout. Chomsky is a world-famous public intellectual, Institute Professor Emeritus at MIT and Laureate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona.
C.J. Polychroniou: Noam, two months after being in the White House, Biden’s foreign policy agenda is beginning to take shape. What are the signs so far of how the Biden administration intends to address the challenges to U.S. hegemony posed by its primary geopolitical rivals, namely Russia and China?
Noam Chomsky: The challenge to U.S. hegemony posed by Russia and particularly China has been a major theme of foreign policy discourse for some time, with persistent agreement on the severity of the threat.
The matter is plainly complex. It’s a good rule of thumb to cast a skeptical eye when there is general agreement on some complex issue. This is no exception.
What we generally find, I think, is that Russia and China sometimes deter U.S. actions to enforce its global hegemony in regions on their periphery that are of particular concern to them. One can ask whether they are justified in seeking to limit overwhelming U.S. power in this way, but that is a long distance from the way the challenge is commonly understood: as an effort to displace the U.S. global role in sustaining a liberal rule-based international order by new centers of hegemonic power.
Do Russia and China actually challenge U.S. hegemony in the ways commonly understood?
Russia is not a major actor in the world scene, apart from the military force that is a (very dangerous) residue of its earlier status as a second superpower. It does not begin to compare with the U.S. in outreach and influence.
China has undergone spectacular economic growth, but it is still far from approaching U.S. power in just about any dimension. It remains a relatively poor country, ranked 85th in the UN Human Development Index, between Brazil and Ecuador. The U.S., while not ranked near the top because of its poor social welfare record, is far above China. In military strength and global outreach (bases, forces in active combat), there is no comparison. U.S.-based multinationals have about half of world wealth and are first (sometimes second) in just about every category. China is far behind. China also faces serious internal problems (ecological, demographic, political). The U.S., in contrast, has internal and security advantages unmatched anywhere.
Take sanctions, a major instrument of world power for one country on Earth: the U.S. They are, furthermore, third-party sanctions. Disobey them, and you’re out of luck. You can be tossed out of the world financial system, or worse. It’s pretty much the same wherever we look.
If we look at history, we find regular echoes of Sen. Arthur Vandenberg’s 1947 advice to the president that he should “scare hell out of the American people” if he wanted to whip them up to a frenzy of fear over the Russian threat to take over the world. It would be necessary to be “clearer than truth,” as explained by Dean Acheson, one of the creators of the postwar order. He was referring to NSC-68 of 1950, a founding document of the Cold War, declassified decades later. Its rhetoric continues to resound in one or another form, again today about China.
NSC-68 called for a huge military build-up and imposition of discipline on our dangerously free society so that we can defend ourselves from the “slave state” with its “implacable purpose… to eliminate the challenge of freedom” everywhere, establishing “total power over all men [and] absolute authority over the rest of the world.” And so on, in an impressive flow.
China does confront U.S. power — in the South China Sea, not the Atlantic or Pacific. There is an economic challenge as well. In some areas, China is a world leader, notably renewable energy, where it is far ahead of other countries in both scale and quality. It is also the world’s manufacturing base, though profits go mostly elsewhere, to managers like Taiwan’s Foxconn or investors in Apple, which is increasingly reliant on intellectual property rights — the exorbitant patent rights that are a core part of the highly protectionist “free trade” agreements.
China’s global influence is surely expanding in investment, commerce, takeover of facilities (such as management of Israel’s major port). That influence is likely to expand if it moves forward with provision of vaccines virtually at cost in comparison with the West’s hoarding of vaccines and its impeding of distribution of a “People’s Vaccine” so as to protect corporate patents and profits. China is also advancing substantially in high technology, much to the consternation of the U.S., which is seeking to impede its development.
It is rather odd to regard all of this as a challenge to U.S. hegemony.
U.S. policy might help create a more serious challenge by confrontational and hostile acts that drive Russia and China closer together in reaction. That has, in fact, been happening, under Trump and in Biden’s first days — though Biden did respond to Russia’s call for renewing the New START Treaty on limiting nuclear weapons at the last minute, salvaging the one major element of the arms control regime that had escaped Trump’s wrecking ball.
Clearly what is needed is diplomacy and negotiations on contested matters, and real cooperation on such crucial issues as global warming, arms control, future pandemics — all very severe crises that know no borders. Whether Biden’s hawkish foreign policy team will have the wisdom to move in these directions is, for now, at best unclear — at worst, frightening. Absent significant popular pressures, prospects do not look good.
Another issue that calls for popular attention and activism is the policy of protecting hegemony by seeking to harm potential rivals, very publicly in the case of China, but elsewhere too, sometimes in ways that are sometimes hard to believe.
A remarkable example is buried in the Annual Report for 2020 of the Department of Health and Human Services, proudly presented by Secretary Alex Azar. Under the subheading “Combatting malign influences in the Americas,” the report discusses the efforts of the Department’s Office of Global Affairs (OGA)
to mitigate efforts by states, including Cuba, Venezuela and Russia, who are working to increase their influence in the region to the detriment of U.S. safety and security. OGA coordinated with other U.S. government agencies to strengthen diplomatic ties and offer technical and humanitarian assistance to dissuade countries in the region from accepting aid from these ill-intentioned states. Examples include using OGA’s Health Attaché office to persuade Brazil to reject the Russian COVID-19 vaccine, and offering CDC technical assistance in lieu of Panama accepting an offer of Cuban doctors. [Emphasis mine].
