Every step Washington has taken in the conflict with Iran to date has worsened its own strategic position, and the blockade of Iranian oil exports is no exception, says Center for Contemporary Iranian Studies director Rajab Safarov.
“This is a very foolish move on the part of the United States. With each passing day and every step,” Washington is “worsening” its own position, and that of many countries around the world for whom Hormuz is the lifeline to their economic existence, Safarov told Sputnik.
Meanwhile, “the Iranian position grows stronger” over time relative to others, something “the Iranians understand perfectly well,” Safarov said. Therefore, Tehran has no incentive to agree to or be bullied into a peace deal on American terms.
Safarov doesn’t rule out that President Trump is being provided poor information on conditions on the ground by underlings like Secretary Hegseth, and making statements and decisions that have “no connection to reality.”
The observer pointed out, for example, that Trump claimed Iran’s Navy has been destroyed. But it’s this same Navy that’s now “ready to sink any ship that might move toward the Indian Ocean without Iran’s permission.”
“He says that Iran’s missile tech and launchers are exhausted or destroyed. But we see Iran launching more and more of its missiles – more modern, more powerful ones, etc,” Safarov said.
The US will ultimately be forced to fold, the observer argues, because while blocking Iranian oil exports will hurt its economy, Tehran is in a position to survive. The effects on the Gulf exporters and major energy-dependent economies in Asia and the developing world will be far more punishing. Oil prices could hit $150 by the end of the week.
With 20% of the world’s oil trapped in the Persian Gulf, “that means a fifth of the global economy will essentially grind to a halt.” Therefore, “America risks turning almost the entire world against itself,” Safarov summed up.
Seyed Mohammad Marandi is in Islamabad, where the negotiations between Iran and the US collapsed. Marandi explains why the negotiations failed and that there will likely be a return to war. In the US media, there are already threats to kill the Iranian leadership and delegation. Marandi is a professor at Tehran University and a former advisor to Iran’s Nuclear Negotiation Team. (
Apparently tomorrow morning, April 13, at 10 a.m. ET the blockade of Iran’s ports by the US will begin. Make no mistake, this is primarily pointed at Iran’s trade with China. The Trump team seem to still think they can kill two birds with one stone – bring down the Islamic Republic and also economically weaken China. In this article I will focus on China, in particular, one aspect of the US/China relationship that gets little attention but which can be a “nuclear bomb” for China. Much discussion in the US about the boom in data center construction, but far less discussion of the total reliance on Chiina for these builds.
It has been estimated by multiple sources that literally all of the US growth in the past year has been due to the AI boom, specifically, due to AI data center builds. Without this ,US growth would be flat, potentially even negative. Even without the Iran war and rising energy costs, data center construction in the U.S. is currently facing significant headwinds, resulting in delays and escalating costs. The primary driver is the strained supply chain, impacting the availability of critical components like switchgear, generators, and specialized cooling equipment. Lead times for these items have stretched considerably, pushing project timelines back by months, if not quarters.
There are other factors for the slow down, especially chip and labor shortages, regulatory hurdles, and the increasing costs of infrastructure. This isn’t the place to delve into all of the factors, but the point is this vital sector for the US economy is in an extremely fragile state. One small push and it can come tumbling down.
And it turns out that whether this sector continues to keep the US out of recession or not is entirely in China’s hands. Forget chips as the vital factor, especially as other US allies control most of the chip production. Just as real a bottleneck is in Chinese electrical components. There is currently a backlog of several years for many of these. Sure, potentially in the long run, there can be many sources for these components. But not tomorrow. Or the day after.
With just the flick of a switch, China stop exporting these components and the AI boom dies almost instantly. And with it, any hopes for real growth in the US economy over the coming months or years.
I obviously don’t know how China will react, or what measures it will enact, if the US navy does go through with its blockade tomorrow. What I outline here is just one of many potential levers the Chinese can pull (rare earths, pharma base ingredients, T-Bills, …)
But don’t expect the US blockade to impact China too severely any time soon.
