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Russia Receives Proposals From US on Arms Control

By Oleg Burunov – Sputnik – 25.10.2023

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov touched upon a spate of pressing issues, including US arms control proposals, Moscow-Tehran cooperation and prisoner exchange.

Russia has received proposals on strategic stability and arms control from the United States that are currently being studied, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told a news briefing earlier in the day.

According to him, there are no new elements in these proposals and Moscow will respond to Washington in due time.

Ryabkov added that the US is “proposing to discuss strategic stability and arms control on a systematic basis” and “in isolation from current events”. The Russian diplomat stressed that Moscow is “not willing to do that.”

“We believe that a return to the dialogue on strategic stability, including the issue of strategic offensive weapons and other issues, is simply impossible in its previous form without a change in the fundamentally hostile attitude of the United States towards Russia,” Ryabkov pointed out.

Russia-Iran Cooperation

Separately, Ryabkov touched on Iran-related issues, saying Russia intends to use the lifting of UN Security Council restrictions on the Islamic Republic’s missile program to develop cooperation.

“We will continue to develop our cooperation on a mutually beneficial basis in full accordance with international obligations and existing regimes in this area. Now, after the expiration of some restrictive provisions of [UN] Resolution 2231, there are fewer such restrictive regimes. Of course, we will take advantage of this, and this should not raise any questions for anyone,” he told reporters.

Moscow cooperates with Iran within a strictly legal framework, the Russian diplomat said, adding that the Kremlin foresees all politicized attempts to prevent this and will try to stop them.

Prisoner Exchange

In addition, Ryabkov commented on a recent statement by the US State Department by saying that the Russian Foreign Ministry had not received any additional proposals from the US on the exchange of prisoners through its channels.

Ryabkov was referring to Washington’s “serious proposal” to Moscow for the release of former US Marine Paul Whelan, who is serving a prison sentence in Russia for espionage.
“The issues of prisoner exchange, or rather, the issues of release of Russian citizens who, in the vast majority of cases, have received long sentences on unjust verdicts and false charges, are being discussed through the special services. The Russian Foreign Ministry has not recently received through its channels any additional ideas or proposals in this regard from the American side,” Ryabkov stated.

“If such proposals are received, they will be forwarded to those involved in the distribution of responsibilities on this issue so that the proposals can be considered. At the moment, there is no news or updates on this issue,” the Russian diplomat added.

Russian authorities charged Whelan with espionage and arrested him in December 2018, he was sentenced to 16 years in prison by a Moscow court. Whelan, who is a citizen of Canada, Ireland, and the United Kingdom, has maintained his innocence, claiming that he came to Russia for a friend’s wedding.

October 25, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Iran: UN Security Council sanctions on missile-related activities end

Press TV – October 18, 2023

The Iranian Foreign Ministry has announced that the Islamic Republic, as of October 18, will no longer be subject to any restriction with regard to its ballistic missile-related activities and transfers by the United Nations Security Council.

The Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday that the entire restrictions imposed on the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missile-related activities and its associated services and technology have “unconditionally” ended.

The termination came into force on October 18, eight years after the 2015 Iran nuclear deal with major world powers, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

“As of today, 18 October 2023, the last part of unjustly imposed restrictions by the United Nations Security Council on missile-related activities and its associated services and technology to/from Islamic Republic of Iran, including asset freeze and financial restrictions on certain Iranian individuals and entities, terminated unconditionally,” the statement said.

“According to the provisions of 2231 UNSC Resolution, termination of these restrictions, does not require any resolution, statement or any other action in the context of the UNSC and occurred automatically,” it added.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry also said cooperation in all military and defense areas would be carried out, without any restriction, based on the needs and discretion of the Islamic Republic of Iran, within the framework of bilateral contracts with other countries.

Pointing to the provisions of UNSCR 2231, the statement noted, “In accordance with paragraph 3 of Annex B, Iran is no longer ‘called upon’ by the Security Council ‘not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles.”

The Foreign Ministry said the Islamic Republic, by recalling the provisions of the UN charter, in particular article 25 as well as provisions of UNSCR 2231, emphasizes the commitments of all member states to effectuate the termination of the above-mentioned restrictions at the national level.

“Iran expects all States to modify and revise, in the case of existence, any relevant restriction or sanction, according to their domestic legal system,” it added.

The statement underlined that any measure, at the national or regional level, aiming at imposing sanctions or restrictions on defensive engagements and cooperation of the Islamic Republic of Iran, is in contradiction with the termination of restrictions of UNSCR 2231, and that Tehran reserves its right to take appropriate measures to secure its national interests.

“The defense doctrine of the Islamic Republic of Iran has always been on the basis of domestic capabilities and capacities, and deeply rooted in resistance and power of Iranian Nation. Unconventional arms and weapons of mass destruction has no place in the defense doctrine of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the statement said.

“Moreover, the Islamic Republic of Iran will continue to take necessary measures to strengthen its defense capabilities in order to protect its sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity against any aggression and to counter the menace of terrorism in the region,” it added.

Stressing that the Iranian military capabilities, including ballistic missiles, are exclusively for self-defense, the statement said, “The Islamic Republic of Iran continues to insist that all sanctions and restrictive measures introduced and applied against Iran, including those imposed under the pretext of its nuclear program, have been baseless, unjust and unlawful.”

Last month, the three European signatories to the JCPOA — the UK, Germany, and France — said they plan not to terminate their anti-Iran sanctions, including ballistic missile bans, arguing that Iran has been in non-compliance with the deal since 2019.

Iran halted some of its JCPOA commitments in 2019, a year after the US unilaterally walked out of the deal and after the EU failed to offer any compensation for the US withdrawal.

Iran said at the time the reduction of its commitments was in accordance with the deal, which allows parties to dishonor commitments should other parties do the same.

October 18, 2023 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

U.S. Breaks Its Deal with Iran… Again

By Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute | October 18, 2023

Building on its reputation as an unreliable diplomatic partner, the United States announced on October 12 that it was pulling out of the deal that would have granted Iran access to $6 billion of its money in exchange for the release of five American prisoners. This rare diplomatic success between the U.S. and Iran took months to work out, only to see the U.S. break its word again and renege on the deal.

In 2018, the United States granted a waiver for South Korea to continue purchasing Iranian oil despite American sanctions on Iran. Instead of being deposited in Iran, the money for the oil would be placed in South Korean accounts that could be accessed by Iran for humanitarian goods in South Korea that were not sanctioned. However, entanglements in the web of the sanctions regime made it impossible for Iran to withdraw money from its account. Meanwhile, five Americans were being held prisoner in Iran.

Under the deal worked out between the two countries, the South Korean accounts would be transferred to Qatar where they would remain out of reach of Iran except for the purchase of humanitarian items like medicine, medical supplies, and food. The money would go, not to the Iranian government, but directly to the vendors who provided the goods. In exchange, Iran would release the five prisoners.

