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Offer from Biarritz not good enough for Iran

Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif (L) held talks in Biarritz on Sunday Aug. 25, 2019 with France’s President Macron (R) and Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian.
By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | August 29, 2019

From all accounts, Tehran is struggling to cope with the startling news in the weekend from the G7 summit at Biarritz that a meeting between the presidents of the US and Iran is to be expected in the “coming weeks”.

The cautiously optimistic tone struck by the French President Emmanuel Macron and the conspicuously positive attitude adopted by President Trump along with the fact that the Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif was actually present at Biarritz (with the prior knowledge and tacit concurrence of POTUS) — all these signalled that France’s back-to-back peace initiatives in the recent weeks with Washington and Tehran have come to a defining moment.

From Biarritz, Zarif took off for Tehran ostensibly to change planes for an onward journey to China as part of a previously scheduled Asian tour. Presumably, he briefed Rouhani on what transpired at Biarritz. Zarif is still on the Asian tour — China, Japan, Malaysia, etc., which are, interestingly, major buyers of Iranian oil.

If the Biarritz formula gains traction, these Asian countries have a key role to play in generating income for Iran out of oil sales, which apparently would incentivise Tehran to get into negotiations with the US.

En route to Beijing, Zarif tweeted, “Iran’s active diplomacy in pursuit of constructive engagement continues. Road ahead is difficult. But worth trying.” China’s foreign minister Wang Yi also spoke to Emmanuel Bonne, diplomatic adviser to French President Emmanuel Macron, by telephone on Monday. Bonne said France wanted to coordinate and cooperate with China to ease tensions over Iran and to maintain the 2015 nuclear deal, according to a report by official Chinese news agency Xinhua.

The initial reaction from Tehran at the level of Rouhani also suggested that he may be open to the idea of meeting Trump. Notably, Rouhani said on Monday, “I believe we should use any tool to protect our country’s national interests. If I think that meeting someone helps solve the people’s problems, I will not hesitate. The principle is our national interests.”

Two days later, however, Rouhani’s Chief of Staff and key aide Mahmoud Vaezi, who is an influential figure in the foreign policy establishment, conspicuously moderated what the president had said. Speaking to reporters in Tehran on Wednesday, Vaezi said any meeting with the US officials will solve no problem and the US must come back to the P5+1 negotiation table and respect its commitments to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Vaezi didn’t altogether reject the idea of a Rouhani-Trump meeting, but added a template that the negotiations must also involve other guarantor states — E3, Russia and China. On the other hand, an Iranian economic delegation is proceeding to France next week. It could be that Tehran is strengthening its bargaining chip as well as insulating itself from the risk of engaging an interlocutor such as Trump who is fickle-minded, lacks consistency and has no coherent policies — and, above all, is surrounded by a team that includes notorious anti-Iran hawks, especially the National Security Advisor John Bolton.

Meanwhile, we see a significant hardening of Tehran’s stance in an interview with the state TV given by the Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Political Affairs Seyed Abbas Araqchi. Araqchi simply ruled out any negotiations with Washington so long as the sanctions remained in place.

In his words, “We are only talking with the European countries over our specific 11 demands (based on the JCPOA) and we will not negotiate with the US.” Vaezi’s remarks must be taken seriously, as he was one of the key negotiators of the 2015 nuclear deal and is an authoritative voice. Vaezi underlined that that no country would accept to enter negotiations while being under “maximum pressure” because doing so would mean “surrender”.

The offer held out in Biarritz appears to be simply not good enough for Tehran. Why should Tehran “surrender” after successfully countering the US’ regime change agenda and “maximum pressure” strategy and while the US has failed to reach the objectives behind its unilateral move to abandon the 2015 nuclear deal?

On Wednesday, Iran’s top military commander Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Hossein Baqeri pointedly reminded everyone that it has been the country’s deterrence power that effectively stopped the US from going ahead with its plans to wage a war against Iran.

Quite obviously, a lot of churning has been going on within the top echelons of the Iranian establishment, which involve multiple agencies at an institutional level and even factions that would have congruent political interests or different priorities at any given time. The influential Majlis has not voiced an opinion. The bottom line is that all power centres would be waiting for the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to speak publicly.

August 29, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Iran tourist arrivals neared 8 million in early 2019: Tourism chief

Press TV – August 26, 2019

Head of Iran’s government department on tourism says around eight million foreigners visited the country in the last Iranian calendar year ending in March 2019.

“Some 7.8 million foreign tourists arrived in the country last year,” said Ali Asghar Mounessan, adding that the figure shows a 40-percent increase compared to the previous year.

Mounessan, who heads the Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization of Iran (ICHTO), said each tourists coming to the country spends an average sum of $1,400 during his stay, adding that almost all the money earned from tourists should be viewed as pure income as investment has been very low compared to the revenues generated in the sector.

He said the boom in tourism arrivals and revenues have come despite sanctions imposed by the United States in the past year, adding that major accommodation places across the country have been booked up for months to come.

Mounessan, a deputy president whose department is planned to be turned into a ministry in the coming months, said the government would double the budget earmarked to the tourism and handicraft management as the sectors keep attracting massive foreign currency into the country.

The official also said that Iran eyes $2 billion worth of exports of handicraft, saying that all provinces across the country had huge potentials that could be used to meet the target.

