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Why Trump’s return is of little consequence to Iran

Press TV – November 10, 2024

Rolling sanctions imposed on Iran for years have generated a degree of endurance and resourcefulness which enables the country to deal with any possible fallout of Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

The mainstream Western media is already conjuring the things that will come out, citing what they call people briefed on his early plans saying he will drastically increase sanctions on Iran and throttle its oil sales as part of an aggressive strategy to undercut Tehran’s abilities.

Trump took a dim view of Iran during his first term, aborting a six-nation agreement with Tehran—known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. He also imposed what was described as a “maximum pressure” strategy in hopes Iran would abandon its anti-US and anti-Israeli policies.

However, he sounded contrite at an event for the New York Economic Club in September, where he fielded questions about his future plans, saying he would use sanctions as little as possible and singling out Russia and Iran.

“The problem with what we have with sanctions, and I was using the sanctions, but I put them on and take them off as quickly as possible, because ultimately it kills your dollar and it kills everything the dollar represents. And we have to continue to have that be the world currency. I think it’s important. I think we’d be losing a war.

“If we lost and we lost the dollar as much as the world currency, I think that would be the equivalent of losing a war. That would make us a third-world country. We can’t let it happen.

“So I use sanctions very powerfully against countries that deserve it. And then I take them off because, look, you’re losing Iran. You’re losing Russia. China is out there trying to get their currency to be the dominant currency, as you know better than anybody.

“All of these things are happening. You’re losing so many countries because there’s so much conflict with all of these countries that you’re going to lose that, and we can’t lose that.

“So I want to use sanctions as little as possible,” Trump said.

Analysts say a Trump administration return to a maximum-pressure campaign on Iran would mean tougher enforcement of US oil sanctions, but it could struggle to get China as Iran’s top crude customer to cooperate.

China, they say, could retaliate by strengthening work in the BRICS club of emerging economies, consisting of Iran, Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa and others, including by reducing reliance on the dollar in deals in oil and other goods.

Iranian officials have played down the significance of the US election result, with the government saying it will not affect the livelihoods of the Iranians.

“The US elections are not really our business. Our policies are steady and don’t change based on individuals. We made the necessary predictions before and there will not be change in people’s livelihoods,” Government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani said Wednesday after Trump claimed victory.

Iranian economists think Trump’s return to power is unlikely to lead to any turbulence in the country’s economy.

Nevertheless, much depends on measures taken by state planners to deal with the situation. The history of sanctions has shown every threat entails an opportunity that can be used to stabilize the situation and improve.

Trump’s sanctions in 2018 initially led to a steep drop in Iran’s oil exports, but they forced the country to find alternative export channels and return the Iranian oil to the market.

Iran has also been able to tamp down the effect of American sanctions by expanding its trade with third countries through a proactive economic policy.

One should not forget the wise leadership of the country’s top authority to the accompaniment and support of the people which have greatly reduced and sometimes neutralized the effects of the sanctions.

Moreover, the hegemonic power of the United States is waning, and its last tactic of using economic sanctions as a weapon against countries is losing effectiveness in the face of rising multilateralism.

As reflected in Trump’s remarks, further resort of such coercive measures has grave consequences for the country.

China, Russia and Iran have built a trading system that uses mostly national currencies in trade, avoiding the dollar and exposure to US regulators, making sanctions enforcement tough.

When Trump imposed sanctions during his first term, Iran was an observer member of BRICS. Now, it is a full member of the expanding strategic and economic coalition, which has given it diverse means of trade and ways to effectively fend off any hostile measure.

November 10, 2024 Posted by | Economics | , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran denies plotting to kill Trump

RT | November 9, 2024

Iran has denied US accusations that it attempted to orchestrate a plot to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump before the November election. It has dismissed the allegations as a hoax orchestrated by pro-Israel actors in a bid to exacerbate tensions between Washington and Tehran.