In the midst of a raging pandemic, according to this report, we must block malignant initiatives to help miserable victims.
Under President Jair Bolsonaro’s grotesque mismanagement, Brazil has become the global horror story of failure to deal with the pandemic, despite its outstanding health institutes and fine past record in vaccination and treatment. It is suffering from a severe shortage of vaccines, so the U.S. takes pride in its efforts to prevent it from using the Russian vaccine, which Western authorities recognize to be comparable to the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines used here.
Even more astonishing, as the author of this article in the EU-based Brasil Wire comments, is “that the US dissuaded Panama from accepting Cuban doctors, who have been on the global front line against the pandemic, working in over 40 countries.” We must protect Panama from the “malign influence” of the one country in the world to exhibit the kind of internationalism that is needed to save the world from disaster, a crime that must be stopped by the global hegemon.
Washington’s hysterical dedication to crush Cuba from almost the first days of its independence in 1959 is one of the most extraordinary phenomena of modern history, but still, the level of petty sadism is a constant surprise
With regards to Iran, also there do not seem to be signs of hope as the Biden administration has named Richard Nephew, an architect of sadistic sanctions against Iran under Barack Obama, as its deputy Iran envoy. Right or wrong?
Biden adopted Trump’s Iran program with virtually no change, even in rhetoric. It is worthwhile to recall the facts.
Trump withdrew U.S. participation in the JCPOA (the nuclear agreement), in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 2331, which obligates all states to abide by the JCPOA, and in violation to the wishes of all other signers. In an impressive display of hegemonic power, when the UN Security Council members insisted on abiding by 2331 and not extending UN sanctions, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told them to get lost: You are renewing the sanctions. Trump imposed extremely harsh new sanctions to which others are obliged to conform, with the goal of causing maximum pain to Iranians so that perhaps the government might relent and accept his demand that the JCPOA be replaced by a new agreement that imposes much harsher restrictions on Iran. The pandemic offered new opportunities to torture Iranians by depriving them of desperately needed relief.
Furthermore, it is Iran’s responsibility to take the first steps towards negotiations to capitulate to the demands, by terminating actions it took in reaction to Trump’s criminality.
As we’ve discussed before, there is merit in Trump’s demand that the JCPOA can be improved. A far better solution is to establish a nuclear weapons-free zone (or WMD-free zone) in the Middle East. There is only one barrier: the U.S. will not permit it, and vetoes the proposal when it arises in international forums, most recently seen by President Obama. The reason is well-understood: It’s necessary to protect Israel’s major nuclear arsenal from inspection. The U.S. does not even formally acknowledge its existence. To do so would prejudice the vast flood of U.S. aid to Israel, arguably in violation of U.S. law, a door that neither political party wants to open. It’s another topic that will not even be discussed unless popular pressure makes suppression impossible.
In U.S. discourse, Trump is criticized because his policy of torturing Iranians didn’t succeed in bringing the government to capitulate. The stance is reminiscent of Obama’s highly praised moves towards limited relations with Cuba, because, as he explained, we need new tactics after our efforts to bring democracy to Cuba had failed — namely, a vicious terrorist war that led almost to extinction in the 1962 missile crisis and sanctions of unparalleled cruelty that are unanimously condemned by the UN General Assembly (Israel excepted). Similarly, our wars in Indochina, the worst crimes since World War II, are criticized as a “failure,” as is the invasion of Iraq, a textbook example of the “supreme international crime” for which Nazi war criminals were hanged.
These are among the prerogatives of a true hegemon, immune to the cackles of foreigners and confident in the support of those whom an acerbic critic once called “the herd of independent minds,” the bulk of the educated classes and the political class.
Biden took over the entire Trump program, without any change. And to twist the knife further, he appointed Richard Nephew as deputy Iran envoy. Nephew has explained his views in his book Art of Sanctions, where he outlines the proper “strategy to carefully, methodically, and efficiently increase pain on areas that are vulnerabilities while avoiding those that are not.” Just the right choice for the policy of torturing Iranians because the government that most of them despise will not bend to Washington’s demands.
U.S. government policy towards Cuba and Iran provides very valuable insight into how the world works under the domination of imperial power.
Cuba since independence in 1959 has been the target of unremitting U.S. violence and torture, reaching truly sadistic levels — with scarcely a word of protest in elite sectors. The U.S., fortunately, is an unusually free country, so we have access to declassified records explaining the ferocity of the efforts to punish Cubans. Fidel Castro’s crime, the State Department explained in the early years, is its “successful defiance” of U.S. policy since the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which declared Washington’s right to control the hemisphere. Plainly harsh measures are required to stifle such efforts, as any Mafia Don would understand — and the analogy of world order to the Mafia has considerable merit.
