The Coup in Bolivia Has Everything to Do With the Screen You’re Using to Read This

by VIJAY PRASHAD

Photograph Source: Senado Federal – CC BY 2.0

When you look at your computer screen, or the screen on your smartphone or the screen of your television set, it is a liquid crystal display (LCD). An important component of the LCD screen is indium, a rare metallic element that is processed out of zinc concentrate.

The two largest sources of indium can be found in eastern Canada (Mount Pleasant) and in Bolivia (Malku Khota). Canada’s deposits have the potential to produce 38.5 tons of indium per year, while Bolivia’s considerable mines would be able to produce 80 tons per year.

Canada’s South American Silver Corporation—now TriMetals Mining—had signed a concession to explore and eventually mine Malku Khota. Work began in 2003, two years before Evo Morales and the Movement for Socialism (MAS) won their first presidential election in Bolivia. South American Silver conducted several studies of the region, all of which found substantial deposits that were poised to make this Canadian firm one of the major players in the mining industry.

A study done by Allan Armitage and others for South American Silver, and delivered to the company in 2011, showed that the Malku Khota mine would produce substantial amounts of silver, indium, lead, zinc, copper, and gallium. “The indium and gallium,” the study noted, “are regarded as strategic metals that give the project future upside potential.” Gallium is used for thermometers and barometers, as well as in the testing side of the pharmaceutical industry. There is Fort Knox level treasure to be made from these minerals.

Resource Nationalism

Evo Morales rode to victory in 2006 with the promise of a new day for Bolivia. Key to his agenda was to take control of the country’s resources and use them to improve the quality of life of Bolivia’s deprived populations. One of the great tragedies of Bolivia has been that since the mid-16th century, the indigenous populations have had to work to remove precious wealth from underneath their lands and send that wealth to enrich the people of Europe and later North America. They did not benefit from those riches.

Millions died in the mines of Potosí to bring the silver, and later tin, out of the ground. For the indigenous people who live near and on the hill, everything is upside down—one of the most lucrative hills is known as Cerro Rico (Rich Hill), while in Spanish there is a phrase that toys with the idea that wealth is equivalent to Potosí (vale un Potosí). Morales’ message during his campaign was framed around the concept of resource nationalism—use our resources to better the lives of those who live in deprivation and indignity.

Morales first went after the oil and gas industry. It is important to recall that his opponent in this year’s election—Carlos Mesa—was the president right before Morales won the election in December 2005. Mesa had come to power when his predecessor Sánchez de Lozada resigned in disgrace over the mass demonstrations in 2003 when Bolivians demanded more control over their gas reserves (the state repression was severe, with at least 70 people killed in the demonstrations). In May 2006—just over three months after being sworn in as president—Morales announced that the oil and gas industry had been nationalized. It is important to recall that his approval rating was well above 80 percent.

Nationalization was not easy, since the Bolivian government could not expropriate assets but only raise taxes and renegotiate contracts. Even here, the government faced problems since it lacked enough technical skills to understand the opaque energy sector. Furthermore, the problem with the energy sector is that even nationalized oil and gas must be sold to the transnational firms that then process them and market them; they remain in control of the value chain. What Morales’ government was able to do was to ensure that the State controlled 51 percent of all private energy firms that operated in Bolivia, which allowed the State’s coffers to fill rapidly. It was this money that was invested to go after poverty, hunger, and illiteracy.

Revenge of the Mining Companies

Canada’s Fraser Institute—a libertarian think tank that is heavily funded by the energy and mining sector—publishes an annual survey of mining companies. This survey is conducted by asking mining executives their opinions on a range of issues. The 2007–08 survey said that Bolivia is the second-worst country for investment; the worst was Ecuador. In 2010, the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index rated Bolivia at 161 of 183 countries. Heads of mining firms—from Barrick’s Peter Munk to Repsol’s Antonio Brufau—made disparaging comments about the nationalization program. “If Bolivia keeps on this path,” a Wall Street banker told me at that time, “these companies will make sure that Bolivian natural gas remains underground.” Bolivia might be embargoed; Morales might be assassinated.

Pressure mounted daily on the MAS government, which began a process to write a new Constitution that would both protect nature and insist on resource wealth being used for the people. There was an immediate contradiction here: if the MAS government was going to undo centuries of deprivation, it would have to mine the earth to bring out the wealth. A tragic choice befell the government—it could not both conserve nature and transform the wretched conditions of everyday life at the same level of caution. At the same time, to get its minerals and energy to market, it had to continue to negotiate with these transnational firms; no immediate alternative was present.