On September 18, Iran kept its word and released the five prisoners. A month later, the United States broke its word and denied Iran access to its $6 billion. Though it is not known if the refreeze is permanent, U.S. officials say that “case-by-case applications to spend [the funds] under the current arrangement will be denied for the foreseeable future.”

This is not the first time the U.S. has broken an agreement with what must be a frustrated and furious Iran. On May 8, 2018 the U.S. unilaterally and illegally pulled out of the JCPOA nuclear agreement with Iran that was successfully limiting Iran’s civilian nuclear program.

As with the current hostage deal, Iran kept its word and was in full compliance with the JCPOA nuclear deal when the U.S. broke its word. Eleven consecutive International Atomic Energy Agency reports verified that Iran was completely and consistently in compliance with their commitments under the agreement.

The solidifying American reputation cannot help but be a significant impediment to future important negotiations with Iran. It will also likely tarnish U.S. credibility as a diplomatic partner or broker in other parts of the world. Much of the non-NATO world—that is, the global majority—is already reeling from the realization of how the United States’ broken promise on NATO non-expansion east to the borders of Russia contributed to the current crisis in Ukraine.

This broken deal is not only not the first broken deal with Iran, but it is also not the first time the United States has reneged on a deal that freed American prisoners. In 1963, Fidel Castro freed American prisoners after receiving hints that their release could lead to a process of reconciliation, only to see the U.S. disappoint on its commitments.

Iran, on the other hand, has, in the past, kept its word on freeing American prisoners. When Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani promised to exert Iran’s regional influence and intervene to help win the release of American hostages being held in Lebanon, U.S. President George H.W. Bush promised that Iran’s help would “be long remembered” and that, in return, Iran would get something because “goodwill begets goodwill.” Iran successfully intervened to secure the release of the Americans being held hostage; the United States sent word that Iran should expect no American reciprocation.

Biden promised a quick return to diplomacy with Iran over the JCPOA nuclear agreement and then neglected that promise. He then broke another deal with Iran after Iran had already fulfilled its obligation. The American prisoners had flown from Iran to Qatar to the United States to be, as Biden said, “reunited with their loved ones.” His administration is reinforcing the reputation started by earlier presidencies that America cannot be trusted to keep its promises. That reputation could harm U.S. credibility in future diplomatic engagements.

October 18, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

What’s behind the sudden US good will towards Iran?

By Robert Inlakesh | RT | October 2, 2023

In what proved to be a domestically controversial move, the US government approved the release of five prisoners held in Iran in return for releasing five Iranian detainees and billions of previously frozen assets. However, in the aftermath of the agreement between Tehran and Washington, the White House’s primary focus seems to be centered around securing a Saudi-Israeli deal rather than working on reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

As revealed by the anonymous diplomatic sources of The Cradle, in addition to other tidbits released in US media, the US-Iran prisoner swap appears to have been much more than meets the eye. The informal agreement, according to these anonymous sources, encompassed freezing Iranian uranium enrichment at 60% and permitting the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to install cameras at several nuclear sites. On the other hand, the US’ concessions included disregarding Iranian oil sales – in essence, refraining from enforcing sanctions – and allowing all Iranian assets to be released, reportedly amounting to roughly $20 billion. This is well over the widely reported $6 billion touted in the international press.

What makes this agreement so intriguing is that it was non-formal, including no known signed documents, and was contrived over several months and under the auspices of Qatar and Oman as intermediaries. From leaked information, citing unnamed sources, what we can gather – regardless of what claims are true or false – is that the prisoner swap was more than a simple exchange of prisoners and $6 billion in frozen assets. According to a report released in May by Axios, secret indirect talks between the US and Iran had been conducted in Oman, which three sources close to the news outlet claimed Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, Ali Bagheri Kan, was part of. Later, in June, the New York Times released a report claiming that secret negotiations were going on, aimed at concluding an informal agreement to replace the need to revive the 2015 nuclear deal.

To begin with, if we are to assume that the official US narrative on the agreement is correct, despite Iranian officials having contradicted it, then the most apparent objective in mind from Washington’s perspective would be to cause a thaw in America’s relationship with the Islamic Republic. As various analysts have suggested, this could have also signaled hope for a revival of the nuclear deal, which fell apart after the administration of former President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from it in 2018. Hope had largely faded that the administration of President Joe Biden could bring the deal back to life after Biden was revealed to have said that it was officially “dead” in November of 2022.

However, given the information we have at hand, what is most likely here is that this represents a massive de-escalation following ship seizures and the beefing up of America’s troop presence in the Persian Gulf back in August. Why a de-escalation now? Is it to revive nuclear deal talks? This appears highly unlikely. Instead, the prisoner exchange agreement comes simultaneously with, and is somewhat overshadowed by, developments in the ongoing discussions to reach an American-brokered normalization deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

The two nations, both powerful partners of the US in the Middle East, have never had formal diplomatic relations with each other. Saudi Arabia does not recognize Israel as a sovereign country and has been at loggerheads with it over its treatment of Arabs in Palestine, which Riyadh ostensibly wants to see as an independent nation. Negotiations to finally normalize diplomatic relations have been ongoing for months now, with the US being a highly invested middleman, given that achieving such a deal would help consolidate its power base in the region. As for Iran, while Israel sees it as an existential enemy, Saudi Arabia has had a complicated relationship with it, only having re-established diplomatic ties earlier this year in a deal brokered by China.

When Biden met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA)’s 78th session, they publicly discussed the high hopes of concluding Saudi-Israeli normalization. This was followed by two Fox News interviews, one with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman and the other with the Israeli PM, during which both said that the deal grows closer by the day. At Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to the UNGA, he spoke at length on Iran; however, there was no mention of the recent US-Iranian prisoner exchange.

In fact, Israel has remained silent on the informal deal. This is especially interesting, considering that Tel Aviv routinely attacks the prospect of any agreement with Iran, let alone one that allows for tens of billions in funds to be transferred back into the hands of Tehran. In June, Netanyahu spoke over the phone with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, during which he discussed Iran at length and proclaimed that he opposes and will not be bound by any agreement struck between Washington and Tehran.

On September 5, Antony Blinken spoke with the Israeli premier again, allegedly discussing Iran as the primary subject of the call. While the precise details of the calls are impossible to apprehend, there had to be a good chance that the prisoner swap agreement was mentioned, as reports had publicly been leaked to the press regarding Iran-US talks. With so much focus placed upon Iran by Israel, it makes no sense that Tel Aviv would remain silent on the prisoner exchange, especially given the release of Iran’s formerly frozen funds.

Not silent on the unfreezing of Tehran’s billions were Republican politicians in the US Congress. If the Biden administration were to have accepted a renewal of the 2015 nuclear deal, one of its major hurdles would have been passing the deal in Congress, including the deeply opposed Republican-led House of Representatives. In fact, any attempt to try and pass a deal, at this point, could reflect negatively on the Biden White House, which matters more now as we head towards the 2024 presidential election.