On Friday, the US Department of Justice claimed that Iranian officials had asked a man named Farhad Shakeri to “provide a plan” to kill Trump, adding that he was also tasked with carrying out assassinations of US and Israeli citizens inside the US. Shakeri was described as an Afghan national residing in Tehran after being deported from the US in 2008 following a lengthy prison sentence for robbery.

The indictment also implicated two American citizens, Carlisle Rivera and Jonathan Loadholt, who were accused of helping Tehran track a US citizen of Iranian origin. “The charges announced today expose Iran’s continued brazen attempts to target US citizens, including President-elect Donald Trump, other government leaders and dissidents who criticize the regime in Tehran,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement.

On Saturday, the spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Esmaeil Baghaei, categorically rejected the accusations, calling them “completely baseless.” “Such claims at this juncture [are] a malicious conspiracy orchestrated by Zionist and anti-Iranian circles, aimed at further complicating the issues between the US and Iran,” he added.

Baghaei also recalled that Iran had denied similar “false” allegations in the past. He was apparently referring to an indictment by the US Department of Justice from August in which a Pakistani national was accused of being sent to the US by Iran to carry out murders. One of the planned attacks was allegedly aimed at Trump.

Trump was the target of two assassination attempts this year prior to the election. The first one occurred in July when Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire on him at a Pennsylvania rally, with one bullet grazing Trump’s ear. The would-be assassin was killed on the spot by the Secret Service.

The second incident took place in September, when a suspect identified as Ryan Wesley Routh allegedly tried to assassinate Trump at his Florida golf course but was intercepted by security.

November 9, 2024 Posted by | Deception | , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran president urged to skip COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan

Press TV – November 6, 2024

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has been urged to skip his planned visit to Baku, Azerbaijan, next week to attend this year’s United Nations climate change summit, known as COP29.

The semi-official Fars news agency said in an article published on Wednesday that Pezeshkian should not attend the COP29 summit for various reasons, including reports suggesting that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be present in the summit.

It also said that Azerbaijan has been “problematic” for Iran in the past years mainly because of its efforts to change the geopolitical maps of the region following its victory over Armenia in the 2020 war on Nagorno-Karabakh.

“Logically, it would be wise for the Iranian delegation not to participate in the summit, let alone that the president attends it,” said the article.

However, the article also criticized United Nations climate change policies and said that agreeing to decisions planned to be adopted in COP29 would be “against Iran’s national interests”.

It added that accepting UN demands on climate change, which requires countries to invest heavily to reform the way they produce and consume energy, would inflict huge financial losses on Iran as a country which still relies on fossil fuels for a bulk of its energy needs.

It said experts are still critical of a former Iranian administration’s decision in 2016 to sign up to the Paris Agreement, which requires countries to slash their greenhouse gas emissions by 12% in a relatively short period.

“That would cause the country’s economy to shrink and will cost some $52 billion,” said the article

The public relations office of the Iranian Presidency said on Monday that Pezeshkian will attend the COP29 summit which is planned to begin on November 11.

November 6, 2024 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | 1 Comment

Iran-Arab Rapprochement Gains Ground

By Salman Rafi Sheikh – New Eastern Outlook – November 6 2024

Israel’s escalation in Gaza and Lebanon has severely hindered U.S. efforts to expand the Abraham Accords by bringing Saudi Arabia into the fold.

When Israel began its brutal war on Gaza following Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, the Arab-Israel peace deal became nearly impossible. Washington, however, did not abandon its efforts to pursue expanding the Abraham Accords by getting Saudi Arabia to sign them. However, Washington’s inability to control Netanyahu’s war has undermined its efforts to convince Saudi Arabia.

Simultaneously, this overall failure has also negatively affected Washington’s ability to drive a wedge between Iran and Saudi Arabia to undo the Beijing-mediated normalisation between the two erstwhile rivals in the Middle East. Instead, this normalisation seems to have found new grounds in the wake of Israeli expansion of the war into Lebanon against Hezbollah. Riyadh, as reports show, categorically denied Israel the leeway it needed to execute its plans to attack Iran’s oil and nuclear facilities. How Saudi Arabia reached this conclusion is an outcome of, among other things, Iran’s active diplomacy.

