‘Our Response Is Negative’

:Rouhani on Negotiation Amid ‘Merciless Economic Terrorism’

UNITED NATIONS -- Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Wednesday ruled out negotiations with the United States so long as sanctions are in place and said he was not interested in a "memento photo" with President Donald Trump.

"I would like to announce that our response to any negotiation under sanctions is negative," Rouhani said in an address to the UN General Assembly.

As European leaders sought to arrange a tension-reducing encounter between the Iranian and U.S. presidents, Rouhani dismissed what he saw a photo-op for the media-hungry Trump.

"Memento photos are the final stage of negotiations, not the first one," he said.

He doubted the sincerity of the United States to negotiate, pointing to Trump administration officials boasts of damage inflicted by sanctions on Iran.

"We cannot believe the invitation to negotiations by people who claim to have applied the harshest sanctions in history against the dignity and prosperity of our nation," he said.

"How can someone believe them when the silent killing of a great nation, and pressure on the lives of 83 million Iranians, especially women and children, are welcomed by American government officials?

"The Iranian nation will never, ever forget and forgive these crimes and these criminals," he said. 

Trump wants an agreement that goes beyond the 2015 nuclear deal and would further curb Iran’s atomic program, restrict its ballistic missile work and end its support for resistance movements in the Middle East.

Rouhani said, "If you wish more, if you require more, you should give and pay more.”

 The Iranian president said the United States is involved in "merciless economic terrorism", using his UN speech to stress that security in the Persian Gulf can be guaranteed only when his nation's security is as well — and only with the involvement of Iran's neighbors.

He said Iran has "resisted the most merciless economic terrorism" from a nation that is engaging in "international piracy."

He spoke as his country's nuclear deal with world powers unravels under pressure from the Trump administration. Iran has turned back to expanding its nuclear enrichment program after Trump's decision last year to pull out of the accord and reimpose sanctions on Tehran, targeting its ability to export oil.

Rouhani's remarks at the UN came a day after Trump described Iran as "one of the greatest threats" to the planet.

The United States has sent military reinforcements the Middle East in past months, further escalating tensions.

"Our region is on the edge of collapse, as a single blunder can fuel a big fire," Rouhani said. The region will become secure when U.S. troops withdraw, he added.

"We shall not tolerate the provocative intervention of foreigners. We shall respond decisively and strongly to any sort of transgression to and violation of our security and territorial integrity.”

Rouhani spent much time appealing to Iran's neighbors, saying that their destinies are intertwined and they should consider each other rather than pinning their hopes on the involvement of the United States.

"Security shall not be supplied with American weapons and intervention," he said. "Security cannot be purchased or supplied by foreign governments.

As he ended his General Assembly speech, Rouhani said, "This is the message of the Iranian nation: Let's invest on hope toward a better future rather than on war and violence," he said.

"Let's return to justice, to peace, to law, commitment and promise and finally to the negotiating table."