Mounessan said the decision to turn the ICHTO to a ministry would also allow the government to have a better policy for protection of historic monuments and artifacts existing across the country, saying that would further boost arrivals of the tourists who are mainly interested in visiting Iran’s cultural heritage.

August 26, 2019 Posted by | Economics, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

US praises sanctions for killing Iran’s economy, then blames Tehran for people’s suffering

RT | August 20, 2019

The US State Department can’t seem to make up its mind about the cause of Iran’s economic woes, claiming Tehran’s “Marxist economy” is to blame even as it celebrates the devastation US sanctions have wrought on the country.

Speaking to reporters in New York on Tuesday, US special envoy for Iran Brian Hook assailed the Islamic Republic, demanding an end to its “lethal assistance…to terrorist organizations,” and running down a list of economy-ruining American sanctions currently imposed on the country.

“We have effectively zeroed-out Iran’s export of oil,” Hook said. “We have sanctioned Iran’s export of petro-chemicals, industrial metals, precious metals.”

“We have collapsed foreign direct investment. We have seen significant asset flight leaving the country. Iran is in a recession. Inflation is creeping up near 50 percent.”

However, Hook went on, it would be wrong to suggest that Washington is behind Iranian people’s struggles – despite having just argued precisely that. Instead, the fault was with Iran’s “Marxist economy” and ideological fervor, the envoy said. Sanctions? What sanctions?

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also weighed in on the effects of US sanctions on Tuesday, but was more willing to take credit for their ruinous effects on Iran’s oil-dependent economy. Pompeo bragged to MSNBC that the sanctions continue to remove 2.7 million barrels of Iranian oil from the global market on a daily basis.

Unlike oil, Washington insists its sanctions do not target Iran’s healthcare system. In a propaganda video created by the State Department last month and addressed to the Iranian people, Hook claimed the idea was a “myth” pushed by the government. That is not to say the sanctions are not having a devastating effect, however. A recent report by Abbas Kebriaeezadeh, professor of pharmacology at the Tehran University of Medical Sciences, found that US sanctions “are killing cancer patients in Iran” indirectly, creating dire drug shortages and skyrocketing prices.

Tension between Iran and the United States has soared in recent months, with US sanctions ratcheted back up after US President Donald Trump abrogated Washington’s part of a nuclear pact signed between Iran and world powers in 2015. The US sought to pin on Iran a series of suspicious attacks on commercial shipping in the Persian Gulf earlier this summer, while the shootdown of an American spy drone over Iranian airspace in June nearly triggered a US military response. Washington has since deployed a veritable arsenal to Iran’s doorstep – purely for ‘defensive’ reasons, of course.

August 20, 2019 Posted by | War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Why the World Is Watching the Fate of an Iranian Tanker in the Mediterranean

Will the Greeks seize it on a US warrant?

By Vijay Prashad – Monthly Review – August 19, 2019

At 11:30 p.m. on August 18, the Iranian tanker Adrian Darya 1 left the shores of Gibraltar at the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea. This ship had been detained 46 days ago by British Royal Marines and Gibraltar’s officials. The British claimed that the ship—then named Grace 1—was taking its cargo of 2.1 million barrels of oil to Syria. There are European Union sanctions against trade with the Syrian government. It is based on these sanctions that the British seized the Iranian vessel.

Last Thursday, on August 15, Gibraltar’s Chief Minister Fabian Picardo ordered the release of the ship after the Iranian authorities said it would not be going to Syria. The immediate destination for Adrian Darya 1 is the Greek port of Kalamata.

Sanctions on Iran

The British, it is clear, seized the Iranian tanker at the urging of the United States. There was no previous British warning that it might enter in such a muscular way into the U.S. attempt to suffocate Iran. Even the location of the seizure unnecessarily raised tensions for the United Kingdom. The waters around Gibraltar are contested between Britain and Spain, with the latter making noises about a formal complaint about the British action.

Gibraltar’s government has been trying to find a middle course between the claims of Britain and Spain. It seeks some form of independence, although with close ties with both its large neighbor and its formal occupant. When the UK asked Gibraltar’s authorities to get involved in the seizure of the Iranian tanker, Gibraltar’s government complied because the request was in line with European Union sanctions against trade with the Syrian government.

In Gibraltar’s courts, the British were largely silent. The case against the Iranian vessel was made by the United States, which changed the basis for the seizure. The U.S. argued that the vessel had to remain impounded as part of its new and harsh sanctions regime against Iran. When Gibraltar was preparing to release the ship, the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., issued a warrant for the ship. This emergency warrant alleged that the ship was owned by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and therefore must not be allowed to sail.

Gibraltar did not agree. The U.S. tried to use its 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, and the new sanctions regime by the Trump administration. None of this appealed to the judiciary in Gibraltar. The government of Gibraltar said that it did not accept the new U.S. sanctions regime on Iran. It had held the vessel based on the European Union sanctions on Syria, not on any EU sanctions on Iran. Therefore, it has allowed Adrian Darya 1 to sail.

Iran’s Reaction

New statistics show that Iran’s economy has been decelerating at a rapid pace. The numbers from the Statistical Center of Iran show that Iran’s GDP shrank by 4.9 percent in 2018-19. Economic growth is slipping backwards, as the sectors of oil, industry, and agriculture post negative numbers. Inflation continues, with the inflation rate now at the highest it has been in a quarter of a century. Iranian traders have been moving their goods to Iraq, which results in the rise of prices within Iran. Most stunningly, the prices of non-trade goods and services—such as health and housing—are rising. All this has put enormous pressure on the government of Hassan Rouhani, although his spokesman Ali Rabiei said on Monday that Iran’s economy is experiencing “positive signs.”

