US is stirring up the Syrian cauldron
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | MARCH 26, 2023
The circumstances surrounding the flare-up in Syria between the US occupation forces and pro-Iranian militia groups remain murky. President Biden claims that the US is reacting, but there are signs that it is likely being proactive to create new facts on the ground.
The US Central Command claims that following a drone attack on March 23 afternoon on an American base near Hasakah, at the direction of President Biden, retaliatory air strikes were undertaken later that night against “facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.”
However, this version has been disputed by the spokesman of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council who accused Washington of “creating artificial crises and lying.” The Iranian official has alleged that “Over the past two days, American helicopters have carried out several sorties with the aim of increasing instability in Syria and transferred Daesh (Islamic State) terrorists in the territory of this country.”
He said Washington must be held accountable for such activities. The official warned that Tehran will give a prompt response to any US attack on whatever false pretext against Iranian bases that exist on Syrian soil at the request of Damascus for fighting terrorism.
Is the US deliberately ratcheting up tensions in Syria even as the China-brokered Saudi-Iranian rapprochement is radically changing the security scenario in the West Asian region in a positive direction?
There is optimism that Syria stands to gain out of Saudi-Iranian rapprochement. Already, the Saudi Foreign Ministry revealed on Thursday that talks are going on with Syria for resuming consular services between the two countries, which will pave the way for the resumption of diplomatic relations and in turn make it possible to reinstate Syria’s membership of the Arab League.
Saudi Arabia has established an air bridge with Syria to send relief supplies for those affected by the devastating earthquake in February.
The backdrop is that the normalisation of relations between Syria and its estranged Arab neighbours has accelerated. It must be particularly galling for Washington that these regional states used to be active participants in the US-led regime change project to overthrow the government of President Bashar al-Assad. The Saudi-Iranian rapprochement badly isolates the US and Israel.
From such a perspective, it stands to reason that the US is once again stirring up the Syrian cauldron. Lately, Russian aircraft have been reported as frequently flying over the US’s military base At Tanf on the Syrian-Iraqi border where training camps for militant groups are known to exist.
Israel too is a stakeholder in keeping Syria unstable and weak. In the Israeli narrative, Iran-backed militia groups are increasing their capability in Syria in the last two years and continued US occupation of Syria is vital for balancing these groups. Israel is paranoid that a strong government in Damascus will inevitably start challenging its illegal occupation of Golan Heights.
A key factor in this matrix is the nascent process of Russian mediation between Turkiye and Syria. With an eye on the forthcoming presidential and parliamentary election in Turkiye in May, President Recep Erdogan is keen to achieve some visible progress in improving the ties with Syria.
Erdogan senses that the Turkish public opinion strongly favours normalisation with Syria. Polls in December showed that 59 percent of Turks would like an early repatriation of Syrian refugees who are a burden on Turkish economy, which has an inflation rate of 90 percent.
Evidently, Turkiye is ending up as a straggler when the West Asian countries on the whole are coasting ahead to normalise their relations with Damascus. But the catch is, Assad is demanding the vacation of Turkish occupation of Syrian territory first for resuming ties with Ankara.
Now, there are growing signs that Erdogan may be willing to bite the bullet. The consummate pragmatist in him estimates that he must act in sync with the public mood. Besides, the main opposition party CHP always maintained that an end to the Syrian conflict needs to be anchored firmly on the principles of Syria’s unity and territorial integrity.
The influential Beirut newspaper Al-Akhbar has reported citing sources close to Damascus that Erdogan is weighing options that would meet Assad’s demand with a view to restore relations. The daily reported that one possibility is that Turkiye may propose a timetable for the withdrawal of its troops in Syria.
Significantly, Erdogan telephoned Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday and the Kremlin readout mentioned that amongst “topics concerning Russian-Turkish partnership in various fields,” during the conversation, “the Syrian issue was touched upon, and the importance of continuing the normalisation of Turkish-Syrian relations was underlined. In this regard the President of Türkiye highlighted the constructive mediatory role Russia has played in this process.”
Earlier, on Wednesday, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar held telephone talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu to discuss developments in Syria where he underscored that the “sole purpose” of its deployment in northern Syria is to secure its borders and fight terrorism.
It is entirely conceivable that Erdogan has sought Putin’s help and intervention to reach a modus vivendi with Assad quickly. Of course, this is a spectacular success story for Russian diplomacy — and for Putin personally — that the Kremlin is called upon to broker the Turkish-Syrian normalisation.
The China-brokered Saudi-Iranian normalisation hit Washington where it hurts. But if Putin now brokers peace between two other rival West Asian states, Biden will be exposed as hopelessly incompetent.
And, if Turkiye ends its military presence in Syria, the limelight will fall on the US’ illegal occupation of one-third of Syrian territory and the massive smuggling of oil and other resources from Syria in American military convoys.
Furthermore, the Syrian government forces are sure to return to the territories vacated by Turkish forces in the northern border regions, which would have consequences for the Kurdish groups operating in the border region who are aligned with the Pentagon.
In sum, continued US occupation of Syria may become untenable. To be sure, Russia, Turkiye, Iran and Syria are on the same page in seeking the vacation of US occupation of Syria.
Thus, an alibi is needed for the US to justify that although dialogue and reconciliation is in ascendance in West Asian politics, Syria is an exception as a battleground against “terrorism.” The US is vastly experienced in using extremist groups as geopolitical tools.