Nationalization

Despite the constraints on it, the MAS government continued to nationalize resources, and insist on State firms being partners in resource extraction. Transnational firms immediately took Bolivia to the International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), a part of the World Bank system. The ICSID—formed in 1966—is based in Washington, D.C., and shares an outlook toward business that mirrors that of the U.S. Treasury Department.

On April 29, 2007, the leaders of Bolivia (Evo Morales), Cuba (Carlos Lage), Nicaragua (Daniel Ortega), and Venezuela (Hugo Chávez) signed a declaration to create an alternative to the investor-government system institutionalized in the ICSID. Bolivia and Ecuador formally withdrew from this U.S.-dominated system, while Venezuela’s Supreme Court declared that it did not have the power to intervene in Venezuelan sovereign affairs.

On July 10, 2012, Morales’ government nationalized the Malku Khota property of South American Silver. Company CEO Greg Johnson saidhe was “really shocked” at the decision. South American Silver’s shares dropped immediately; it had been trading at $1.02 on July 6, and it fell to $0.37 on July 11.

The immediate spur for the nationalization was the protest around the mine by indigenous artisanal miners who did not want this mega-project to undermine their livelihood. South American Silver had spent a great deal of money to convince 43 of the 46 neighboring communities to accept the mine; but they could not convince the artisanal miners. “Nationalization is our obligation,” said Morales.

All that indium would not make its way in significant quantities to the factories to produce LCDs for television sets, computer monitors, and cell phones.

South American Silver took the Bolivian government to the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague. In November last year, the Court ordered Bolivia to pay South American Silver $27.7 million rather than the $385.7 million that TriMetals (the new name for South American Silver) had demanded.

Coup

In July 2007, U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg sent a cable to Washington in which he pointed out that U.S. mining firms had approached his embassy to ask about the investment climate in Bolivia. Goldberg felt that the situation for mining firms was not good. When asked if he could organize a meeting with Vice President Álvaro García Linera, he said, “Sadly, without dynamite in the streets, it is uncertain whether the Embassy or the international mining companies will be able to attain even this minimal goal.”

“Without dynamite in the streets” is a phrase worth dwelling upon. A year later, Morales expelled Goldberg from Bolivia, accusing him of aiding the protests in the town of Santa Cruz. Just over a decade later, it was the “dynamite” that removed Morales from power.

Resource nationalism is no longer on the agenda in Bolivia. The fate of Malku Khota is unknown. The fate of your screen is guaranteed—it will be replaced with indium from the Potosí deposits. And the benefits of that sale will not go to improving the well-being of Bolivia’s indigenous population; they will enrich the transnational firms and the old oligarchy of Bolivia.

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

Vijay Prashad’s most recent book is No Free Left: The Futures of Indian Communism (New Delhi: LeftWord Books, 2015).

US sanctions on Iran killing innocent people

 Vijay Prashad

The administration of Donald Trump in its blind policy of economic terrorism against Iran has sanctioned such basic needs as medicine and food.

The following is an article in this regard published by ‘Globetrotter’ and titled:
“US sanctions on Iran killing innocent people”.

The writer is Vijay Prashad, an Indian historian, editor and journalist, who is the chief correspondent at Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute. He has written more than 20 books, including “The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World”.

In late October, Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a short report with a sharp title: “Maximum Pressure: US Economic Sanctions Harm Iranians’ Right to Health.” In November 2018, the US renewed its unilateral sanctions against Iran, and included “secondary sanctions” on non-US entities. These secondary sanctions choked off Iran’s ability to buy commercially many products, including crucial medical supplies.

“The consequences of redoubled US sanctions,” writes HRW, “pose a serious threat to Iranians’ right to health and access to essential medicines – and has almost certainly contributed to documented shortages – ranging from a lack of critical drugs for epilepsy patients to limited chemotherapy medications for Iranians with cancer.”

Human Rights Watch is not the first to document this serious situation. Unilateral US sanctions under then-president Barack Obama had already badly damaged the health of Iranians.

