Frog-Marching
Trump Toward War on Iran
Hypocrisy seems to have
become a defining characteristic of US foreign policy, especially when it comes
to Iran. After breaking the Iran deal last year and, de facto,
forcing the Europeans to violate the deal in May, the US Administration is now
complaining that Iran is no longer abiding by its obligations under the deal!
It’s remarkable to see
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo took to Twitter to complain of Iran enriching
uranium to pre-deal levels, as if somehow the US believes it can still dictate
the terms of a deal to which it is no longer a party.
This latest neocon push for
US war on Iran started last week when Iran exceeded the limit of a 300-kilogram
stockpile of low-enriched uranium. As usual, the media only reported part of
the story. One reason Iran went over the limit was that the countries to which
Iran was exporting its excess uranium were notified by the US in early May that
they would face US sanctions if they continued taking the uranium off Iranian
hands.
The US created the crisis
by preventing Iran from exporting its excess uranium and then pointed to the
expanding Iranian stockpile of uranium enriched to 3.6 percent as proof that
Iran was about to launch a nuclear weapon!
Make no mistake about it:
Trump’s neocons are determined to trap him into a massive, disastrous war with
Iran and they are using the same tactics they used to hoodwink George W. Bush
into a multi-trillion dollar war on an Iraq that could not have attacked us if
it wanted to.
Secretary Pompeo Tweeted
yesterday the exact kind of dishonest hysterics used to terrify many Americans
into supporting an Iraq attack 13 years ago: “Iran’s regime, armed with nuclear
weapons would pose an even greater danger to the world.”
As the former head of the
CIA, surely Pompeo knows that his own agency had determined back in 2003 that
Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program and that every US intelligence
assessment since then has concurred with that conclusion. But then again, he
did brag recently about his excellent ability to lie, cheat, and steal.
Though the Europeans
promised Iran that they would continue to honor the deal, they have proven
themselves unable to put forth a credible alternative to the US-dominated SWIFT
system, meaning no trade in Iran’s number one export: oil.
Iran responded over the
weekend to European fecklessness by announcing that they would begin enriching
uranium up to five percent, which is a level needed to run one of its nuclear
power generating plants. As could be predicted, this move – which is allowed
according to section 36 of the Iran deal – is being treated as the equivalent
of Saddam’s “mobile chemical weapons labs.”
The Iranians are not
backing down. They rightly feel cheated, as they continued to honor the deal
even as the US re-imposed crippling sanctions meant to destroy their economy
and starve their people.
President Trump has a very
serious decision to make. He is being frog-marched into war by his neocons and
his Middle East “partners.” He has very little time left to change course. If
the neocons are not swept out immediately, he is risking both his second term
and his legacy.
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