Therefore, by striking an informal agreement with Tehran, the US de-escalates and addresses some of its worries surrounding Iran’s nuclear program. More importantly, however, the US government could be trying to create a fertile environment for the conclusion of an Israeli-Saudi normalization agreement, both by calming Iran down to de-escalate regional tensions and, possibly, leveraging concessions to ease Tehran’s pushback against the normalization directly. Whether this strategy will work or not is yet to be seen. Still, it is clear that the key foreign policy goal for Joe Biden is securing the normalization agreement, which is why it makes sense that the most powerful nation that opposes it – Iran – should be addressed and taken seriously.

Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the Palestinian territories and currently works with Quds News. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’.

October 2, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | Leave a comment

The US-Iran deal: prisoner swap or new nuclear agreement?

By Robert Inlakesh | The Cradle | September 20, 2023

The secret US-Iran deal revealed to the public last month has largely been portrayed as a “humanitarian agreement” – the release of US prisoners in exchange for the return of frozen Iranian funds that will bring relief to the people of Iran.

But as tidbits of new information emerge on the agreement, it has become clear that Washington and Tehran have agreed on a far more comprehensive array of arrangements.

The US, for instance, has quietly approved the release of significantly more Iranian funds than the $6 billion figure touted in the media. Dr. Mohammed Marandi, former media advisor to the Iranian nuclear negotiating team in Vienna, confirms to The Cradle that almost $20 billion of Iran’s internationally frozen assets have already been released as part of the agreement.

The reported $6 billion only constitutes Iranian funds frozen in South Korea, while an additional $11 billion was held by Iraq, with the remaining portions scattered across various other countries. These assets, Marandi says, have now been successfully released and are under the control of Iran’s Central Bank.

Based on information from Iranian and Arab diplomatic sources who requested anonymity, the US-Iran deal terms include – but are not restricted to – the following commitments from the two sides:

Iran’s commitments include:

  • The release of the 5 Americans detained in Iran (and 2 relatives who were reportedly barred from leaving the country).
  • Capping uranium enrichment at 60 percent, accompanied by a reduction in production pace.
  • Reactivating the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)’s surveillance cameras at several nuclear sites.

US commitments include:

  • The release of Iranian prisoners held in the US and in various other undisclosed countries.
  • Unfreezing Iranian funds held in multiple countries, including South Korea, Iraq, and elsewhere.
  • Easing US sanctions on Iranian oil – this sanctions relief will occur informally, not requiring an official US decision, but rather a tacit acceptance of Iranian energy trades globally.
  • Iran gains access to existing provisions in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) from October 2023, which permit the Islamic Republic to import and export weapons.
  • The closure of remaining IAEA “open files” regarding several Iranian nuclear, military, and civilian sites.

The closure of remaining IAEA “open files” regarding several Iranian nuclear, military, and civilian sites.

Western diplomatic sources tell The Cradle that the main reason the US initiated secret talks with Iran is because Washington has a critical need to increase oil supply in global markets.

Deescalating with Tehran can bring new energy sources online quickly to make up for lost Russian supplies. This is why one of the unpublicized US deal concessions to Iran is to ignore sanctions on Iranian oil and gas trades.

The problem for the Biden administration, since the failure of nuclear talks, has consistently been domestic political opposition toward the easing of “maximum pressure” sanctions on Iran. This new backroom agreement provides a way to bypass Washington’s institutional roadblocks, and flood the market with Iranian oil supply.

Reviving a ‘dead’ deal 

Already, Washington-based think tanks are understanding that the Iran-US prisoner swap could be a softball maneuver by the Biden administration to publicly kickstart the easing of tensions with Tehran. This move is seen as a way to navigate around the stubborn resistance of congressional representatives and pressure from Israeli hawks against reviving the Iran Nuclear Deal, also known as the JCPOA.

Monday’s prisoner exchange of both Iranian and American prisoners, which received blanket coverage by both country’s media, has agitated parties opposed to any Iranian-US detente and has them scrambling to discover the hidden significance behind the breakthrough Qatari-brokered agreement.

Richard Goldberg, Director of the Iran Program at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said in a 13 September interview with the Saudi-owned Asharq al-Awsat newspaper that the US-Iran prisoner swap was strategically designed to deflect congressional criticism over the renewal of the JCPOA.

He contends that by linking sanctions relief to the prisoner exchange instead of a JCPOA revival, US President Joe Biden has effectively defused tensions with Iran and sidestepped the political hurdle of presenting a new nuclear deal to Congress – a move that would have otherwise proved contentious in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential elections.

In June last year, indirect negotiations between the US and Iran officially fell apart, ending a year’s worth of on-and-off efforts to reach a consensus in Vienna. Later in the year, while on the sidelines of an election rally in November, Biden declared the 2015 JCPOA “dead.”

But in May 2023, secret indirect negotiations between US and Iranian officials took place in Oman.

In June, the New York Times released an article on ongoing talks between the two parties aimed at finalizing an informal agreement that could potentially replace the need to resurrect the 2015 nuclear deal and “avert a nuclear crisis.”

The Cradle’s diplomatic sources confirm this was never merely a prisoners-for-cash swap, but a quiet initiative to defuse escalating US-Iran tensions – and proponents of continued conflict – by crafting a settlement that completely bypassed the naysayers.

This settlement, which would begin with some simpler humanitarian gestures to build goodwill and trust between the two parties, would then provide the foundation for negotiations over more complicated issues.

Beyond the prisoner swap 

Despite Biden’s public commitment to revive the Iran nuclear deal, his negotiating team has dismally failed to secure an agreement. This week’s prisoner exchange was seen as just the right kind of sweetener to pave a new, unencumbered path toward securing the basic requirements of the two adversaries.

But even this humanitarian gesture by both sides has failed to quell media criticism. US outlets and social media platforms have castigated the Biden administration for releasing $6 billion of Iran’s frozen assets to secure the release of just 5 US prisoners.

And while US officials claim that the funds were transferred to designated bank accounts in Qatar and restricted to the purchase of food and agricultural products, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi went public to make clear that Iran has full discretion on the use of these funds.

Raisi has described the release of the five prisoners as a “purely humanitarian action” and hinted that it could serve as a foundation for future humanitarian initiatives, code for sanctions relief.

His statement has further fueled speculation that the US and Iran are privately moving toward a broader agreement – well beyond the prisoner exchange – that will substitute the hotly-contested JCPOA.

September 23, 2023 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

Iran Hails Resistance Allies’ Push to Reshape World Order, Weaken US ‘Hegemony’

People raise Palestinian, Lebanese and  Hezbollah flags during a rally in solidarity with the Palestinians, on the outskirts of the southern Lebanese village of Kfarkila, near a United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) armoured personnel carrier.
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 02.09.2023

Iran joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS this summer, and has been working to expand bilateral cooperation with both Russia and China. Tehran is also the leader of an informal alliance of regional countries, including Syria, Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, and Iraqi Shia militias, known as the Axis of Resistance.