Proving itself incapable of winning on any front, despite such vast power imbalances, the Zionist regime has developed various collective punishment doctrines over the years. This time, after getting battered by Iranian missiles and failing to achieve any strategic goal, it takes out its frustration on Lebanon and Gaza.
When the US-Israeli alliance launched its war of aggression against the Islamic Republic of Iran on February 28, the Zionist regime’s Premier Benjamin Netanyahu openly gloated about getting what he had wanted for over 40 years. However, the moment he had been pushing for decades to reach failed to render the results the Israeli leader had hoped for.
US President Donald Trump, having initially agreed to Iran’s 10-point plan, before later backtracking, decided to announce a two-week cessation of hostilities with Iran. Within hours, having freed up its Air Force that had been bogged down in Iran attack operations, the Israelis were already targeting civilians across Lebanon, including bombing an ambulance in Tyre, south Lebanon.
Hours after that came the horrifying Beirut massacre, during which the Israelis carried out over 100 airstrikes in 10 minutes, demolishing dozens of civilian buildings without any notice. The result was the mass slaughter of more than 300 people, with an additional 1,200 left injured across the country in less than a day.
This was evidently no accident; the Israeli leadership had been claiming throughout the 15-month Lebanon ceasefire – which they violated over 15,400 times according to UNIFIL – that Hezbollah had been defeated, that it posed no threat to the northern settlements and would easily be dealt with. In early March, the Israeli victory narrative collapsed completely.
There is a reason why 77% of Israelis polled, according to Hebrew media outlet Maariv, say they want a continuation of the war against Lebanon. That reason is that they understand well that Hezbollah is still a massive threat to them, and the occupation army they support has failed at deterring the Lebanese Party.
Over two years of genocide in the Gaza Strip, Hamas is still there, and none of the dozen Palestinian Resistance groups have been defeated, despite them taking blows. In Lebanon, the Zionist regime killed most of Hezbollah’s senior leadership, yet failed to deal any decisive blow to the organization. The largest blow that was dealt to Hezbollah was the way the 2024 assault on Lebanon reshaped the Lebanese government.
In Iran, twice, the Israeli-US alliance has assassinated a large number of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s leadership figures, but has failed to deliver any defeat to it. All of the statistics about the percentages of missiles and launchers that the Israelis claim to have destroyed are simply plucked out of thin air.
While the leadership in Tel Aviv may allege that they have come out of every confrontation with some kind of total victory, they also admit that the “war is not over”. This is an admission of failure, because if each war were a victory for them, they wouldn’t require another. The only thing that saves them each time is that they are granted ceasefires, which the Zionists use as a period in which they create new plots to attack once again. If the wars were all-out and total, they would eventually be drained and forced to submit.
So, as each lull in the fighting occurs – what some call “ceasefires” – the Israelis end the round with more treachery. This time around, as soon as the US announced that a two-week temporary ceasefire had been reached, Tel Aviv used the opportunity to concentrate its entire air force on striking civilian targets as a calibrated tactic.
The Gaza genocide was not done simply out of a desire to shed blood as a revenge blow, although this clearly played into it; the genocide was a message to the Palestinian people and the rest of the region. It was a desperate attempt to salvage the so-called “deterrence capacity” image that the Zionist regime had spent so long building up.
The Israelis did not want to directly go after the Palestinian resistance in Gaza because they knew that it would be costly, so they hid in their tanks and armored vehicles, entering areas with the intent of flattening infrastructure and knocking out major hospitals as the end goal of each operation.
In Lebanon, their tactics are very similar, but are complicated by the fact that Hezbollah is a far stronger military force to deal with. We immediately saw that Tel Aviv displaced a million Lebanese, bombed all the bridges allowing for civilian passage to the south of Lebanon, and then flattened entire towns and neighborhoods.
The mass slaughter of civilians in Beirut was also part of that strategy. The civilian populations of Gaza and Lebanon become a punching bag, with the end goal being the demoralization of the people, attempting to turn them against the resistance groups they overwhelmingly support.
Former United States State Department advisor and veteran West Asia negotiator Aaron David Miller sharply criticized Washington’s assumptions about the pace and substance of talks with Iran, arguing that the US misjudged Iran’s position.
