Zarif slams Netanyahu for ‘shameless’ threat of ‘nuclear annihilation’ against Iran

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has fired back at “warmonger” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for threatening Iran with “atomic annihilation” right from the regime’s secretive atomic weapons facility.

Qods News Agency (Qodsna) - Tehran - Speaking during a ceremony at the Dimona nuclear arms facility in the Negev desert on Wednesday, Netanyahu had claimed that the occupying entity faces threats from near and far.

“Those who threaten to wipe us out put themselves in a similar danger, and in any event will not achieve their goal,” he said. “But our enemies know very well what Israel is capable of doing. They are familiar with our policy. Whoever tries to hurt us – we hurt them,” said Netanyahu.

Hours later, Zarif took to Twitter to respond to the hawkish Israeli premier’s highly aggressive threat, which came on the same day that the world nations were observing the International Day against Nuclear Tests.

“Iran, a country without nuclear weapons, is threatened with atomic annihilation by a warmonger standing next to an actual nuclear weapons factory,” tweeted the top Iranian diplomat, describing Netanyahu’s statements as “beyond shameless.”

Iran, a country without nuclear weapons, is threatened with atomic annihilation by a warmonger standing next to an actual nuclear weapons factory. Beyond shameless in the gall. pic.twitter.com/MBoFac8Bvv

— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) August 29, 2018

Israel is the only possessor of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, but its policy is to neither confirm nor deny that it has atomic bombs. It has refused to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and denied international access to its nuclear facilities. 

The Tel Aviv regime is estimated to have 200 to 400 nuclear warheads in its arsenal.

Unlike Iran, the regime has refused to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) -- whose aim is to prevent the spread of nuclear arms and weapons technology – in defiance of international pressure.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at a ceremony in Dimona nuclear facility in the Negev Desert on August 29, 2018.

Marking the International Day against Nuclear Tests, Foreign Minister Zarif had earlier in the day slammed the Israeli regime and its stalwart supporter, the US, as the sole possessor of nuclear bombs in the region and the “sole user” of atomic weapons in the world, respectively.

“Let’s also remember that Iran has called for Nuclear Weapon Free Zone since 1974,” Zarif said in a tweet.

As world marks Int'l Day against Nuclear Tests, let's remember that only nuclear bombs in our region belong to Israel and the US; the former a habitual aggressor & the latter the sole user of nukes. Let's also remember that Iran has called for Nuclear Weapon Free Zone since 1974.

— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) August 29, 2018

Elsewhere in his comments, Netanyahu said the Israeli military will continue to target Iranian military advisers, who have been assisting the Syrian army in their battles against foreign-backed terrorists.

The Israeli military, Netanyahu said, "will continue acting with full determination and with full might against” what he called Iran’s attempts “to station forces and advanced weapons systems in Syria.”

Iran has no troops on the ground in Syria and its anti-terror advisory mission – like that of its ally Russia – comes at the request of the Damascus government.

Worried over Syria’s gains against terrorists, Israel frequently attacks military targets inside Syria in an attempt to prop up terrorist groups that have been suffering defeats on the battlefield.

The regime has also been providing weapons to anti-Damascus militants as well as medical treatment to Takfiri elements wounded in Syria.

On April 9, an Israeli airstrike against the T-4 airbase in Syria’s Homs Province killed more than a dozen people, including seven Iranian military advisers.

US Knows It Cannot Afford Direct Confrontation with Iran: American Analyst

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The “hawks” in the Donald Trump administration are fully aware that their country “cannot afford” any direct military confrontation with the Islamic Republic, an American political commentator said.

“…They (American hawks) know also, the US cannot afford a direct confrontation with Iran,” John Steppling, who is based in Norway, told the Tasnim News Agency in an interview.

“So I don't see anything happening right away,” he said, adding, “And Trump has a lot of other problems at the moment.”

Steppling is a well-known author, playwright and an original founding member of the Padua Hills Playwrights Festival, a two-time NEA recipient, Rockefeller Fellow in theater, and PEN-West winner for playwriting. He is also a regular political commentator for a number of media outlets around the world.

Following is the full text of the interview:

Tasnim: As you know, the US government’s hostility toward Iran has recently entered a new stage. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has formed a dedicated group to coordinate and run the country's policy towards Iran following US President Donald Trump's unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran. Pompeo announced the creation of the Iran Action Group (IAG) at a news conference, naming Brian Hook, the Department of State's director of policy planning, as its head. What do you think about the group and its objectives and do you think that it would be able to reach its goals?

Steppling: It’s amazing when you think about it, that the entire narrative since the last election in the US has been about Russian interference in the political process. The whole story is fictitious but that hasn't stopped it becoming the main storyline for almost all mainstream media. And yet here you have an illegal group that has as its stated goal the overthrow of a sovereign nation. The contradiction is breathtaking, really. But Pompeo is a rabid Islamophobe and a Christian extremist. Still, this was going behind the scenes anyway, now it is out in the open at least.

Tasnim: The Trump administration recently threatened to cut Iranian oil exports to zero, saying that countries must stop buying its oil from Nov. 4 or face financial consequences. Washington later softened its threat, saying that it would allow reduced oil flows of Iranian oil, in certain cases. Since oil is a strategic product and countries around the world always demand it, do you think that the US is able to carry out this threat at all?