Over the course of the past several years, the medical journal The Lancet has run a series of important studies of the deteriorating health conditions in Iran as a result of the unilateral US sanctions. This August, five doctors based in the United States and Iran wrote a powerful editorial in The Lancet, which pointed out that Iran’s system of universal health coverage has been damaged by the sanctions, and that Iran is at “a high risk of moving towards a severe situation for the provision of health services with a potentially substantive impact on mortality and morbidity.”

A year ago, Dr Seyyed Ali Reza Marandi, the president of Iran’s Academy of Medical Sciences, wrote one of many letters to the UN secretary general. He pointed out that patients who require organ transplants and who have cancer are being “deliberately denied medicine and medical equipment.”

There has been no public answer to these letters.

The evidence is undeniable. The US sanctions are damaging Iran’s health infrastructure and are leading to deaths and suffering. Last year, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on the negative impact of the unilateral coercive measures, Idriss Jazairy, concluded from a look at the sanctions regime, “The current system creates doubt and ambiguity which makes it all but impossible for Iran to import these urgently needed humanitarian goods. This ambiguity causes a ‘chilling effect’ which is likely to lead to silent deaths in hospitals as medicines run out, while the international media fail to notice.”

The US government has used every mechanism possible to suffocate Iran. It has used its Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) facility, its Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN) list, and its Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) to tighten its grip on the Iranian economy. Human Rights Watch reiterated what humanitarian agencies have been saying over this past year, which is that banks refuse to allow their services to be used to transfer money even for humanitarian reasons.

The United States is welcome to trade or not to trade with any country that it wishes, but the stranglehold that it has on the financial system means that its direct and secondary sanctions prevent other countries from making trading decisions.

In August, Jan Egeland, the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, which works with Afghan refugees in Iran, said, “We have now, for a full year, tried to find banks that are able and willing to transfer money from donors.” Egeland is not naive. He was the UN’s undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief from 2003 to 2006.

Squeezing the banks has allowed the US government to wreak havoc on Iran’s ability to import food and medicines, impacting the human rights of Iranians. There is ample evidence that the US is not merely intent on hurting the government, but in fact has a strategy to attack the Iranian people.

The HRW report is called “Maximum Pressure” for a reason. This is the phrase associated with the policy of President Donald Trump and his erstwhile national security adviser John Bolton toward Tehran that led to the illegal US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA) and the reinstatement of harsh sanctions. As the US put these sanctions on Iran in November 2018, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said, “The maximum pressure exerted by the United States is only going to mount from here.” This is, as HRW notes, “a recipe for collective punishment.”

Universal health care has been a basic policy orientation of the Iranian government. The program received focus in 1985 with the establishment of the National Health Network, and then over the next several decades – hampered by lack of resources – the rural and urban Family Physician programs. By all indications, the health-care system in Iran has been sharply hit by the sanctions, mainly since they have made it impossible to import key materials (such as bandages for epidermolysis bullosa and drugs to reduce inflammations such as tumor necrosis, a factor that inflicts those who had been struck by chemical weapons used by Iraq against Iran, and supplied by Western Europe and the United States).

Iran has over the past century developed a high-quality indigenous pharmaceutical industry, now rooted in the public-sector Social Security Investment Company. Until the past few years, Iran had been able to produce a wide range of drugs, but even here there has been attrition, since several of these production lines rely on imports of key components of the drugs.

Recently, Venezuela’s minister for science and technology, Gabriela Jiménez, was in Tehran to buy medical equipment, including a hundred dialysis machines. This tells us two things: first, that Iran continues to produce medical equipment and pharmaceutical drugs despite the sanctions; and second, that these two countries that are being hit hard by the West’s hybrid war have had to turn to each other for trade. Venezuela’s medical system has been hit harder than that of Iran – last year, the Venezuelan Pharmaceutical Federation reported that it was suffering from an 85% shortage of essential medicines.

It is a measure of the fortitude of Iran that despite these unilateral US sanctions, it has been able to maintain production of medical equipment and drugs.

Nonetheless, the Human Rights Watch report should be seen as an alarm. The United Nations has repeatedly said that sanctions are not a humane policy and must no longer be allowed to be part of the arsenal of the powerful nations. Exceptions for medicines and food are routinely argued for.

The United States claims that it does not use sanctions to hurt people in Venezuela. Even if this is merely rhetoric, no such softening has occurred for Iran. The US has not issued any such guidance toward its policy on Iran. Rather, it has tightened these dangerous sanctions as part of its hybrid war against Iran.

