Washington’s sadistic urges

Tensions between US and Iran simmer amidst renewed sanctions by Trump

Ever since the 1979 revolution, Iran has been a favourite punching bag for the American leadership. Every time an American president opens his mouth, he issues a threat against Iran. President Bush had said that he would like to resolve the nuclear standoff with Iran diplomatically, but “all options are on the table”. President Obama had warned that “all of the options available to the United States — including the military option — will remain available”, should Iran rushes to make a nuclear weapon.

Trump is quick to label any news as fake if it criticises him. Here is fake news for an elementary understanding of the term; Iran is posing a threat to the military and other interests of the United States in the region. The threat to the region is posed by Israel, which is the only nuclear-armed country in the region.

The US has dispatched the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and a bomber to the Persian Gulf in response to what it described as threats from Iraqi armed groups who are intertwined with Iran. These armed groups are basically militias consisting of Sunni and Shia fighters, some of which are armed by the Iraqi government (code word for being armed by the US), others have ties to the Quds force and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). There are roughly 30 militias, which are known as Popular Mobilization Forces. Their purpose was to fight the Islamic State but now that the latter is on the run, the US would like to see these militias disarmed. This is a deja vu all over again, where one group of killers is armed to kill another group of killers. Once that is achieved, the favourite killers are asked to quit fighting and when they don’t, they become the enemy.

Furthermore, the villain status of Iran is a continuous illustration of how Israel continues to hijack the American foreign policy. Trump’s Jewish son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is a godsend for Israel. That partly explains why we have witnessed unprecedented support for Israel. Trump moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem recognising it as Israel’s capital. In order to prop up the victory chances of Benjamin Netanyahu, President Trump recognised Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which Israel had captured from Syria in the 1967 war, in a move never recognised by the world. He ripped apart, as he had promised during his campaign, the Iran nuclear deal formally known as Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

North Korea actually has bombs that can reach America. But with Kim, Trump wants to talk. Not with Iran, even though Iran does not have nuclear bombs. But since Israel views and touts Iran as this great threat to its survival, Washington marches in lockstep. The Trump and Kushner duo’s sadistic urges did not stop there. Trump declared the IRGC a terror group. That is a first in international relations, to label the military of another nation as a terror group. Trump has further imposed sanctions on Iran and even ended waivers for nations that could buy the Iranian oil including Japan, India, and China. The aim is to bring Iranian oil sales to a near zero. That has resulted in Iran hinting at exiting the Iran deal. “The Islamic Republic of Iran’s government has decided to enforce specific decisions to reciprocate”, Fars News Agency reported.

John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt had made a convincing case in the book The Israel Lobby; that the unquestioning American support for Israel is not only harmful for America but also for Israel. The result of these American sanctions on Iran would be to trigger an aggressive nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia has already expressed in no equivocal words that “Whatever the Iranians have, we will have too.” The next phase might as well be of another brand of nukes.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 9^th, 2019.

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