“If Administration believed after only 21 hours of negotiations, Iran would give up enrichment which is what Vance implied, they totally misread the moment and the Iranian dominated IRGC,” Miller posted on X.
Gerard Araud, a high-ranking retired French diplomat who served as the Ambassador to the United States and the Permanent Representative to the United Nations, also pointed to the prowess of Iranian negotiators.
“The agreement we reached with Iran in 2015 was the result of hundreds of hours of negotiations with the support of experts of nuclear energy,” Araud explained.
“Negotiating with the Iranians is the equivalent of a diplomatic trenches war. Line by line, word by word.” he posted on X.
“From an Iranian point of view, the negotiations are not starting from scratch but after an agreement endorsed by the UNSC,” he added in another post.
“Any new negotiations have to take into account this precedent: words have already a significance and proposals a history,” he said.
Deadlock in Islamabad talks after 21 hours of negotiations
Negotiations between Iran and the US have ended without agreement following Pakistan-mediated diplomatic efforts in Islamabad, with core nuclear demands keeping both sides far apart after 21 hours of discussions.
The talks, aimed at narrowing differences over Iran’s nuclear program and related regional security arrangements, failed to produce convergence on key issues, including Iran’s right to uranium enrichment, the security regime of the Strait of Hormuz, and proposals linking any broader understanding to a ceasefire extending to Lebanon.
Expectations of a rapid breakthrough had been encouraged by US Vice President JD Vance, but were widely regarded as unrealistic given the depth of disagreement between Washington and Tehran. The 2015 nuclear agreement itself took nearly two years to finalize, while current conditions are further complicated by escalating regional confrontation.
Vance defends US position after talks collapse
Following the breakdown of negotiations, US Vice President JD Vance stated that Iran had rejected Washington’s terms, while leaving the door open for future engagement.
“They have chosen not to accept our terms,” Vance said in a brief news conference in Islamabad, though he left open the possibility that terms could still be reached.
“We leave here with a very simple proposal: a method of understanding that is our final and best offer,” he added.
“We’ll see if the Iranians accept it,” he asserted.
Australia calls for renewed negotiations and ceasefire
International reactions followed the collapse of the talks, with Australia urging both sides to return to diplomacy and maintain a ceasefire across the region.
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong described the outcome of the Islamabad talks as “disappointing” and called for an immediate resumption of negotiations.
“The priority now must be to continue the ceasefire and return to negotiations,” Wong said, adding it was “disappointing that the Islamabad talks between the United States and Iran have ended without agreement.”
Wong also warned that any further escalation “would impose an even greater human cost and further impact the global economy,” stressing the need for sustained diplomatic engagement.
As I expected, the negotiation between the US and Iran failed to reach an agreement. Although JD Vance headed the US team, he was never in control… I have heard from someone who was directly involved with this circus in Islamabad that Israeli agents — Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner — made certain that JD Vance would not follow his instincts and accept the deal that Iran had laid on the table. Israel’s role in sabotaging the US delegation was evident in Vance’s statement announcing the failure of the negotiations, when he falsely accused Iran of refusing to give up its alleged quest for a nuclear weapon. This is just a rehashed piece of Zionist propaganda.
There were several Iranian conditions that the US refused to accept: Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz, an end to Israel’s attack on Lebanon and Hezbollah, unfreezing of Iran’s assets and retaining sovereignty over its supply of enriched uranium. I have said repeatedly this past week during various interviews on the subject that Iran’s position on these issues was non-negotiable.
Here is the statement just released by the Iranian government:
The American enemy, which is vile, wicked and dishonest — attempted to achieve on the negotiating table what it could not achieve through war.
Among these demands are handing over enriched uranium and opening the Strait of Hormuz without confirmed Iranian sovereignty over it.
Iran has decided to reject these terms and continue the sacred defense of its fatherland by any means necessary, military or diplomatic.’
So what is next? For starters I hope that the Iranian delegation in Islamabad gets a return flight home on a Russian or Chinese flagged airplane. I do not discount the possibility of Israel and the US trying to destroy the Iranian airliner on its return flight to Tehran.
