TEHRAN (FNA)- Robert Fantina, author and journalist, says Washington claims to be fighting against terrorism, but at the same time it is sponsoring all kinds of terrorism, including “economic terrorism” against people of Iran.
In an exclusive interview with FNA, Fantina said, “The US showed that it has no concept of international relations… and showed once again that it holds international law in contempt.”
Robert Fantina is an author, journalist and activist for peace and social justice. While living in the US, he actively opposed the war in Iraq, prior to and following the US invasion of that country. Shortly after the 2004 presidential election he moved to Canada.
Below is the full text of the interview:
Q: How do you find the US sanctions against Iran?
A: The sanctions against Iran are completely unjust, and violate the JCPOA. The agreement was also endorsed by the United Nations, and by the US, by violating it, Washington showed once again, that it holds international law in contempt.
Additionally, by re-imposing these sanctions, the US showed that it has no concept of international relations, because it threatened some of its oldest and closest allies, also signatories to the agreement, with sanctions if they continued to honor the agreement.
The Iranian government has called the sanctions ‘economic terrorism’, which is a very reasonable term for what the US is doing to Iran. While the US launched its so-called ‘war on terrorism’ in the early part of this millennium, it is, and for generations has been, the largest and deadliest sponsor of international terrorism on the planet.
The US has proven to the world that its word is meaningless.
Q: Trump withdrew the US from JCPOA, restored the sanctions and discouraged other signatories to JCPOA from fulfilling their commitments. Do you believe there is still room for the negotiations to continue, and possibly make a “Trump Deal”?
A: As Iranian government spokespeople have repeatedly said, Iran does not negotiate with terrorists, and the US is imposing economic terrorism on the people of Iran. Had Trump wanted to renegotiate the JCPOA in good faith, he would have kept the US in the agreement, and approached the Iranian government and requested further talks to address other issues. This is diplomacy. Trump, and the US government in general, only believes in the use of force, which it has used for generations, to the detriment of people around the world.
Trump refers to himself as a master deal-maker, although there is no evidence to support such a ridiculous claim. Parts of the so-called ‘Deal of the Century’ that he is proposing between Palestine and the apartheid Zionist regime have been leaked, and it gives Palestine nothing and the Zionists everything. Trump’s record as a businessman in New York City further disproves his self-designation as a great deal-maker.
The only way Iran will renegotiate the JCPOA is if the US government honors its side of the agreement, removes the threats against the other signatories, and then requests additional talks with Iran. Even then, Iran is under no obligation to have additional talks with the US.
Q: People of Iran deposed the Iranian monarch who they chanted as the US’s lapdog. How do you think these people would react to a probable Trump-brokered deal with the US?
A: In 1953, the CIA overthrew the democratically-elected government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, and installed the brutal Shah of Iran as monarch. For the next twenty-six years he oppressed the people of Iran, until he was overthrown in 1979, against the wishes of the United States. The revolution that year established the Islamic Republic, which the US has opposed since its inception.
The United States has never understood the desire of any people to establish their own form of government. It seeks only its own advantage, regardless of the cost in human suffering to anyone. And now the US government has imposed brutal and unjust sanctions, believing that the people of Iran will blame their own government, and overthrow it, so the US can once again install a brutal regime that will do its bidding.
History, from which the US refuses to learn, clearly shows that this will not happen; the people of Iran know it is the United States, and not their own government, that is causing the current economic hardships. There is no reason for them to turn their country over to the nation that is the source and reason for their suffering.
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