Steppling: This is an interesting question. How much will the NATO nations of Europe push back against the Trump decree? I don't know. Clearly, Germany, in particular, is very unhappy. But Europe basically functions as a series of vassal states to the US. They will do what they are told in the end. I think more likely is that this whole embargo is just too much trouble for the Trump administration. There is an interesting question looming in just how much of the Pentagon and CIA focus is on how Iran, how much on China, and how much on Russia. Each is a different problem from the perspective of the US I think Trump, personally, fears China the most. They have the economic upper hand. But the real crime for any official US enemy is independence. Look at China, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, the DPRK, Syria, and Cuba. Each rejects US imperialist aims. Each rejects Western capital and all those international financial organizations. That's the only crime any of them have committed.

Tasnim: Trump's threat is part of his walking away from the Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). He also plans to fully reinstate anti-Tehran sanctions from November 4. In the meantime, the EU has vowed to counter Trump’s renewed sanctions on Iran, including by means of a new law to shield European companies from punitive measures. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas recently said Europe should set up payment systems independent of the US if it wants to save the JCPOA. What do you think about the EU’s role in reducing Washington’s pressures against Tehran and saving the deal?

Steppling: Yes well, this is again a question about how much spine Europe will show. And maybe I'm being cynical suggesting they won't show any, for after all a lot of money is going to be potentially lost. But this issue of payments raises the question of the power of the dollar vs the yuan or any other. And here China is, again, very powerful. The US wants to have some form of proxy conflict -- that's Bolton's style. And you can bet he wants a false flag regards Syria to justify more direct military action there. At the same time, the real fear is about China and its financial power. And I think Washington senses this shift toward Russia and China and Iran globally. The promise of a future, let alone a better future, lies in that direction and away from the US. There is no question the US is nervous if not desperate and the danger is that hawks like Pompeo and Mattis and Bolton are in positions of great influence and each is most happy when bombs are falling somewhere. And yet, they know also, the US cannot afford a direct confrontation with Iran. So I don't see anything happening right away. And Trump has a lot of other problems at the moment. I think we will learn soon if Trump really has any say at all in foreign policy.

Prominent Muslim-Russian Journalist Orkhan Djemal Killed in C.A.R.

By Ahmed Makhmoudov

At the end of July (July 31), Russian and international media reported that three Russian journalists investigating Russian presence in the Central African Republicwere killed. One of those journalists was Orkhan Djemal, the other two are Alexander Rastorguev and Kirill Radchenko.

Djemal may not be well known to the English speaking public, but to those Russian speakers that follow events in Russia and the Muslim states of the former Soviet Union, Djemal was the voice of the Muslim street and the non-mainstream minds.

He was best known for covering Muslim affairs in Russia and abroad. In his analysis and reporting he strived to present the Islamic perspective on important events and presented an Islamic paradigm of international relations. He was critical of many Russian government policies. Djemal criticized Moscow’s policies in Ukraine as well as in the North Caucasus. His criticism was far from dogmatic; it was highly intellectual and reasonably balanced. Both issues are very sensitive in Russia and few dare to bring up them up in their reporting, much less criticizing Kremlin’s policy.

The exact circumstances of how the three Russian journalists were killed are unclear. According to reports in the Caucasian Knot, Anzh Maxim Kazagi, Media Minister of the Central African Republic (CAR) stated that Orkhan Djemal and his colleagues failed to observe security requirements by leaving at night for the area controlled by rebels; and they resisted the attackers. Caucasian Knot further reported, “the Russians had rented a car with a driver and decided to leave for the city of Sibut in the evening on July 30. After driving for several dozen kilometers, their way was blocked by people who spoke Arabic. They tried to take the car away from the journalists. One of the Russians tried to resist, but was killed on the spot, the two others died from the received wounds; all the three were found the following day.”

Orkhan Djemal was a veteran war correspondent and founder of the Muslim Union of Russian Journalists. His father, Geidar Djemal, was a well-known Muslim activist in Russia who recently passed away. The son was as active as his father and gained a reputation for speaking truth to power. His murder, doing what he loved and believed in, did not come as a surprise to those who knew him. Djemal was always in the midst of wars as a reporter presenting the unpopular side of the story, be it in Georgia, Somalia, Libya or the North Caucasus.

One of the noticeable successes of Djemal’s Muslim activism was his non-sectarianism and his ability to work with Muslims of all schools of thought. He frequently defended Muslims of the former Soviet Union on various public platforms with a rarely matched eloquence. The fact that Djemal actively supported just causes and the oppressed of all ethnicities and religions within Russia made him unpopular with pro-government circles.

His death is definitely a big loss for the Muslims of Russia as through him the community has lost a major voice on powerful societal platforms in Russia.

Mankind Must Know: The UNO and Global Leaders are a Menace to Peace and Problem-Solving

 “….Human nature is at least in part wicked and in part foolish, how can human beings be prevented from suffering from the results of their wickedness and folly? ….Men simply do not see that war is foolish and useless and wicked. They think on occasion that it is necessary and wise and honourable, for war is not the work of bad men knowing themselves to be wrong, but of good men passionately convinced that they are right.” (C.E.M Joad. Guide to Modern Wickedness, 1936).

To Understand the Failure of Global Organizations and Leadership

The global humanity is continuously oppressed, manipulated and victimized by the weapons of mass destruction - from thoughts to all kind of weaponry.  Global peace, conflict management and security are neglected by those who were responsible for its protection and maintenance. Everything thinkable appears to be falling into dereliction and much wanton destruction to be reported as non-living statistic. The UNO Secretary General and most global leaders are entrapped lacking reasoned persuasion and activism to make peace and usher global harmony. They operate in a vicious circle of making statements, tweets and speculative wishful overtures as if the whole mankind was inept and inattentive to the catastrophic challenges of the day.  