Confidence from the Iranian government is remarkable. Officials in Tehran refuse to be cowed by the pressure from Washington, D.C. When the Adrian Darya 1 left Gibraltar, senior Iranian parliamentarian Alaeddin Boroujerdi said that its release was a result of “the revolutionary diplomacy of resistance.” He pointed to the seizure by Iran of the British ship Stena Impero, which continues to be detained in Iran. The British ship, Boroujerdi said, was being held for its violation of basic maritime rules in the Strait of Hormuz. The seizure of the Iranian ship—he pointed out—“was an act of piracy by England.”

Based on this assessment that the UK had indulged in piracy at the urging of the United States, Iran’s chief judge Ebrahim Raeisi said that the release of Adrian Darya 1 is not sufficient. Compensation must be paid to Iran. What compensation will be demanded from the UK is not clear, and it is further unclear where Iran will formally raise the issue of compensation. Iranian diplomats say that they might approach the United Nations based on the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Will Greece Hold the Tanker?

Within the Trump administration there is appetite to further block the passage of Adrian Darya 1, and make it a flashpoint toward war. That is what Trump’s adviser John Bolton indicated when Gibraltar held the ship. Make your move, he seemed to suggest to Tehran. Iran told the U.S.—through the Swiss authorities—that it must allow the ship free passage. If the Adrian Darya 1 is blocked, it would set a terrible precedent for international shipping.

When the tanker enters Kalamata, it will likely take on a new crew and then set its next destination. There is no indication as to what the ship will do with its 2.1 million barrels of crude oil. It is likely that it will unload its cargo onto another ship in international waters.

Last week, the U.S. government asked Greece to contribute to its naval force in the Persian Gulf. Greece, with its new conservative prime minister, declined—as did France and Germany—to this new U.S. initiative. The Greek government, led by Kyriakos Mitsotakis, is eager for a close relationship with Washington, but it is not willing to enter a frontal clash with Iran. Greece is already in a heated situation with Turkey. To rattle Iran would only further complicate Greece’s fragile dance in the eastern Mediterranean. *

Greece, unlike the U.S., has taken the position that Iran has “the right to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes alone.” This is Iran’s position. The United States, as Professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi told Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, opposes even a peaceful nuclear project for Iran. This is why Trump walked out of the 2015 nuclear deal. This is precisely why the U.S. has been putting immense pressure on Iranian shipping. And this is what led us to the story of the Adrian Darya 1.

*[Actually it is because of its “heated situation with Turkey” that Greece has sought US support at a high cost.] 

August 20, 2019 Posted by | Economics | , , , | Leave a comment

Iran official calls for compensation for tanker seizure

Press TV – August 20, 2019

Judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi says Iran should be compensated for the seizure of an oil supertanker off the coast of Gibraltar after it was released on Thursday.

Britain’s naval forces seized the Grace 1 and its cargo of 2.1 million barrels of oil in the Strait of Gibraltar on July 4 under the pretext that the vessel might be carrying crude oil to Syria in violation of EU sanctions on Damascus.

Iran says the UK’s reason for confiscation is not valid because Tehran is not a member of the EU and therefore its sanctions do not apply to the country. Moreover, the tanker was never headed to Syria, according to Iranian officials.

The tanker, renamed the Adrian Darya 1, left anchorage off Gibraltar on Sunday after being released.

Raisi, however, said the release is not enough and Iran has to be compensated by those behind the seizure which Iranian officials have described as “state piracy”.

“The amount of time that it was seized will not be compensated just by it being freed,” the judiciary chief was quoted as saying Monday. “Damages must be paid so that it becomes a lesson for all those who act contrary to international regulations,” he added.

Reports said the vessel was heading to Greece after the release which Washington called unfortunate and warned Mediterranean ports against receiving it.

Iran has warned the US against trying to seize the vessel again. Since Gibraltar released the tanker on Thursday, Washington had launched a flurry of efforts to keep the tanker from leaving.

The US Justice Department even issued a warrant on Friday to seize the tanker, claiming that it had links to Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), which the US has designated a terrorist organization.

The Gibraltar government ignored the warrant, noting that the IRGC is not blacklisted in Gibraltar, the UK or in most of the EU generally.

“It’s unfortunate that that happened,” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Fox News Channel about the ship’s release.

The US State Department said Washington had conveyed its “strong position” to the Greek government, as well as to all ports in the Mediterranean about facilitating the tanker.

Iran’s Navy commander Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi said on Sunday his force is ready to send a flotilla to escort the tanker.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi also warned of “heavy consequences” if the United States renewed its seizure request.

“Such an action, and even the talk of it would endanger shipping safety in open seas,” he said.

“Iran has issued the necessary warnings through official channels, especially the Swiss embassy, to American officials not to commit such an error because it would have heavy consequences,” Mousavi added.

The Swiss embassy in Tehran represents US interests in the Islamic Republic in the absence of diplomatic relations between Iran and the United States after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Tensions have escalated since US President Donald Trump pulled out of a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran in May last year. Washington wants to reduce Iran’s oil exports to zero under unilateral sanctions which it imposed on Tehran.