Rouhani to U.S.: Abandon Warmongering

Officials Dismiss Meeting With Trump

TEHRAN – Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani on Wednesday urged the U.S. to "put warmongers aside” after the dismissal of John Bolton as national security adviser, with tensions remaining high in the Persian Gulf.
Speaking at a cabinet meeting, Rouhani further urged Washington to "abandon warmongering and its maximum pressure policy” on Iran and said Tehran would cut its commitments to a 2015 nuclear deal further if necessary.
"The United States should understand that militancy has no profit and must abandon its policy of maximum pressure on Iran ... Iran's commitments to the nuclear deal is proportional to other parties and we will take further steps if necessary," he said.
Rouhani has called the use of faster centrifuges a "third step” away from the nuclear deal. On Wednesday, he said that "if necessary, we will take other steps in future”.
"Iran’s policy of resistance will not change as long as our enemy (the United States) continues to put pressure on Iran,” said Rouhani.
Rouhani’s remarks came as Iran again rejected the possibility of a meeting between him and U.S. counterpart Donald Trump, after the White House signaled it was open to such an encounter.
Two of Trump's top lieutenants on Tuesday indicated he was ready to meet the Iranian president without preconditions, after the U.S. leader sacked Bolton.
But Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin stressed the United States would maintain its campaign of "maximum pressure" against the Islamic Republic.
Iran's representative at the United Nations reiterated that a meeting could take place only if Washington ends its "economic terrorism" by lifting all of its sanctions against Tehran.
The Iranian envoy said any meeting must also be held in the framework of the group of major powers that negotiated the 2015 nuclear deal.
"As long as the U.S. government's economic terrorism and such cruel sanctions are imposed on the Iranian people, there is no room for negotiations," he was quoted as saying by IRNA.
The diplomat said Trump's decision to dismiss Bolton -- a hardliner accused of pushing Trump towards war against Iran -- was a matter for the Americans.
"The removal of John Bolton is an internal affair and we don't take stands on domestic issues," said Takht-Ravanchi.
Asked about the impact of Bolton's sacking on long-fraught relations between Iran and the United States, he said it was "too soon" to make any judgments.
"Whether the extremist policy of the U.S. changes or not depends on various factors in US foreign policy," he told ISNA.
Bolton is a controversial figure closely linked to the 2003 invasion of Iraq and other aggressive U.S. foreign policy decisions.
He had been seen as one of the main driving forces in the White House's muscular approach to Iran, North Korea and Venezuela among others.
An Iranian government spokesman on Wednesday called Bolton "the symbol of America’s hawkish policies and its animosity toward Iran”, but said his dismissal was an internal U.S. issue.
For his part, Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif again used Twitter to write about what he calls the #B_Team, which included Bolton, Zionist PM Benjamin Netanyahu, Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Zayed Al Nahyan, all hawks on Iran.
Zarif said "the world — minus 3 or 2 panicked cohorts — was breathing a sigh of relief” after Bolton’s ouster. "Thirst for war — maximum pressure — should go with the warmonger-in-chief,” Zarif wrote.
Other officials, however, urged caution.
Gen. Mohsen Rezaee, a commander in the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps and its former chief, said in a tweet: "We will not be deceived by the sacrificing of Bolton.”
Bolton was a longtime hard-liner on Iran who favored regime change and took money for speaking engagements from the anti-Iran Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO), a notorious terrorist group. Bolton famously wrote in 2015, before Iran’s nuclear deal was struck, an op-ed in The New York Times headlined: "To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran.”
In Occupied Palestine, Zionist party leader Naftali Bennett said he was very worried about Bolton’s dismissal.
 Speaking at the Maariv-Jerusalem Post conference on Wednesday, Bennett was asked how worried he was by these recent events. Bennett responded that he was "very” worried that Trump was seeking to come to terms with Iran.
"We should be very worried. Trump is obviously a big friend of Israel, but at the end of the day our interests are not identical, he has his interests we have our interests,” said Bennett.
"Our situation is much better than it should be, in Syria and Iraq. In Lebanon it is so-so. And with Iran, the situation is not far from lost but I am very, very troubled,” the former cabinet member said.

US Sanctions Are Acts of War

TEHRAN (FNA)- In great violation of UN Charter and international law, and with no international accountability, the United States is currently engaged in illegal and comprehensive economic blockades against Iran, North Korea and Venezuela, as well as several lesser blockades against countries such as Cuba and Nicaragua, and an intensifying effort to cut off China's access to technology.

The blockade against North Korea is sanctioned, at least in part, by the UN Security Council. The blockade against Iran is in direct opposition to the Security Council. And the blockade against Venezuela is so far without Security Council engagement for or against. 

The US is attempting to isolate the three countries from almost all international trade, causing shortages of food, medicines, energy, and spare parts for basic infrastructure, including the water supply and power grid. This is because they are not on the same page as Washington in regional matters.

The North Korean blockade operates mainly through UN-mandated sanctions, and includes a comprehensive list of exports to North Korea, imports from North Korea, and financial relations with North Korean entities.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization reports that ten million North Koreans are at risk of hunger, partly owing to sanctions.

The..."negative impact sanctions can have on agricultural production, through both direct and indirect impacts, cannot be ignored," the FAO warns. "The most obvious are restrictions on the importation of certain items that are necessary for agricultural production, in particular fuel, machinery and spare parts for equipment."

The draconian US sanctions on Venezuela have come in two phases. The first, beginning in August 2017, was mainly directed at the state oil company PDVSA, the country's main earner of foreign exchange; the second round of sanctions, imposed in January 2019, was more comprehensive, targeting the Venezuelan government. 