Good judgments seek honesty of purpose, courage and rational thinking. When the leaders talk about the emerging conflicts and human tragedies, they pretend as if none had ever happened before. As if they never opened the pages of history. History offers lessons to all generations all the time. Human perpetuated tyranny according to late Professor Howard Zenn is “tyranny.” Insanity has no alternative rationale. Look how the UNO leadership and most global politicians witness transgression, forcible displacement and killings of millions and millions across Syria, Iraq, Palestine, Libya, Myanmar (Burma) and now Yemen but do nothing except the fake UN-SC resolutions and dubious statements of crimes against humanity. The victimized mankind shares a sense of disarray and loss of being part of the global humanity. A view from afar only asserts conspicuous example of inhumanity flourishing everywhere and seeing the proliferation of anarchy, violations of basic human rights and dignity and use of chemical weapons, and civilian massacres but nobody questions why this now after the Two World Wars? Typical “Right Men” of the 21^st century are unchallenged for torture, killing of the innocents, war crimes and genocide. The UNO Fact-finding Mission released the findings after 700,000 Rohingas were forcibly evicted from their homes; 20,000 men, women and children massacred and 10,000 women raped by the Myanmar armies. Would the Myanmar Generals be prosecuted during the lifetime of the victims? Almost 3 million civilians were killed by the US-British forces in Iraq. Nobody called it genocide by Bush and Blair. Both are free and enjoying life. Several Millions have been displaced and killed in Syria - who will punish the authoritarian tyranny and insanity?

 The UNO, global leaders and related organizations are all international as the humanity fast transforming to One World reality living on One Planet with inseparable identities and relationship to the Nature of Things. The organizations and leaders should have been vigilant to “safeguard the mankind from the scourge of war.” The global political affairs are not managed by rational people, with rational thinking, doing the rational practices for the interests of global citizenry. The 1% global elite – men of king operate the international institutions - the perverted insanity lacking basic understanding of the Human Nature and of the working of the splendid Universe in which we enjoy coherent co-existence.  The mankind continues to be run down by the cancerous ego and cruelty of the few Western leaders and institutions like NATO and NORAD. Most global leaders represent cruel mindset incapable to see the human side of the living conscience. Madness of the perpetuated war on terrorism and its triggered insanity knows no bound across the global spectrum. Under the false pretext of terrorism, Western allies along with Arab leaders bombed and destroyed the ancient culture and people of the Arab world. Animals do not commit massacre of their kind and species, nor set-up rape camps for the war victims, the Western led wars against the humanity have and continue to do so at an unparallel  global scale without being challenged by any global organizations or leaders. Torture and massacres of innocent civilians are convenient fun games to be defined as “collateral damage” and a statistic. Perhaps, they view humanity just in digits and numbers, not as the living entities with social, moral, spiritual and intellectual values and progressive agendas for change and development. Einstein (“The World as I see it”), made it known that he was against military campaigns, killings and destruction of the natural environment: "This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of herd life, the military system, which I abhor... This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all 

possible speed. Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loath some nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!.”

Lesson of History cannot be Ignored

In his internationally acclaimed classic work, Professor John W. Drapper (A History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, NY Harper Brothers, 1864), of the University of New York portrayed the human development process as “man is being treated as an individual” and not an embodiment of collective transformation leading past immersion into making of the present - and the present unfolding the future.   Global humanity is a helpless victim in a world divided for socio-economic and political hegemonic controls by the few egoistic political entities.  There are no conscientious leaders accountable to the interests of the global mankind. Ironically, with time and opportunities on their side, politically recognized leading powers at the UN Security Council forum failed to usher a new era of change and peaceful co-existence. If the human developmental progress is viewed in an historical mirror, Professor Drapper makes a candid observation: “that it is a history of the progress of ideas and opinions from a point of view heretofore almost entirely neglected.” All political actors claim to be working for the mankind. Yet, few could relate themselves to the people if a reality check is applied by critical analysts. One cannot glorify the insanity of the past – the Two World Wars which consumed untold planned bloodbath and countless pains and sufferings of the global mankind.  The question is how to eject from the sadistic past unto a promising future? 

Mankind Looks to People of New  Ideas, Visions and Responsible Leadership

Mankind is constantly victimized by the willful deceit of triumphalism of the few who used extreme rhetoric of peace and harmony but deliver nothing except self-serving fantasies and neglect of prevalent truth. They embrace dishonesty of purpose by wasting time and opportunities that could have been used for positive developments to change the distorted scene of the global politics. Reason makes no difference to their immature mindset and their human conscience is filled with follies of political manipulation and exploitation of the humanity.  The essence of global peace and harmony lies in collective thinking and unity of the global mankind.

Bombs and wars kill people – the living human beings, destroy humanity by enforcing barbarism and cruelty, practically denying all prospects of peace and co-existence. Traditional wars were aimed at annihilation of political and economic enemies but the 21^st century conflicts are ready-made recipes not only to eliminate the mankind but also the environment in which human beings survive and the

Planet Earth that sustains life. Wars appear to be the outcome of sinister minds, devilish individual plans and monstrous scheme of things against the very humanity of which these people are a living part. Like always, few cynical and mentally imbalanced people plan and wage wars against others, not mindful of the dreadful end results of their intrigues and conspiracies against life, human rights and dignity and futuristic possibilities of human survival on the planet.