Why the World Is Watching the Fate of an Iranian Tanker in the Mediterranean

Greece, unlike the U.S., has taken the position that Iran has "the right to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes alone."

by

Vijay Prashad

The British seized the Iranian tanker at the urging of the United States. (Photo: Jorge Guerrero/AFP/Getty Images)

At 11:30 p.m. on August 18, the Iranian tanker Adrian Darya 1 left the shores of Gibraltar at the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea. This ship had been detained 46 days ago by British Royal Marines and Gibraltar’s officials. The British claimed that the ship—then named Grace 1—was taking its cargo of 2.1 million barrels of oil to Syria. There are European Union sanctions against trade with the Syrian government. It is based on these sanctions that the British seized the Iranian vessel.

Last Thursday, on August 15, Gibraltar’s Chief Minister Fabian Picardo ordered the release of the ship after the Iranian authorities said it would not be going to Syria. The immediate destination for Adrian Darya 1 is the Greek port of Kalamata.

Sanctions on Iran

The British, it is clear, seized the Iranian tanker at the urging of the United States. There was no previous British warning that it might enter in such a muscular way into the U.S. attempt to suffocate Iran. Even the location of the seizure unnecessarily raised tensions for the United Kingdom. The waters around Gibraltar are contested between Britain and Spain, with the latter making noises about a formal complaint about the British action.

Gibraltar’s government has been trying to find a middle course between the claims of Britain and Spain. It seeks some form of independence, although with close ties with both its large neighbor and its formal occupant. When the UK asked Gibraltar’s authorities to get involved in the seizure of the Iranian tanker, Gibraltar’s government complied because the request was in line with European Union sanctions against trade with the Syrian government.

In Gibraltar’s courts, the British were largely silent. The case against the Iranian vessel was made by the United States, which changed the basis for the seizure. The U.S. argued that the vessel had to remain impounded as part of its new and harsh sanctions regime against Iran. When Gibraltar was preparing to release the ship, the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., issued a warrant for the ship. This emergency warrant alleged that the ship was owned by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and therefore must not be allowed to sail.

Gibraltar did not agree. The U.S. tried to use its 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, and the new sanctions regime by the Trump administration. None of this appealed to the judiciary in Gibraltar. The government of Gibraltar said that it did not accept the new U.S. sanctions regime on Iran. It had held the vessel based on the European Union sanctions on Syria, not on any EU sanctions on Iran. Therefore, it has allowed Adrian Darya 1 to sail.

Iran’s Reaction

New statistics show that Iran’s economy has been decelerating at a rapid pace. The numbers from the Statistical Center of Iran show that Iran’s GDP shrank by 4.9 percent in 2018-19. Economic growth is slipping backwards, as the sectors of oil, industry, and agriculture post negative numbers. Inflation continues, with the inflation rate now at the highest it has been in a quarter of a century. Iranian traders have been moving their goods to Iraq, which results in the rise of prices within Iran. Most stunningly, the prices of non-trade goods and services—such as health and housing—are rising. All this has put enormous pressure on the government of Hassan Rouhani, although his spokesman Ali Rabiei said on Monday that Iran’s economy is experiencing “positive signs.”

Confidence from the Iranian government is remarkable. Officials in Tehran refuse to be cowed by the pressure from Washington, D.C. When the Adrian Darya 1 left Gibraltar, senior Iranian parliamentarian Alaeddin Boroujerdi said that its release was a result of “the revolutionary diplomacy of resistance.” He pointed to the seizure by Iran of the British ship Stena Impero, which continues to be detained in Iran. The British ship, Boroujerdi said, was being held for its violation of basic maritime rules in the Strait of Hormuz. The seizure of the Iranian ship—he pointed out—“was an act of piracy by England.”

Based on this assessment that the UK had indulged in piracy at the urging of the United States, Iran’s chief judge Ebrahim Raeisi said that the release of Adrian Darya 1 is not sufficient. Compensation must be paid to Iran. What compensation will be demanded from the UK is not clear, and it is further unclear where Iran will formally raise the issue of compensation. Iranian diplomats say that they might approach the United Nations based on the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Will Greece Hold the Tanker?