Iran’s foreign minister has praised the struggle in the Middle East to resist and undermine US dominance and create a new international order.

“The international system is undergoing fundamental changes and we are witnessing new actors in the international arena,” Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in a meeting with political groups in Beirut, Lebanon on Friday.

“The US is trying to maintain its hegemony, but the region and the world understand very well that America cannot exercise its hegemony, and on the contrary, the Resistance is powerful and can achieve its will powerfully,” Amir-Abdollahian added.

Today, the Iranian top diplomat said, “the position of the Resistance in the region cannot be ignored,” and is “being noticed by the West,” including as far as the Israeli-Palestinian crisis is concerned.

Separately, in talks with his Lebanese counterpart Abdallah Bou Habib, Amir-Abdollahian stressed that “the US sanctions regime cannot hinder the economic relations between Iran and Lebanon,” just as “it has failed to impact Iran’s cooperation with Iraq, Turkiye, Pakistan, Central Asia and the Caucasus.”

Iran is ready to provide further assistance to Lebanon to help Beirut resolve its long-running fuel and electricity crisis, he said. This includes readiness to build a network of power stations with a capacity of 2,000 megawatts.

Bou Habib praised Iran for its support for Lebanon in the nation’s time of crisis, and expressed readiness to further expand cooperation.

Lebanon’s political and economic crisis, which began in 2019, has left the country in economic ruin and run by a caretaker government. The post of president has been vacant since last October, when President Michel Aoun resigned at the end of his term.

Amir-Abdollahian also met with Hassan Nasrallah, secretary-general of the powerful Lebanese political party and militant group Hezbollah, which has forged close ties with Iran both in Lebanon and in Syria, where Hezbollah fighters backed by Revolutionary Guard Quds Force advisors have fought jihadist extremists for over a decade.

In the talks with Bou Habib, Amir-Abdollahian reiterated Iran’s long-stated position that “any normalization of relations with the Zionist regime will be detrimental to the entire region.” Iran will “continue to support and assist the Axis of Resistance, to preserve the Lebanese national interest, in the face of Israeli attacks and ambitions that threaten this entire region,” he said.

The Iranian diplomat also commented on the “positive developments” in relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia following the surprise normalization of relations earlier this year, saying that these processes “will have a positive impact on the entire region,” including for Lebanon.

At a press conference at the end of his visit, Amir-Abdollahian also rejected allegations by France – the European power which once controlled Lebanon as a colony, of meddling in Lebanon’s affairs.

“I advise Mr. Macron to focus on the situation inside France instead of paying attention to questions of interference in other countries,” he said. “Iran has always played the most constructive role in helping Lebanon,” he added.

Earlier in the week, the French president told a conference of French ambassadors that stopping Iranian “interference” was a “key element” in resolving Lebanon’s political standoff.

Amir-Abdollahian’s Beirut visit was preceded by a trip to Damascus on Thursday for talks with President Bashar Assad and other Syrian officials. Amir-Abdollahian slammed the illegal presence of US troops in eastern Syria, and blasted Israel for its ongoing campaign of airstrikes against the war-torn country.

Known to jealously guard its security and foreign policy independence, and the defense of its interests even against far larger and more powerful foes, including the US, Iran has dramatically ramped up cooperation with Russia and China in recent years as part of ongoing processes related to Eurasian integration. Iran joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in July, and acceded to the BRICS bloc late last month. Last week, a senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander and advisor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that Iran sees a maritime-oriented economy and cooperation with Russia and China as keys to countering the impact of US sanctions.

September 2, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Zios Pay US Pols to Hate on Iran

Interview with Iranian Hamshahri newspaper

BY KEVIN BARRETT | AUGUST 22, 2023

Hamshahri

1. Some American officials, such as Tom Cotton, have described Iran’s recent victory as the White House dancing to Iran’s tune, and are angry about it. Former Vice President Mike Pence also lashed out at the recent prisoner swap with Iran, terming the new arrangement as “the largest ransom payment in American history” to the Islamic Republic. In your opinion, what is the main reason for the anger of the American officials, and more importantly, is Washington humiliated?

Tom Cotton and other Republicans who are criticizing the US-Iran prisoner swap and funds release are doing so for only one reason: They want to reap political gains. They hope to fool ignorant voters into viewing them as tougher on officially-designated US adveraries than their Democratic opponents. More importantly, they are preening in front of the mirror offering anti-Iran poses and gestures in order to convince wealthy hardline Zionists to give them more of the lavish bribes that fuel the American political system, euphemistically known as “campaign contributions.”

Ironically, Cotton and other anti-Iran Republicans are traitors posing as hyper-patriots. They and the Zionist-owned-and-operated mainstream media will never tell the American people the real reason for US hostility towards Iran: the power of the Jewish billionaires who constitute between one third and one half of the corrupt oligarchs who rule America, and who work together to make sure US foreign policy serves Israel first and America second if at all. Though US interests dictate comity with Iran, Zionist interests dictate the reverse. Since the US has been taken over by Zionists, it shoots itself in the foot by slavishly following Zionist orders to maintain hostile relations with Iran. Politicians like Cotton are, in essence, agents of a hostile foreign power. If the American people ever wake up, Cotton and his fellow traitors will face a harsh reckoning.

2. As you probably know, Iran’s blocked assets are estimated to be between 100 to 120 billion dollars in international accounts. On the other hand, it has been proven that there is no way to release Iran’s blocked assets except to put pressure on US officials. What are the ways to put pressure on the US from your point of view and which solution is more effective?

Iran is not really in a position to pressure US officials the way Israel does. Imagine, if you will, a world in which 40% of the richest Americans are ethnic Iranians and fanatically loyal to Tehran’s government. Then imagine that this group dominates the US media and uses it to propagandize on behalf of Tehran. Go one step further, and imagine that these maniacal ethnic loyalists dominate American and to some extent global organized crime, and liase with Iranian intelligence to gather blackmail material on American politicans and other leaders. That would be a world in which Iran could seriously “pressure,” or even control, the United States. And that is the world we are in—except that the nation in question is Israel, not Iran. (Those wishing to learn more about Israeli-linked organized crime’s death grip on the US should read the works of Michael Collins Piper, especially Final Judgment, alongside One Nation Under Blackmail by Whitney Webb.)

In the world as it stands, Iran, with its unshakeable support for Palestine, confronts an America that is largely controlled by its worst enemy. So it must do what it can to gain modest leverage, including finding ways to annoy the United States and then offering to reduce those annoyances in return for the US giving back its stolen money.

3. The Pentagon’s central command has claimed that the US will strengthen its military presence in the Strait of Hormuz with two ground-water offensive vessels to protect international shipping against the threat of Iran. How should this military presence be interpreted, and what are its effects on the resistance front?