Global Warlords are haunting the mankind because wars are a racketeering enterprise. Most superpowers are engaged in selling weaponry to the Middle East dictators and warlords. History will judge them by their actions, not by their claims. You cannot change a society with law and order dictum. When a problem is misunderstood, its diagnostic approach will be wrong. An out of the official box approach to understand the problem is urgently needed. The major news media corporations in North America and Western Europe are aligned to the establishments and tainted with biased coverage as they get paid via ads and secret dealings. None of this is helpful to foster change and societal advancement for a peaceful future.  The mankind looks for change in strategic thinking and actions. “In the name of “System Change, Not Climate Change”, points out Paul Street (“For Intelligent Civilizations on Earth”) “we can rescue and preserve humanity and livable ecology through mass resistance and a revolutionary transformation that takes us beyond the world’s unelected and interrelated dictatorships of money, profit, empire, and eco-cide.”

Aggressive thinking is propagated, echo of peace is silenced. Global peace requires Men of New Ideas, new Thinking and New Visions. In a political culture much charged by conscious intransigence of the few, America and European are fearful of the unknown and have no vision for peace and co-existence either in the region or in a global context. NATO will go anywhere anytime under fair or foul pretexts. It has no accountability to anybody anywhere. Peace and security are not one sided pursuits nor can be experimented in a lab. There are many who could do a better and more productive leadership in the current global affairs. The Western leaders must embrace Russia on equal terms to envisage a new world of peace and harmony.  Russia is no longer a former USSR but a changing landscape of reason and responsibility and gradually moving forward for a representative system of public governance. If that was not the case, how could Trump and Putin have met and strike an accord. Accords are based on mutual respect and understanding. America and Russia both need to change their policies and practices for a coherent future. Both desperately need to be proactive, culturally conscientious and intellectual unbiased leaders who should see the bigger picture of futuristic world - a different world of tomorrow of peace and co-existence rather than perpetuated animosity and extreme naïve belligerent behaviors, leaders who will serve the people and could learn to make a navigational change and adaptability to the making of a promising future for all the mankind. Mankind needs morally, spiritually and intellectually responsible leadership. All absolute rulers and leaders tried to run down the mankind as if it was a number- a digit and non-living statistic. But all of them fell in disgrace destroying their own nations and empires.

Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in international affairs-global security, peace and conflict resolution and international affairs with keen interests in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and author of several publications including the latest: Global Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution: Approaches to Understand the Current Issues and Future-Making. Lambert Academic Publishing, Germany, October 2017.

Iran and the SCO: A Long Political Gestation

by Jacopo Scita

Xi Jinping, the Chinese Paramount Leader and his entourage meet with Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, 23 January 2016. Source: Wikipedia

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) was founded in 2001 by China, Russia and four central-Asian republics with the declared aim of promoting a framework of effective cooperation in politics, economy, security and regional stability, among many other areas of strategic interest. In 2017, India and Pakistan joined the SCO as full members, with the Organisation then accounting for “one fourth of the world’s GDP, 43 percent of the international population and 23 percent of global territory”, as Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a recent interview with the China Media Group.

Among the SCO observer members, the Islamic Republic of Iran has extensively lobbied for upgrading its status and obtaining full membership, for which Tehran officially applied in 2008. Ten years later, this long political gestation has not yet born fruit, although during the 2018 Qingdao Summit President Putin openly advocated Iran’s full membership in the SCO. In the meantime, the Islamic Republic has reinforced its political and economic ties with both Russia and China, with the latter remaining Iran’s top trading partner. This analysis argues that, besides the obvious economic and energetic factors, Iran’s attraction towards a full membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation answers to a strong political rationale.

Today, the SCO attractiveness is often understood, along with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), in terms of regional economic and commercial integration. However, while the BRI encapsulates Beijing’s Euro-Asiatic grand strategy, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation acts as an institutional arm of the Chinese economic expansion, shaping a political environment that offers to Central-Asian countries a platform of multilateral cooperation under the umbrella of Beijing and Moscow. Therefore, the reasons why the SCO’s framework is particularly attractive for Tehran are summarised by the following political push factors: 1) joining a growing, Eastern-led process of regional integration 2) improving Iran’s global status 3) stimulating a spillover effect in the Middle East.

The political attractiveness of the SCO

The recent withdrawal of the United States from the JCPOA and the following reintroduction of secondary sanctions towards Iran have once again exposed Tehran to the risk of being politically and economically isolated from the West. While the EU has officially advocated the ‘protect[ion of] European economic operators engaged in legitimate business with Iran’, China, despite Washington pressure, has effectively refused to cut its oil import from Tehran. Anyhow, the path seems clear: although the European Union appears genuinely committed to the preservation of the Iran Deal, its commercial and political autonomy remains highly affected by the historical ties existing with the United States. By the other side, Beijing – and Moscow – can offer Tehran a forceful alternative. As K.L. Afrasiabi and S. Mousavi, two leading Iranian researchers, recently wrote for LobeLog, the Trump presidency is pushing the Iranian government to make a paradigm shift and adopting an increasingly East-looking foreign policy.

Consequently, the full SCO membership appears a natural consequence of this new direction: by one hand, the Organisation provides an institutionalised multilateral framework that will reduce Iran’s reliance on bi-lateral agreements by increasing its regional integration. By the other, the political importance of the SCO is rapidly growing, suggesting the emergence – at least in the medium/long term – of a normative and institutional structure that can better compete with the US foreign policy agenda – which is, at this point highly divergent from that of Tehran.