Iran will not initiate new military actions against Israel or the US… They will wait to absorb the first blow and then launch a massive retaliation. I think they now understand that the US is too much under the control of the Zionist lobby to act in the interest of the people of the United States.
Iran’s demand that the US vacate its bases in the Gulf will be achieved by force… Iran will hit the remaining bases and make them uninhabitable for the US military going forward. The Saudis and the UAE will have to make a choice this week… Seek reconciliation with Iran and survive or side with the US and Israel and face economic destruction.
The real action that will put the most pressure on Trump will start on Monday morning when the US stock market takes a nose dive… again… and the price of oil heads back up into triple digit territory. JD Vance actually did Iran a favor by breaking off first and walking away. This paints Iran in a very favorable light in the eyes of the global south, i.e., Iran was willing to negotiate, but the US refused to engage in good faith negotiations and bailed.
Here is my chat with Ed DeMarche of the Trends Journal from last Wednesday:Video Link
MOSCOW – US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that the United States would soon start the naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz to prevent Iran from using what he described as “extortion.”
“The Blockade will begin shortly. Other Countries will be involved with this Blockade,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The US Navy will be blockading “any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz,” until all are allowed to go in and out, he wrote.
“I have also instructed our Navy to seek and interdict every vessel in International Waters that has paid a toll to Iran. No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas,” Trump also said.
The US leader added that he would not allow any country, especially his own, to be “extorted” by Iran.
Safe passage of vessels through the Strait of Hormuz will be possible if the United States complies with its obligations, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Thursday.
Earlier, Araghchi announced the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, which accounts for about 20% of the world’s oil, petroleum products, and LNG supplies.
The escalation of the conflict has virtually halted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a key supply route for global oil and LNG. As a result, fuel prices are rising in most countries.
There is growing expectation in Tehran that the Islamabad talks with the US may open the door leading into the rose-garden. But footfalls still echo in the memory, as the US has been an utterly unreliable and unscrupulous interlocutor.
The Islamabad talks on Saturday lasting 21 hours ended without a deal. The US Vice-President JD Vance, in a very short news conference at Islamabad, blamed Iran for not accepting American terms. As he put it, “We need to see an affirmative commitment that [Iran] will not seek a nuclear weapon, and they will not seek the tools that would enable them to quickly achieve a nuclear weapon. That is the core goal of the president of the United States, and that’s what we’ve tried to achieve through these negotiations.”
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said that the two sides reached a consensus on some issues, but held different views regarding 2-3 important matters. Baqaei said the talks covered some new issues with their own complexities, such as the Strait of Hormuz, but stressed that diplomacy never ends, as it is a tool to preserve national interests, and “stands ready for all kinds of sacrifices.”
Baqaei later told Iran’s state television, “Naturally, from the beginning we should not have expected to reach an agreement in a single session. No one had such an expectation.” And Tehran is “confident that contacts between us and Pakistan, as well as our other friends in the region, will continue”.
On their part, Pakistani mediators called on the US and Iran to maintain the ceasefire. Foreign minister Ishaq Dar said Islamabad would try to facilitate a new dialogue between Iran and the US in the coming days.
Such tough situations have a history of grandstanding by protagonists but that hasn’t happened here, and gives hope that it is far too premature to write off that the peace track ended in a train crash. After all, the negotiations were initially expected to be indirect, but the two political leaderships are now engaging in direct discussions for the first time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Vance separately met Iranian parliamentary speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf and foreign minister Abbas Araqchi for two hours.
Previously, the plan was for the two delegations to sit in separate rooms while Pakistani mediators relayed messages between them. “However, now, in a significant shift, our sources close to the mediators say that the two teams are holding direct talks with the presence of Pakistani intermediaries,” Al Jazeera reported.
Also, the negotiations have moved beyond general issues, and in some cases entered technical discussions. Iranian media reported that “specialists from both sides are now reviewing detailed aspects of unresolved matters, including the implementation of regional de-escalation measures and the assessment of the ceasefire in southern Lebanon.”