Iran has two immense strategic advantages over the Zionist-controlled United States, which taken together largely negate the US edge in military firepower. Iran’s first advantage is its ability to decimate US military bases in the region, thanks to its rocket and drone programs. The US has kindly chosen to station substantial numbers of troops within easy range of Iranian rocket and drone fire. As in the parallel case with North Korea, that means that the US has essentially volunteered its troops as hostages. The fact that large numbers of Americans would quickly die in any major shooting war with Iran (or North Korea) serves as a potent deterrent to any US attack plans.

Iran’s second ace in the hole is its ability to shut down the Straits of Hormuz, the choke point through which more than a quarter of the world’s oil transits. Iran has massive firepower, including unstoppable anti-ship missiles, dug deep into the Zagros Mountains overlooking the Straits. Additionally, it can use its highly maneuverable navy to distribute mines and launch attacks on larger and clumsier craft.

In 2004 The Atlantic Magazine commissioned a war game, run by top military experts, simulating war between the US and Iran, and the result was “sobering”: Iran won in every conceivable scenario short of all-out nuclear annihilation. Since 2004 the Iranian edge has only grown, as Iran’s rocket, drone, and anti-ship-missile programs have made quantum leaps.

So when the US sends more men and materiel into the Strait of Hormuz, it is making an empty theatrical gesture which does not change the strategic equation. Unfortunately, though, the Straits are narrow and crowded, and the more American forces enter the area, the greater the possibility of misunderstandings and unintended clashes that could get out of hand.

The resistance front will no doubt figure out how to take advantage of the situation by raising the costs of (Zionist-driven) American aggression without crossing red lines that could lead to tragic losses on both sides.

August 22, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

US offloads oil from seized Iranian tanker despite Tehran’s warnings

The Cradle | August 20, 2023

An oil tanker seized by the US Navy for allegedly carrying sanctioned Iranian oil began transferring its cargo to another tanker off the coast of Texas on 20 August, despite threats from Tehran to target shipping in the Persian Gulf in response.

Ship-tracking data analyzed by The Associated Press showed the Marshall Islands-flagged Suez Rajan began the ship-to-ship transfer of its oil to the MR Euphrates, a tanker located some 70 kilometers southeast of Houston in the Gulf of Mexico. The value of the oil on the 800,000-barrel tanker is estimated to be $56 million.

Washington illegally seized the Marshall Islands-flagged Suez Rajan supertanker in April of this year in what was described by the Pentagon as “a sanctions-enforcement operation.” Washington also charged the ship’s owner with “sanctions evasion” and directed the stolen cargo to the waters off the Texas coast.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Suez Rajan came under Washington’s radar after an anti-Iran organization – the New York-based United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) – provided information about the ship’s cargo to government officials. Lawyers representing the families of victims of the 11 September attacks, “whom US courts have given the right to claim compensation from [Tehran],” filed a lawsuit against one of the ship’s former owners.

However, oil firms in the US had been reluctant to unload the shipment of stolen Iranian oil sitting, saying they were “too worried about Iranian reprisal” to touch the cargo, sources familiar with the matter told the WSJ.

“Companies with any exposure whatsoever in the Persian Gulf are literally afraid to do it,” a Houston-based energy executive told the US outlet, adding that companies fear “the Iranians would take retribution against them.”

“I don’t know if anybody’s going to touch it,” another executive at a shipping company had said.

The transfer of the Iranian oil comes as the US Navy has bolstered its forces in the Persian Gulf in recent weeks, including by sending the troop-and-aircraft-carrying USS Bataan through the Strait of Hormuz. Washington is also considering placing US troops on commercial vessels to prevent Tehran from seizing them in response to Washington’s own seizures of Iranian ships.

US theft of Iranian oil from the Suez Rajan also comes as Tehran and Washington seek to complete a prisoner exchange that also involves the US releasing between $6 and $10 billion in seized Iranian oil proceeds held in banks in South Korea and Europe.

Iran has been resisting US sanctions by continuing to sell its oil abroad, while the US has been seizing cargoes since 2019 after withdrawing from the nuclear deal negotiated between the two rival countries. The 2015 nuclear deal held that Iran would limit the enrichment of uranium for its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. The US withdrew from the deal unilaterally in 2018. Washington accuses Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons, however, Iranian leaders have stated the nuclear program is for peaceful purposes and that developing nuclear weapons is forbidden by Islam.

August 21, 2023 Posted by | War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran Ramps Up Oil, Gas Production, Exports as Western Sanctions Fail

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 16.08.2023

Washington’s years-long effort to bring Iran’s oil exports down “to zero” has failed to bear fruit, with fresh restrictions put in place by the Biden administration last fall to “severely restrict” the Islamic Republic’s crude sales culminating in the nation’s exports to its biggest customer hitting a decade-long high.

Iran has announced plans to further ramp up the creation and implementation of new oil and gas projects as the Middle Eastern nation projects its biggest bump in sales to energy-hungry China since 2013.

Sixty-seven oil and gas projects currently in development worth the equivalent of $15 billion will be put into operation before the end of the current Iranian calendar year in March 2024, First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber has announced.

Sixteen additional projects, worth an additional $21 billion, continue to be developed, according to Mokhber’s figures.

On Monday, Iranian Oil Minister Javad Owji indicated that Iran had completed energy projects worth over $12 billion over the past year, and that “not a single cent” of the nation’s oil revenues have been blocked by sanctions since the Raisi administration took power in 2021.

Owji said Iran’s oil production has reached 3.19 million barrels per day (bpd), with plans to increase output to 3.3 million bpd before the end of the month, with the production of gas condensates reaching the equivalent of between 700,000 and 800,000 barrels per day.

In a related development, Iranian government spokesman Ali Bahadori Jahromi said Tuesday that Phase 11 of the massive South Pars gas field owned jointly by Iran and Qatar would become operational in the near future in a ceremony to be attended by President Raisi and Oil Minister Owji. The gigantic Persian Gulf field is estimated to have up to 1,800 trillion cubic feet (51 trillion cubic meters) of gas, plus 50 billion barrels of natural gas condensate, with the energy wealth split between the two countries.

KPLR, a Houston-based commodities analytics firm, calculated this week that Chinese imports of Iranian crude have soared to their highest levels since 2013 in 2023, with the Islamic Republic estimated to export up to 1.5 million barrels per day to the Asian economic giant throughout August – up from an average of 917,000 bpd in exports reported between January and July.

Also this week, Iran’s Plan and Budget Organization chief Davoud Manzour told lawmakers that Iran’s oil revenues have increased by 42 percent since March.
Iran’s National Oil Company expects crude production to reach 3.5 million bpd per day by September – up from a low of just below 2 million bpd in late 2020, at the height of Washington’s attempts to sanction Tehran into submission and bring the country’s energy exports down “to zero.”