Moving towards an East-looking strategy is Tehran’s forced plan B. Arguably, the adoption of resolution 2231 by the UN Security Council has been the height of process that, following the multilateral negotiations of the JCPOA, aimed to the progressive re-inclusion of Iran within the international community. As the election of Donald Trump has largely interrupted this process, Tehran has to find another arena – maybe less ambitious and extended, but definitively more receptive – where to consolidate and improve its status of trustworthy and cooperative actor. By sitting in a forum that includes some of the non-Western most important, rapidly growing actors as an equal member, Tehran could benefit in terms of political perception and leverage, both within and without the organisation.

In this context, Iran’s full membership in the SCO could even assume a powerful symbolic dimension. When the Islamic Republic officially applied in 2008, the process was frozen ‘by rules in the organisation’s charter that forbid membership for any country under United Nations sanctions’. As soon as the implementation of the JCPOA succeeded in 2016, UN sanctions were lifted, and Iran’s full membership could take a concrete path. Ergo, by joining the SCO, Tehran will reinforce its commitment towards an organisation that formally accepts and reinforces the rule of the United Nations as the sole entity allowed to impose international sanctions.

A third political factor that pushes Iran towards the organisation is the possible emergence of a spillover effect in the Middle East. Jonathan Fulton, assistant professor of Political Science at Zayed University, has recently argued that ‘Iranian membership could be the catalyst for Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Cooperation Council members requesting a seat at the SCO table’. With Turkey that is an organisation’s partner and the BRI already embracing East Africa and Europe, a major integration of the MENA region in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is likely to happen. A similar scenario could result in Tehran’s pivotal role in the growing Asianisation of Middle East, manoeuvring the inclusion of the region into the normative and cooperative structure offered by the Shanghai framework from a position of initial political advantage.

A (still) long political gestation

Despite the post-Qingdao jubilant diplomatic declarations, the SCO has not already granted Iran the full membership. By the Iranian side, political push factors are effective and attractive. However, in the context of uncertainty generated by the Trump presidency, shifting from a foreign policy agenda largely based on the normalisation of Iran relationship with the West – as was the one adopted by the Rouhani’s government since 2013 – to a narrowed East-looking posture is not obvious, nor immediate.

On the part of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Tehran is a tempting but costly partner. If Russia shows strategic interests in the Middle East that overlap those of Iran, China attitude towards the SCO is more pragmatic and trade-related, accepting the natural tendency of states to bandwagon as long as the political cost of partnerships remains convenient. As the US-Iran confrontation continue to increase, Central and East-Asian powers will be demanded to take a clear side in the dispute: by accepting Tehran as a full member of the organisation, the room to manoeuvre may have to be reconsidered.

---

Jacopo Scita is a PhD candidate at Durham University, focusing on Iran’s foreign policy.

On corrupt narratives and choices

On August 23 NATO announced that a Canadian officer, Major-General Fortin, will be the new commander of NATO forces in Iraq for the continuation of what the invading and occupation forces call a “training mission.”

Previous objections to the presence of foreign forces in Iraq by the Iraqi government were more or less ignored by the United States and its jackboots, and by Canada, one of the little poodles always running alongside the top bulldog with its tail up and tongue out, so any objections now will count for nothing.

These two nations, well, we can call the US a nation, Canada a shell of one, claim to act in the interests of peace and security in Iraq and West Asia. But the Iraqis know what colonialism is. They have resisted it since 1921; against the British, the French, the Americans and now Canada, which continues its role in the American colonial system as part of the enforcement unit.

The invasion and occupation of Iraq was, the world knows, a war of aggression, a war crime, and this crime continues so long as the occupation continues. Everyone connected with that aggression and occupation are war criminals and this of course includes the members of the Canadian government and armed forces. In fact, the entire NATO alliance is now a party to the crime and so every leader of every NATO country is a war criminal. This is the absurdity to which the world has descended, a world in which international law, the UN Charter, the Nuremberg Principles are regarded as only fit for confetti and every western leader is a criminal.Last January an Iraqi general, working with the US forces, claimed the foreign forces were “necessary” to preserve a “fragile peace,” though it is more likely he wanted to fill the hole in his pocket, while Nayef al-Shamri, deputy chairman of the Iraqi parliament’s security committee, countered that, “Iraq does not need the presence of U.S. ground forces or military bases”. He said “U.S. forces had no actual presence in battles against Daesh.”

At the beginning of the year the Americans had stated that they were going to reduce or withdraw their forces in Iraq but by May it became clear that they were increasing them and, as their proxy forces in Syria collapsed, increased the presence of its intelligence operatives on the Iraqi-Syrian border, as well as centers such as Erbil and Mosul. Yet in December 2017 Iraq’s Prime Minister Haidar al Ebadi declared his country liberated from Daesh, so even the claimed pretext used by the US and its NATO servants for remaining in Iraq does not exist.

The real reasons for the continued occupation are stated by the British commanding officer in Iraq, Major-General Gedney to a British newspaper that,

“British forces will need to remain in Iraq for the next several years to ensure instability, hopelessness and desperation never again become the breeding ground for radicalization.”

But hopelessness is the only thing the British and their partners in crime bring to the people of Iraq, denied their sovereignty, their self–esteem, their ability to govern themselves freely and without interference. Foreign invasions and occupations are always met with the duality of hopelessness and resistance. Hopelessness leads to desperation then to resistance. One leads to the other for one act of resistance restores the hope and with the hope the resistance increases.

The British general added that, “we have to continue our fight against Daesh’s corrupt narrative, and only then will we see their lasting defeat.”

