By Yuram Abdullah Weiler
“The United States is not seeking war with the Iranian regime, but we are fully prepared to respond to any attack, whether by proxy, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or regular Iranian forces.” —John Bolton
Yes, U.S. National Security Advisor and über hawk John Bolton, and his sanguinary sidekick U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are saber-rattling once again. Perhaps the United States is not seeking war with the Islamic Republic of Iran with the level of bellicose bloodlust exhibited by Bolton and Pompeo, but rest assured regime change is and has been the Washington regime’s objective since the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
In fact, the U.S. has sought regime change in Iran even before Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini arrived at Mehrabad Airport on February 1, 1979. Prior to that date, the Carter administration had sent General “Dutch” Huyser to Tehran on January 4th to evaluate the feasibility of engineering another coup with the goal of installing another western-friendly, puppet ruler should Mohammad Reza Pahlavi fall. The U.S. had orchestrated a previous coup in Iran using the CIA on August 19, 1953, to return the shah to power, overthrowing the government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh.
On May 8, 2018, Trump announced to the world his intention to pull the U.S. out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the “Iran nuclear deal,” which he claimed was “defective at its core.” About two weeks later on May 21, Pompeo, after being on the job for a little over 3 weeks, announced a new U.S. policy towards Iran in remarks made before the Heritage Foundation, an extreme, right-leaning think tank that rose to prominence during Reagan’s presidency. The main thrust of the new approach is the re-imposition of economic sanctions, along with a laundry list of unconscionable demands, which neither Iran nor any other sovereign nation would accept, such as completely stopping enrichment of uranium, halting indefinitely any nuclear research with a possible military dimension, and allowing free and unfettered inspections throughout the country by the IAEA.
By this time, U.S. economic terrorism against Iran had resumed with a vengeance. On May 15, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on the governor of Iran’s Central Bank and other senior bankers. The next day, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates followed suit with sanctions targeting alleged Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s funding of Hezbollah, the Lebanese Resistance Movement. Additional sanctions against Iranian individuals and organizations followed on May, 16, 17, 22, 24 and 30, at which time treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin charged, “Iran not only exports terrorism and instability across the world, it routinely violates the rights of its own people.” Mnuchin then had the unmitigated impudence to claim, “America stands with the people of Iran...”
Next, on October 3, 2018, Pompeo announced that the U.S. was abrogating the 1955 Treaty of Amity with Iran, additionally declaring that the rogue regime in Washington had no intention of complying with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling, which ordered the U.S. to remove sanctions that could deter the flow of humanitarian aid to Iran. In his remarks to the press, Pompeo insisted, “We’re working closely with the Department of the Treasury to ensure that certain humanitarian-related transactions involving Iran can and will continue.”
The ICJ order on 3 October in the case of Islamic Republic of Iran v. United States of America is very specific. The court ruled, “The USA, through the 8 May and announced further sanctions referred to in the present Application, with respect to Iran, Iranian nationals and companies, has breached its obligations to Iran under Articles IV (1), VII (1), VIII (1), VIII (2), IX (2) and X (1) of the Treaty of Amity;” and ordered that “The USA shall, by means of its own choosing, terminate the 8 May sanctions without delay;” and further that “The USA shall fully compensate Iran for the violation of its international legal obligations in an amount to be determined by the Court at a subsequent stage of the proceedings.”
Clearly, the U.S. was in violation of the 1955 Amity Treaty with Iran, so rather than live up to its terms, Trump simply shredded it. As a result, humanitarian aid cannot flow directly or even easily to Iran, as was made obvious for all, except those with a diseased heart, by the recent catastrophic floods that inundated most of the Islamic Republic in mid-March. Iranian expatriates and other concerned persons who wanted to help were unable to send aid money to the Iranian Red Crescent, in direct conflict with Pompeo’s arrogant claims. The writer can attest to this from personal experience, finding that it was impossible to wire money directly from a U.S. bank account to the Iranian Red Crescent’s account at Mellat Bank’s Hejrat branch in Tehran. The bank officer said that Swift Code: BKMTIRTH015 was simply “not eligible.”
The current “Iran as a threat” scenario with the associated military buildup in the Persian Gulf region displays a disturbing but familiar pattern for those of us who watched in horror as Bush II deployed combat forces to Kuwait in preparation for his illegal invasion of Iraq. In a way eerily similar to the actions taken by George W. Bush in the run-up to the Iraq war, Trump is sending B-52 bombers and the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier group to the Persian Gulf based on intelligence, which alleges Iran is mobilizing proxy forces in Iraq and Syria for the purpose of attacking American troops. Not surprisingly, the source of the intelligence appears to be the Zionist regime.
Since the current occupant of the Oval Office seems committed to wipe the Obama legacy from the face of time (to paraphrase former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad), the Iran nuclear deal, being part of that legacy, had to go almost without further consideration. Furthermore, Steven Simon of the influential International Institute for Strategic Studies writes, “Trump’s small cadre of conservative Jewish donors tend to align with the policies of Israel’s governing Likud coalition, which regards Iran as an existential danger to Israel, and the JCPOA as aiding and abetting this threat.”
A compulsive warmonger, Bolton has openly called for bombing Iran as the only way to stop the Islamic Republic on its inevitable—at least in his hyperactive imagination—trajectory toward acquiring nuclear weapons. In 2015 op-ed published in the New York Times, Bolton insisted that, despite any “palpable proof, like a nuclear test” to support his opinion, “Iran’s steady progress toward nuclear weapons has long been evident.” Bolton informed readers that somehow, other Middle East nations knew that “Israel’s nukes were intended as a deterrent, not as an offensive measure.” Then egregiously, he asserted, “Iran is a different story.” The piece continues with the absurd argument that, while the Zionist’s nukes have prevented a regional, if not world-wide, arms race, the JCPOA, on the other hand, would cause one. As to the specifics of the bombing, Bolton wrote, “Rendering inoperable the Natanz and Fordow uranium-enrichment installations and the Arak heavy-water production facility and reactor would be priorities.” The bombing raids “should be combined with vigorous American support for Iran’s opposition,” he averred, “aimed at regime change in Tehran.”
Bolton’s pathological pursuit of war with Iran and toppling the legal government of Iran could be treated as a plot taken from the comics were it not for the fact that thousands of innocent lives would be jeopardized by such illegal, irrational and irresponsible ante-upping behavior. Indeed, COMICS would be an appropriate acronym for the U.S. considering its conduct; that is, the Chauvinistic, Opportunistic, Militaristic, Impudent Corporate States.
For his part, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif included Bolton as a member of the troublesome troika dubbed as the B-team, which also includes Benjamin Netanyahu and Muhammad Bin Salman. For my part, count me on the side of the Islamic Republic of Iran in this imbroglio imposed by the United States. I only wish I could be there in Iran instead of here in the “belly of the beast.”
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