The talks are very important for Vance himself as he personally sought this role from Trump. Another reason for Trump’s selection was the deep mistrust between Tehran and Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff following the US and Israeli attacks after two previous rounds of negotiations. Nevertheless, Witkoff and Kushner, both Jews with close ties to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accompanied Vance.
At any rate, finalising an agreement may take weeks or months and will likely require extending the current two-week ceasefire. That requires patience and fortitude. Whereas, an inventory of the war highlights only Trump’s fickle-minded temperament and Netanyahu’s tenacity bordering on obsession. Netanyahu has admitted that the US-Israeli attacks on Iran were “something I’ve longed to do for 40 years.”
In the 13 months since Trump took office until the outbreak of the war, Netanyahu met with Trump on average every two months for face-to-face meetings (apart from multiple remote meetings), unmatched by any foreign leader.
According to the New York Times, Trump’s irreversible decision to go to war was reached on February 11, in the famous Situation Room at the White House, where Netanyahu and the head of Mossad delivered Trump a spectacular story of decapitation of Iranian leaders, with a happy ending.
The Times wryly noted that none of Trump’s close associates — Vance, secretary of state Rubio or the CIA director Ratcliffe saw Netanyahu’s presentation and his closing argument as anything more than a live steam for young children, and they were well aware that their boss might believe in fairy tales, yet, none of them was willing to resign in protest.
Vance disclosed in Islamabad yesterday that he spoke with Trump at least half a dozen times during the talks and noted, “The bad news is that we have not reached an agreement, and I think that’s bad news for Iran much more than it’s bad news for the United States of America.”
Herein lies the danger. Trump is notoriously prone to mood swings and has a propensity to believe in the last person he spoke with. It may seem child-like innocence but in this case, chaffing under public ridicule in the US as well as internationally for having ‘lost’ the war, Trump is under immense pressure to do something.
Meanwhile, the Zionist lobby that has easy access to Trump’s ears must be working overtime to block any US-Iran agreement. On the other hand, as the final hours ticked down, there was little indication that Iran was ready to agree to Trump’s ultimatum.
Li Haidong, professor at China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times last week that based on past patterns, when confronted with mounting pressure, the US has at times escalated tensions, while at other moments abruptly shifted course with tactical adjustments. This makes Washington’s next move highly unpredictable.
The Chinese professor noted that “the current dynamics suggest that Tehran is unlikely to make meaningful concessions, while Washington also faces significant constraints in altering its own position. Coupled with Israel’s role in shaping the conflict, this latest ultimatum [by Trump] thatIran could be ‘taken out’ if it did not meet his newly updated deadline is likely to unfold in a more dramatic and uncertain manner.”
But that does not mean the war can end only on Washington’s terms; war is more likely to become protracted. Iran no longer trusts the US and will only accept an end of the war with guarantees that it won’t be attacked again.
Above all, the resurgent IRGC remains confident that it would “deprive the US and its allies of the region’s oil and gas for years” if Trump carries out his threat to attack power plants and bridges. An Iranian official told the media that the process of preparing new infrastructure for managing vessel traffic in the Strait of Hormuz has been completed by Iran and more than 100 vessels of various nationalities have so far submitted written requests to transit the strait under the new protocol.
Max Blumenthal discusses why the consensus over the US-Israel partnership is unravelling as the intrusive influence of Israel is widely seen to undermine US interests. The disastrous Iran War has intensified the MAGA Civil War. Blumenthal is the editor-in-chief of The Grayzone, an award-winning journalist and the author of several books, including best-selling Republican Gomorrah, Goliath, The Fifty One Day War, and The Management of Savagery. He has produced print articles for an array of publications, many video reports, and several documentaries, including Killing Gaza.
Iran’s Tasnim News Agency reported on Sunday morning that US-Iran talks ended with no agreement due to “excessive US demands” that prevented the formation of a common framework.
The agency said Washington sought to secure concessions it had failed to achieve through military escalation, including demands related to Iran’s enriched materials and control over the Strait of Hormuz. According to Tasnim, the Iranian delegation attempted to advance toward a joint negotiating framework, but US demands ultimately stalled progress.