The US’ real intention could be to confront Iran on Syrian soil — something that Israel has been espousing — taking advantage of Russia’s preoccupations in Ukraine. The Russian-Iranian axis annoys Washington profoundly.
The spectre that is haunting Washington is that the stabilisation of Syria following Assad’s normalisation with the Arab countries and with Turkiye will inexorably coalesce into a Syrian settlement that completely marginalises the “collective West.”
In retrospect, the unannounced visit by General Mark Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff to northern Syria in early March falls into perspective. Milley told reporters traveling with him that the nearly eight-year-old US deployment to Syria is still worth the risk!
The time may have come for the militants, including ex-Islamic State fighters, who were trained in the US’s remote At Tanf military base to return to the killing fields for “active duty.”
Tass reported that on Friday, the terrorist group known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham tried to break into the Aleppo region which has been under Syrian government control and relatively stable in the recent years.
Israel and its US lobby Dealt Major Blow by China Saudi Iran Peace Initiative
By Grant F. Smith | Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy | March 12, 2023
On Thursday the New York Times ran yet another report about Saudi Arabia’s entry into an “Abraham Accord,” but if only certain conditions could be met. It quoted longtime Israel lobby heavyweight Martin Indyk and reported on the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s think tank the Washington Institute for Near East Policy “expert” delegation’s visit to Riyadh to finalize a deal. Then on Friday explosive news broke that China had successfully concluded a secret peace agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
The plan aims to restore diplomatic relations by reopening embassies within two months. They also agree to restart their April 2001 Security Cooperation. Also back on the front burner is a 1998 General Agreement covering economic, trade, investment, technology, science, culture, sports and youth ties. It is well worth reading the entire statement.
As it often does, the New York Times quickly updated its March 9 story in an attempt not to look foolish having given too much credence to Israel lobby guidance.
Too late.
Israel and its lobby have for decades attempted to steer the United States into attacking Iran. The neocon policy coup of 2001 was not only a plan to get the U.S. to attack Israel’s arch enemy Iraq, it was also designed to steer the U.S. into attacking seven countries in seven years, most prominently Iran.
When the U.S. invasion of Iraq quickly turned into a quagmire, two American Israel Public Affairs Committee executives tried to place stolen classified Department of Defense information incriminating to Iran into circulation at the Washington Post. The operation failed, the Pentagon colonel leaking classified information was prosecuted, while the longtime AIPAC officials were dismissed.
Israel’s foreign influence operation AIPAC has steadily lobbied against Iran on behalf of Israel including punishing economic warfare from the U.S. Treasury’s OTFI unit, which AIPAC lobbied to set up for just this purpose in the aftermath of 9/11.
The Trump era “Abraham Accords” were yet another attempt to isolate Iran while harnessing Arab countries to Israel’s undue foreign influence and war on Iran machine. Under the scheme, the U.S. sacrifices its remaining international reputation to compel Arab governments to sign diplomatic and commercial accords with Israel their populations overwhelmingly reject. Target governments get access to advanced U.S. weapons, or recognition of illegal land grabs in exchange for normalization.
Saudi Arabia was always the toughest prospect for sticking its head into the yoke of an Abraham Accord. The Saudi Initiative, or Arab Peace Initiative endorsed by the Arab League in 2002, re-endorsed in 2007 and 2017 was a legitimate path toward a somewhat just settlement through the creation of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital in exchange for Arab normalization.
Under constant Israel lobby pressure, there was never any serious U.S. consideration of the Saudi led plan. Instead, Israel surrogates Jared Kushner and former real estate lawyer turned ambassador to Israel David M. Friedman among others pushed the so-called “Deal of the Century” that offered tenuous promises of economic development to Palestinians in exchange for relinquishing their rights under international law. A 2019 IRmep poll revealed that 68 percent of Americans would have rejected a similar deal if they were in Palestinians’ shoes, and the deal collapsed.
The Abraham Accords then attempted to “transcend” the Palestine question by making Palestinian claims under international law and the Arab Peace Plan irrelevant.
The new Joint Trilateral Statement signals a rejection of the Abraham Accords and yoking Saudi Arabia to Israel and its lobby’s foreign policy intrigues and domestic meddling. Saudi Arabia may not want to become as subject to Israeli prerogatives as America and has obviously been learning how to avoid it. Saudi Arabia skillfully cushioned the bad news by end-running AIPAC and placated the American military industrial congressional complex by simultaneously agreeing to purchase $35 billion in Boeing passenger jets. That is nearly the same amount as military aid the US agreed to give to Israel gratis over ten years under the Obama administration.
Israel and its lobby will not take this bad news lying down and still have many levers to pull in the region, establishment U.S. media, Congress, the State Department, and the White House. But for now, the Saudi rejection of the Abraham Accords could signal the way out for UAE, squeezed by Israel and AIPAC to invest in sketchy Israeli schemes such as “Project Jonah,” and get into a war footing with Iran. UAE may be inspired and try to disentangle themselves from the Israeli undue influence and Palestine justice minimization machine.
© 2002-2023 Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, Inc.
Will Pakistan defy US sanctions to complete ‘Peace Pipeline’ with Iran?