Much the same is true of Iran since 1979, when a popular uprising overthrew the tyrant installed by the U.S. in a military coup that rid the country of its parliamentary regime. Israel had enjoyed very close relations with Iran during the years of the Shah’s tyranny and extreme human rights violations, and like the U.S., was appalled by his overthrow. Israel’s de facto Ambassador to Iran, Uri Lubrani, expressed his “strong” belief that the uprising could be suppressed, and the Shah restored “by a very relatively small force, determined, ruthless, cruel. I mean the men who would lead that force will have to be emotionally geared to the possibility that they would have to kill ten thousand people.”
U.S. authorities pretty much agreed. President Carter sent NATO Gen. Robert E. Huyser to Iran to try to convince the Iranian military to undertake the task — a surmise confirmed by recently released internal documents. They refused, considering it hopeless. Shortly after, Saddam Hussein invaded Iran — an attack that killed hundreds of thousands of Iranians, with full support from the Reagan administration, even when Saddam resorted to chemical weapons, first against Iranians, then against Iraqi Kurds in the Halabja atrocities. Reagan protected his friend Hussein by attributing the crimes to Iran and blocking congressional censure. He then turned to direct military support for Hussein with naval forces in the Gulf. One vessel, the USS Vincennes, shot down an Iranian civilian airliner in a clearly marked commercial airspace, killing 290 people, returning to a royal welcome at its home base where the commander and flight officer who had directed the destruction of the airliner were rewarded with Medals of Honor.
Recognizing that it could not fight the U.S., Iran effectively capitulated. Washington then to turned harsh sanctions against Iran, while rewarding Hussein in ways that sharply increased threats to Iran, which was then just emerging from a devastating war. President Bush I invited Iraqi nuclear engineers to the U.S. for advanced training in nuclear weapons production, no small matter for Iran. He pushed through agricultural aid that Hussein badly needed after having destroyed rich agricultural areas with his chemical weapons attack against Iraqi Kurds. He sent a high-level mission to Iraq headed by the Republican Senate leader Bob Dole, later presidential candidate, to deliver his respects to Hussein, to assure him that critical comment about him would be curbed on Voice of America, and to advise Hussein that he should ignore critical comment in the press, which the U.S. government can’t prevent.
This was April 1990. A few months later, Hussein disobeyed (or misunderstood) orders and invaded Kuwait. Then everything changed.
Almost everything. Punishment of Iraq for its “successful defiance” continued, with harsh sanctions, and new initiatives by President Bill Clinton, who issued executive orders and signed congressional legislation sanctioning investment in Iran’s oil sector, the basis of its economy. Europe objected, but had no way to avoid U.S. extraterritorial sanctions.
U.S. firms suffered too. Princeton University Middle East specialist Seyed Hossein Mousavian, former spokesman for Iran nuclear negotiators, reports that Iran had offered a billion-dollar contract to the U.S. energy firm Conoco. Clinton’s intervention, blocking the deal, closed off an opportunity for reconciliation, one of many cases that Mousavian reviews.
Clinton’s action was part of a general pattern, an unusual one. Ordinarily, particularly on energy-related issues, policy conforms to Adam Smith’s comments on 18th-century England, where the “masters of mankind” who own the private economy are the “principal architects” of government policy, and act to ensure that their own interests are foremost, however “grievous” the effect on others, including the people of England. Exceptions are rare, and instructive.
Two striking exceptions are Cuba and Iran. Major business interests (pharmaceuticals, energy, agribusiness, aircraft, and others) have been eager to break into Cuban and Iranian markets and to establish relations with domestic enterprises. State power bars any such moves, overruling parochial interests of the “masters of mankind” in favor of the transcendent goal of punishing successful defiance.
There’s a good deal to say about these exceptions to the rule, but it would take us too far afield.
The release of the Jamal Khashoggi murder report disappointed almost everyone, save Saudi Arabia. Why is the Biden administration taking such a soft approach towards Saudi Arabia, and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in particular, which prompted New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof to write that, “Biden … let the murderer walk”?
Not hard to guess. Who wants to offend the close ally and regional power that the State Department described during World War II as “a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history … probably the richest economic prize in the world in the field of foreign investment.” The world has changed in many ways since, but the basic reasoning remains.
Biden had promised that, if elected, he would scale back Trump’s nuclear weapons spending, and that the U.S. would not rely on nuclear weapons for defense. Are we likely to see a dramatic shift in U.S. nuclear strategy under the Biden administration whereby the use of these weapons will be far less likely?
For reasons of cost alone, it is a goal that should be high on the agenda of anyone who wants to see the kinds of domestic programs the country badly needs. But the reasons go far beyond. Current nuclear strategy calls for preparation for war — meaning terminal nuclear war — with China and Russia.