Tasnim reported that upon arriving in Islamabad, the Iranian delegation met with Pakistan’s army chief and prime minister to coordinate positions and raise concerns over what it described as US breaches of commitments.
It said talks with the Pakistani leadership preceded negotiations with the US side, which began at the level of main delegations before shifting to technical teams and lasted more than 21 hours.
The agency added that Tehran presented what it described as reasonable proposals, stressing that responsibility now rests with Washington to respond realistically. It also said the US administration has miscalculated both militarily and in its negotiating approach, noting that the status of the Strait of Hormuz will not change without a “reasonable agreement.”
No date or venue has been set for a potential new round of talks.
Meanwhile, Al Mayadeen’s bureau chief in Pakistan reported that the US delegation had departed Islamabad following the conclusion of the talks.
Additionally, a source close to the Iranian negotiating team told Fars News that the US delegation appeared to be looking for a pretext to exit the talks. The source added that Iran currently has no plans to engage in a new round of negotiations.
The source further said the Iranian team, representing the Iranian people, sought to safeguard the gains achieved on the ground, arguing that Washington was in greater need of the talks to repair its standing on the international stage.
US leaves Islamabad without an agreement
US Vice President JD Vance announced on Sunday at dawn that negotiations with Iran lasted 21 hours, but ultimately ended without reaching an agreement, failing to produce a satisfactory outcome as the US delegation headed back to Washington.
Vance alleged that core objectives were not achieved despite what he claimed was “significant flexibility” from the US side, claiming that Iran “chose not to accept our terms,” saying the proposal is a “method of understanding that is our final and best offer. We’ll see if the Iranians accept it.”
A wave of Israeli bombardments that killed hundreds of civilians across Lebanon within minutes was deliberately designed to overwhelm the country’s healthcare system and maximize deaths, Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sitta told Al Mayadeen.
According to Abu-Sitta, the scale and speed of the strikes collapsed emergency response capacity from the outset, leaving ambulance services and hospitals unable to cope with the volume of casualties.
“At AUB, we received around 70 critical cases within 10 minutes,” he said. “The aim is for you not to be able to treat them… to force you into triage, deciding who you can save and who you cannot.”
Hospitals rapidly exhausted intensive care capacity, including pediatric units, while smaller facilities were forced to transfer patients under life-threatening delays.
“We ran out of intensive care beds. We ran out of pediatric intensive care capacity,” he said. “The smaller hospitals were overwhelmed… and the delays in transferring patients cost lives.”
Abu-Sitta described the scenes inside emergency departments as a “tsunami” of casualties.
“You are overwhelmed by a wave of wounded beyond your capacity to deal with.”
‘A day in Gaza’
Drawing on his experience treating victims under Israeli bombardment in Gaza, Abu-Sitta said the Beirut attacks replicated the same patterns of destruction.
“That day was the first day that felt like a day in Shifa Hospital,” he said. “Children came in with no names, no surviving families… nobody knew who anybody was.”
The scenes, he added, triggered immediate psychological recall. “You find yourself thinking, ‘Not this again.’”
‘The aim is to kill’
Abu-Sitta rejected claims that the strikes targeted military infrastructure, pointing instead to the systematic destruction of civilian areas.
“The aim is to kill,” he said. “The aim on Tuesday was to kill. The aim on Wednesday was to kill.”
He cited the bombing of residential buildings, including one in a middle-class neighborhood inhabited by elderly residents.
“The missile hit the base of the building to ensure total collapse… maximum damage,” he said. “They said they were targeting Hezbollah assets, but the residents were elderly couples.”
Humanitarian language ‘collusive’
Abu-Sitta also condemned the response of international health organizations, describing their language as detached from the reality of mass civilian killing.
“That language has proven how sterile humanitarian discourse is, and, in fact, how collusive it is,” he said.
“These children were not wounded in a ‘conflict.’ They were killed by Israel. Their families were killed by Israel.”
He argued that the strikes were intended not only to kill but to cripple the healthcare system itself.
“The aim… is to destroy the health system by flooding it, by drowning it in its own blood,” he said.