A recent detailed analysis of the first round of sanctions shows their devastating impact. The US sanctions gravely exacerbated economic mismanagement, contributing to a catastrophic fall in oil production, hyperinflation, economic collapse, hunger, and rising mortality.

US illegal sanctions against Iran have been in place more or less continuously since 1979. The most recent and by far most draconian measures, introduced in August 2018 and intensified in the first half of this year, aim to cut Iran off from foreign trade.

The US illegal sanctions are in direct contravention of UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which endorsed the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran. The effects have been inhumane.

One might expect that other countries would easily circumvent these illegal sanctions. But the US has threatened to punish foreign companies that violate the sanctions and has used the dollar's global clout as a bludgeon, threatening to sanction foreign banks that finance trade with Iran. 

European companies have fallen into line, despite the European Union's political support for the UN resolution and nuclear deal with Iran. The history of the past 40 years shows that over the longer term, more ways will be found to circumvent the sanctions, using renminbi, ruble, or euro financing.

Despite the intense economic pain inflicted on North Korea, Venezuela, and Iran, none of them has succumbed to US demands. In this sense, sanctions have proved to be no more successful than military intervention. 

North Korea has maintained, and most likely is expanding, its nuclear arsenal. The Iranian government rejects US demands concerning its missile program and foreign policies. And Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro remains in power.

The US blockades have been carried out by presidential decrees and mostly on the basis of congressional ratifications and oversight. Yet under President Trump, this has been a one-man show, even more so than in the case of president-led wars, which trigger vastly more public scrutiny. Trump realizes that he can impose sanctions abroad with virtually no political or international accountability.

Military blockades are acts of war, and therefore subject to international law, including UN Security Council oversight. America's economic blockades are similar in function and outcome to military blockades, with inhumane consequences for civilian populations, and risk provoking war. It is time for the Security Council to take up the US sanctions regimes and economic terrorism and weigh them against the requirements of international law and peacekeeping.

The Hybrid War Against Iran

Sanctions, the information war, and the American sabotage

by

Vijay Prashad

In 1953, the U.S.—with the UK—overthrew the democratically elected government of Mohammed Mossadeq and over the course of the next two decades provided full support to the unpopular government of the shah of Iran. (Photo: Shutterstock)

U.S. President Donald Trump sat in the White House and contemplated a war against Iran. His army had been sending surveillance aircraft along the Iranian coastline, teasing Iranian radar, which tracked these manned and unmanned planes as they skirted the 12 nautical mile limit of Iranian sovereignty. Last week, the United States had two planes alongside Iran’s coast—an unmanned Global Hawk drone and a manned P-8 spy plane.

Iranian air command radioed the U.S. forces to say that both the drone and the spy plane had come inside Iranian territory. The P-8 shifted course to leave Iranian airspace, while the Global Hawk continued. Iranian officials say that it was because the Global Hawk remained in Iranian airspace that it was shot down last Thursday morning at 4 a.m.

Trump and his team threatened to retaliate. They wanted to shoot at Iranian radar and anti-aircraft facilities. At the 11th hour, Trump said, he decided not to fire at Iranian targets. The Pentagon had warned him that this would threaten U.S. troops in the area. It was to protect these troops that Trump did not launch a strike.

Sanctions

Trump might not have sent in a suite of missiles to hit Iran last week, but the United States has—of course—already opened up a certain kind of war against Iran. A few days before the drone was shot down, the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council—Ali Shamkhani—gave a talk in Ufa, Russia, on security matters. In his talk, Shamkhani said that the United States had squashed the sovereignty of a number of countries. The U.S. Treasury Department, he said, had become a kind of financial CentCom (Central Command). Shamkhani said that the policies pursued by the United States should be considered to be “economic terrorism.”

Reliance upon the U.S. dollar and on U.S. financial systems means that most countries are unwilling to stand up against U.S. pressure.

U.S. unilateral sanctions are at the heart of this “economic terrorism.” The United States is able to use sanctions as an effective instrument against other countries because it has such enormous power over the world financial and monetary system. The U.S. dollar is the main reserve currency and the main currency of international trade. Reliance upon the U.S. dollar and on U.S. financial systems means that most countries are unwilling to stand up against U.S. pressure.

Sanctions have meant that Iran—reliant upon the export of oil and natural gas—has seen its external revenues collapse. The domination by the United States over the world financial system—including the international financial institutions (the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank) has meant that Iran has not been able to raise credit on the international market. Difficulty in importing medicines and food has produced grave challenges for the Iranian people.