We should also remember an observation of Daniel Ellsberg’s: Nuclear weapons are constantly used, much in the way a gun is used by a robber who aims his gun at a storekeeper and says, “Your money or your life.” The principle in fact is enshrined in policy, in the important 1995 document “Essentials of Post-Cold War Deterrence” issued by Clinton’s Strategic Command (STRATCOM). The study concludes that nuclear weapons are indispensable because of their incomparable destructive power, but even if not used, “nuclear weapons always cast a shadow over any crisis or conflict,” enabling us to gain our ends through intimidation; Ellsberg’s point. The study goes on to authorize “preemptive” use of nuclear weapons and provides advice for planners, who should not “portray ourselves as too fully rational and cool-headed.” Rather, the “national persona we project” should be “that the US may become irrational and vindictive if its vital interests are attacked and that “some elements may appear to be potentially ‘out of control.’”
Richard Nixon’s “madman theory,” but this time not from reports by associates but from the designers of nuclear strategy.
Two months ago, the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons went into effect. The nuclear powers refused to sign, and still violate their legal responsibility under the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons to undertake “effective measures” to eliminate nuclear weapons. That stance is not carved in stone, and popular activism could induce significant moves in that direction, a necessity for survival.
Regrettably, that level of civilization still seems beyond the range of the most powerful states, which are careening in the opposite direction, upgrading and enhancing the means to terminate organized human life on Earth.
Even junior partners are joining in the race to destruction. Just a few days ago, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson “announced a 40 per cent increase in UK’s stockpile of nuclear warheads. His review… recognised ‘the evolving security environment’, identifying Russia as Britain’s `most acute threat’.”
Lots of work to do.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Beijing has pledged to invest $400 billion in Iran over 25 years in a deal that could see China’s economic, political, and military influence there and across the Middle East expand.
China and Iran signed the expansive deal during a ceremony in Tehran on March 27 between their respective foreign ministers, Mohammad Javad Zarif and Wang Yi. The agreement, in which Iran offered a steady supply of oil in exchange for Chinese investment under a vast economic and security accord, capped off a two-day visit that reflects Beijing’s growing desire to play a defining role in the region.
“China firmly supports Iran in safeguarding its state sovereignty and national dignity,” Wang said during a meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rohani before calling on the United States to drop its sanctions against Tehran and “remove its long arm of jurisdictional measures that have been aimed at China, among others.”
China became a lifeline for Iran’s economy and ties between Beijing and Iranian political leaders have warmed in recent years, as both have grappled with intensified diplomatic and economic confrontations with the West.
Warships in the Sea of Oman take part in joint Iranian-Chinese-Russian naval exercises in December 2019.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration pursued a policy of “maximum pressure” on Tehran over the latter’s nuclear and missile programs after withdrawing unilaterally from a 2015 nuclear agreement between Tehran and six world powers, including China. His successor, President Joe Biden, has kept those tough policies in place while also signaling a readiness to revive the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
While the Chinese deal with Iran is about furthering Beijing’s regional and global ambitions as a leading power, they also undercut Washington’s efforts to keep Iran isolated and better position Beijing ahead of any future nuclear negotiations regarding Iran.
“China wants to show that it is indispensable in solving some of the world’s thorniest problems,” Daniel Markey, a professor at Johns Hopkins University and the author of China’s Western Horizon, told RFE/RL. “Beijing is looking to portray itself as an evenhanded broker, while painting the United States as the more problematic global player.”
Decades And Hundreds Of Billions
Neither the Iranian nor the Chinese government gave specifics about the agreement during the signing, but a leaked draft obtained by Western newspapers in July pointed to large investments in Iranian infrastructure.
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The draft covered $400 billion of Chinese investments in exchange for a steady supply of discounted oil to fuel China’s economy. Those investments would focus on energy and high-tech sectors as well as plans for other fields such as telecommunications, ports, railways, and health care, while also promoting Iran’s role in Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s signature foreign policy project, the Belt and Road Initiative, over the next quarter century.
The leaked draft also reportedly called for deepening military cooperation, including joint training and exercises, as well as intelligence sharing.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has publicly backed the deal, which was said to have been proposed by Xi during a January 2016 trip to Iran.
But the deal has been met with criticism inside Iran that officials are hiding details amid fears that Tehran may be giving too much and selling off the country’s resources to Beijing.
After last year’s leak of the draft agreement, Iranians were skeptical and lashed out on social media, with many urging the government not to sign the deal.
Critics have cited previous Chinese investment projects that have left countries in Africa and Asia indebted and ultimately beholden to Beijing and Chinese firms.
Beyond internal pushback, it is also not immediately clear how much of the agreement can be implemented with U.S. financial sanctions reimposed after the JCPOA withdrawal limiting how much business Chinese entities can conduct in Iran.
“The agreement’s success will depend on either de-escalation of tensions between Iran and the [United States] or further escalation of competition between China and the [United States],” Ali Vaez, the International Crisis Group’s Iran project director, told RFE/RL.
Delivering On The Deal
It also remains to be seen how many of the ambitious projects detailed in the agreement will come to fruition.
Should the nuclear agreement remain stalled or worse, Chinese firms could face secondary sanctions from Washington. Beijing also has a mixed track record in Iran when it comes to executing large projects.
China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), the state-owned oil and gas company, signed a contract to develop Iran’s South Azadegan oil field in 2009 after a Japanese firm pulled out. But Tehran ultimately ended the arrangement due to alleged underperformance and delays.