Iran-Arab Normalisation

According to a recent report in Reuters, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE explicitly gave Washington an ‘enough is enough’ call when they asked it to stop Israel from attacking Iran’s oil and nuclear facilities. Simultaneously, all three of these states have also closed their space for Israeli jets and missiles to cross to attack Iran. As the report mentions,  “the moves by the Gulf states come after a diplomatic push by non-Arab Shi’ite Iran to persuade its Sunni Gulf neighbours to use their influence with Washington amid rising concerns Israel could target Iran’s oil production facilities”.

The fact that Arab states conveyed Iran’s message – and explicitly took Tehran’s side – reveals many things. But, most importantly, it shows their ability to transcend the US-imposed narrow confines of ‘sectarian rivalry’ to follow a radically alternative line of foreign policy – one that prioritises long-term regional goals. In other words, while Arab states may have failed to bring Israel’s war on Gaza to an end, they have certainly succeeded in denying Israel an easy way to impose another war in the region – a war, if it breaks out, will affect Arab states more than the Gaza war.

It has turned out to be a source of confidence for Iran to confront Israel. The Foreign Minister of Iran recently noted Iran’s readiness to respond to any hostile actions by the Zionist regime, stating, “We are not seeking to escalate tensions or war.”

No Anti-Iran Alliance

In terms of regional politics, the Arab states’ refusal to become a party to tensions between Iran and Israel means that Washington – and Israel – will not be able to establish an anti-Iran regional alliance, which was one of the goals of The Abraham Accords. Thanks to the proactive diplomacy of China and Russia, Arab states no longer share with Washington and Israel the anti-Iran enthusiasm that, until recently, defined the very core of Arab geopolitics in the region. This is one of the reasons why the US and Saudi Arabia have not been able to finalize their otherwise ‘history making agreement’.

For one thing, if Saudi Arabia has openly declared its intentions to not engage Iran in a military fight, Washington sees no potential benefit arising out of this pact vis-à-vis the security of Israel and its ability to manipulate regional politics to its advantage and at the expense of its global rivals.

This failure, in many ways, has to do with how Washington behaved in 2019 when Saudi oil facilities came under Houthi attacks. The US failed to ‘protect’ Saudia Arabia – something that created an opening for China to push for an alternative to war.

For the Saudis as well, signing this treaty in the present context has become a lot more complicated than it would have been in a context with no Israeli war on Gaza and no prior Saudi-Iran rapprochement. Riyadh understands that tying its defence deeply with Washington via a treaty means it will have to, for instance, offer its space for the US/Israel to launch strikes on Iran. It would also mean Saudi Arabia exposing itself – once again – to Iran and Iran-backed Houthis. It also means Saudi Arabia going back to the past insofar as its ties with Iran are concerned and insofar as its plans to push for a multipolar order, both in the region and worldwide, are concerned. From the Saudi perspective, this treaty not only offers (an illusion of) protection but also comes with (the very real possibility of) a new phase of military conflict.

Alternatives to Washington

Middle Eastern states having become assertive vis-à-vis Washington’s dictates has also to do with the fact that the US is no longer the only global player in the region. Russia and China are already two major players that these states have deep ties with. Beijing, for instance, reportedly invested US$152 billion in the Middle East and North African (MENA) region between 2013 and 2021.

Russia’s sale of advanced missile and air defence systems to countries like Turkey and Iran showcases its willingness to deepen its defence with the region, presenting itself as an alternative to Washington. The availability of alternatives allows Arab states to better position themselves vis-à-vis Washington.

Will this pattern be permanent in the region? This is a key question. The Middle East, as it stands, is unlikely to see any major internal shift in terms of one state singularly dominating the region. Still, the region itself is surely moving towards a system that has multi-alignment as its central feature. It means Arab states are not necessarily becoming anti-US; it means they are diversifying in ways that give them a lot more leverage to manoeuvre and protect their interests. It means they are becoming stronger both regionally and globally.

