Tensions over the US Supreme Court ruling allowing the seizure of nearly $2 billion in Iranian central bank assets to pay for the 1983 Beirut bombing continue to rise, with Iran’s Foreign Ministry asking UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to intervene in the process.
The concept of sovereign immunity does not generally allow foreign states to be held accountable for their actions, and under US law there are very narrow exceptions. Indeed, US law explicitly forbids taking central bank money on top of this, though in the case of Iran multiple moves by presidents and a 2012 act of Congress allowed for this exception. Iran denies any involvement in the 1983 bombing at any rate.
Foreign Minister Javad Zarif urged Ban to do something about the US moves, citing the “catastrophic implications” of the seizure of the frozen assets. Zarif has also been meeting with Secretary of State John Kerry regularly in recent days, though this seems to center more around the US blocking implementation of the sanctions relief under the nuclear deal than the asset seizure, as the former is potentially a matter of tens, if nor hundreds of billions of dollars.
Coincidentally, the question of sovereign immunity under US law is also a major one in a Congressional bill aiming to expose any nation found to be funding terrorism. This bill is aimed primarily at Saudi Arabia, and led the Saudi government to threaten to collapse the US economy through the sale of treasury assets.
America still want war with Iran to appease the zionists
Almost right. It’s the Zionists who want the war to destroy Iran, and the Neocon subversives here in the US who want to maneuver the US into doing the destroying.
The Iran nuclear deal was an Obama project to avoid that war, but the Neocons who own US mideast foreign policy — the Wolfowitz Doctrine and “Seven countries in five years” — are still unstintingly committed to the US war-to-destroy-Iran. So undeterred, they just move on to plan B: provoke the Iranians to renounce the deal by refusing to comply with the provisions of the deal that persuaded Iran to make it in the first place. It won’t work of course, because the Iranians know the game, and won’t take the bait. They’ll just suck it up and soldier on, using whatever alternate means available to force the real-not-phony lifting of sanctions and the return of their frozen funds.
Life’s a bitch, and the Iranians will deal with plans B, C, D, E,….etc patiently and smartly, and eventually, as the Ayatollah K said, “this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time…”
This is also a way to undermine the UN and international deal with Iran, by confiscating assets instead of returning them.
Perhaps other countries should start doing the same. If Iran can be held accountable for Beirut why not the U.S. for…gee…I don’t know, let’s start with Hiroshima, I’m not sure where it would end.
Crying to the UN. Wah, wah, wah. Even if this works, what is Ban Ki Moon going to do about it?