A natural gas refinery at the South Pars gas field on the northern coast of the Persian Gulf, in Asaluyeh, Iran. China’s state oil company pulled out of a $5 billion deal to develop a portion of Iran’s massive offshore natural gas field in 2019. (file photo)
“Signing an agreement is one thing; its materialization is quite another,” said Vaez. “China’s track record indicates that it often overpromises but underdelivers to Iran.”
‘A Friend for Hard Times’
Despite lingering concerns over the controversial deal signed with China, Beijing has offered Tehran a vital economic and political lifeline.
While Xi first proposed the strategic investment deal back in 2016, negotiations moved slowly.
Iranian President Hassan Rohani (right) meets with his Chinese countrpart, Xi Jinping, in Tehran January 2016.
Tehran signing the JCPOA nearly six years ago and reaching a deal with Washington to ease sanctions on its economy opened the door for European companies, who courted Iran with investments and plans to develop oil and gas fields.
But the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the deal and ensuing sanctions forced European companies to leave, leading Tehran to look east to China once again.
After signing the deal with Wang, Zarif said that “China is a friend for hard times,” referring to the economic and diplomatic support that Beijing has provided in recent years.
As the Biden administration looks to revive nuclear talks with Iran since taking over in January, Chinese support will be crucial for Tehran.
(Left to right:) Foreign ministers/secretaries of state Wang Yi (China), Laurent Fabius (France), Frank-Walter Steinmeier (Germany), Federica Mogherini (EU), Mohammad Javad Zarif (Iran), Philip Hammond (UK), and John Kerry (United States) pose for a group photograph at a meeting in Vienna that saw the conclusion of the JCPOA nuclear agreement with Iran on July 14, 2015.
U.S. officials say that steps can be taken to bring Iran back into compliance with the terms of the agreement while the United States gradually lifts sanctions, but Tehran insists those penalties be lifted before any negotiations resume.
While calling for a return to the nuclear deal, China has so far backed Iran and demanded that the United States act first to return to the agreement by lifting sanctions that have strangled Iran’s economy and its currency.
John Calabrese, an expert on China-Iran relations at The Middle East Institute, a Washington-based think tank, said he thinks Beijing is looking to preserve the JCPOA and prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapons program. He warned that such a program could lead to further regional instability and jeopardize Beijing’s diplomatic inroads in the Middle East, where “Chinese stakes in energy and other economic sectors have grown significantly.”
Regional Ambitions
China continues to play a growing role in the Middle East.
Prior to his visit to Iran, Wang visited Saudi Arabia, Tehran’s main rival, and was warmly received in Riyadh. The Chinese foreign minister also visited Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, with additional stops in Bahrain and Oman.
Beijing has long avoided taking sides in conflicts in the Middle East, and Wang has offered China’s diplomatic capital to be a “peace broker” in the region. At a press conference at the annual National People’s Congress on March 8, Wang talked up Beijing’s deepening ties with the Arab world and said a host of agreements heralded “a new chapter” of Sino-Arab relations.
Calabrese, who is also an assistant professor at American University, said that given China’s diverse ties in the region and ambitions for the Middle East, it will be treading cautiously following this month’s deal not to alarm Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Iran’s regional rivals.
Moving forward, he said, Beijing is positioning itself to play a more central role in reviving the Iran nuclear agreement and de-escalating tensions between powers in the Middle East, which could be a major diplomatic win for China.
“If that is the case and [it] bears fruit, then Beijing comes out stronger and [looks] stronger all around,” Calabrese said.
Iran and China are expected to sign a controversial 25-year bilateral deal on March 27.
The final details of the agreement have not been disclosed, but it is expected to include Chinese investments in Iran’s energy and infrastructure sectors.
China is Iran’s top trading partner and a key market for Iranian crude exports, which have been severely curtailed by U.S. sanctions.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Said Khatibzadeh said on March 27 that the pact includes “political, strategic, and economic” components.
Khatibzadeh said the deal will be signed by visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who arrived in Tehran late on March 26.
Iranian officials have said that the pact was proposed in a January 2016 trip to Iran by Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Iranians have accused officials of hiding details of the prospective deal amid fears that Tehran may give too much away to Beijing.
Iran has in recent years increasingly reached out to China in the face of growing U.S. pressure to isolate Tehran.
The United States unilaterally pulled out of a 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers in 2018 under former President Donald Trump.
Trump pursued a policy of “maximum pressure” on Tehran over its nuclear and missile programs, as well as its support for regional proxies.
The deal was meant to provide relief for Iran from international sanctions in exchange for limitations on its nuclear program, which Iran says is strictly for civilian energy purposes.
U.S. President Joe Biden has signaled his readiness to revive the deal.
The U.S. State Department says Secretary of State Antony Blinken has “strongly condemned” recent attacks against Saudi territory from “Iranian-aligned groups” in the region, and discussed cooperation to end the war in Yemen in a call with Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister.
During his March 22 conversation with Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, Blinken also “reiterated our commitment to supporting the defense” of U.S. ally Saudi Arabia, the department said in a statement.