By F.M. Shakil | The Cradle | March 7, 2023
Islamabad has formed a diplomatic channel to convince Washington to ease sanctions on Iran, which would finally allow for the completion of a crucial pipeline project to bring cheap Iranian natural gas to Pakistan.
Iran has vowed to take the matter to arbitration if Pakistan does not complete its portion of the pipeline by March 2024, as stipulated in an agreement between the two West Asian countries.
Discussions on constructing the massive pipeline project began almost 29 years ago, in 1994 – then called the Iran-India-Pakistan pipeline – which originally envisioned moving Iranian gas to Pakistan, Bangladesh, and China. The focus later shifted to constructing a pipeline between Pakistan and Iran only, but the project has never been completed.
According to the terms of the IP-GSPA (Gas Sales Purchase Agreement) signed between Iran and Pakistan, each country was obligated to construct the portion of the pipeline on its own territory, and the first flow of Iranian gas to Pakistan was to start January 1, 2015. The agreement stipulated Pakistan would pay Iran $1 million per day in exchange for 750 million cubic feet of gas daily, with a contract lasting 25 years.
Iran completed its portion of the pipeline in 2011, however, Pakistan has failed to construct its portion, largely due to difficulties caused by US economic sanctions imposed on Iran for the country’s alleged nuclear weapons program. US sanctions block Pakistan from purchasing Iranian gas, and this geopolitical risk has made Pakistani banks unwilling to finance the project.
Because of US foreign policy pritiorites, therefore, Pakistan continues to rely on more expensive liquified natural gas (LNG) to meet its burgeoning energy needs, which has greatly limited Pakistani economic growth and exposed the country to crises during periods of volatile LNG price spikes.
Due to these difficulties, Pakistan’s Inter-State Gas Systems (ISGS) and the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) signed a revised agreement in 2019 to allow Pakistan more time to complete its segment of the pipeline. The agreement stipulated that neither Iran nor Pakistan will take the other to court for delays or impose fines until 2024.
But US sanctions have continued to make Pakistan’s completion of the project difficult, and Iran is now threatening to sue Islamabad for $18 billion in fines if it breaks the agreement and fails to complete construction by the 2024 cutoff date.
Financial straits or US pressure
As Asif Durrani, a former Pakistan ambassador to Iran, tells The Cradle:
“Pakistan needs roughly $3 billion to lay a pipeline stretching over a radius of 781 kilometers inside the country. The question is who will finance this project, and secondly, the US sanctions on Iran, which took the air out of this project as far as Pakistan is concerned, need a revisit by the US authorities to protect the faltering economies of the region.”
The sanctions, he adds, were primarily focused on the energy sector of Iran and set a cap of $10 million on investments in the Iranian oil and gas sector.
Durrani is not convinced that US sanctions make completion of the pipeline impossible, however.
“These are lousy arguments because, despite these restrictions, Iran supplies Turkiye with almost $10 billion annually in natural gas,” he argues, adding that India and China have also resisted US sanctions.
Durrani contends that Pakistan and Iran are neighboring nations and that neighbors must always conduct business with one another. He urges private sector participation in the IP gas project to accelerate the development phase of this huge project.
Now a senior fellow at the Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI), the former Pakistani envoy to Tehran had in 2021 criticized the US for sabotaging the Iranian nuclear deal, claiming that Iran, as a Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) member, had the legal right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
Dr. Muhammad Abdul Muqtedar Khan, an Indian-American academic and a professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Delaware concurs with Durrani’s logic, telling The Cradle that too many countries in this region tend to yield to US pressure unnecessarily.
India, he says, disregarded US outrage over the Russian oil issue and refused to capitulate, unlike Pakistan which is still in a state of vacillation. In the same way, Pakistan could proceed with the Iran gas pipeline project, citing its energy and resource constraints in the face of pressure from Washington.
“In 1990, India, China, and even Bangladesh showed interest in the peace pipeline – but, in 2008, as a result of the Indian nuclear accord with the US, New Delhi decided to withdraw. As the thing unfolded, Iran has already installed the pipeline on their side of the border, but Pakistan is still dilly-dallying about it because of the US pressure and lack of the financial means to begin construction,” Khan adds.
He says Iran has spent a considerable amount of money constructing its section of the pipeline and would want compensation for the resulting commercial loss. “Iran has granted sufficient time for the pipeline’s development, and if Pakistan begins building its gas infrastructure, it could gain some cushion to reduce its import bill.
Pakistan is hedging its bets
Pakistan’s Secretary of Petroleum, Ali Raza Bhutta, disclosed in a meeting of the country’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that Pakistan has spoken to the US about the gas project, seeking relief in sanctions on Iran to press ahead with the construction of the pipeline.
Islamabad’s top energy official went on to add that since there was a ban on importing gas from Iran, the government has conveyed to the US ambassador to either grant Islamabad permission to go ahead with the project, or compensate Iran for the penalty imposed for opting out of the project.
As Noor Alam Khan, Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, tells The Cradle:
“I did not convene this meeting specifically for the IP gas project, the focus was only on the audit paras of the petroleum ministry, and I suggested during the meeting – not the secretary – that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs should approach the US to let them know how serious the situation is.”
When informed that the secretary of petroleum had briefed the committee on the IP gas project and that media had quoted him saying that either the US should pay the damages or permit the country to continue with the IP gas project under the terms of the Iran agreement, Khan, a member of a breakaway faction of former president Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf party, became irritated, said it was nonsense, and hung up the phone.