Within the Trump administration there is appetite to further block the passage of Adrian Darya 1, and make it a flashpoint toward war. That is what Trump’s adviser John Bolton indicated when Gibraltar held the ship. Make your move, he seemed to suggest to Tehran. Iran told the U.S.—through the Swiss authorities—that it must allow the ship free passage. If the Adrian Darya 1 is blocked, it would set a terrible precedent for international shipping.

When the tanker enters Kalamata, it will likely take on a new crew and then set its next destination. There is no indication as to what the ship will do with its 2.1 million barrels of crude oil. It is likely that it will unload its cargo onto another ship in international waters.

Last week, the U.S. government asked Greece to contribute to its naval force in the Persian Gulf. Greece, with its new conservative prime minister, declined—as did France and Germany—to this new U.S. initiative. The Greek government, led by Kyriakos Mitsotakis, is eager for a close relationship with Washington, but it is not willing to enter a frontal clash with Iran. Greece is already in a heated situation with Turkey. To rattle Iran would only further complicate Greece’s fragile dance in the eastern Mediterranean.

Greece, unlike the U.S., has taken the position that Iran has “the right to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes alone.” This is Iran’s position. The United States, as Professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi told Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, opposes even a peaceful nuclear project for Iran. This is why Trump walked out of the 2015 nuclear deal. This is precisely why the U.S. has been putting immense pressure on Iranian shipping. And this is what led us to the story of the Adrian Darya 1.

Iran will not be hemmed in by the US and UK

 Vijay Prashad

The Americans, joined by the British are trying to create trouble against the Islamic Republic in the Persian Gulf – a waterway which is thousands of kilometers from their coasts and in which they have no right to interfere.

The following is an article in this regard that appeared on the ‘GlobeTrotter’ site, titled: “Iran will not be hemmed in by the US and UK”.

The writer is Vijay Prashad, an Indian historian and journalist, who is chief editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He has written several 20 books, including “The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World”.

In late May, the shipping authorities in Panama de-registered Grace I, an oil tanker carrying 2 million barrels of Iranian crude oil around the coast of Africa into the Mediterranean Sea. Having lost its Panamanian flag, the ship was then forced to carry an Iranian one.

The vessel’s de-registration sparked off a serious provocation. Off the coast of Gibraltar, British Marines seized and impounded the ship. The British said that it was headed for Syria, which constituted a breach of European Union sanctions. Iran refuted the claim.

Sanctions and diplomatic pressure on other countries that host Iranian ships have also increased lately. Two other Iranian ships, Bavand and Termeh, recently sat for weeks in Paranaguá, Brazil, when the Brazilian state oil company Petrobras refused to refuel them. This was another direct result of pressure from the United States.

The situation is a complex one. Iran imports US$2 billion of goods annually from Brazil, mainly corn, meat and soy. Iran’s ambassador to Brazil, Seyyed Ali Saqaeyan, told Brazilian officials that if Petrobras continued to deny Iran fuel for its ships, then Iran would source its imports elsewhere. This caused Brazilian traders to pressure their government not to alienate Iran.

In the end, Brazilian Chief Justice Dias Toffoli ordered Petrobras to refuel the ships. The Supreme Court said the ships have a contract with a Brazilian firm, Eleva Química, which is not subject to US sanctions. The two ships, along with three others, Daryabar, Delruba and Ganj, have been carrying urea to Brazil before returning to Iran with corn.

Pressure from the United States has resulted in Panama removing its flag from 59 vessels that are linked to Iran or Syria. A ship without an international flag cannot buy insurance, which means that it has to take on a different flag almost instantly. The United States has also pressured countries such as Sierra Leone and Togo not to allow their flags to fly on vessels that are part of Iran’s oil export trade. Thanks to American pressure upon insurance companies, ships carrying an Iranian flag have great difficulties obtaining insurance.

Ships with Iranian flags are also on the radar of customs officials who have been asked to subject them to more rigorous scrutiny. This delays their journeys and raises the cost of transporting Iranian oil.

Recently in his Friday Prayer Sermon in Tehran, senior religious leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ahmad Khatami said Britain’s actions off the coast of Gibraltar, at the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea, reminded Iran of Britain’s colonial history. Britain, he said, is a “cunning and colonial fox.”

Also, the chairman of Iran’s parliamentary National Security Committee, Hojjat al-Islam Mojtaba Zonnour, said the actions of Britain should be described as “bullying and piracy.”