It said the two discussed “their close cooperation to support the efforts of UN Special Envoy Griffiths and U.S. Special Envoy Lenderking to end the conflict in Yemen, starting with the need for all parties to commit to a cease-fire and facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid.”
The phone call came as Saudi Arabia presented a new peace initiative to end the Yemeni conflict, widely seen as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, including a nationwide cease-fire under UN supervision and the reopening of air and sea links.
The offer was welcomed by the UN and the Saudi-backed Yemeni government based in the southern port of Aden, but the Iranian-aligned Shi’ite Huthi rebels said the initiative provided “nothing new” as did not appear to go far enough to lift a blockade.
The Saudi initiative would include the reopening of Sanaa airport, and would allow fuel and food imports through Hodeidah port, both of which are controlled by the Huthis.
Saudi Arabia has been under increasing pressure to put an end to the six-year Yemeni conflict since U.S. President Joe Biden signaled Washington would no longer support Riyadh’s military intervention in the country.
Yemen was plunged into a civil war in 2015 that has killed some 130,000 people and displaced more than 3 million Yemenis.
The Huthis have launched drone and missile attacks targeting the Saudi kingdom’s oil infrastructure and other sites.
Earlier this month, the UN said around 16 million Yemenis, more than half the population, were going hungry. Of those, 5 million are on the brink of famine.
In its statement, the U.S. State Department said Blinken and his Saudi counterpart also discussed “the importance of stabilizing the Yemeni economy.”
The state secretary “underscored the importance of continued progress on human rights and expressed support for Saudi Arabia’s ongoing social and economic reforms,” it said.
One person was killed and three were wounded in a bomb explosion in southeastern Iran, the state news agency IRNA reported, blaming a “terrorist group” linked to Tehran’s enemies.
The attack reportedly occurred in the city of Saravan, the site of recent violence, in the restive Sistan-Baluchistan Province.
A group “linked to global arrogance,” a phrase that in Iranian media usually describes the United States and its allies, had carried out “the explosion at one of Saravan’s squares, leading to one being killed and the injury of three citizens crossing the street,” IRNA said.
Sistan-Baluchistan has a border with Pakistan and its population is mainly Sunni ethnic Baluch.
The province has long been a flash point for cross-border attacks by separatists and Sunni militants.
The incident came almost one month after deadly confrontations with fuel smugglers in Sistan-Baluchistan.
Iranian authorities said two people, including a policeman in Saravan, were killed in those clashes.
But the UN Human Rights Office said at least 12 people were reportedly killed, two of them minors, and accused Iranian security forces of using excessive force.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei welcomed the Persian New Year, predicting in a live televised speech on March 20 that it will be one of “production, support, and removal of barriers.”
“There is good ground for a production leap,” Khamenei said, adding that the government needs to get rid of legal obstacles to higher output and growth as the economy suffers under U.S. sanctions.
Khamenei also said the election in June, which will choose a successor to President Hassan Rohani, makes the new year “important and sensitive.”
The election will likely bring to office “new managers who most probably will be energetic and strongly motivated,” he said.
The army fired gun salutes at Tehran’s Azadi Square to usher in Norouz — the Persian New Year, marked at the spring equinox — and the beginning of the year 1400. The holiday is celebrated in a dozen countries stretching from the Caucasus to Central Asia.
In Washington, U.S. President Joe Biden issued a Norouz message calling for peace, prosperity, and understanding.
“That is the message and the joy of Nowruz that we are honoring,” Biden said in the statement, using an alternative spelling for the holiday. “This year, perhaps more than ever, that message is badly needed.”
Biden’s administration is exploring ways to restore the 2015 nuclear deal that Iran signed with major world powers. The deal has nearly collapsed since 2018, when then-U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew the United States and reimposed sanctions, sending the Islamic republic’s economy reeling.
Iran’s hard-liners say the U.S. sanctions are proof Rohani’s policy of reaching out to the country’s enemies was a failure.
In his Norouz message, Rohani said he was hopeful the new year will see the end of the sanctions.
“We will defeat the sanctions…I am more hopeful than eight years ago,” Rohani said, referring to when he was elected for his first term.
He also said the past year was “the worst in 60 years in terms of oil revenues,” but he promised improvements, saying the economy is bouncing back.
He also pledged that the new year will see “wide access” to COVID vaccines and the pandemic being brought under control.
Akram Neghabi has been searching for her son for more than two decades, despite threats, state pressure, and numerous futile attempts to get information from Iranian officials.
Neghabi’s son, computer science student Saeed Zeinali, was arrested at his home in the Iranian capital in July 1999, a few days after big student protests at Tehran University that were met with force.
Three armed agents said they were taking Zeinali, 22, in for questioning,
They said he would be back soon.
When my husband was detained, we were told not to look for Saeed anymore. They said you have to end this.”
Some three months later, Zeinali made a brief phone call to his family, telling them that he was in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison and urging them to follow up on his case with the authorities.
“I’m well,” he said.
That was the last time they heard from him.
Since then, Neghabi has been trying to find him and determine his fate, contacting the judiciary, prison officials, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the police, and even the office of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
But no one has given her a clear answer.
