The US was mad at Iran at the start of the week, and that anger grew with Iran holding a military drill with a wooden mock aircraft carrier. What is making officials madder than ever, however, is a newly opened Iranian grocery store, complete with Covid-19 safety features.
Assistant Secretary of State Michael Kozak says the store is “not something we look favorably upon,” saying it points to an alliance between “pariah” states. To the extent that alliance is happening, it’s because the US has forced the two nations together with increasingly aggressive sanctions.
US sanctions aimed at imposing regime change in Venezuela created a series of shortages, starting with gasoline, which Iran, who the US generally forbids from selling their goods, filling those gaps with gold for goods trades.
Megasis market company head Issa Rezaei says that this is strictly a commercial transaction, as his company also plans to buy mangoes and pineapples to take back to Iran.
Kozak, however, still complained that Venezuela is too poor to buy Iranian products, saying that Iran would not only fail to save Venezuela, but is also putting itself in even greater danger by defying the US with the opening of such a store.
I assume nobody actually living in the entire USA is even remotely interested in this topic, so why say “US frowns”?
Most Americans couldn’t find Venezuela on a map.
They ought to be very interested, no, Concerned about what their government does to other peoples around the world: starve them (economic sanctions= siege warfare), bomb them to death, use depleted uranium against them, destroy their water, electricity plants, their farmlands, train, support, arm the so-called rebels. And even if the majority of the US population don’t give a f*** about the lives of those other peoples thousands of miles from their shores, they should be aware of the fact that every billion dollars that goes to destroying others, to ruining the planet’s ecosystems via the military, is a billion dollars denying them health care, housing, education, decently paid employment. That their taxes do not go to ensuring them and their kids a reasonably decent life but to ensure the profiteering of those who make the weapons and who organize their use for murder.
Well said
“US sanctions aimed at imposing regime change in Venezuela created a series of shortages, starting with gasoline”
Venezuela started experiencing shortages circa 2003-05 with Chavez’s currency controls and announcement of a Mao-style “Great Leap Forward.”
Significant US sanctions (i.e. beyond the two individuals and two travel agencies that were sanctioned over supposed support for Hezbolla in 2006), and specifically sanctions aimed at regime change, didn’t begin until about 2015.
US sanctions are a bad thing and regime change is a bad policy. The sanctions may even be slightly exacerbating the effects of the batshit insane Chavez/Maduro economic dictatorship. Slightly.
Come on Thomas… this is now all-out economic warfare by the US on a small country in our hemisphere that has been going on for years. This surely is having a major impact on their economy, more significant than any questionable policies they may have inflicted on themselves.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortages_in_Venezuela#/media/File:Food_scarcity_in_Venezuela_graph.png
Started similar timing to US sanctions on Venezuela, but not clear whether it’s a kick-them-when-they-are-down policy coinciding with ‘unrest’ or whether there is some causal relationship.
I’m not sure which explanation is worse.
Extensive US efforts to expand insecurity elsewhere also distracts from the insecurity we have structurally cultivated here, between capitalism (food for who can afford it) and misogyny (paying women less for the same work and valuing the jobs they tend to do less).
https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/Charts/85645/Prevalence_of_food_insecurity_for_US_households_with_children-01_350px.png?v=6748.3
WE HAVE NO RIGHT to change any other country’s government. NONE. And It is Inhumane, immoral to use economic sanctions against any other country – it is the modern equivalent of siege warfare. And indeed the sanctions began to have serious effects well before 2015. But even if they didn’t do so until 2015 – that makes them OK?????
Was there some part of “US sanctions are a bad thing and regime change is a bad policy” that you didn’t understand?
Not sure who the “we” you’re referring to is. It’s been decades since the last time I was involved in any attempt to change another country’s government.
This is simply not supported by reality. If the US supported the attempted coup against Chavez in 2002, then presumably they would have been working to strangle the Chavez/Maduro Bolivarian Revolution ever since. Which is to say continuously since Chavez’s election and his declaration of Venezuelan revolutionary independence.
The reason that Chavismo survived, and indeed flourished in Venezuela despite US opposition — and despite whatever the economic “defects” of the socialist program — was that between October 2000 and July 2014, oil prices for oil-rich Venezuela were through the roof …
https://www.macrotrends.net/1369/crude-oil-price-history-chart
With Chavez dead in 2013 and uncharismatic Maduro in the presidency, and oil prices plunging from July 2014 and stressing the revolutionary program, the US saw a renewed opportunity to bring about regime change. So the Neocons have been putting on the full-court press ever since.
But Chavez was smart, and after — and probably before — the failed coup of 2002, he cleaned out the right-wing, oligarch-loyal, School of the Americas coup-prepped elements in the Venezuelan military, and with the help of the Cuban intelligence service, armored the Bolivarian Revolution against the predictable — and unrelenting — effort by the US to destroy it.
Blaming Chavez/Maduro for the “problem” in Venezuela is strikingly disingenuous. Doing so is a perfect example of the brazen and insulting gaslighting so forcefully declared as bullsh*t by that sarcastic truism: “Who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?!”
Considering your role here on AW.C, and the (apparent?) anti-neoliberal/neocon imperialism of your other writings, Thomas, I find it baffling that you parrot the neoliberal/neocon hoohah on Venezuela. (Scratches head in bewilderment.)
United States is attempting to control the world .Sanctions on many countries unless they let us make the rules they live under . It is only logical that suffering sanctioned countries would try to relieve their suffering by trading with each other . Why don’t we act more like a Christian country and try to help other countries instead of always trying to hurt other people because they are to socialist or independent ?
We don’t act like a “Christian country” because there is no such thing. And being helpful isn’t exclusive to Christians.
It just shows the hypocrisy of the American Christian.
America has hardly been ever Christian. I is sort of pagan variety of Christianity that always defined good as what is good for me. But then, it has been the land into which many versions of Christianity arrived from Europe. And Europe itself has departed from old Christianity many a time, last but not the least being Roman Catholic split in 11century, followed by protestants, Church of England, and more. We are back to pagan exceptionalism, chosenism, whatever. The bottom line -Christianity fundamental tenet has been abandoned. There are no special people, no different standards of behavior in Christianity — all equal under God.
But mighty could never accept Christianity — as the power and wealth corrupt. But there was at least time when they had to at least pretend ti be decent human beings. Not any more. The fact that we begrudge people having a grocery store to buy food — shows the depth of our fall.
The hypocrisy of the standard American Christian is incredible. They cheer the use of the atomic bomb against Japanese civilians, sanctions against the enemies of the US government, never ending wars in the Middle East, nuclear weapons, huge military budgets, etc… This is not what Jesus would do. The God I believe in is not OK with these things.
Michael Kozak: please shut your mouth….!
The Bible that Pompeo keeps on his desk is the Bibi neo-con chicken hawk translation. If I’m not mistaken there’s a verse that says keep the grocery store closed and Bingo! It’s rapture time!
It’s good to know that with all the problems in the world, the US is keeping an eye on who owns a grocery store.
The only thing I took from this article is that the assistant secretary of state is just as bat shit crazy as the secretary of state.
And we have time and money to monitor this?
And the lack of shame to even talk about this?
We have sunk real low.
Here our country is falling apart at the seams, the President has lost focus on everything, and Washington is running around like a chicken with its head cut off, and worrying about a grocery store in Venezuela!. Sheehz!
Something, something, this Iranian grocery store threatens muh freedum?
the US bastion of free trade, is trying to force the whole world into doing anything but trade freely!