Iran’s tests of ballistic missiles earlier this month were in no way a violation of the P5+1 nuclear deal. That was an admission made by the US State Department almost immediately after the tests. And although officials expressed discontent with the testing, that was indeed their expressed position.
Yet today, the US is claiming that Iran’s test is in violation of the UN Security Council resolution which itself endorsed the P5+1 nuclear deal, saying that any missiles were “inherently capable of delivering nuclear weapons.”
This is in spite of the fact that officials previously conceded that the missiles were not designed to accept nuclear warheads, and the even more important fact that Iran has no nuclear warheads, nor any program attempting to produce one.
The language of the US letter, backed by Britain, France, and Germany, appears to assert that any advances in missile technology, even for conventional missiles, must be “inherently” illegal for Iran to make by virtue of a ban on nuclear weapons they neither have nor are attempting to obtain.
“Diplomats say key powers agree that request is not legally binding and cannot be enforced under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which deals with sanctions and authorization of military force. But Western nations, which view the language as a ban, say there is a political obligation on Iran to comply”
There is a political obligation on western nations to stop behaving like tosser.
What “western nations”? There is only one driver of foreign policy for western nations and the rest of them are lapdogs
Even the lapdogs have free will.
The leaders are “taken care of”.
And the U.N. agrees that it is legal for Israel to continually threaten Iran with invasion and destruction of its nuclear facilities. Give me a break. When did self defence go out the window?
It went out the window when the Zionists/Neocons took over the United States.
The US/western idea of “self defense” is when you’re the US, Israel or one of their vassals you can bomb and invade countries, murder their occupants and destroy their infrastructure. You can ambush Russian jets over Syrian airspace and board and murder unarmed occupants of aid flotillas in international waters. You can arm and support jihadists for illegal proxy wars. But if you’re Iran or Russia or Syria or China or anyone else who simply insists on being independent of the Washington/Tel Aviv evil axis you become a target for regime change and other hostile acts and you have no right of self defense. In fact, you have no rights at all.
The older I get (presently 85), the more disgusted I become with my lying, hypocritical, stupid US Government. Electing Bernie Sanders at least offers the possibility that our Executive Branch might be led by an essentially honest and decent human being for the next four years; otherwise I see nothing in the foreseeable future for our Government other than a continuing spiral down the toilet of history. And so it goes here in the Land of the Submissive and the Home of the Craven.