In other words, he is saying “we must increase our propaganda containing our corrupt narrative and stay in Iraq to silence anyone who opposes us or our local puppets, increase our control of thought and speech, increase our control of the Iraqi political scene and ensure that only those loyal to us can have control; the control for geostrategic and energy reasons, the same reasons that ever motivated the aggression against Iraq.”

But speaking of “corrupt narratives,” it is the British that take the cake. On 24th of August, a news item appeared on the BBC website about the forest fires that have erupted near Berlin. One of the concerns of local firefighters trying to control the fires is the presence of unexploded ammunition from the Battle of Berlin that took place in April/May of 1945 that resulted in the Red Army liberation of Germany from the harsh yoke of fascism. In the forests around Berlin, and in the city, huge armies, Nazi and Red Army, fought each other in some of the most intense fighting of that war, but, according to the BBC, it is only the Soviet forces are responsible for the unexploded ordinance both sides exchanged during the battle. This is how the BBC framed it,

“The munitions are believed to date from the Soviet Army’s actions in the former East Germany, during World War Two.”

Just let that rest in your mind for a minute or two, let it seep into the mind what the BBC is doing here. For what they are doing is rewriting history on a vast scale and rewriting it to whitewash the Nazis and to cast the liberating Soviet forces as the bad guys, yet once again.

Apparently, for the BBC, the retreating Nazi forces, protecting Hitler and the heart of the Nazi Reich from their just and final end, did not exist. They are not mentioned. The Soviets were just engaging “in actions.” That these actions were caused by the aggression of Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union, in which the German fascist forces, allied with their version of the coalition of the willing, fascists states and forces from across Europe, killed over 27 million people, wounded and maimed millions more, razed to the ground every town and village west of Moscow in a holocaust unprecedented in history, that part of the story has been erased.

But they go further, and establish the BBC as an outright fascist propaganda organ, when they claim the battle took place in something called East Germany. There was no “East Germany” at that time. There was only the Third Reich, the Nazi state, and Berlin was its capital. But the BBC wants you to forget that Germany was a fascist state. They want you to forget it existed. So they concoct a battle in a state only created later, cast the Russians as the bad guys, and claim that Germany suffered from their “actions” and suffers from them still.

This is a negation of history in order to erase the crimes of the fascists, to protect them, to rehabilitate them, as we have seen the NATO alliance do in Ukraine. We should not be surprised. We saw them tolerate fascist regimes in the past in Spain, Portugal, in Greece, and fascist elements in the governments and armed forces of West Germany and Italy, to limit ourselves to Europe. Now even the pretense of condemning fascism is dropped and is replaced with outright distortions of history to accompany the distortions of the mass media repeating the lies of the governments for which they serve as servile mouthpieces.

People argue what fascism is and is not, what its characteristics are.

How can anyone observe what is going on in the United States and not smell fascism in the air as the smoke from their internal battles spreads over the world, threatening to consume people in the fires of another world war. For that is what the internal battle in the United States is ultimately about, an ongoing purge, preparing for war with Russia and its allies that now are China, Iran, Syria, and, the way the US is pushing Turkey over the arrest of the American intelligence operative Mr. Brunson, who claims to be a preacher, but who is seen, in photos posted in the Turkish news, posing with and advising anti-Turkish government rebel groups, may soon include that nation as well.

As for the common citizen, well, we can only suffer the lunacy in the United States, in the NATO countries, in the mass media as they lead us to destruction, suffer or revolt. There are no other choices.Those were excerpts of a feature authored by Christopher Black. He is an international criminal lawyer based in Toronto.

America, the tyranny of the stupid

People around the world are convinced that the United States is a nation run by criminal psychopaths and morons. A greater fear is that world leaders mistakenly assume that their American counterparts who do and say insane things continually are, in actuality, normal people operating inside some “master plan.”

Then, when time and time again, no such plan materializes, and it is demonstrated that America has blundered into a diplomatic, economic or military morass, for some unknown reason, a “reset” occurs, and the wrong assumptions are again made.

At every level, humanity errs in assuming that those in command are there because of talent and worth or that, because America is so wealthy and powerful, that its people are such because of moral and intellectual superiority.

Blind acceptance of exceptionalism is, in itself, a dangerous disease.

If you ask an average American what their IQ is, they are quick to answer. Invariably they will say, “140” or more. Yet, when you look at American society, at America’s culture, the idea of a nation of Mensa types is unrealistic. Americans aren’t much more stupid than other people, just much more dangerous.

Truth is, the average American has an IQ of around 96. It used to be 100, the number established as a “mean.” About 40% of Americans run between 60 and 85, enough to function at basic levels but with intelligence low enough to impair higher functions such as judgment and critical reasoning.

This is where the real problem is, of that 40%, a significant number graduate from universities and of those who come from higher socio-economic backgrounds, like those with inherited money, they get not just Ivy League degrees, but often make it through “diploma mill” fake graduate programs at the Wharton School of Business, Yale and Harvard.

In Britain, of course, “idiots,” and the quotes are out of kindness because “idiot” is a real term with a real definition and applies quite nicely, go to Eaton, then Oxford or Cambridge.

Where it comes to play in America is the manner those of limited capability are channeled into military command, into government, into teaching positions even in universities and into the White House itself.

Thus, real talent, “brilliance” as it were, is replaced by “cleverness” and even various forms of moral deficiency on the spectrum of social psychopathy.