The failure to hold “Israel” accountable, he added, “violates the very principles these institutions stand for.”
Message of ‘exceptionality and impunity’
According to Abu-Sitta, the scale and timing of the attacks, particularly following a ceasefire, send a clear political message.
“Exceptionality and impunity,” he said. “Israel places itself above international law… above any ceasefire.”
He described the attacks as “performative, ritualistic slaughter” meant to demonstrate that such actions can be repeated without consequence.
“They effectively recreated a day in Gaza,” he said. “The message is: we can do this again.”
Whether or not Iran-US peace negotiations succeed depends entirely on the American side, renowned international affairs commentator Dr. Mohammad Marandi told Sputnik, commenting on Saturday’s unprecedented face-to-face talks in Islamabad, Pakistan.
Iran didn’t start the war, it wasn’t the one to escalate it, and it wasn’t the one to call for a halt in hostilities. Accordingly, the crisis can be resolved in one of only two ways, Marandi says.
“Either the Americans are sincere or they’re forced to be sincere, and they implement what they said they will do, or not. If they are unwilling to do so, the Iranian delegation will go back to Tehran,” the Gulf crisis will continue and the global economic picture will continue to deteriorate.
Iran Cares About Facts on the Ground, Not Signals or Signatures
“For the Iranians, what is important is that the facts on the ground change. The signature of the US vice president or president has no value for Iranians,” Marandi stressed.
Iran remembers that twice in less than a year, the US engaged in negotiations while conspiring to attack. Accordingly, whether talks succeed or not, “Iran is prepared” for what comes next, including a continuation of the war if necessary.
Marandi emphasized that the strength and resilience shown by Iran and the Axis of Resistance over the past weeks are the only reasons the US is at the negotiating table today.
US Must Choose: ‘Israel First’ or ‘America First’
Significant progress in negotiations with Iran can be achieved if the Trump administration pursues a genuinely America First policy, the academic believes.
“If they continue to be under the influence of Israeli Firsters, then I think the Iranians will be prepared to go back to Tehran without any agreement whatsoever. For Iran, both scenarios are acceptable. We are not concerned either way,” Marandi said.
US in No Position to Dictate Terms
The US “has not succeeded on the battlefield” and “there’s no reason for them to believe that they will win at the negotiating table,” the observer noted.
“What the Iranians are demanding is justice, and Iran is not making any excessive demands,” Marandi said, referencing Tehran’s 10-point ceasefire plan.
One of these demands is war reparations.
Iran “will get those reparations from the Strait of Hormuz, whether the Americans like it or not. But if the Americans want to prevent the collapse of the global economy they will discontinue obeying the Zionist Lobby and make decisions based on their interests,” Marandi stressed.
Whatever happens, “Iran is not going to give up its sovereignty… and the Axis of Resistance is unwilling to submit to the Empire,” he summed up.
At one time, the ‘Arab-Israeli Conflict’ was Arab and Israeli. Over the course of many years, however, it was rebranded. The media is now telling us it is a ‘Hamas-Israeli conflict’.
But what went wrong? Israel simply became too powerful.
The supposedly astounding Israeli victories over the years against Arab armies have emboldened Israel to the extent that it came to view itself, not as a regional superpower, but as a global power as well. Israel, per its own definition, became ‘invincible’.
Such terminology was not a mere scare tactic aimed at breaking the spirit of Palestinians and Arabs alike. Israel believed this.
The ‘Israeli miracle victory’ against Arab armies in 1967 was a watershed moment. Then, Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Abba Eban, declared in a speech that “from the podium of the UN, I proclaimed the glorious triumph of the IDF and the redemption of Jerusalem.”
This, in his thinking, could only mean one thing: “Never before has Israel stood more honored and revered by the nations of the world.”
The sentiment in Eban’s words echoed throughout Israel. Even those who doubted their government’s ability to completely prevail over the Arabs, joined the chorus: Israel is unvanquishable.
Little rational discussion took place back then, about the actual reasons why Israel had won, and if that victory would have been possible without Washington’s complete backing and the West’s willingness to support Israel at any cost. … continue
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