The tanker’s seizure is seen in line with Washington’s “maximum pressure” campaign to bend Iran. When the ship was originally seized, Spanish and even Gibraltar officials admitted that it had come on the US request.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Monday because of US sanctions, Iran could not disclose where the oil would go.

Iranian MP Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh called on Britain to help the tanker reach its destination.

Iran still holds in its custody a British-flagged tanker which the IRGC impounded on July 19 for “violating international maritime law” in the Persian Gulf.

“The crisis with Britain is not over. Britain has the primary responsibility for ending the oil tanker crisis,” said Falahatpisheh who is the head of the Iranian parliament’s national security and foreign affairs committee.

“Until the Iranian oil tanker arrives at its destination the British must help end the crisis,” he said.

August 20, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

US tells Greece any help to Iranian tanker may be ‘terrorism support’

RT | August 19, 2019

The US State Department has informed the Greek government of its ‘strong position’ regarding foreign states providing any assistance to Iranian oil tanker that was recently released by Gibraltar despite all Washington’s pressure.

Any attempts to assist the vessel, which was renamed from ‘Grace 1’ to ‘Adrian Darya 1’ and is now reportedly heading towards Greece, could be considered as “providing material support to a US-designated foreign terrorist organization,” a State Department official told Reuters.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, meanwhile, criticized Gibraltar’s ‘unfortunate’ decision to ignore US pressure. After it became clear last week there were no reasons to hold the vessel any longer, the US issued own warrant for its seizure, claiming the ship was involved in money laundering and financing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which the Washington had designated as a terrorist organization.

The British territory explained it was not bound by US laws, pointing out that EU sanctions against Iran are far less sweeping than Washington’s own “maximum pressure” sanctions regime and that the vessel is complying with EU laws.

The Royal Marines seized the Iranian supertanker last month as it passed Gibraltar, accusing the vessel of illegally attempting to transport oil to Syria. Tehran emphatically denied the claim, calling the seizure an act of “piracy” undertaken at Washington’s direction. The Iranian navy has warned it is “ready to escort our tanker” should the US attempt to retake the Adrian Darya.

August 19, 2019 Posted by | War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

The Deeper Meaning in a Lost War

By Alastair Crooke | Strategic Culture Foundation | August 19, 2019

It’s pretty clear. Saudi Arabia has lost, and, notes Bruce Riedel, “the Houthis and Iran are the strategic winners”. Saudi proxies in Aden – the seat of Riyadh’s Yemeni proto-‘government’ – have been turfed out by secular, former Marxist, southern secessionists. What can Saudi Arabia do? It cannot go forward. Even tougher would be retreat. Saudi will have to contend with an Houthi war being waged inside the kingdom’s south; and a second – quite different – war in Yemen’s south. MbS is stuck. The Houthi military leadership are on a roll, and disinterested – for now – in a political settlement. They wish to accumulate more ‘cards’. The UAE, which armed and trained the southern secessionists has opted out. MbS is alone, ‘carrying the can’. It will be messy.

So, what is the meaning in this? It is that MbS cannot ‘deliver’ what Trump and Kushner needed, and demanded from him: He cannot any more deliver the Gulf ‘world’ for their grand projects – let alone garner together the collective Sunni ‘world’ to enlist in a confrontation with Iran, or for hustling the Palestinians into abject subordination, posing as ‘solution’.

What happened? It seems that MbZ must have bought into the Mossad ‘line’ that Iran was a ‘doddle’. Under pressure of global sanctions, Iran would quickly crumble, and would beg for negotiations with Trump. And that the resultant, punishing treaty would see the dismantling of all of Iran’s troublesome allies around the region. The Gulf thus would be free to continue shaping a Middle East free from democracy, reformers and (those detested) Islamists.

What made the UAE – eulogised in the US as tough ‘little Sparta’ – back off? It was not just that the Emirs saw that the Yemen war was unwinnable. That was so; but more significantly, it dawned on them that Iran was going to be no ‘doddle’. But rather, the US attempt to strangulate the Iranian economy risked escalating beyond sanctions war, into military confrontation. And in that eventuality, the UAE would be devastated. Iran warned explicitly that a drone or two landed into the ‘glass houses’ of their financial districts, or onto oil and gas facilities, would set them back twenty years. They believed it.

But there was another factor in the mix. “As the world teeters on the edge of another financial crisis”, Esfandyar Batmanghelidj has noted, “few places are being gripped by anxiety like Dubai. Every week a new headline portends the coming crisis in the city of skyscrapers. Dubai villa prices are at their lowest level in a decade, down 24 percent in just one year. A slump in tourism has seen Dubai hotels hit their lowest occupancy rate since the 2008 financial crisis – even as the country gears up to host Expo 2020 next year. As Bloomberg’s Zainab Fattah reported in November of last year, Dubai has begun to “lose its shine,” its role as a center for global commerce “undermined by a global tariff war—and in particular by the US drive to shut down commerce with nearby Iran””.

An extraneous Houthi drone landing in Dubai’s financial zone would be the ‘final nail in the coffin’ (the expatriates would be out in a flash) – a prospect far more serious than the crisis of 2009, when Dubai’s real estate market collapsed, threatening insolvency for several banks and major development companies, some of them state-linked – and necessitating a $20 billion bailout.