Salman Rafi Sheikh is a research analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs.

November 6, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

What Does Trump’s Win Mean For the Middle East?

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 06.11.2024

Donald Trump has won the 2024 presidential election, but what impact will that have on Middle Eastern nations?

“Donald Trump, of course, makes his own policies, but it is also important to see who he surrounds himself with,” Mehran Kamrava, professor of government at Georgetown University Qatar, told Sputnik.

Kamrava defines Trump as “transactional” in contrast to Joe Biden, who is “ideological” and believes in a “particular world order”.

By “transactional”, Kamrava means Trump is first and foremost a pragmatic deal-maker.

“During Donald Trump’s first term, we saw extremely close relations with Saudi Arabia and Israel,” the pundit noted. “Those were the two pillars of America’s policy in the region, and I think we will continue to see that.”

“I think we’re going to see deeper transactional relationships between the Middle East and the United States, deeper economic relationships, particularly in the Persian Gulf,” he added.

Kamrava said Trump had two solutions to Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip. He could either give Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu full support, or call upon Tel Aviv to wind down the conflict in Gaza and in Lebanon “because it’s not good for business.” He believes the newly-elected president will pick the second option.

The professor also expects Trump to take a more cautious approach to Iran compared to his predecessor. During his first term Trump showed “an aversion to war” in the Middle East, he stressed.

“The Biden administration, in fact, did sleepwalk into a war, into escalatory conflict not just in Gaza and a genocide in Gaza, but then in the West Bank, in Lebanon, and of course, in relation to Iran,” Kamrava said.

November 6, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Betting the Farm on the Imaginary War

The Highway of Death, Iraq War, 1991
By William Schryver – imetatronink – November 4, 2024

It has now been ten years since I first turned my attention to the necessity of prudent financial investments in order to both preserve and hopefully enlarge the modest amount of wealth I had accumulated up to that time. I began by attempting to identify the wisest and most discerning “experts” in the field. This was no easy trick.

Fortunately, in the ten years preceding my late-2014 awakening to the importance of financial and macroeconomic matters, I had spent several years discovering that most of western academia is a sham dominated by highly credentialled ignoramuses. Therefore I was alerted to the likelihood that the so-called “experts” in other fields of study were similarly intellectually impaired, regardless of their seemingly impressive curricula vitae, how many framed certificates hung on their wall, and the size of their “assets under management”.

That said, it became apparent over time that even those I initially identified as reliable “experts” could be well-informed most of the time, and yet still be subject to blind spots that rendered them susceptible to fatal errors which could often nullify their seemingly correct judgment of everything else.

In the context of financial matters, it must be understood that the “Quantitative Easing” and near-zero interest rates that followed on the heels of the so-called “Great Financial Crisis” of 2007-2009 was a tide that floated a great many boats captained by fools whose folly would not be recognized until the consequences of central bank profligacy were revealed several years further down the road.

Even so, most of the investment “gurus” whose analysis I had come to respect managed to successfully navigate the hurricane of price inflation that roared ashore in the wake of the Covid hysteria – a storm that was then followed by the Federal Reserve’s subsequent raising of interest rates in a frantic attempt to stem the inflationary tide.

Then World War Three began.

Of course, even at this point, almost three years into that war, few people recognize it for what it is. Even fewer recognize the degree to which the geopolitical and military parameters of war itself have been radically altered in comparison to what they were during the “American Unipolar Interregnum” that commenced with the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Indeed, the overwhelming majority of Americans believe the “unipolar moment” continues essentially intact and unthreatened. In the highly insulated environs of Wall Street and Silicon Valley, faith in the overwhelming supremacy of American high-tech and military prowess remains almost entirely unshaken, notwithstanding the ever-increasing indications to the contrary – things about which I have been writing for several years now.