“There is no organization that we have not contacted,” she said, adding that “they don’t even accept our letters anymore. They don’t want Saeed’s name to be heard.”
Despite all of her efforts, Zeinali’s whereabouts are unknown and the mother of three says she doesn’t even know if her son is dead or alive.
Akram Neghabi (left) with other grieving mothers whose children were either killed or are in prison after participating in anti-government protests
In 2016, a judiciary spokesman said that “no document” had been found proving that Zeinali was arrested, adding that he appeared to be “missing.”
“I’m a mother whose child was taken away 22 years ago. I want to know what happened to him. Is he alive? I have been left with nothing — not a sign or a grave — and I’m not sure what to do,” Neghabi said in an interview with RFE/RL’s Radio Farda.
One day, the pain of the mothers, the sound of their cries, will bring [change].”
She said in past years she even spent hours outside Evin prison and other detention centers with a photo of her son.
“I would go in front of prisons holding a [big] picture photo of my Saeed, [hoping] that maybe someone had seen him,” she said. “Maybe my Saeed is an old man now. I [used to] go outside prisons with this hope, but unfortunately [state] pressure and arrests [now] prevent me from doing so.”
Neghabi and her daughter were arrested in 2010 and held in prison for two months, where they were questioned and threatened. She has said that she was told by her IRGC interrogators that her son had been “martyred.”
Her husband, Hashem Zeinali, was detained in 2015 and sentenced to nearly three months in prison and 74 lashes for “disturbing public order” after he took part in a gathering outside Evin prison in support of the jailed leader of a spiritual group.
Neghabi said her husband got mixed up with those protesters while demanding answers about his son.
“When my husband was detained, we were told not to look for Saeed anymore. They said you have to end this,” Neghabi said, adding that such pressure has failed to stop her quest.
Neghabi said she will keep demanding justice and accountability along with other mothers whose sons have become victims of Iranian state violence in recent years, including in November 2019, when at least several hundred protesters were killed in the government’s brutal crackdown on antiestablishment protests started by a sharp rise in gasoline prices.
The mothers of the missing children have gotten together in recent years to offer each other support while also raising their voices against state repression.
“One day, the pain of the mothers, the sound of their cries, will bring [change],” said Neghabi, adding that her only hope is that other mothers don’t have to mourn a child as she has.
“I pray that no more young people are killed or arrested, [beaten, or] tortured,” she said. “I hope to see that day.”
Written by Golnaz Esfandiari based on an interview by Radio Farda’s Fereshteh Ghazi
RT America begins a newscast with anchor Rick Sanchez standing by a map of Iraq, informing viewers: “Seven rockets hit a US military base just north of Baghdad. It houses US troops.”1
Sanchez continues, “But here is what I want you to understand about this story. This is not just a story about Iraq and the United States. This is a story about Iraq and Iran and the United States and China.”
Sanchez says we should ask: why China? Sanchez answers, “Because this week we learned that China has increased its purchases of Iranian oil by 129%!”
“Now does this mean that China is partnering with Iran?” Sanchez answers his own question: “Yes, and no.”
When the buyer has the chance to snap up a regularly purchased commodity at a discount price, usually the buyer will make a large purchase. That is a normal behavior in business transactions. Sanchez recognizes that China may just be agreeing to a good deal.
But, says Sanchez, “China is ignoring US sanctions, getting tons of oil at a discount and supplying Iran with a much needed revenue source which Iran is in turn using against US troops.”
Here, his tenuous logic that China is indirectly, and presumably knowingly, funding attacks against the US is so off-putting. And why should China which also finds itself under US sanctions (including new sanctions over alleging Chinese “interfering in Hong Kong’s freedoms.”2 ) want to abide by US sanctions?
To state the connections proffered is bizarre is putting it mildly. “Question more,” RT advises. Is Sanchez suggesting that when one country conducts trade with another country — for instance, an exchange of cash for goods — that the buyer is responsible for what the buyer does with the cash it receives? Is an employer responsible should an employee use his pay check to drink himself silly and go home and abuse his family? Such is the logical connection that Sanchez proposes.
Sanchez continues, “So Iran, fueled by its oil revenues, is trying to force the US out of Iraq. And you know what?” Sanchez leans forward and hold his arm out, as if pointing to the viewer: “Seems to be working.”
Why would Iran want the US — which declared Iran to be part of an “axis of evil” along with Iraq (then under the rule of Saddam Hussein) — next door in Iraq? Who would want a neighbor like that?
Sanchez got the year wrong,3 in subsequently stating that the Iraqi parliament is “essentially asking the United States troops to leave, to get out of their country.” [emphasis added]
Most news organizations referred to Iraq expelling US troops; for example, the first page of an internet search on the terms “iraq parliament us troops 2020” listed NPR, Al Jazeera, France24, DW, Rand, Boston Herald, and VOX using some form of the word expel.