The Biden administration’s stated goal of reactivating the Iran nuclear deal has not stopped the White House from ramping up restrictions against the oil-rich nation, with the US Treasury moving to “severely restrict” Iranian energy exports last fall, including by targeting alleged “front companies” set up in China, India and the UAE.

But the sanctions have reportedly failed to work as planned, with energy-hungry nations around the world turning to Iran, Russia and other exporters shunned by Washington and its allies, which slapped restrictions on Russian energy in 2022, resulting in a dramatic spike in global demand and soaring prices.

The US has accompanied efforts to restrict Iranian oil sales with the deployment of additional air power, warships and 3,000 additional Marines to the Gulf in recent weeks, ostensibly in a bid to crack down on Iranian seizures of commercial vessels in neutral waters. Tehran says its crackdown has been aimed at stopping smuggling, and has called on regional nations to ensure Gulf security independently, without the interference of “outsiders” like the United States.

August 16, 2023 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

Pakistan’s Reported Suspension Of Russian Crude Oil Imports Was The Regime’s “Parting Gift”

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | AUGUST 15, 2023

The News International cited unnamed sources on Sunday to report that Pakistan suspended its import of Russian crude oil on the pretext that it’s not affordable to refine despite its lower price due to the lesser amount of petroleum that’s produced when compared to competitors’ crude. The problem with this explanation is that these refining differences were known ahead of time but the whole point in importing Russian crude was to get it at a lower price and reduce dependence on the Gulf Kingdoms.

Former Petroleum Minister Musadik Malik, who the abovementioned report claimed had insisted in vain on his country’s companies importing more Russian crude, earlier envisaged Moscow providing over one-third of his country’s needs. Nevertheless, it also deserves mentioning that he was reported to have told the National Assembly last week that Pakistan planned to officially pull out of its decade-old gas pipeline deal with Iran under pressure from US sanctions in spite of this project’s promising potential.

The precedent is therefore established for suspecting that US sanctions might also have played a role in Pakistan’s reported decision shortly thereafter to suspend its Russian crude oil imports too. Taken together, the impression is that the fascist post-modern coup regime that was installed after former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s (IK) scandalous ouster in April 2022 decided to destroy any hopes of energy security and the sovereignty it entails as their “parting gift” around the time of parliament’s dissolution.

This development is supposed to precede the next elections by 90 days, but there might be a delay since the latest census results require redrawing constituencies, which might not be completed within the next three months. In any case, the point is that IK’s replacements left a legacy of energy insecurity and lost sovereignty, not to mention economic collapse and the de facto imposition of martial law. The first two consequences are the most relevant to this analysis and will therefore be elaborated further.

The Intercept published a leaked copy of the Pakistani cable from March 2022 sent by its former Ambassador to the US warning about American pressure over Russia. His interlocutor, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Donald Lu, made no secret of the fact that the US considered IK’s energy-driven ties with Russia to be a threat to its national security. For that reason, Washington signaled that it wanted him gone otherwise there’d be severe consequences for Pakistan.

IK’s subsequent removal a little over one month later predictably led to his replacements dillydallying on the strategic energy deal that he sought to advance during his trip to Moscow in late February 2022. Although they eventually imported a test shipment of Russian oil earlier this summer, the over year-long delay between his meeting with President Putin and their purchase was suspicious. It now appears in hindsight that the only purpose of going through with this was to push a domestic political agenda.

The regime probably never intended to implement Musadik’s ambitious plans but instead sought American permission for the previously mentioned purchase solely to claim that it supposedly proves that they weren’t installed by the US as punishment for IK’s Russia policy. Following this first-ever import and the superficial fulfilment of their soft power objective, they then spent the rest of the summer sending false signals to Russia that they were on the brink of finally reaching that strategic energy deal.

It can only be speculated whether the former Petroleum Minister was in on this plot or if he sincerely came along to realizing the wisdom of IK’s plans in this respect and truly wanted them to succeed, but that doesn’t change the ultimate outcome either way. At the end of the day, Pakistan strung Russian experts and negotiators along for over a year despite nothing coming of the latter’s efforts, which they continued in good faith with the intent of strengthening their partner’s energy security and sovereignty.

Pakistan’s reported suspension of Russian crude oil imports probably also dooms their plans for the Pakistan Stream gas pipeline, which was supposed to become the flagship Russian project in Pakistan and an anchor for more future investments. The Kremlin might not want to waste any more time negotiating with Islamabad after feeling like it was just fooled for over a full year, and the bad blood between them over these two failed deals could prevent their ties from ever becoming strategic.

Private businessmen will still try to scale real-sector trade between their countries, and ties will remain cordial at the official level, including at multilateral fora on Afghanistan and other issues of shared interests. What’s expected to change, however, is that Russia will no longer continue to treat Pakistan like a potential strategic partner after this debacle. In practice, it won’t consider that country worth the opportunity cost of investing its time in at the expense of expanding ties with more serious partners.

Its finite human resources are better invested in Africa nowadays, whose countries are sincere in their desire for strategic relations with Russia, unlike Pakistan which just wasted over a year dillydallying on a strategic energy deal only to ignominiously abandon it on a misleading pretext. The fascist post-modern coup regime’s “parting gift” to the Pakistani people around the time of parliament’s dissolution ahead of likely rigged elections was that they killed the chance for strategic relations with Russia once and for all.

August 15, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics | , , , , | Leave a comment

How Americans released in swap deal engaged in espionage activities in Iran

By Khosro Mokhtari | Press TV | August 12, 2023

Iran’s foreign ministry on Thursday issued a statement confirming reports of a prisoner swap deal between Tehran and Washington, which includes the unfreezing of Iranian funds abroad.

“Iran has received the necessary guarantee for the US commitment to its obligations in this regard,” the statement noted, adding that the transfer of funds has always been a priority for the ministry.

Prior to the ministry statement, IRNA cited official sources as saying that five American prisoners will be released from Evin Prison “within the framework of an agreement mediated by a third party.”

The report further said that more than 10 billion dollars of Iran’s frozen assets in South Korea and Iraq will be unblocked under the agreement that was reached following extensive two-year negotiations.

Five prisoners each from Iran and the US will be exchanged under the deal. The exchange, however, will happen only once the money is deposited into Iranian accounts.

Five Iranians who would be freed as part of the swap agreement were jailed for trying to circumvent US sanctions, according to Washington’s claims, while five Americans in Iran were booked for espionage.

Late on Thursday, Iran’s deputy foreign minister and nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to announce that the process of releasing billions of dollars of Iranian assets had commenced.

“Tehran has received the guarantee of Washington’s commitments. The release of several Iranians who were illegally detained in America is in this context,” he wrote.

Foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, in a tweet on Saturday, said since the beginning of President Ebrahim Raeisi’s government, dynamic diplomacy was put into action to “obtain the maximum national interests and the rights of the great nation of Iran.”