Most of the gods of American high-tech and finance, and those who worship them, simply cannot discern the degree to which American power in all its forms has steadily eroded over the course of the 21st century, and that this erosion has accelerated dramatically in recent years.

For most of the western elite and their acolytes, it is still early 1991, and Norman Schwarzkopf is leading a million-man army against the hapless Iraqis in a demonstration of military might that would finally expunge the bitter humiliation of Vietnam from the American psyche.

Such people have religiously embraced the Hollywood fantasies of unassailable American superpower dominance. And given the reality that Ukraine and Israel are considered merely appendages of this assumed American military supremacy, the eastern European and Levantine theaters of World War Three have given rise to extreme examples of an unprecedented tsunami of propaganda I have been wont to call “The Imaginary War”.

This phrase I coined in the early stages of the war in Ukraine has its origins in something allegedly said by an unnamed Israeli general in the aftermath of the 2006 war in southern Lebanon – a war whose ultimate outcome was a decisive strategic defeat for Israel, but which the Israelis subsequently attempted to spin into a great victory. It was in this context that the Israeli general reportedly said, “If you can’t win a real war, win an imaginary one.”

This is precisely the narrative-building approach we have seen in Ukraine over the past two-plus years.

Most Americans, and most people around the world who believe in mainstream western narratives, are convinced that the Russians have been dealt an overwhelming strategic defeat in Ukraine; that the Russian military has been exposed as a poorly trained drunken mob; that Russian military doctrine is imbecilic; that Russian equipment is junk; that Russian military technology is decades behind its western counterparts; that American and other NATO war toys sent to Ukraine have dominated the battlefield, etc., etc.

The same types of things are believed about China, its culture, and its military capabilities.

And, of course, even greater derision is directed towards the Iranians and the North Koreans.

Just today I read a short article from a fairly prominent Wall Street hedge fund CIO, in which he wrote the following paragraph of utterly fictitious (and yet widely believed) nonsense:

Israel sent 100 aircraft for a 2000km flight to attack Tehran. Zero were shot down. First, the IDF took out Iran’s air defenses. Those Russian S-300 anti-aircraft systems can now be found disassembled in large craters through the region (Russia’s newer S-400 system underperformed expectations in Ukraine and the S-500 is in test phase). With Iran’s air defenses offline, Israeli aircraft had their way with whatever targets they chose in Tehran. They skipped over the mullahs this time. Next time who knows. Such is the nature of warfare for those with superior tech.

Never mind that literally ALL of his assertions are demonstrably false – this would-be titan of American finance intends to bet the farm on the fallacious assumptions of the imaginary wars he has convinced himself are actually taking place.

Of course, both the major party candidates for President, almost the entirety of the United States Congress, and much of the sprawling swamp of American government bureaucracy in Washington are similarly convinced of the indomitability of American imperial military might, and they are anxious to teach the current “axis of evil” in Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran a lesson they will not soon forget.

In the end – and it will come sooner than later – the only thing that will not be soon forgotten is how briefly the American unipolar moment endured, and how shockingly and suddenly it all came crashing down.

November 4, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , , , | 1 Comment

Iran slams US deployment of B-52 bombers as ‘destabilizing’

Al Mayadeen | November 4, 2024

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei criticized the United States on Monday, describing its presence in the region as “destabilizing” following its deployment of B-52 bombers in the Middle East.

At a news conference, Baghaei responded to questions about the military buildup, stating, “We have always believed that the presence of America in the region is a destabilizing presence,” adding, however, that this “will not deter (Iran’s) resolve to defend itself.”

The US military announced on Saturday the deployment of B-52 bombers to the Middle East as a warning to Iran, which has pledged to respond to the Israeli aggression that targeted several of its military sites on October 26.

The Pentagon stated that these deployments would occur in the coming months and highlighted the “flexibility of the US military movements around the world.”

“Should Iran, its partners, or its proxies choose to target American personnel or interests in the region during this time, the United States will take every measure necessary to defend our people,” Pentagon spokesperson Air Force Major General Patrick Ryder said in a statement.