When the world watches America, “on the bus to ‘Crazy-Town,’” it is always assumed that the worst, even if that “worst” is true, must be denied, rationalized away. Even in America itself, those of talent, out of a need to simply turn away from an unpleasant truth, too often look for any sign that psychopathic morons in government and the military or, worse still, controlling social media giants and tech companies, are “normal.”
This form of denial, “normalizing” the abnormal, exalting the idiot, mistaking clownishness for hidden genius, very hidden genius, is in itself a disease, a weakness, a failing and a threat to the survival of the human species.

It is no secret that the United States is ruled by economic elites whose positions are entirely inherited, elites with a stranglehold on political and economic life. Their origins, the banking families of Europe’s Middle Ages or the “Robber Barons” of the 19th century, perhaps the shipping families that carried opium and slaves, those and more, have left America with an elite ruling class that has long demonstrated moral depravity.

Through social manipulation this group, that controlled the eugenics movement during the 20s and 30s, has learned that they don’t need to use selective breeding to create slaves, but that it can be done through the education system which they control through foundations and think tanks.

To an extent, it is demonstrable that the Nazi reign of terror was financed and engineered by America’s elites, the Bush, Harriman, Rockefeller, Farish and Walker families partnered with Hitler and IG Farben. Auschwitz was one of their efforts and what began as eugenics became mass murder under Hitler only to reappear as “Google” and “Facebook” decades later. In between, foundations rewrote history, recreated a “dumbed down” education system and society.

In American government, congress walled itself in with rules that stifled change and debate, gave all control of the few, committee heads from remote and backward districts who ruled America on behalf of the so-called ruling elites for generations.

Key to keeping it all working has been the reengineering of every institution to favor the “morally flexible” of limited intelligence, a nation of semi-literate legislators, doctors, judges, law enforcement officials, college professors, admirals and generals and even captains of industry.

The result has been 50 years of declining wages, lowered life expectancy despite scientific advances, a society at war with itself, radicalized, superstitious and easily controlled.

Fostering all of it is the general human weakness of denialism, the need to ignore seemingly unsurmountable challenges when simply “going along with the program” allows for survival and where “being part of the problem” can offer great rewards.

Behind it all is the fake narrative, an endless droning of jingoism and phony patriotism, of exceptionalism and behind that is always fear.

To an extent, technology itself is the enemy. A century ago, when America was a burgeoning industrial giant, teeming millions worked in factories. The hierarchy there wasn’t so much factory owners or thuggish supervisors, Ford Motor Company actually hired violent felons to oversee workers. It took real talent, even brilliance, to design tools, create innovations, improve processes, all of which was done by real elites among the working classes. Whoever may have thought they were “in charge,” without tool and die makers nothing happened.

With all of that gone, CAD systems, robotics, a world of devices and “apps,” an America with fake universities giving out fake degrees, a military that passes out fake medals to fake heroes by the score who fight equally fake wars, whatever remained of a natural elite, an “offset” as it were, has disappeared. By the mid-1970s, under the guise of creating opportunities for minorities, the bar was lowered, allowing the least talented to rise and the potentially threatening few of capability to be contained and stifled. This wasn’t by accident and had absolutely nothing to do with opportunity or equality. It had everything to do with compliance and with building a society where moral questions would go unanswered, unasked and would eventually disappear.

The reality, a congress where an IQ of 70 is not unheard of, military academies where psychopathic behavior is promoted and those who exhibit the most deviant tendencies are “fast tracked” to command. Journalism and its partner industry, “entertainment” is so much worse. None of it was done by accident.

What you read was from an article by Gordon Duff a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War, who has worked on veterans and POW issues for decades and consulted with governments challenged by security issues. He’s a senior editor and chairman of the board of The Veterans Today.

US leaders aid and abet war crimes in Yemen

US leaders who provided military support to the Saudi-led coalition that bombed civilians in Yemen this August could be charged with aiding and abetting the commission of war crimes under customary international law, which is part of US law.

The 500-pound laser-guided MK 82 bomb, which the Saudi-led coalition dropped on August 9, martyred 51 people, including 40 children. The bombing constituted a war crime.

Marta Rivas Blanco, a nurse from the International Committee of the Red Cross who works at the Al Talh hospital, wrote in the Guardian, “They came to the hospital in cars and ambulances; dozens of children with an array of grisly wounds”. “Some were screaming, some were scared, many went straight to the morgue.”

Lockheed Martin, one of the leading US military contractors, manufactured the bomb, which was part of a US-Saudi arms deal last year.

According to customary international law, aiding and abetting a war crime requires three elements: 1) a person or entity committed a war crime; 2) another actor committed an act that had a substantial effect on the commission of the war crime; and 3) the other actor knew that the act would assist, or have a substantial likelihood of assisting, the commission of the war crime. All three of those elements were present in the August 9 bombing.

First, the so-called coalition committed a war crime. Willful killing and the targeting of civilians constitute grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The US War Crimes Act defines grave breaches of Geneva as war crimes.

Targeting a busload of children in a busy marketplace is a war crime. The Saudi regime called it “a legitimate military action,” claiming to have targeted “Ansarullah leaders who were responsible for recruiting and training the youths, and then sending them to battlefields.”

Second, US leaders provided the means to commit the war crime. The purchase of the bomb was part of an arms deal with Saudi Arabia that the US State Department sanctioned. In May 2017, on his first stop abroad after taking office, Trump signed a $110 billion arms deal with the Saudi king in Riyadh.

Third, the US military knew that supplying the bomb to the Saudi-led criminals was likely to result in the commission of a war crime. A similar bomb killed 155 people in a funeral hall in Yemen in October 2016.