“In addition to continuing the process of neutralizing illegal sanctions, the path of negotiation and diplomacy was never abandoned. Efforts continue to obtain final results and full realization of Iran’s rights,” the top diplomat wrote, in reference to the unblocking of Iranian assets abroad.

Among three American prisoners who will be freed as part of the swap agreement include Emad Shargi, Murad Tahbaz, and Siamak Namazi. The other two have not been publicly identified.

Emad Shargi

Emad Edward Sharqi, who was born in Iran and holds American citizenship, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in January 2021 on charges of espionage and gathering military information.

He entered Iran in 2016 in the guise of a businessman, but the economic activity was actually a cover for his espionage in the military field, especially in the field of transportation and helicopter warfare.

With the help of his accomplices, Sharqi collected information about Iran’s helicopter industry. The documents recovered from his possession show his activities were in the field of military espionage, not business or trade as was reported in sections of Western media.

The purpose of these actions was to help the US policymakers implement the sanctions regime against Iran to hit the international supply chain for helicopter spare parts intended for the country.

Sharqi was arrested for the first time in April 2018 and remained in prison until December of that year before he was released on bail. But before the appeals court was held, he planned to escape from Iran.

While staying in a private home, unaware of Iranian intelligence monitoring, he contacted the American spy network and asked them to arrange for him to be secretly transferred abroad.

On the day of the planned escape, he met with a spy aide, removed the SIM card and turned off his cell phone to prevent tracking. After that, they headed to western Tehran’s bus terminal where, using a false identity, he bought a ticket to travel to Iran’s western border.

Iranian intelligence services deliberately allowed the escape to proceed almost to its planned point, with the aim of discovering and arresting his accomplices.

Sharqi and several others were eventually arrested and convicted under Iranian law.

Murad Tahbaz

Murad Tahbaz, who was born in the United Kingdom and also holds an American passport, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in November 2019 for being the ringleader of a spy network that operated under the guise of environmentalism.

Tahbaz co-founded the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation, formally a conservation organization whose primary concern was the endangered Asiatic cheetah which lives mainly in the northern Dasht-e Kavir desert of Iran.

The same geographical area is also home to two of Iran’s largest rocket sites, which are under strict surveillance, and long-term observation of the activities of these self-proclaimed environmentalists revealed that they were more interested in those facilities.

Furthermore, monitoring of Tahbaz’s contacts revealed that he was in close contact and communicating on a regular basis with American, British and Israeli spy agencies.

The investigation showed that certain individuals involved were misled about the true intent of the project, which was falsely presented in Western media as alleged evidence of collective innocence.

Siamak Namazi

Siamak Namazi was born in Iran and moved to the United States with his wealthy family in the early years of the Islamic Revolution.

In October 2016, Namazi was sentenced to 10 years in prison for espionage and cooperation with the US government and foreign intelligence networks.

At the end of the 1990s, he tried to become an intermediary in making deals between American and Iranian companies, founding the consulting company “Atieh Bahar Consulting” in Tehran.

Namazi’s company concluded a gas agreement with the UAE-based company “Crescent Petroleum” on the export of gas to Sharjah, but the project resulted in costs only for the Iranian side and an Emirati lawsuit of $32 billion.

Evidently, it was a well-planned fraud aimed at harming Iranian interests, for which Namazi was rewarded with the position of head of strategic planning at Crescent Petroleum.

Over time, it was revealed that “MIC” was actually a covert network filled with US government employees who later held numerous other anti-Iranian positions.

These include the position of editor-in-chief of the VOA Persian propaganda channel, jobs at the US government’s Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS) at the Pentagon’s National Defense University, the Office of Iranian Affairs at the US State Department, etc.

Namazi himself participated in gathering information about the Iranian pharmaceutical network, whose extensive study he presented at the US government’s Wilson Center (WWICS).

This activity under the guise of humanitarian work had the purpose of making it easier for American hawks to increase sanctions on Iran, that is, to show them how and where to hit the Iranian pharmaceutical industry.

Namazi was eventually arrested in October 2015.

His father, Iranian-American businessman Baqer Namazi, who had been convicted in Iran on spying charges, was released and allowed to leave the country in October last year on humanitarian grounds.

Namazi, 85, was arrested on February 22, 2016, when he came to Iran on the pretext of visiting his jailed son. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for “collusion with an enemy state.”

US politicization of cases

The cases pertaining to these American spies were subjected to politicization by the US government, whose official narrative was followed by all Western media organizations, without a single exception.

The legal basis of cases filed against them by the Iranian judiciary was ignored, according to observers, and the same clichéd stories about groundless arrests, show trials and harsh prison conditions were repeated by the US officials and the mainstream media.

According to legal researcher Alireza Sadeghian, Westerners jailed in Iran for spying are often described as “political hostages, businessmen, environmentalists, humanitarians, activists, human rights fighters to generate sympathy for them.”

“This American self-righteousness is not questioned in the West, as if the US is an authoritative legal model, not the country with the largest number of prisoners, a far higher incarceration rate and prison violence rate compared to Iran,” he said on the Press TV website, referring to blatant US duplicity and hypocrisy.

To influence public opinion in the West, US media would publish emotional statements from family and lawyers, describing them as “innocents” who were “wrongly framed” by the Iranian authorities.

After the senior Namazi was released last October, Jared Genser, an attorney and pro-bono counsel for the Namazi family, was quoted as saying by PBS that he was “wrongfully held in Iran for more than six-and-a-half years,” disregarding legal merits of the case.

In May 2022, an AFP report stated that Americans and Europeans have been held in Iran “as part of a deliberate policy of hostage-taking to extract concessions from foreign governments.”

‘Hostages & ransom’ narratives

Western pundits and so-called rights groups fail to mention Iranians languishing in US prisons, arguing that the Americans are being exchanged for “ransom,” which is the illegally frozen Iranian money.

Such rhetoric, according to experts, is reminiscent of the 1979-1981 American manipulations, when the staff of the US embassy in Tehran was detained, according to the Western narrative, due to Washington’s refusal to return billions of dollars stored in American banks.

Even at that time, Washington denied its widespread espionage activities in Iran, despite undeniable evidence in the form of discovered equipment and classified documents in the seized embassy.

The American audience was deprived of the true motives of the embassy seizure. The captives were called hostages, and the demand for the return of frozen assets was misrepresented as a ransom, alluding that billions of dollars in frozen funds were US property.

“The claims of Iran randomly arresting American citizens for financial and other benefits is simply false and empirically unproven, as evidenced by the cases of temporary detention of 10 American sailors, three mountaineers, and numerous other examples,” said Mahmoud Mortazavi, a political analyst.

“On the other hand, the released Iranians in the United States were not arrested for espionage but for trying to circumvent US sanctions, i.e. trade for mutual benefit.”