To be fair, the parliament’s resolution did not target only the US: “The Iraqi government must work to end the presence of any foreign troops on Iraqi soil and prohibit them from using its land, airspace or water for any reason.” [emphasis added]
Sanchez carries on:
… we have China, Iran, two of the countries most targeted by the United Sates when it comes to sanctions and trade wars in recent years, right?, partnering in a deal that is ostensibly funding attacks against the United States, so what does the United States do at this point? Does it leave Iraq once and for all? Or does it attack China with more sanctions?
Sanchez is proposing the questions. “Question more” is the RT slogan — a slogan that RT selectively adheres to. There are several more questions that should spring to mind: What are sanctions; i.e, what purpose do they serve? Are sanctions legal? Why is the US military still in Iraq and how did it get to be stationed there in the first place? Why are the purportedly “Iran-backed” militias attacking US bases in Iraq?
Economic sanctions outside the parameters of a United Nations Security Council resolution or national self-defense are held to constitute an illicit intervention into the sovereign affairs of other nations. More egregiously, sanctions are widely regarded as a declaration of war. And why not? Sanctions kill! Professors John Mueller and Karl Mueller in their article, “Sanctions of Mass Destruction,” made clear the devastating lethality of sanctions:
economic sanctions … may have contributed to more deaths during the post-Cold War era than all weapons of mass destruction throughout history.
Speaking of killing, Sanchez does not mention the extremely pertinent assassination of Iranian major general Qasem Soleimani by a US drone strike on 3 January 2020 at Baghdad International Airport. Five Iraqi nationals and four other Iranian nationals were killed alongside Soleimani, including the deputy chairman of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces. This led to the Iraqi resolution to remove foreign troops for its territory.
When someone commits an unprovoked attack against you, you have a choice to respond or not. What message is sent to the aggressor when you do not respond? Might not the aggressor think she can now attack freely knowing that retaliation is unlikely? For instance, consider how the lack of response to Israeli bombing in Syria has resulted in repeated bombing by Israel of targets in Syria and compare it to Israel’s reluctance to bomb the Hizbollah resistance knowing that there will likely be retaliation.
There is much dark history regarding the US vis-à-vis Iraq (that includes the western backers of the US, such as the UK, Australia, Canada, etc). There are the deaths of half-a-million children resulting from US-backed UN sanctions on Iraq — a price worth the US sanctions policy, according to Madeleine Albright, then US secretary-of-state. The devastation of a war launched by US president George Bush and UK prime minister Tony Blair in which “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy” of removing Iraq’s president Saddam Hussein. Abdul Haq al-Ani and Tarik al-Ani noted the UN complicity, and wrote a book titled Genocide in Iraq: The Case against the UN Security Council and Member States (Clarity Press)4 .
Sanchez asks if China even cares about sanctions. “These are serious questions that too few of us are even asking in the media these days.”
Question more Mr Sanchez: The US is sanctioning Iran. Why? Even though Iran was abiding by the terms of the JCPOA (the Iran nuclear deal), president Donald Trump (most certainly at the behest of Israel) wanted further capitulations by Iran, all this while the US was not in compliance with the deal. Then the US withdrew (so much for fidelity to a signed agreement by the US, but there are scads of such examples), and kept insisting that Iran comply, all while the Europeans partners were also in non-compliance.
Sanchez presents as the top news question of the day: “Is there an alliance building between China [and Iran] and how will it affect the US?”
Does Sanchez imply that trade between two countries constitutes “an alliance”? Sanchez’s intonation makes it seem as if the word alliance has some sinister connotations. The US trades with China, so do they have an alliance? Do two countries trading with each other constitute a provocative act against a third country? What does Sanchez wish to denote positing that “an alliance” between China and Iran? Wouldn’t it be nice it all countries were in alliance with each other — like a meaningful United Nations where each member country steadfastly abides by the UN Charter?
How does the US even get portrayed as the aggrieved party in this news reportage? It was the US which did not abide by the JCPOA. It is the US sanctioning Iran, inflicting damage to its economy, and killing Iranian people. It is the US which assassinated a high-ranking Iranian general. It is the US (plus Israel) behind the sabotage caused by the Stuxnet virus and the assassinations of Iranian scientists.
All Rick Sanchez needs do, to get a good overview of the geo-strategic situation, is eyeball a map bigger than the one he used on air. Then question more: Are Iranian military situated near American shores? Are Iranians in the Florida Strait? Yet, US US warships commonly ply the waters of the Persian Gulf. Should US warships be sailing near Iranian shores? Moreover, when the US sanctions another country, assassinates that country’s citizens, and surrounds it with military hardware, then who is the threat? Also noteworthy is that US warships provocatively sail in the South China Sea, allegedly protecting freedom of navigation there, although never has the US provided any evidence that freedom of navigation has been blocked or threatened by China.
So why then frame the opening segment by casting aspersions against Iran and China?
The RT segment improved drastically when Sanchez interviewed former British MP George Galloway, but sadly, the opening segment set a terrible tone. That tone needs to be questioned more because RT is so much better than western mass media, and it needs to keep to that standard.
The opening segment report ends at 16:47.
Imagine if China were to sanction the US for interfering in BLM protestors’ or Capitol Hill protestors’ freedoms?
He stated “Earlier this year,” but it was early 2020 — in January.