In short, the Gulf realised MbS’ confrontation project with Iran was far too risky, especially with the global financial mood darkening so rapidly. Emirati leaders faced off with MbZ, the confrontation ideologue – and the UAE came out of Yemen formally (though leaving in situ its proxies), and initiated outreach to Iran, to take it out of that war, too.

It is now no longer conceivable that MbS can deliver what Trump and Netanyahu desired. Does this then mean that the US confrontation with Iran, and Jared Kushner’s Deal of the Century, are over? No. Trump has two key US constituencies: AIPAC and the Christian Evangelical ‘Zionists’ to ‘stroke’ electorally in the lead up to the 2020 elections. More ‘gifts’ to Netanyahu in the lead into the latter’s own election campaign are very likely also, as a part of that massaging of domestic constituencies (and donors).

In terms of the US confrontation with Iran, it seems that Trump is turning-down the volume on belligerence toward Iran, hoping that economic sanctions will work their ‘magic’ of bringing the Islamic Republic to its knees. There is no sign of that however – and no sign of any realistic US plan ‘B’. (The Lindsay Graham initiative is not one).

Where does that leave MbS in terms of US and Israeli interests? Well, to be brutal, and despite the family friendships … ’expendable’, perhaps? The scent of an eventual US disengagement from the region is again hanging in the air.

The deeper meaning in the ‘lost Yemen war’, ultimately, is an end to Gulf hopes that ‘magician’ Trump would undo the earlier Gulf panic that the West would normalise with Iran (through the JCPOA), thus leaving Iran as the paramount regional power. The advent of Trump, with all his affinity towards Saudi Arabia, seemed to Gulf States to promise the opportunity again to ‘lock in’ the US security umbrella over Gulf monarchies, protecting these states from significant change, as well as leaving Iran ‘shackled’, and unable to assume regional primacy.

A secondary meaning to Yemen is that Trump and Netanyahu’s heavy investment in MbS and MbZ has proved to be chimeric. These two, it turned out were ‘naked’ all along. And now the world knows it. They can’t deliver. They have been bested by a ragtag army of tough Houthi tribesmen.

The region now observes that ‘war’ isn’t happening (although only by the merest hair’s breadth): Trump is not – of his own volition – going to bomb Iran back to the 1980s. And Gulf States now see that if he did, it is they – the Gulf States – who would pay the highest price. Paradoxically, it has fallen to the UAE, the prime agitator in Washington against Iran, to lead the outreach toward Iran. It represents a salutary lesson in realpolitik for certain Gulf States (and Israel). And now that it has been learned, it is hard to see it being reversed quite so easily.

The strategic shift toward a different security architecture is already underway, with Russia and China proposing an international conference on security in the Persian Gulf: Russia and Iran already have agreed joint naval exercises in in the Indian Ocean and Hormuz, and China is mulling sending its warships there too, to protect its tankers and commercial shipping. Plainly, there will be some competition here, but Iran has the upper hand still in Hormuz. It is a powerful deterrent (though one best threatened, but not used).

Of course, nothing is assured in these changing times. The US President is fickle, and prone to flip-flop. And there are yet powerful interests in the US who do want see Iran comprehensively bombed. But others in DC – more significantly, on the (nationalist) Right – are much more outspoken in challenging the Iran ‘hawks’. Maybe the latter have missed their moment? The fact is, Trump drew back (but not for the stated reasons) from military action. America is now entering election season – and it is fixated on its navel. Foreign policy is already a forgotten, non-issue in the fraught partisan atmospherics of today’s America.

Trump likely will still ‘throw Israel a few bones’, but will that change anything? Probably, not much. That is cold comfort – but it might have been a lot worse for the Palestinians. And Greater Israel? A distant, Promethean hope.

August 19, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

US slaps crew of Iranian supertanker with visa ban after it set sail from Gibraltar

RT | August 16, 2019

Hours after Washington failed to persuade the Gibraltar authorities to not release the Iranian oil tanker, the State Department warned that anyone linked to the vessel will not be able to travel to the US.

Unable to stop the Iranian supertanker Grace 1 from leaving Gibraltar, the US will target its crew, comprised of Indian, Filipino, Latvian, and Russian citizens. The sailors are now accused of aiding Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), labeled as a “terrorist organization” by the US.

“Crewmembers of vessels assisting the IRGC by transporting oil from Iran may be ineligible for visas or admission to the United States under the terrorism-related inadmissibility grounds,” a statement released by the State Department reads.

On Thursday, Washington unsuccessfully sought the seizure of the Grace 1, filing a request that formally postponed the lifting of Gibraltar’s detention order by a few hours. Iran’s ambassador to the UK, Hamid Baeidinejad, called Washington’s move “its desperate, last-minute efforts, intended to prevent the release of the [Grace 1] oil tanker from detention,” which ended in “humiliation.”

Nevertheless, the authorities chose not to bow to the US pressure and allowed the Panamanian-flagged ship to finally set sail.

The Grace 1 was seized by the British Royal Marines outside of Gibraltar in early July, prompting Tehran to retaliate in kind by capturing a British-flagged vessel in the Persian Gulf two weeks later. The seizures added fuel to the simmering feud between Iran and the West, prompting the UK to seek to defuse the tensions.