After the 2016 bombing, the Obama administration, citing “human rights concerns,” banned the sale to Saudi Arabia of precision-guided military technology. That ban was reversed the same month Trump made his deal in Riyadh, and the US government reauthorized the provision of Paveway laser-guided munitions to Saudi Arabia.

The August 9 school bus bombing was one of over 50 airstrikes on civilian vehicles by the coalition so far in 2018. Amnesty International has documented 36 coalition airstrikes, many of which may constitute war crimes.

On April 23, 2018, Saudi aircraft dropped cluster bombs made by Raytheon on a wedding in Yemen, martyring 22 people, including children. When they explode, cluster bombs scatter tiny bomblets. Some remain unexploded and detonate when people accidentally step on them or children pick them up off the ground. These weapons are banned by the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which prohibits all use, stockpiling, production and transfer of cluster munitions.

According to Bruce Riedel of the Brookings Institution, the Saudi war on Yemen could not continue without support from the United States and the United Kingdom.

US military assistance to the Saudi-led coalition includes in-air refueling of Saudi and United Arab Emirates aircraft, logistical support and intelligence sharing. But US involvement in the war escalated late last year when a team of Green Berets secretly arrived at the border between Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

At least 6,385 civilians have been killed and 10,000 injured since the Saudi assault began on the impoverished nation. Airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition account for over 60 percent of the civilian casualties.

Yemen has one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises. At least 22.2 million people — and nearly all Yemeni children — need humanitarian aid, and it is suspected that more than 1 million people have cholera. Nevertheless, the coalition restricts aid and imports of food, medicine and fuel.

On March 15, 2018, the UN Security Council issued a Presidential Statement calling for full humanitarian and commercial access and insisting the attackers to comply with their international humanitarian law obligations.

The US House of Representatives unanimously passed a non-binding resolution in November 2017, calling on the US military forces to withdraw from “unauthorized hostilities” in Yemen. It stated that US military aid to the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen was not sanctioned by prior congressional authorizations. The resolution condemned the targeting of civilians and urged all parties to “increase efforts to adopt all necessary and appropriate measures to prevent civilian casualties and increase humanitarian access.”

On August 13, 2018, Trump signed the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which contains an allocation of $717 billion for the US military. In that legislation, Congress included several provisions to achieve accountability for US support of the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.

Section 1274 directs the US Defense Department to conduct a review of whether the US or Saudi coalition forces in Yemen are violating US or international law. But when Trump signed the bill, he attached a signing statement saying his administration would treat the provisions of section 1274 “consistent with the President’s constitutional authority to withhold information, the disclosure of which could impair national security, foreign relations, law enforcement, or the performance of the President’s constitutional duties.”

Section 1290 requires the US secretary of state to certify that Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates are making good faith efforts to end the civil war in Yemen; taking appropriate measures to alleviate the humanitarian crisis; undertaking demonstrable actions to reduce the risk of harm to civilians; complying with laws regarding military purchases from the US; and taking appropriate steps to avoid disproportionate harm to civilians.

Trump also attached a signing statement to that provision, saying any certification which section 1290 purported to require would have to be “consistent with the President’s constitutional authorities as Commander in Chief and as the sole representative of the Nation in foreign affairs.”

UN Secretary-General António Guterres condemned the August 9 bombing and called for an independent investigation. Saudi Arabia says it will mount its own investigation. And US Secretary of Defense James Mattis vowed to send a three-star general to Riyadh to help the Saudis in their investigation.

Shireen al-Adeimi, Yemeni activist-scholar and assistant professor at Michigan State University, told Amy Goodman on Democracy Now!, “What Yemenis need is really an independent investigation, which has been put forward in the UN twice already and has been rejected by the Saudi-led coalition and the US unfortunately has provided cover for the Saudi-led coalition at the UN.”

Following the August 9 bombing, three letters written by Congress members from the House and Senate requested investigations, explanations and briefings about US support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.

Thirty House Democrats signed a letter to Defense Secretary James Mattis, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, expressing “deepening concern regarding the humanitarian crisis in Yemen” and requesting a briefing for all House members during the first week of September “on the policy objectives of the United States with respect to Yemen.” In the letter, the Congress members cited sections 1274 and 1290 of the NDAA.

In addition, the House Democrat Representative from California, Ted Lieu wrote a letter asking the Defense Department’s inspector general to initiate an investigation to determine whether coalition operations in Yemen are violating US and/or international law. Lieu said he was “deeply concerned that continued U.S. refueling, operational support functions, and weapons transfers could qualify as aiding and abetting these potential war crimes.”

Representative Lieu made reference to the conclusion of the UN panel of experts on Yemen that the parties to the conflict, “including the U.S.-supported Coalition, were implicated in ‘widespread violations’ of international law and that measures to minimize civilian casualties remained ‘largely ineffective.’”
And Democrat Senator from Massachusetts Elizabeth Warren wrote to General Joseph Votel, head of US Central Command (Centcom), asking him to clarify his assertion that Centcom cannot determine whether the United States provided assistance for coalition strikes resulting in civilian deaths.

In her letter, Warren cited an article by The Intercept, quoting an intelligence report with “what appear to be comments from an American intelligence analyst” who oversaw a May 2018 strike from a coalition command center in Riyadh, which suggested that US military observers possess detailed information about how strikes are carried out.

The bottom line is that Congress must immediately end all US involvement in the war in Yemen and refuse to appropriate funding for arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE while they continue bombing and blockading Yemen.

That was from an article by Marjorie Cohn, a professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and an advisory board member of The Veterans for Peace.