Hybrid War

Since the Western media continues to set the terms of international understanding, Washington’s interpretation of events around Iran predominates. Iran has never attacked the United States, but the U.S. has in fact intervened several times in Iran. In 1953, the U.S.—with the UK—overthrew the democratically elected government of Mohammed Mossadeq and over the course of the next two decades provided full support to the unpopular government of the shah of Iran. When the Gulf Arabs pushed Saddam Hussein to attack Iran in 1980, it was the U.S.—and Western Europe—that provided Iraq with arms and money for a bloody eight-year war. All of this context is lost to the Western media, which hyperventilate about fantasy stories such as Hezbollah in Venezuela or Iranian control over the Houthis. It is always Iran that is the aggressor, even when it has been Iran at the receiving end of U.S. aggression.

Iran is seen as the cause of the problem; the idea that Iran is a rogue or terrorist state is hard to shake off. This is part of the information war that Iran faces, unable—even with a sophisticated foreign minister (Javad Zarif)—to argue its case that it has not been belligerent, but it has been at the receiving end of threats and sanctions from Washington.

Between 2010 and 2012, four Iranian nuclear scientists were killed. These scientists—Masoud Alimohammadi, Darioush Rezaeinejad, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan and Majid Shahriari—were killed either by Israeli intelligence, the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) or U.S. intelligence, or some combination of all of them. These scientists were killed inside Iran, in broad daylight. It sent a chill through the scientific community. A U.S. and Israeli created computer worm—Stuxnet—hit Iranian computer systems in 2010, creating damage to Iran’s computers that held part of its nuclear work. It was announced that more such attacks were possible. These took place before the nuclear deal was agreed upon in 2015. But the stench of such attacks remains.

Iran’s minister of information and communications technology—Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi—said that Iran has built a firewall that protects its facilities from any cyber-weapon thrown at it by the U.S. and Israel. This firewall is built by Iranian computer scientists.

It is this combination of attacks—the sanctions, the information war, the sabotage—that comprises the “hybrid war” against Iran (for more on the concept of “hybrid war,” see the dossier on Venezuela from Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research). This hybrid war continues, with the threats of war as part of the arsenal wielded by Washington against Iran. Even Trump’s statement that he withdrew the order to bomb Iran just minutes before the attack began is part of this information war, this attempt to terrify Iranians into the belief that the U.S. is dangerous enough to drop bombs at any time. The hybrid war tightens the noose around Iran.

Group Against Sanctions

It is not easy to untangle the reliance of the world economy to the U.S. dollar and to U.S. financial systems. Even talk of multilateralism is premature. It is one thing to call for it and another to recognize that it will take at least a decade to create the institutions and instruments for multilateralism. Confidence in the Chinese yuan, for instance, will need to be built. So will confidence in alternative systems to transfer money and to reconcile trades. The European Union said openly that it wanted an alternative mechanism to pay Iran for oil, one that would not run through U.S. sanctions. But such an instrument could not be created. It will take time.

On the political plane, about 25 countries have come together to create a platform against sanctions.

Meanwhile, on the political plane, about 25 countries have come together to create a platform against sanctions. These countries, says Iran’s senior parliamentarian Mohammad Ali Pourmokhtar, will stand together against the “inhumane” U.S. sanctions regime. It is not clear what this group will be able to do, but it is certainly the case that they will conduct a political campaign against the kind of harsh sanctions that are currently on Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran.

It is significant that China and Russia will be involved with this club. In Tehran, Russia’s Ambassador Levan Dzhagaryan said that China, Iran and Russia will form a trilateral group to fight against the U.S. unilateral war on Iran.

The group of 25 will struggle against sanctions and the group of three will try to prevent a U.S. war—but whether they can prevail is a serious question. The United States—under Trump—is utterly unreliable, its military arsenal ready to be unleashed, its hybrid war already unfurled. These are dangerous times.

This article was produced by Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

Iran’s key role in fight against America’s economic terrorism

By: Mudasir Sheikh

TEHRAN - The America’s economic terrorism against the Islamic Republic of Iran has assumed alarming proportions lately. But Iran stands unfazed. On August 20, 2018, Iran’s central bank-affiliated website took off U.S. dollar as a standard of measuring the average rate of Iran’s most tradable currencies. In February, Iran had switched from US dollar to Euro as the official reporting currency of the nation.