The Pakistan National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs Committee also discussed this matter last week. The committee’s chairman, Mohsin Dawar, raised fears about the fact that several nations in the region have received waivers for importing Iranian oil even though Iran is under sanctions.
Pakistan, however, was unable to secure such a waiver to conduct such lucrative oil and gas business with Iran. He pressed the appropriate ministries to examine opportunities for receiving exemptions for the IP gas pipeline with Iran, much as India and China had done for Iranian oil imports.
IP Gas Pipeline in perspective
The plan for the IP Gas Pipeline, which is also called the “Peace Pipeline,” dates back to 1994, when India was also part of the project.
The 1,700-mile (2,735 km), $7.5 billion project planned to move gas from the South Pars Gas Fields to India through the western part of Pakistan, Balochistan. Since its inception, the project has encountered numerous obstacles that have caused repeated delays in the execution of a natural gas project that was badly needed by energy-starved Pakistan.
In 2008, the three nations were close to reaching an agreement before India opted to pursue an alternative project, the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline (TAPI). The US pressure and sanctions on Iran appear to have impacted India’s decision to withdraw from the IP gas pipeline agreement and pursue an alternative that excluded Iran.
Then, in 2010, a 25-year-long Gas Sale and Purchase Agreement (GSPA) was signed, to construct a pipeline stretching across Pakistani territory from the Iranian border to Nawabshah, a distance of 781 kilometers.
Approximately 665 kilometers will travel through Balochistan while 115 kilometers will run through Pakistan’s Sindh province. The length of the Iranian portion of the pipeline is 1,100 kilometers. It begins in the energy economic zone of Pars and goes to Iranshahr and Bushehr. The route then continues through Fars, Kerman, Hormozghan, and Sistan-Baluchistan.
From the Pakistani border to Nawabshah, the pipeline will stretch around 781 kilometers. After completion, the IP gas pipeline was projected to supply 750 million cubic feet of gas per day to Islamabad from Iran. According to the deal, gas supplies from Iran would start in 2014. But, this assumption turned out to be a pipe dream and has not been realized during the past nine years.
A panacea for Pakistan’s economic woes
“Pakistan’s issue with foreign reserves would progressively get worse if it were unable to achieve a deal with Iran because years were spent in negotiations between Pakistan, Iran, and Turkey to create a close economic relationship for significant infrastructure projects, but the US sanctions and pressure shattered all these dreams,” Muqtedar Khan maintains.
He believes that Pakistan is currently dealing with a protracted foreign exchange problem that cannot be remedied by borrowing money from China, Saudi Arabia, or the International Monetary Fund (IMF) because Pakistan would still have to pay back the initial debt.
“Strangely, Pakistan and Iran have failed to create a mutual understanding despite their common Islamic background. As an alternative to US dollars, they may conduct business in their own currencies. Even though they are neighbors, it would be a diplomatic failure if they did not restore a reciprocal trade relationship,” Muqtedar Khan concludes.
America Goes to War
Constantly without regard for any real national interest
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • FEBRUARY 28, 2023
At last week’s Rage Against the War Machine peace rally in Washington there was no shortage of speakers who denounced the Biden Administration’s hypocritical foreign policy, which essentially judges any violent action undertaken by the United States and its friends as good by definition while anything done by rivals or competitors, sometimes conveniently referred to as “enemies,” as “evil.” In the current context of Ukraine versus Russia, where the US is engaged in proxy warfare, speakers were able to cite and compare the formidable list of America’s armed interventions worldwide since World War Two ended. Neither Russia nor any other nation comes anywhere near the United States in terms of constant bellicosity, conflicts which hardly ever reflect any real vital national interest or imminent foreign threat. Throw into the hopper the 800-plus US military bases scattered around the world and a growing defense budget larger than those of the next nine nations combined, including China and Russia, and the reader will obtain some idea of the real problem: the United States has become a nation that is best described as a warfare state. That is where the tax money goes to disproportionately and the corruption it feeds produces a willingness to engage in “one more war” on the part of the coddled, protected and richly remunerated political class which in turn supports the carnage by overwhelming majorities.
Several speakers last week also cited as the real problem the media, which once upon a time sought to expose lies and subterfuges by government but now has become a partner with the White House in shaping and promoting a preferred narrative. It should also be pointed out that that media is overwhelmingly Democratic in terms of its ownership and sympathies, so much so that it collaborated in efforts to label Donald Trump and his staff as “Russian agents.”
Sometimes this promotion of a particular point of view is best accomplished using silence, i.e. by not sharing or following up on a story. There was virtually no coverage of last week’s peace rally even though speakers included a number of well-known public figures, three of whom were former congressmen. Likewise, apart from a brief mention in The Washington Post, there has been virtually no follow-up in the mainstream media on Seymour Hersh’s carefully researched and documented investigation of the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines by the United States hidden behind the plausible deniability of a covert operation carried out last September.
Much of the press ignored the clear investigative line on day one when the pipeline exploded that the White House had previously been warning that it would “do something” to stop Nord Stream and that it had both the means and motive to follow through on its threat. Likewise, after the Hersh story broke and Russia sought and obtained a hearing featuring Professor Jeffrey Sachs and former CIA Officer Ray McGovern testifying before the United Nations Security Council to initiate investigation of the matter, the US media ignored the story on the evening news and did not follow-up on it on the next day or subsequently.