August 16, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Punishing the World With Sanctions

By Philip Giraldi | Strategic Culture Foundation | August 15, 2019

Sanctions are economic warfare, pure and simple. As an alternative to a direct military attack on a country that is deemed to be misbehaving they are certainly preferable, but no one should be under any illusions regarding what they actually represent. They are war by other means and they are also illegal unless authorized by a supra-national authority like the United Nations Security Council, which was set up after World War II to create a framework that inter alia would enable putting pressure on a rogue regime without going to war. At least that was the idea, but the sanctions regimes recently put in place unilaterally and without any international authority by the United States have had a remarkable tendency to escalate several conflicts rather than providing the type of pressure that would lead to some kind of agreement.

The most dangerous bit of theater involving sanctions initiated by the Trump administration continues to focus on Iran. Last week, the White House elevated its extreme pressure on the Iranians by engaging in a completely irrational sanctioning of Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. The sanctions will have no effect whatsoever and they completely contradict Donald Trump’s repeated assertion that he is seeking diplomacy to resolve the conflict with Iran. One doesn’t accomplish that by sanctioning the opposition’s Foreign Minister. Also, the Iranians have received the message loud and clear that the threats coming from Washington have nothing to do with nuclear programs. The White House began its sanctions regime over a year ago when it withdrew from the JCPOA and they have been steadily increasing since that time even though Iran has continued to be fully compliant with the agreement. Recently, the US took the unprecedented step of sanctioning the entire Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is part of the nation’s military.

American Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has made clear that the sanctions on Iran are intended to cause real pain, which, in fact, they have succeeded in doing. Pompeo and his accomplice in crime National Security Advisor John Bolton believe that enough pressure will motivate the starving people to rise up in the streets and overthrow the government, an unlikely prospect as the American hostility has in fact increased popular support for the regime.

To be sure, ordinary people in Iran have found that they cannot obtain medicine and some types of food are in short supply but they are not about to rebel. The sanctioning in May of Iranian oil exports has only been partially effective but it has made the economy shrink, with workers losing jobs. The sanctions have also led to tit-for-tat seizures of oil and gas tankers, starting with the British interception of a ship carrying Iranian oil to Syria [?] in early July.

Another bizarre escalation in sanctions that has taken place lately relates to the Skripal case in Britain. On August 2nd, Donald Trump signed an executive order imposing a package of new sanctions against Moscow over the alleged poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in England in March 2018. The order “prohibit[s] any United States bank from making any loan or providing any credit… except for loans or credits for the purpose of purchasing food or other agricultural commodities or products.” The ban also includes “the extension of any loan or financial or technical assistance… by international financial institutions,” meaning that international lenders will also be punished if they fail to follow Washington’s lead.

The sanctions were imposed under the authority provided by the US Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act adopted in 1991, which imposes penalties for use of chemical weapons. Novichok, which was reportedly used on the Skripals, is a chemical weapon developed in the labs of the Soviet Union, though a number of states are believed to currently have supplies of the agent in their arsenals. Russia can appeal the sanctions with 90 days by providing “reliable assurance” that it will not again use chemical weapons.

Russia has strenuously denied any role in the attack on the Skripals and the evidence that has so far been produced to substantiate the Kremlin’s involvement has been less than convincing. An initial package of US-imposed sanctions against Russia that includes the export of sensitive technologies and some financial services was implemented in August 2018.

Venezuela is also under the sanctions gun and is a perfect example how sanctions can escalate into something more punitive, leading incrementally to an actual state of war. Last week Washington expanded its sanctions regime, which is already causing starvation in parts of Venezuela, to include what amounts to a complete economic embargo directed against the Maduro regime that is being enforced by a naval blockade.

The Venezuelan government announced last Wednesday that the United States Navy had seized a cargo ship bound for Venezuela while it was transiting the Panama Canal. According to a government spokesman, the ship’s cargo was soy cakes intended for the production of food. As one of Washington’s raisons d’etre for imposing sanctions on Caracas was that government incompetence was starving the Venezuelan people, the move to aggravate that starvation would appear to be somewhat capricious and revealing of the fact that the White House could care less about what happens to the Venezuelan civilians who are caught up in the conflict.

Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez condemned the move as “serious aggression,” and accused the Trump Administration of trying to impede Venezuela’s basic right to import food to feed its people.

One of the most pernicious aspects of the sanctions regimes that the United States is imposing is that they are global. When Washington puts someone on its sanctions list, other countries that do not comply with the demands being made are also subject to punishment, referred to as secondary sanctions. The sanctions on Iran’s oil exports, for example, are being globally enforced with some few exceptions, and any country that buys Iranian oil will be punished by being denied access to the US financial and banking system. That is a serious penalty as most international trade and business transactions go through the dollar denominated SWIFT banking network.

Finally, nothing illustrates the absurdity of the sanctions mania as a recent report that President Trump had sent his official hostage negotiator Robert O’Brien to Stockholm to obtain freedom for an American rap musician ASAP Rocky who was in jail after having gotten into a fight with some local boys. The Trumpster did not actually know the lad, but he was vouched for by the likes of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, both of whom have had nice things to say about the president. The negotiator was instructed to tell Sweden that if they did not release Rocky there would be “negative consequences.” Who can doubt that the consequences would undoubtedly have included sanctions?