Recently President Hassan Rouhani announced a ‘secondary currency market’ and other comprehensive measures to tackle the devaluation of Rial. According to experts, Trump's hostile stance towards Iran is a major contributing factor for the devaluation of Rial, but President Rouhani’s recently announced policies are going to effectively counter this economic warfare.

The monopoly of US dollar in global trade has been effectively exploited by Washington to unleash its terror on sovereign states and to feed its unlimited deficits as beautifully explained by F. William Engdahl in his book ‘A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics.’
It is easy to picture that Iran is not alone in this battle against American economic terrorism but it is on the forefront. China’s objective is also to push the global economy away from the slavery of petrodollar into the levers of real influence. This century has witnessed a ten-fold growth in Chinese economy thus claiming the status of world’s second-largest economy but Beijing is highly annoyed by dollar’s hegemony in the global financial system.

So China has now agreed on bilateral trade agreements with other victims of American economic terrorism like Pakistan, Turkey, Russia, and Iran. The People’s Bank of China and European Central Bank have agreed on a currency swap to facilitate bilateral trade between EU and China, thereby dumping about 500 million Euros worth of U.S. dollars to add Yuan in their reserves. China has also developed a Yuan-based oil future contract bypassing the U.S. Dollar dominated Brent and West Texas Intermediate benchmark.

Recently German foreign minister Heiko Maas proposed an alternative to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication system, aka the SWIFT code, in response to the unilateral withdrawal of U.S. from Iran nuclear deal and to facilitate the operations of EU companies into Iran as some companies such as Total and Maersk have suspended their Iranian operations due to the fear of reprisal from the U.S.

EU is not only challenging the SWIFT but back in 2017 Brussels proposed European Monetary Fund (EMF) in order to provide emergency financial assistance to member countries and to initiate a radical transformation into the financial institution of EU so that they can cope with the petrodollar hegemony.

According to a Wall Street Journal analyst, Gerald F. Seib, the use of petrodollar as a political weapon may cause its demise as obvious from the developments within Iran, Russia, and China, which are constantly exploring options to develop a parallel mechanism to facilitate global trade. Turkey’s changing stance and the establishment of New Development Bank (NDB) by BRICS member countries are also nails in the coffin of U.S. dollar standard.

According to a report by Forbes, Russia is also trying to develop an alternative to the SWIFT in an attempt to break the backbone of the western financial system. So Russia in consultation with China is about to introduce BRICS SWIFT. In addition to this BRICS countries have established their own bank by the name of New Development Bank (NDB), with similar functions as that of the World Bank.

China’s front to bring down the petrodollar has started with the launch of RMB priced crude oil Benchmark backed by gold which is a direct threat to current Brent and WTI benchmarks. Russia has also introduced its own payment gateway Mir to counter the U.S. based VISA and MasterCard companies. According to Russian National System of Payment Cards (NSPK), Mir has issued more than 13.9 million cards covering 10% of Russia in 2017.

Now as we have observed, Iran and a large number of other countries are facing the same problem of petrodollar hegemony and a lot of progress has been made to eliminate it. Iran has always been known for its consistent stand against the American hegemony and imperialism. Once again the world is looking at the leadership of Iran to consider the experience from monetary history and the cutting edge development into the field of technology like blockchain and hashgraph to design a much needed transparent and just economic system for the oppressed people across the world.

Technologies like blockchain and hashgraph based money, if fully redeemable in gold, can deliver a new global paradigm of financial freedom and a complete independence from U.S. dollar-based predatory international monetary system.  Blockchain and hashgraph are immune to manipulation and Gold is indestructible and resistant to inflation as obvious from the monetary history of last 5000 years. Additionally, blockchain based crypto currencies constitute the most efficient medium of exchange and gold is an unmatched commodity as for as the store of value is concerned and thus a combination of these two entities is a way forward for attaining the financial freedom.

Additionally BRICS, Iran, and other countries can develop a common financial institution that will look after the business transactions within these countries and with the rest of the world. A common crypto-currency redeemable in gold and a transparent financial institution can prevent concentration of power in a single entity so that the petrodollar like catastrophe can be avoided in the future.

Writer is a student and independent researcher based in Indian controlled Kashmir.