A major story involving what were war crimes committed both against adversary Russia and NATO ally Germany and which had nuclear conflict potential was thus made to disappear, but the US and its propaganda machine were not finished yet. The White House predictably denied any role in the pipe line destruction and Vice President Kamala Harris sought to turn the tables by declaring at the Munich Security Conference that it is Russia that is guilty of “crimes against humanity.” She claimed that “First, from the starting days of this unprovoked war, we have witnessed Russian forces engage in horrendous atrocities and war crimes. [They] have pursued a widespread and systemic attack against a civilian population – gruesome acts of murder, torture, rape, and deportation. Execution-style killings, beating and electrocution. Russian authorities have forcibly deported hundreds of thousands of people from Ukraine to Russia, including children. They have cruelly separated children from their families.”
Harris concluded that “we” must continue to “strongly support Ukraine… for as long as it takes!” One might observe that Harris has been unable to secure the actual US borders over the course of more than two years, so “as long as it takes” by her reckoning might well run into the 2050s. And she is hardly known for her ability to discern what is and isn’t true. She might well have added spice to her tale by joking how it must keep Vladimir Putin and his cabinet up until late at night coming up with new atrocities to carry out.
Joe Biden doubled down on the Harris remarks in a speech in Warsaw a few days later, delivered on his return from the Kiev photo op with the man he loves more than any other, Volodymyr Zelensky, where he gave the diminutive comedian another half billion dollars of US taxpayer money and promised that the US will never give up until Russia is defeated. He commented somewhat hyperbolically to Zelensky that after a year of fighting “… Ukraine stands. Democracy stands. The Americans stand with you and the world stands with you.”
Biden told the Poles just before the February 24 anniversary of the conflict in Ukraine that it was a just war pitting “democracy” against “totalitarianism.” Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “craven lust for land and power” had only served to unite democracies around the world. “It wasn’t just Ukraine being tested. The whole world faced a test for the ages …. And the questions we face are as simple as they are profound: Would we respond, or would we look the other way? One year later, we know the answer. We did respond. We would be strong, we would be united, and the world would not look the other way.”
Demonstrating that delusion is bipartisan, the Biden visit to Kiev was followed by a group of Republican congressmen repeating the feat and traveling to Ukraine to fawn over Zelensky at his presidential palace on the following day. One wonders if there is anyone still “at home” trying to alleviate the huge toxic spill that appears about to consume Ohio? One might well ask where the US federal government gets these idiots from? Dancing around to the tune of a conflict that could have been negotiated away and winding up at the brink of a nuclear war which would in all likelihood destroy the planet is “a test for the ages?” And who pays for these useless congressional trips? More’s the pity, this is not just going on in Eastern Europe. The US is currently cooperating with France in what looks like what will become another military intervention in a perennially unstable Haiti and, of course, China is also in the cross hairs.
And then there is always the Middle East, where Israel benefits from “ironclad” commitments and “unbreakable bonds” rhetoric from Washington. When Israel commands “Jump!” the Biden regime only asks “How high?” Since the media avoids any provocative reporting about the Jewish state, how many Americans know that self-declared Zionist Joe Biden’s Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides has just given Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the green light for attacking Iran with US support for any action taken? Nides told the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in Jerusalem last Sunday that “Israel can and should do whatever they need to deal with [in regards to Iran] and we’ve got their back.”
There is already a precedent as Israel has in fact been attacking neighboring Syria repeatedly without any comment from Washington, which actually has troops based in that country stealing Syrian oil. Nor has Washington objected when the Israeli army raided two Palestinian camps during the past month, killing respectively 10 and 11 civilians and wounding more than 100 others. To set the stage for what comes next vis-à-vis the wag the dog relationship, after Israel struck a defense compound in Iran on January 29th, the Biden administration suggested to reporters that the Israeli attack was part of a new “joint effort” by Washington and Jerusalem to contain Tehran’s nuclear and military ambitions. Secretary of State Tony Blinken elaborated on the shift on the next day while offering no criticism or concern for the destabilizing potential of the strikes, let alone a condemnation. Instead, he defended the Israeli attack, saying “[It is] very important that we continue to deal with and work against as necessary the various actions that Iran has engaged in throughout the region and beyond that threaten peace and security.”
Nides’ comment reveals that he is ignorant regarding who is causing trouble in the Middle East. It also confirms that even if there is a military action initiated by Israel that does grave damage to US interests, the White House will support the Israelis. That should surprise no one as the top three officials at the State Department are Jews, as are the top two on the National Security Staff, the Head of Homeland Security, the Director of National Intelligence, the Deputy Director at CIA, and the president’s Chief of Staff. The policy shift, for that is what it is, also gives Israel the green light to attack Iranian targets with impunity. Nides also stated that the United States is pledged to deny nuclear weapons to Iran, implying that if it believes such a development is imminent it would destroy the facilities used to create or store the weapons. He also mentioned that the US will not engage in any possible negotiations with Iran as long as it is selling weapons to Russia. Though Nides has no problem with freely killing Palestinian children, he is rather more inflexible when Persians are somehow involved, saying that “The Iranians are providing drones to Russia and those drones are killing innocent Ukrainians. There is no chance today of us going back to the negotiating table.”