Four Iranian soldiers were martyred during the latest assault on Iran, and officials reported limited damage to several radar systems.

Baghaei said that Iran’s retaliation would be “definite and decisive.” He also reaffirmed that Iran supports “all initiatives and efforts” to promote a ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon, where “Israel” persists with its aggression.

During the news conference, Baghaei reaffirmed that Iran’s official stance against altering its nuclear doctrine and pursuing atomic weapons remains unchanged.

Quoting a recent speech by the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Sayyed Ali Khamenei, the Iranian diplomat emphasized that the Islamic Republic would be “equipped with everything necessary to defend” itself.

US, ‘Israel’ will bear the consequences 

On Saturday, Sayyed Khamenei warned that the United States and the Israeli occupation will bear the consequences of their atrocities.

Speaking on National Day of the Fight against Global Arrogance, which commemorates the anniversary of the US embassy takeover by Iranian students on November 4, 1979, Sayyed Khamenei warned of the crushing response Iran would deliver in retaliation to the crimes carried out against the Islamic Republic and the Resistance.

Sayyed Khamenei stressed that Iran’s operations were not “revenge”, but rather “a logical action, an approach aligned with religion, ethics, and Islamic Law, in accordance with international regulations,” confirming that Iranian officials are constantly developing their political and military readiness to confront any hostility.

Elsewhere, he made it clear that Iran will not leave any aggression unanswered.

November 4, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran’s missiles aimed at deterring attackers, not waging aggression: President Pezeshkian

Press TV – November 4, 2024

President Masoud Pezeshkian asserts that Iran’s missiles are aimed at deterring those seeking to potentially target the country, and are not meant to be used towards waging acts of aggression against other nations.

“We have [our] missiles [at our disposal] so they would not dare attack us. Our missiles are not meant [to be used] for carrying out attacks against anyone or [contributing to] expansionism,” the chief executive said during a ceremony on Monday.

He said the country has developed the defensive projectiles so parties such as the Israeli regime would not be able to target the Islamic Republic as they have been targeting the Gaza Strip or bomb any place or any person that they would desire.

Pezeshkian, meanwhile, hailed Gaza-based Palestinians for their “esteem and greatness” that has forbidden the Israeli regime from forcing them into surrender, despite targeting the coastal sliver with all that is at its disposal for more than a year now.

In the same context, the president slammed the regime for laying claim to respecting human rights and the international law, while its authorities perpetrate “violence, genocide, crime, and murder behind their neat and tie-wearing appearances.”

The remarks came amid the regime’s October 2023-present war of genocide against Gaza that has so far claimed the lives of more than 43,300 Palestinians, mostly women and children.

The contradiction between the regime’s claims and actions points to the regime’s “indecency and lack of identity,” he noted.

Pezeshkian berated those accusing Iran of failure to observe human rights, saying the parties that have leveled the accusations against the country were the same ones that have staged deadly attacks against the Iranian nation, including women and children, with chemical weapons and targeted the people’s sources of sustenance with sanctions.

November 4, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Pezeshkian: Ceasefire and stopping massacres ‘could affect’ Iran’s response to Israel

Press TV – November 3, 2024

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian says a truce in Gaza and an end to Israel’s massacre of civilians “could affect” Tehran’s response to its recent strikes on the country’s military sites.

“If they (the Israelis) make a revision in their behavior, accept a ceasefire and stop killing the oppressed and innocent people of the region, it could have an effect on the type and intensity of our response,” Pezeshkian said in a cabinet session on Sunday.

However, he insisted that Iran will not leave “unanswered” any act of aggression against its sovereignty and security.

The Iranian president warned the Israeli authorities that they will receive a “tooth-breaking” response if they “commit a mistake” against the Islamic Republic.

On October 26, Israeli warplanes used US-controlled airspace over Iraq to fire projectiles at military installations in Iran’s Tehran, Khuzestan, and Ilam provinces in flagrant breach of the country’s national sovereignty.