He hastened to add that, unlike American spies in Iran, they did not plan industrial espionage, plant sabotage, assassination of American commanders, or other destructive activities.

August 12, 2023 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | Leave a comment

Pakistan Risks Losing Much More Than Affordable Gas If It Abandons Its Iranian Pipeline Plans

Another Consequence Of The Post-Modern Coup

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | AUGUST 12, 2023

Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper reported early last week that Petroleum Minister Musadik Malik told the National Assembly that their country plans to suspend its obligation to purchase Iranian gas due to fear of US sanctions and that international arbitration will likely determine the penalty that they’ll pay. After the news broke, he then tried explaining away this scandal by insisting that his side is actively exploring “creative solutions” to avoid scrapping this decade-old pipeline, but the damage was already done.

No serious observer thought that Pakistan had the political will to defy the US on this issue after the post-modern coup that took place in April 2022. Former Prime Minister Imran Khan (IK) was ousted via superficially “democratic” means that were supported by the US as punishment for his multipolar policies. In particular, top regional diplomat Donald Lu expressed concern to the former Pakistani Ambassador the month prior about his country’s economic ties with Russia.

The First Post-Coup Attack Against Pakistan’s Energy Security

This was confirmed by the cable that the Ambassador sent to Islamabad after their meeting, which was just leaked last week by The Intercept and analyzed here. Its relevance to the lede is that this document removes any doubt that the US is opposed to Pakistan obtaining energy security. Lu was reported by the Ambassador to have complained about the former premier’s trip to Moscow precisely because it “was for bilateral economic reasons” driven by IK’s desire to clinch a major energy deal with President Putin.

Seeing as how Pakistan’s pursuit of energy security via the aforementioned major deal with Russia that IK wanted to clinch in Moscow was one of the reasons why the US prioritized the post-modern coup against him, it therefore follows that it wouldn’t support Pakistan pursuing the same via Iran either. While it’s true that Pakistan recently imported Russian oil for the first time, this was with US approval out of desperation to see whether its proxy’s collapsing economy could be saved through these means.

Rethinking The Reasons Behind The Regime’s Import Of Russian Oil

There are several reasons, however, why it’s unlikely that IK’s envisaged energy deal will come to pass. First, Pakistan requires US approval to continue buying Russian resources, which can’t be taken for granted. Second, reliable Pakistani media recently reported about technical obstacles to these plans. Third, the latest release of IMF funds might have come with the unofficial condition of buying oil from elsewhere. And fourth, the initial purchase could have been political to deflect from IK’s accusations.

To elaborate, his replacements ran with the narrative shortly after receiving their first-ever import of Russian oil to claim that it allegedly puts to rest any speculation about them coming to power with US support as part of the latter’s plot to sabotage relations with Moscow. Their subsequent delay in setting up a “Special Purpose Vehicle” for taking their plans to the next level reinforces suspicion that this purchase was largely for domestic political purposes, ergo another reason why the US approved it.

Rethinking The Reasons Behind Pakistan’s Pipeline Deal With Iran

Political motivations could also have been at play when Pakistan agreed to build a gas pipeline with Iran in 2013, which came amidst deteriorating ties with the US brought about by the Abbottabad raid in 2012 and NATO’s cross-border attack from Afghanistan the year prior in 2011. In this case, the purpose would have been to signal its displeasure with the US in the hopes of prompting it to initiate a meaningful rapprochement, not advancing a partisan agenda at home like its import of Russian oil did.

Nevertheless, the point is that the recent problems in finalizing an oil deal with Russia are eye-opening enough to inspire a rethinking of Pakistan’s calculations in agreeing to its gas pipeline deal with Iran a decade ago now that the latter is also on the rocks. The failure of either plan, let alone both, will harm the country’s energy security by depriving it of the opportunity to reliably receive low-cost oil and gas respectively.

Qatar’s Place In The US’ Post-Coup Strategy Towards Pakistan

Comparatively more expensive resources from the Gulf would then be the only realistic solution for meeting Pakistan’s needs, which seems to be exactly the outcome that the US wants since it prefers for Pakistan to receive them from those countries than from Russia and Iran. The best-case scenario from the US’ perspective is for Pakistan to become dependent on Qatari LNG since Washington nowadays regards Doha as more geostrategically reliable in the New Cold War than Saudi Arabia or the UAE.

Towards A US-Led Qatari-Pakistani-Ukrainian Quadrilateral

Despite their sharp differences during the Trump Administration, they’ve since patched up their problems so well under the Biden one that the US Ambassador to Qatar bragged earlier in the month that “Our diplomatic ties are stronger than they have ever been.” This followed the Qatari Prime Minister’s visit to Kiev in late July that came shortly after the Ukrainian Foreign Minister’s first-ever one to Islamabad just a week before, where he was suspected to have clinched another secret arms deal.

India’s Economic Times then reported last week that “Pakistan seeks Gulf state help for shipping weapons to Ukraine”. Although no country was named, the abovementioned sequence of events strongly suggests the formation of a US-led quadrilateral involving Qatar, Pakistan, and Ukraine, the first two of whom are already close energy partners. Bearing all this in mind, there’s reason to believe that Qatar might be the unnamed Gulf state in that Indian media report.

Accelerating The Erosion Of Pakistani Sovereignty

Oman cultivated a reputation for neutrality over the decades, which Saudi Arabia and the UAE are now emulating towards the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine through their refusal to arm Kiev or sanction Russia. Bahrain and Kuwait, meanwhile, have always been comparatively smaller players in international affairs. By contrast, Qatar is known for the leading role that it played in the “Arab Spring”, and its attendant reputation for boldness and rapprochement with the US cast suspicion on it in this context.

All of this pertains to the lede since Pakistan would be forced to become more dependent on Qatari LNG if it officially scraps the gas pipeline deal with Iran, thus leading to higher financial costs and less sovereignty in the long run. The first consequence stands on its own but also segues into the second since it could lead to Pakistan needing endless IMF bailouts with all that entails for its sovereignty, not to mention the very high likelihood that Doha will exploit its energy role over Islamabad to other ends.

Concluding Thoughts

To wrap it all up, the post-modern coup that the US supported against IK in April 2022 was intended to deal a deathblow to Pakistan’s sovereignty, and it arguably succeeded. That country’s energy security will now no longer be ensured by diversifying its portfolio with low-cost Russian and Iranian oil and gas imports respectively. This will force it to pay higher costs from other suppliers, which will keep it in a perpetual cycle of financial dependence on the IMF with all the associated political strings.

Moreover, considering the trend of many countries replacing oil with gas, Pakistan’s capitulation to US sanctions pressure and resultant decision to pull out of its pipeline deal with Iran will make its energy security much more dependent on its already close Qatari industry partner. The emerging triangle between those two and the US could therefore lead to Pakistan entering into dual-vassalhood status vis-a-vis its “senior” partners, which would make it very difficult to ever regain its lost sovereignty.

August 12, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

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