So what do we have? Does anyone remember the famous quote attributed to British statesman Lord Palmerston, that “Nations have no permanent friends or allies. They only have permanent interests.” The United States, uniquely, does not even appear to have interests, apart from pandering to the various constituencies and groups that have bought or stealthily acquired control over the political system and media. So the American public, less safe and prosperous now than at any time since the Second World War, is kept in the dark about what is important and is lied to about almost everything. That is why we are on the brink of destruction in Ukraine and are slaves to the power brokers who hate Russia and favor Israel above all nations. Raging against the war machine will do little good if we are incapable of first figuring out who is screwing us and then developing the courage to put a stop to it. Starting with cutting the current tie that binds with Ukraine and Israel would be a good beginning followed by bringing the troops home from nearly everywhere. Trying the Biden Administration officials who initiated an illegal war by destroying Nord Stream and putting them all in jail would be even better. Yes, every one of them in jail with no parole, starting with mumbling Joe himself.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
Zionists angry after Australian govt. refuses to blacklist Iran’s IRGC
Press TV – February 10, 2023
A recent report has exposed that the Australian Senate committee is facing a serious legal setback in its attempt to blacklist Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), as the force cannot be designated as a foreign terrorist organization under the country’s criminal code.
According to the Australian Jewish News website, the Attorney General’s Department (AGD), which responded to the recommendation by the Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade Committee, told the panel that current legislation does not provide for a pathway to proscribing the IRGC.
“As an organ of a nation-state, the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps is not the kind of entity that is covered by the terrorist organization provisions in the Criminal Code,” the AGD said on Tuesday.
The Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA) urged the Australian government to amend the criminal code to allow for the blacklisting of the IRGC.
“We … urge the Australian government to amend legislation to allow the IRGC to be proscribed here, as it is in other countries,” ZFA public affairs director Bren Carlill said.
However, other countries have also backed down on their initial proclamations to ban the official Iranian force.
The UK government has already stopped plans to blacklist Islamic Revolution Guards Corps as reports say Foreign Office fears that the move would block communications channels with Iran.
The UK Foreign Office’s about-face on proscribing the IRGC as a so-called “terrorist” entity comes despite its approval by the Home Office, The Times reported on February 2.
Citing sources in the government, the report said there are also concerns about how to blacklist the IRGC because, unlike other proscribed bodies, the Iranian force is an official government agency.
“Foreign Office officials have real concerns about proscription because they want to maintain access. The Home Office, and the government more broadly, supports the move. The IRGC should have been proscribed by now but the whole process is on ice,” a Whitehall source said.
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on January 23 that the block could not list the IRGC as a “terrorist” entity without an EU court decision.
Speaking before a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels, Borrell said a court ruling with a “concrete legal condemnation” had to first be handed down before the bloc itself could apply any such designation.
“It is something that cannot be decided without a court, a court decision first. You cannot say I consider you a terrorist because I don’t like you,” Borrell told reporters, stressing that the court of an EU member state had to issue a concrete legal condemnation before the bloc could act.
A week earlier, the European Parliament adopted an amendment, calling on the EU and its member states to include the IRGC on their terror list. It also passed another resolution later, calling for more sanctions against Iranian individuals and entities and putting the IRGC on the EU terrorist list over alleged human rights violations during the recent riots.
The European Union, however, imposed sanctions against a number of Iranian individuals and entities for what it claimed to be a crackdown on the recent foreign-backed riots, which were triggered after the death of a young Iranian woman of Kurdish descent in Tehran in September.
White House continues to block energy sharing plan for Lebanon: French official
The Cradle | February 1, 2023
Pierre Duquesne, France’s envoy on international support to Lebanon, stated on 31 January that Egypt is still seeking assurances from Washington to start exporting gas to Lebanon via Syria.
“My Egyptian counterparts today told me, ‘we want something precise’ … There is a problem of exemption … and that concern should be dealt with not only on a political basis but on a legal basis,” Duquesne said during a visit to Cairo.
Alongside Egyptian gas, the US-orchestrated plan, announced in 2021, also calls for exporting electricity from Jordan via Syria, which could add up to 700 megawatts to Lebanon’s battered power grid.
Duquesne confirmed that all preparations for the energy-sharing plan had been completed, and there were no hold-ups over the pricing or quantity of gas. However, western sanctions on Syria prevent the Levantine nation from receiving the much-needed aid.
Moreover, Duquesne warned that Lebanon’s presidential vacuum is also working against the plan, which has yet to go to the World Bank board for a review of specific pre-conditions ahead of the release of a $300 million loan to finance the gas exports over 18 months.
The same day the French official made his comments, the US canceled a tripartite meeting between the US Ambassador Dorothy Shea, Minister of Energy Walid Fayyad, and World Bank representatives after refusing to grant Lebanon any exceptions to the sanctions imposed on Syria.
Lebanese power stations have gone almost entirely offline since the start of the manufactured crisis in 2019, while fuel subsidy cuts have caused the costs for private generators to skyrocket.
The energy sharing plan between Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon was revealed soon after resistance movement Hezbollah launched a plan to import Iranian fuel in 2021.
Washington’s abuse of the energy crisis in Lebanon falls in line with recent remarks by US officials, who said Lebanon must be forced towards collapse as the only solution to deal with Hezbollah.
“[Collapse will enable] Lebanon to somehow be rebuilt from the ashes, and freed from the curse of Hezbollah,” US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Barbara Leaf, said on 4 November.