The General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces confirmed that a significant number of the missiles were intercepted, and the Israeli warplanes were blocked from entering Iran’s airspace.

Iran has said it is resolved to respond to the act of aggression and will not abandon its right.

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei on Saturday warned the United States and Israel that they will definitely receive a crushing response for their atrocities.

Pezeshkian further slammed the hypocritical approach of the United States and European countries to the regional crisis and said all countries in the region now know that “Iran seeks to establish peace and stability and the Zionist regime seeks to intensify the crisis and war in the region.”

“We have never started a war and have never recommended any country to go to war. It has been the United States that has always waged wars in different parts of the world, including our region,” he emphasized.

The president added that the US keeps the fire of war raging in the region through its support for the Israeli regime.

Pointing to Israel’s acts of crime and aggression to fan the flame of war and bloodshed in the region, he said the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the political bureau of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, in Tehran late in July exposed its warmongering policies.

Some countries had called on Iran to show self-restraint in the hope of a ceasefire and secession of Israel’s massacre of innocent women and children but the regime escalated its crimes and spread its criminal acts to Lebanon, Pezeshkian pointed out.

He blasted the “shameful and disgraceful” silence of the self-proclaimed defenders of human rights towards Israeli killing of thousands of innocent and oppressed women and children in Gaza and Lebanon.

“We have never dropped bombs and missiles on the women and children of any country and we have never deprived any people of water, food, and medicine, but they have committed all these crimes against humanity,” the Iranian president said.

They are leveling unfounded allegations against Iran to force nations into obeying their demands, he added, emphasizing that the free peoples in the world will never succumb to oppression.

November 3, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | 1 Comment

Mohammad Marandi: Israel in PANIC Mode

Kamil Kerimov | November 2, 2024

November 3, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Video | , , , , , | Leave a comment

The War Against the Palestinians Must Go On

Both major political parties connive at Israel’s genocide in Gaza

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • November 1, 2024

The sucking up to Israel and its backers by the political class in America never seems go away. Indeed, it if anything increases during the lead up to national elections. In the latest manifestation of Judeophilia, Rudy Giuliani, self-described as “America’s Mayor,” has now informed us that “They [the Israelis] are our best friends. I worked for Ronald Reagan for eight years and Ronald Reagan said that we have to always be there for Israel because Israel is always there for us! Hamas is not there for us, the Iranians are not there for us, they want to kill us and the Palestinians are taught to kill us at two years old! They won’t let a Palestinian in Jordan. They won’t let a Palestinian in Egypt. And [Kamala] Harris wants to bring them to you! They may have good people, I don’t care, but I won’t take a risk with people that are taught to kill Americans at two! I’m on the side of Israel! You’re on the side of Israel! Donald Trump is on the side of Israel! And they [the Democrats] are on the side of the terrorists.”

Giuliani said all that and more at a Donald Trump election rally in New York’s Madison Square Garden, where he was breathing fire in a speech [at minute 17:27] that one media outlet described as “unhinged” to rouse the overflow crowd to hate Israel’s enemies, which apparently includes the Democratic Party if they should regain the presidency. I would not want to disagree with a man of Giuliani’s psycho-phantasmagoric stature about facts, but I do not recall when the United States was actually threatened by Israel’s enemies to include Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran or a place we once called Palestine, but then again, I am getting older and my memory might be failing. Nor can I recall anything at all that Israel has done for what was once my country apart from take huge bundles of our tax money equivalent to one quarter of a trillion dollars while also corrupting our politicians and undermining both our rule of law and our Bill of Rights, but, then again, blame it on my memory since I cannot imagine a warm and friendly chap like Benjamin Netanyahu doing anything nasty or naughty.