It has reached the point where the only country that likes the United States is Israel, which is locked into a similar cycle of incessant aggression. To be sure Donald Trump’s rhetoric is part of the problem, but the indiscriminate, illegal and immoral use of sanctions, which punish whole nations for the presumed sins of those nations’ leaders, is a major contributing factor. And the real irony is that even though sanctions cause pain, they are ineffective. Cuba has been under sanctions, technically and embargo, since 1960 and its ruling regime has not collapsed, and there is no chance that Venezuela, Iran or Russia’s government will go away at any time soon either. In fact, real change would be more likely if Washington were to sit down at a negotiating table with countries that it considers enemies and work to find solutions to common concerns. But that is not likely to happen with the current White House line-up, and equally distant with a Democratic Party obsessed with the “Russian threat” and other fables employed to explain its own failings.

August 15, 2019 Posted by | War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Turkey, Iran resume train service after four years

to increase the attractiveness of the van

Press TV – August 13, 2019

Turkey and Iran have restarted a train service between Ankara and Tehran after a four-year hiatus, in a further blow to US sanctions.

The Trans Asia Express, carrying passengers and freight, left Tehran railway station for the Turkish capital on Wednesday during a ceremony attended by senior officials.

Head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Railways (IRIR) Saeed Rasouli flagged off the first train service which will run on a weekly basis every Wednesday.

According to Mehr news agency, the five-car train carrying 200 passengers took about 60 hours to arrive in Ankara on Saturday.

The decision to resume the service came in May after meetings between Iranian and Turkish officials. Trains between the eastern Turkish city of Van near the Iranian border and Tehran resumed in late June.

The new service involves two train travel segments and a ferry journey. The IRIR train leaving Tehran will have a layover in the Iranian city of Tabriz before heading to Lake Van in eastern Turkey.

Passengers will then ride a ferry across the lake before taking a train operated by Turkey’s state railway agency to Ankara.

The service marks yet another milestone in burgeoning trade ties between Iran and Turkey whose leaders have dismissed unilateral American sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

Washington has been tightening the screws on Tehran’s main source of income, aiming to cut Iran’s oil sales to zero, after President Donald Trump reimposed sanctions on the Islamic Republic in November.

According to data released by Tehran Chamber of Commerce Industries Mines and Agriculture on Monday, Turkey imported $2.2 billion worth of goods and services from Iran in the first quarter of the Iranian year which began in March.

The figure marked a five-fold jump compared to the similar period in 2018, it said.

Tehran and Ankara have repeatedly reiterated their resolve to increase annual trade to a target of 30 billion dollar, around triple current levels.

Earlier this year, Iranian deputy industry minister Mohsen Salehinia said Iran and Turkey were negotiating the possibility of setting up joint industrial parks.

“The Turks are demanding cheap Iranian energy for joint production and in case we manage to reach a conclusion with the ministry of energy, a joint town will be set up,” he told a news conference in Tehran.

On Sunday, President Hassan Rouhani of Iran and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for expansion of cooperation in various areas in a phone conversation.

Iran is one of the biggest oil suppliers for Turkey, which is almost completely reliant on imports to meet its energy needs. It also imports natural gas from Iran, the country’s second largest supplier after Russia.

Turkey has said it is looking into establishing new trade mechanisms with Iran, like the Instex system set up by European countries to avoid US sanctions reimposed last year on exports of Iranian oil.

President Erdogan has previously slammed the sanctions, saying they are destabilizing for the region.

His country is also facing US sanctions over Ankara’s purchase of Russian S-400 missile defense systems, which has seriously strained relations between the NATO allies.

August 13, 2019 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

Light oil set to flood global market

RT | August 3, 2019

According to the report, the US accounted for 88 percent of this growth in global oil production, while OPEC recorded a production decline overall, on the back of US sanctions against Iran and Venezuela, which took off a combined 800,000 bpd from the cartel’s production in 2018.

While the US became the world’s largest oil producer last year thanks to shale and found a place among the top ten oil exporters in the world, it changed the blend mix on global markets, Eni said in its report. Thanks to shale, the portion of light sweet crudes on international markets increased to more than 20 percent. At the same time, because of sanctions against Venezuela and declining production in Mexico, the portion of medium sour crudes fell below 40 percent of the total for the first time ever.

This change in crude oil grade availability is changing the dynamics in prices, too. Earlier this year, the prices of some heavy crude grades touched a premium to lighter grades on concerns about a heavy crude supply crunch resulting from sanctions and OPEC cuts: most OPEC members reduced their heavier crude production in favor of light and sweet grades used to produce gasoline.

This supply crunch helped US exports: in early June, Reuters reported that as many as six Very Large Crude Carriers were waiting to load medium sour crude from the Gulf of Mexico for export markets. At the same time, Gulf Coast refiners struggled with an excess of light crude produced from the shale plays nearby: the Permian and the Eagle Ford.

Interestingly enough, despite the looming new emissions rules of the International Maritime Organization that will go into effect next January, Eni reported that the global production of medium sour crude, which has a higher sulfur content than light sweet crudes, increased last year to come to account for 11.8 percent of the total from 9.9 percent a year earlier. At the same time, total sweet crude production inched down to 35.6 percent of the total from 36.3 percent in 2017.

Amid these changing patterns of production, demand for crude oil last year continued to grow despite the flurry of climate emergency declarations prompted by protests and demands by environmental organizations for governments to do more about climate change. According to Eni, global oil demand rose by 1.4 million barrels daily, with Asia—and specifically China and India—unsurprisingly leading the way. The two largest economies on the continent accounted for half of that demand growth. At the same time, in increasingly renewable Europe, oil demand remained virtually unchanged from a year earlier.