IAEA head must visit Iran with ‘specific objective’, says Iran’s nuclear chief
Press TV – February 1, 2023
The chief of Iran’s nuclear agency says any visit by the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to the country needs to have a “specific objective”, in an oblique reference to the UN nuclear watchdog’s political approach.
“This trip needs preparations and content and the aims and schedule of this trip should be determined,” Mohammad Eslami, who heads the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), said on the sidelines of a cabinet meeting in Tehran on Wednesday.
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi last week said he intends to go to Tehran in February for “much-needed dialogue” over Iran’s cooperation with the UN nuclear agency and to discuss outstanding issues.
Grossi claimed that the suspension of talks aimed at the revival of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and Iran’s recent measures to reduce its compliance with the 2015 deal meant that the IAEA could no longer effectively monitor the country’s nuclear program.
He also touched on IAEA’s so-called probe into what the agency claims are the presence of “undeclared uranium particles” at some nuclear sites in Iran.
Iran has already rejected the probe, saying it’s based on forged evidence provided to the IAEA by the Israeli regime, slamming the agency for adopting a political approach and forsaking its technical mandate.
Eslami said the West is waging a psychological warfare operation by accusing Iran of failing to honor its commitments under the JCPOA, while the fact remains that the Islamic Republic met all its commitments under the deal.
He reiterated that Iran is committed to its obligations under the 2015 nuclear deal and as the signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty (NPT), which is evident from numerous inspections of its nuclear facilities by the UN agency inspectors.
“The agency has carried out around two-thousand inspections [of countries’ nuclear facilities] between 2020 and 2022, and over these three years, five hundred inspections — that is one-quarter of all inspections — were conducted in Iran,” he said.
“They still feel concerned [about Iran’s nuclear work] and this shows their language is the one used by enemies and aimed at a sabotage operation, [but] we won’t be affected by them.”
He stressed that the Israeli regime’s influence over the UN nuclear agency and hostile moves against Iran over its nuclear work must end.
Iran rolled back its compliance with the 2015 nuclear accord after the US unilaterally withdrew from the pact and reimposed sanctions on Iran.
Tehran and the remaining signatories to the pact have held talks on reviving the accord since April 2021, after Joe Biden came to power in the US. But those talks have been stalled for months amid Washington’s procrastination and refusal to provide guarantees.
Iran says an agreement on the revival of the deal hinges on the settlement of issues between Tehran and the IAEA, as well as the removal of all US sanctions on the country.
Irish MEP: US yielding to Israeli pressures over 2015 Iran nuclear deal
Press TV – February 1, 2023
A member of the European Parliament says the United States has bowed to Israeli pressures over the 2015 Iran nuclear deal as negotiations for reviving the agreement have been stalled due to Washington’s excessive demands.
In a post on his Twitter account on Wednesday, MEP Mick Wallace criticized the US and some “hawks” in the European Parliament over the stalled talks on reviving the deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
“Biden promised to get #JCPOA with #Iran back on track but negotiations have stalled,” he wrote, adding, “[it] seems #US have caved to pressure from #Israel.”
The “hawks in EU Parliament want to abandon” the JCPOA, however, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell “is right to keep dialogue open with Iran,” Wallace added.
The remarks come as negotiations, which started in April last year in Vienna, remain stalled since August as Washington refuses to remove the sanctions that were slapped on the Islamic Republic by the previous US administration of Donald Trump.
This is while after taking office, the Biden administration had criticized his predecessor’s decision to scrap the deal and vowed to reverse the measure.
On the contrary, the Biden administration officials have upped the so-called maximum pressure campaign against Iran and on several occasions announced that the talks to revive the 2015 nuclear deal are no longer their main focus.
The White House, meanwhile, is leveling accusations against Iran over human rights issues during recent foreign-backed riots and drone delivery to Russia to be used in the Ukraine war. Tehran has strongly rejected the allegations in both cases.
Observers believe Washington is trying to use these baseless accusations against Iran to gain leverage in talks and negotiate from a position of strength.
Meanwhile, the Israeli regime has openly expressed opposition to the deal since it was signed back in 2015. The regime, which is the only possessor of nuclear warheads in the region without being a member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, has made various efforts in the past years to hamper Iran’s peaceful nuclear program, from assassinating Iranian scientists to carrying out acts of sabotage in Iranian facilities and trying to push others away from the deal.
Joe Biden Says “Our Work Is Far from Over!”
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • JANUARY 31, 2023
I received an email ostensibly from President Joe Biden the other morning which scared the hell out of me. It was the usual plea for money but the headline read “Philip, our work is far from over!” suggesting to me that the White House is seeking to do even more damage to the country in the months to come! In it, Joe claimed that he had created millions of jobs and expanded access to healthcare among other lesser achievements in his two-plus years in office. I must have somehow missed those benefits and was left wondering about the millions of illegal immigrants who have been pouring across our southern border as well as the avoidable war in Ukraine that is on the verge of going nuclear and the soaring interest rates and energy costs here at home.
And also here on the domestic front there is the declaration of de facto war against the so-called white supremacists who apparently seeking to overthrow our democracy by putting their feet up on Nancy Pelosi’s desk, presumably because they are angry and confused due to the fact that they lack melanin. And then there is the question of our democracy itself with corruption rearing its ugly head from both leading parties and the clear weaponization and exploitation of the powers granted to our national security apparatus to seek to criminally influence national elections.
