Iran is trying to sell some of its oil through a private consortium in an attempt t circumvent the US-led international sanctions regime inflicting enormous pain on the Iranian economy.
“The head of the oil products exporters’ union,” reports Reuters, “said the agreement between the exporters’ union, Iran’s central bank, and the oil ministry would get around a European Union ban on shipping insurance for tankers carrying Iranian oil.”
“In accordance with the agreement,” said Hassan Khosrojerdi, the exporters’ union head, “it is planned that 20 percent of Iran’s oil exports will go through this private consortium.”
The supposed justification behind all the economic warfare against Iran is to pressure the Iranian government to give up its alleged ambitions to obtain nuclear weapons. But the consensus within the US intelligence community and indeed the Obama administration itself is that Iranhas no nuclear weapons program and has demonstrated no intention to start one.
The sanctions are really about placating Israel’s trumped-up concerns and trying to stoke internal discontent and pressure Tehran into making absurd concessions in international negotiations over their civilian nuclear program.
Writing in Foreign Affairs, celebrated international relations academic Kenneth Waltz argued that sanctions “primarily harm ordinary Iranians, with little purpose.”
A recent piece in Foreign Policy argued similarly that the people, not the regime, will be hurt by this economic warfare. The decreased oil revenues “will stay firmly in the hands of the hardliners and the repressive organs of the state. Meanwhile, youth unemployment — which already exceeds 70 percent – will rise higher, and the quality of life of the underprivileged and retirees reliant on government handouts for their meager existence will decline further.”
Yes, of course, the US administration knows that Iran has no nuclear weapons program, and their expressed desire to halt that program is a false, or "trumped-up" concern, and therefore the sanctions and saber-rattling must be based on some other, unspecified but real concern. Naturally one wonders what that real concern may be.
But how disappointing it is to read that "the sanctions are really about placating Israel’s trumped-up concerns…" If Israel is helping the US to trump up concern, then there is no more reality in placating Israel's part of the trumping-up program than there is in the official US part of that same program. Unless you mean to suggest that Obama knows that he himself is lying but believes that the Israelis are sincere though misinformed when they tell the same lies.
Obama is widely regarded and reported as being highly intelligent. Thus, one can assume that Obama always knows he's lying. He also knows the Israelis are lying.
If you want to know 'why', follow the money. If people weren't getting rich from all of this, then they wouldn't be spending the money to buy the politicians to make sure it happens.
Yes, people are getting rich from war and giving a small percentage of their profits to political leaders, in the same way that mob-connected businesses kick back to the Mafia. But the kick-back doesn't make them bosses, and doesn't alter the way the system works. It only gives them the right to continue getting a piece of the action.
If anti-war activists were somehow able to give Congress more money than war profiteers do, that would have no effect on foreign policy. Policy is based on the interest of the power structure itself, and that interest is always to consolidate and expand its power as much as possible.
Tony, no way. They all know what they’re doing, and they’re all liars. The sanctions are basically about two things:
1.75% of it is about regime change, with plan A or B. They expect the people to rise up and topple the government. If that didn’t work, plan B would be military attack once the government has become weak due to sanctions.
2.The other 25% is that they don’t want Iran to become self-sufficient in nuclear technology.
Included in both 1 & 2 above is that they don’t like independent countries.
Well put. Once again Charles we are on the same page.
I like how John Glaser keeps repeating US intelligence sees no intention by Iran to develop nuclear weapons. It helps to remind everyone. And it brings to mind what the real intention is for this hostility of Iran if it's not nuclear weapons.
The real motivation is not Iran is an existential threat to Israel but that it's a hegemonic threat for Israel and the US. It's a hegemonic threat because it was a large economy (despite sanctions), it's a big producer of oil and gas, it's able to make its own weapons, it's not a client state of the US or Israel, it's an independent sovereign country.
Iran is a hegemonic threat for the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and other Sunni countries who hate Shias.
One thing to add–the Shi'ite and Sunni hatred has long been spurred by Israel. Divide and conquer, that's how they like to do it.
And once again, we continue to turn another generation of Iranians against the US and everyone who goes along with us. This is so stupid- instead of alienating Iran, we should be courting them as a natural ally in the region. Granted, the US government is firmly in the pocket of Israeli money and influence, but from a geopolitical perspective Iran is the more desirable ally. Its strength and location- and it's economic potential- put it in a class far and above anything Israel can offer us. As an enemy, Iran doesn't forget easily when it's been crossed, but as an ally I have a feeling they'd be so much more of as asset than Israel has ever been.
As for this current run-up to war at Israel's behest, my money is on the Iranian people. They may lose but they will never go down without a fight- and getting a big piece of us in the process.
Good analysis.
The US is not "in the pocket of Israeli money and influence." US politicians take a lot of money from Jewish-Americans who believe that myth, but the real master is imperial power. Those politicians support Israel because it helps consolidate that power. It serves, in Chomsky's terms, as a "local cop on the beat" in the Middle East.
Israel vis-a-vis the US is a ventriloquist's dummy, saying things that the ventriloquist could not politely say, and forcing the ventriloquist to do things he pretends not to want to do. In Orwell's terms, it is Airstrip Two.
Nonsense. The Israel lobby's power in the United States has been well documented for a while now. I appreciate your efforts on behalf of the ADL, but the audience at this website knows better. And you make a nice analogy about the ventriloquist's dummy, but you've reversed the truth–the U.S. vis-a-vis Israel is a ventriloquist's dummy.
Eloquently put!
Good for Iran. Getting more than tired of the US/ Israel destructive tactics.