The administration of US President Donald Trump is waging an economic war on the Iranian nation at the behest of the Israeli lobby, says Mark Dankof, a journalist and radio broadcaster from San Antonio, Texas.
The US Treasury Department announced sanctions on 18 Iranian banks Thursday in an effort to cut off the Islamic Republic from the world's financial system.
The Treasury failed to provide specific reasons for the new measure other than accusing the Iranian financial sector of supporting the government's nuclear program and its "malign regional influence."
The US has claimed that the new bans will not target transactions of humanitarian goods such as food and medicine, but experts and European diplomats have warned of potentially dire humanitarian consequences.
“It reflects basically the fact that the most extreme elements in the pro-Zionist community in the United States have gotten control of the Trump administration, not only through Trump's son in law, but also these advisors like Mike Pompeo, Vice President Mike Pence and of course, formerly John Bolton,” Dankof said in an interview on Saturday.
“This is nothing more than an extension of Israeli foreign policy. And I think everyone needs to understand that when the United States engages in all of these different criminal and, I emphasize, criminal activities that are directed against the country of Iran,” he added.
Dankof, a former US Senate candidate, argued that the level of hostility Washington is showing toward Tehran goes beyond “a reasonable discourse” between governments where there happens to be a disagreement. “These are absolute acts of war,” he pointed out.
Dismissing the claim that the new sanctions have no humanitarian implications as “ludicrous”, Dankof said they would “make it virtually impossible for Iran to engage in any economic transactions with any of these entities that would like to sell them these items that are desperately needed for the survivability of the country.”
The move comes after Washington last month said it had triggered a snapback of all UN sanctions on Iran as part of the 2015 nuclear deal.
The claim, however, was rejected by Washington’s European allies and most UN Security Council members, which said the US forfeited that right when it withdrew from the nuclear deal in 2018.
“The truly sad thing is that none of this is being discussed by Donald Trump or the Democrats, it seems to me, in terms of this 2020 election,” Dankof said. “Trump is very firmly in the hands of the Israeli lobby.”
The journalist further predicted that there will be no substantive change in Washington’s belligerent foreign policy vis-à-vis Tehran if Democratic nominee Joe Biden wins the Nov. 3 election.
“So these actions are criminal. It's an extension of the mentality that assassinated General Soleimani on the third of January. And this basically is a war on the Iranian people, courtesy of the Israeli lobby and Netanyahu,” he concluded.
The new sanctions come in blatant defiance of growing international calls for Washington to ease its Iran sanctions, which have severely prevented the country’s access to lifesaving medical items as it is grappling to contain the coronavirus.
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