One might ask why I allow myself to be terrorized by emails from Joe and Kamala on a regular basis, but it is all part of my desire to keep an eye on both major parties and their antics. I also hear from the Republicans to include such dangerous creatures as Donald Trump himself and the execrable Senators Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.
So if Joe is able to raise tons of money from his freak show constituents, what do we have to look forward to in the months remaining before the 2024 election? Well, the foreign policy front is looking particularly bad. The recent unfortunate decision to send a company of high maintenance Abrams tanks to Ukraine will not alter the probable outcome of the war and invites reciprocity from Russia. What will Joe do if Vladimir Putin uses his superior missile capability to destroy the tanks one by one as they are delivered, possibly killing US military advisers who are training the Ukrainians on their intricacies?
The Ukraine war is not unlike recent commitments in places like Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and Iraq where only essentially phony national security interests were contrived to support the military interventions against countries too weak to pose any real threat. The Taliban, Bashar al-Assad, Moammar Ghaddafi and Saddam Hussein did not actually threaten the United States or any vital interests and it required an airhead like Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to conjure up imagery of Iraqi nuclear devices delivered by huge transatlantic gliders and exploding over Washington to create a fiction to explain the raison d’etre for the war to the public. A couple of million lives and a few trillion dollars later the positive results obtained from all the interventions are somewhat hard to discern.
One might suggest that the problem with the United States stems from the belief that it is and should be the world’s hegemon based on some sort of manifest destiny that no one ever actually bothers to describe. The concept of a “rules based international order” governed by rules known only to Washington and special friends in places like London and Jerusalem has left much of the rest of the world scratching its collective head.
There is real danger that the United States, like the Bourbon Kings of France, never forgets anything but never learns anything either. Even though Americans gain absolutely nothing from their sacrifice, Joe Biden will no doubt continue as part of “our work is far from over” the extremely dangerous conflict in Ukraine “until Kiev wins” and Russia is presumably repulsed and weakened. If that does not take place by 2024, billions of dollars more will be dumped into the money hole and many more Ukrainians, Russians and quite likely also Americans will die.
But even more dangerous than continuation of the status quo in Ukraine is the possible series of disasters deriving from commitments made by the White House with other foreign regimes that will inevitably lead to more national security policy disasters. I am thinking particularly of China/Taiwan and Israel versus much of the Middle East. One might also add tension with North Korea over its nuclear program.
There are reports that new Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy is planning a trip to Taiwan to assure that country’s leadership of unlimited US support against hypothetical Chinese aggression. In so doing, he is duplicating a visit made by his predecessor Nancy Pelosi in July 2022, which produced precisely what was not desired, i.e. aggressive countermoves by Beijing. US ability to deter China is in any event problematical and China is a major trading partner which manufactures a large percentage of the products that are sold on the US and European markets. Taiwan for its part does not particularly welcome a more aggressive American defense of what are its own interests, as such moves will only guarantee problems with Beijing. So where will it all go? Tell us Joe.
And then there is Israel. Israel’s new government, again headed by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has shifted hard to the right, incorporating as it does the extremist settlers’ movement as well as parties that have spoken casually of forcing the Palestinians out and even of extermination if it comes to that. Half of Israelis are comfortable with the Arabs having minimal civil rights even if they are Israeli citizens and many accept the desirability of forced expatriation of the Palestinians to neighboring states like Jordan or Lebanon. Arab residents of Israel have only limited legal rights and, contrary to the Lobby’s constant assertion that Israel is a “democracy,” Israel in reality became an apartheid state by law when it in 2018 declared itself to be legally the nation state of the Jews with “exclusive right of self-determination.”
More recently Netanyahu has made clear exactly what his government stands for. In late December, he stated that “the Jewish people have an exclusive and inalienable right to all parts of the Land of Israel. The government will promote and develop the settlement of all parts of the Land of Israel.” He was explicitly including the West Bank and even Gaza, which have long been presumed to be the possible territory of a future Palestinian state.
The wag-the-dog support of the new Israeli government’s extreme nationalism and racism combined is not good for Americans and is a formula for trouble yet the United States government has, if anything, fully embraced it. Both Biden and his ambassador in Israel Thomas Nides have praised the new regime. Washington has also recently deepened military ties with the Jewish state by moving it to a new position in CENTCOM that has elevated the relationship to the status of “full military partner” in terms of strategizing and planning. That definition is close to a commitment to a “full military alliance” that obligates the US to come to Israel’s defense if a war begins in the region, even if Israel starts it. The Pentagon has also for the first time participated in a large-scale joint military exercise which included a simulated attack on Iran.
So if you get an email from Joe Biden saying “our work far from over,” be warned! The “work” sounds like a lot more bloodshed and war forever. If you can find a place where you will likely not be impacted by a nuclear war breaking out, it might be best to move there right now. Otherwise, there could be some rough skating ahead. As I reported in an earlier article, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is warning that there is a definite shortage of fallout shelters in the United States, so be prepared to hunker down in your basement, if you are lucky enough to have one. Follow the instructions in your “nuclear detonation planning guide” then “Get inside, stay inside, and stay tuned.” Sage advice if you still have electricity and the tv and radio stations haven’t also been nuked. Thank you Joe Biden!
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
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