In trying to score political points, Giuliani does not seem to get that the adoration of the Jewish state is a bipartisan thing, that the US government, no matter who wins elections, will continue to supply the Israelis with money and weapons to expel or kill as many of its neighbors as possible. The carnage will create a new metaphoric “land without people” empty space between the Euphrates and Nile Rivers that will become a great nursery for establishing and populating the Eretz or “Greater Israel” Chosen by Yahweh to rule the Middle East.

One good thing about Giuliani and his master Donald Trump is that they do not even pretend to want to help Palestinians and other “lesser breeds without the law” to resist the occupation and eradication by their Jewish masters. Trump would like to have the job of extermination finished so Israel’s public relations image would not be further damaged. Kamala, on the other hand, would keep handing out weapons and money while piously calling for a cease fire, an objective that is routinely rejected by a stern Netanyahu. How the Biden-Harris rule of foreign relations vis-à-vis the Middle East operates is to pretend one thing while doing something else. It has been reported that Biden’s peace negotiators Amos Hochstein, an Israeli who served in the IDF, and Brett McGurk, who were ostensibly working to help avoid expansion of the Gaza crisis into Lebanon, were doing quite the opposite. They have been working “behind the scenes” to encourage Israel, and they are now describing Israel’s Lebanon operations that have included a major land invasion as a “history-defining moment” — one that will “reshape the Middle East for the better for years to come.”

And there’s more. The US Ambassador to Lebanon one Lisa Johnson has been meeting with the various parties and groups that make up the Lebanese government and its social and religious mix with a proposal that it organize to prepare the country for a “post-Hezbollah era” by mobilizing “internal” forces to eliminate the Islamic resistance movement while it is engaged in fighting the Israeli Army. Johnson, a Joe Biden appointee to her post, certainly reflects White House and State Department thinking on the Middle East. She reportedly told Lebanese politicians, “Israel cannot achieve everything through war; it’s time for you to do your part and launch an internal uprising under the banner of ‘Enough.’ The Lebanese people must show their desire to rise-up and get rid of Hezbollah.” Johnson challenged the politicians, “Why do you seem afraid? Hezbollah has been defeated, its leadership is destroyed, and we are with you, and the entire free world stands by your side… We do not only want to limit Hezbollah’s influence, but we will strike its support lines, and we are working non-stop to bring down the regime in Iran as well.”

Someone should remind Ms. Johnson as well as McGurk and Hochstein that we are not legally at war with Lebanon, nor with Iran, and nor even with the Palestinians whose genocide we are enabling. The reality is that Gaza and Lebanon are America’s war in the sense that Israel’s onslaught against its neighbors would not be either possible or sustainable without Washington picking up the costs and supplying the weapons. A recently released report by the Israeli news outlet Calcalist reviewed Israeli military spending on wars since fighting began on October 7th. It determined that Washington has over the past year funded directly 70% of Tel Aviv’s total military costs. That has amounted to more than $20 billion in military aid, a figure close to the $22.57 billion estimated by several US sources including Brown University’s highly respected Cost of War Project which has likewise looked at the numbers. And, one assumes there are also substantial hidden expenses consisting of armaments shipped directly from US arsenals without any accounting procedure as well as money concealed in other projects. As a bottom line, one has to conclude without direct US support, Netanyahu’s war would simply be unaffordable for the Jewish state. Calcalist concludes that “Therefore, it is doubtful whether this war would have been conducted as it is – neither in intensity nor in scope – without the American assistance.” So in a very real sense it is and has been America’s war while the secret objective by the US government to destroy Hezbollah as well as Hamas and even overthrow the regime in Iran indicates clearly that Netanyahu’s hegemonical and genocidal plan to make Israel the supreme power in the Middle East is shared by many in Washington.

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.

November 1, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | 5 Comments

Israel’s Deadly Miscalculation: Consequences of Attacking Iran & Hezbollah

Dialogue Works | October 29, 2024

Seyed Mohammad Marandi is a Professor of English Literature and Orientalism at the University of Tehran and advisor to Iran’s nuclear negotiations team: (https://x.com/s_m_marandi​)

October 30, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Video, War Crimes | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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