Refining capacity also increased last year, with Asia once again leading the way: as much as 75 percent of the new global refining capacity of 1 million bpd was built there, the Italian supermajor said. This year, more new refining capacity is expected, especially in China: new additions of almost 900,000 bpd are expected this year from the current 15 million bpd.

August 3, 2019 Posted by | Economics | , , , | Leave a comment

Pompeo ‘Happy’ to Pontificate in Tehran, Revealing US Tyranny of Arrogance

By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | August 3, 2019

Imagine the spectacle. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sitting in Tehran and telling the Iranian people via a state media interview how “evil” their government is. No wonder tensions with Iran are reaching a flashpoint when Washington is so arrogant and delusional.

Last week, Pompeo told US media he was willing to go to Iran despite the Americans having no diplomatic relations with Tehran. Pompeo was not intending to suddenly meet with Iranian officials. Instead he wants a putative visit to Tehran to be an occasion to get on state media and address the Iranian people “directly”.

In response to a question about whether he was prepared to go to Tehran, the American top diplomat said: “Sure. If that’s the call, I’d happily go there… I would welcome the chance to speak directly to the Iranian people.”

“I’d like a chance to go [to Tehran], not do propaganda but speak the truth to the Iranian people about what it is their leadership has done and how it has harmed Iran,” he added.

That’s not diplomatic outreach. It is simply about seeking the chance to pontificate in Tehran. Despite claiming he would “not do propaganda”, the talking points that Pompeo would regurgitate on Iranian media would be the usual baseless slander that has become Washington’s standard depiction of Iran. A depiction that Pompeo as well as President Donald Trump have personally propagated.

Iran, according to Washington dogma, is an evil terrorist-sponsoring regime that ruthlessly represses its 80 million people, fueling conflict all over the Middle East, and secretly building nuclear weapons. Typically, the Americans never provide any evidence to substantiate their caricature of Iran. It’s merely a “truth” solidified by relentless repetition of hollow allegations. In short, propaganda.

And Pompeo wants to insult the intelligence of Iranians by being given a pulpit on Iranian state media.

By saying he wants to “speak directly” to the Iranian people, Pompeo is adverting to the real US agenda of fomenting regime change.

America’s official arrogance and hypocrisy are boundless. Every malign activity that Washington accuses Iran of can be thrown straight back at the US with manifold more accuracy of facts. The US has destroyed the Middle East with numerous criminal wars and covert regime-change operations, has sponsored terrorists as its proxies, and has fueled the danger of nuclear war by illegally arming Israel with hundreds of weapons of mass destruction.

President Trump has sinisterly alluded to potentially using WMD against Iran in recent weeks, threatening to deploy overwhelming force “to end the regime”.

Admittedly, the American president has at times said he is open to talks with the Iranian government. His “offer” is unconvincing of an intention for genuine dialogue. Trump expects Iran to come to the negotiating table in an act of surrender and self-debasement to accept his terms of “disarmament”. All the while using the threat of annihilation as a bargaining tool.

Moreover, Pompeo expressed his entitlement to lecture the Iranians and urge them to liberate themselves from a “theocratic tyranny” because, he said, the Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javid Zarif is allowed “the freedoms of the United States to come here and spread malign propaganda”.

Pompeo was referring to an official visit to the US earlier this month by Zarif who was attending the United Nations in New York City for a diplomatic conference. All foreign diplomats have a sovereign right to attend the UN. Pompeo’s remarks indicate a presumption that the US government has dominion over the UN and international law.

The alleged “malign propaganda” that Pompeo accused Zarif of spreading was an interview he conducted with the NBC news channel at the Iranian ambassador’s residence. During that interview, Zarif did not unload on the litany of factually verifiable war crimes that the US is culpable of.

What Zarif said was a model of restraint and diplomacy. He said that if the US lifted crippling sanctions off Iran, then the “door is wide open” for future negotiations.

Calling for the avoidance of war, the Iranian diplomat pointed out that it was the United States, not Iran, that had undermined diplomacy by walking away from the 2015 nuclear agreement between Tehran and world powers, reported NBC.

“It is the United States that left the bargaining table. And they’re always welcome to return,” Zarif added.

What Pompeo calls “malign propaganda” many other people would view as an accurate, if restrained, telling by the Iranian diplomat of how it really is.

Given the unlawful aggression that the Trump administration is wielding against Iran in terms of economic warfare on the country’s vital oil trade and in terms of military force buildup in the Persian Gulf, including nuclear-capable B-52 bombers, what Iran is demonstrating is an immense discipline to maintain regional and world peace.

Iran’s conditions for possible negotiations are eminently reasonable. They include being respected as a sovereign nation and entering into dialogue as a mutual party where discussions can be held on the basis of facts and international law.

Pompeo’s supreme arrogance about America’s presumed exceptional entitlements and superiority are, unfortunately, a sign that Washington is incapable of being a normal state. The real “theocratic tyranny” is in Washington where it has the perverse belief that it has divine right to destroy other nations if they don’t grovel sufficiently at its feet. But those feet are made of the proverbial clay signifying a doomed power, as Iran’s dignity and defiance is revealing.

August 3, 2019 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

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