Last month, Iran detained Stena Impero, an oil tanker flying under the British flag for violating international navigational and trying to flee after colliding with an Iranian fishing trawler in the Hormuz Strait. Stena Impero and its crew of 23 were taken to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas.

Iranian coastal guards also boarded MV Mesdar, a British ship sailing under the Liberian flag. Iran said it intervened with MV Mesdar because it steered off course toward the Iranian coast. A few hours later, MV Mesdar was allowed to proceed.

Iran’s permanent mission to the United Nations sent a letter to the UN authorities offering Iran’s view of the Stena Impero incident. The Iranians said the tanker collided with an Iranian fishing boat, seriously injuring some of the smaller vessel’s crew. Iranian authorities had radioed the Stena Impero, which ignored its warnings and sailed away from a course suggested by the Iranian authorities. Iran said it was conducting an investigation of the collision, and released the audio of the radio talk with Stena Impero.

Stena Impero’s owners tried to deny the account, as did the British government. The ship is owned by a Swedish-based firm, Stena Bulk.

The British navy has lately begun to intrude into the Strait of Hormuz between Iran and Oman. The UK government has said that all British merchant ships will now be escorted by frigates.

The United States is leading a process to create a naval force to patrol the Strait of Hormuz. The US has said it will send “command and control” ships to coordinate other nations’ naval escort vessels. As the Strait of Hormuz becomes ever-more militarized, it is likely that Britain will work in tandem with the US.

The so-called international coalition assembled by the US is not without cracks. The Japanese, for instance, have said they will not participate in the US-led military operation. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Japan wanted to reduce tensions and to avoid inflaming the situation. Others in Asia agree.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said, “The main responsibility for protecting the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf is mainly with Iran and neighboring countries,” mainly Oman. Rouhani is also reported as saying that if other countries tried to create tension, “they will receive a proper response from Iran.”

Rouhani made this comment as his special envoy to France, Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqhchi, met with French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian to insist that Iran would not allow any interventions that disturb operations in the Strait of Hormuz.

Iranian Brigadier-General Hossein Dehqan told Qatar’s al-Jazeera, “Any change in the status of the Strait of Hormuz will open the door to a dangerous confrontation.”

Iran is clearly not prepared to back down over asserting its role in the vital, 21-nautical-mile-wide sea strait, through which passes around a fifth of the world’s oil. At a recent gathering of foreign ministers of the Non-Aligned Movement in Caracas, Venezuela, it was made clear that most countries want to avoid seeing the flashpoint explode into open war.

Iran, which cannot afford to be hemmed in by international pressures or actions, is now being creative with its shipping, as is evident by its firm maritime policies.

Trump’s Iran ‘diplomacy’ is a cynical farce

Vijay Prashad

The US president claims he is open to negotiations with the Islamic Republic but in practice he pursues a policy of economic terrorism and along with his flexing of military muscles, closes all doors to any diplomatic resolution of the 40-year long conflict.

Stay with us for an article that appeared on the ‘Globetrotter’ site in this regard, titled: “Trump’s Iran ‘diplomacy’ is a cynical farce”.

The writer is Vijay Prashad, an Indian historian and journalist, who is chief editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He has written several 20 books, including “The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World”.

Word of US President Donald Trump’s decision to sanction Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif did not seem to rattle the government in Tehran. Zarif’s own reaction, that the US is “isolating itself,” suggested that Iran would not be intimidated.

Various Iranian officials said the United States was afraid of Zarif’s eloquence. President Hassan Rouhani said the “White House is frightened by his diplomatic capabilities.” Majid Takht Ravanchi, Iran’s permanent representative to the United Nations, told the media that the US has sanctioned Zarif in order to “suppress his logic and his eloquent and persuasive language.” Former foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati said the US does not have the ability to counter Zarif’s arguments.

There is merit to this view. The buzz in Washington suggests that both Trump and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo were unhappy with Zarif’s interactions with the US media. Zarif, who studied in the United States, is comfortable with television cameras and has proven more than capable of making a rational case against the US unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA).

Zarif is indeed urbane and eloquent, but those are not his only strengths. He has the additional advantage of having the facts on his side. United Nations agencies all say that Iran has confirmed that it will abide by the terms of the JCPOA, and that there is no reason for unilateral sanctions imposed by the US. This is a view accepted by the European Union. Trump’s main problem is that the United States does not have a legitimate case to make against Iran.

No one, neither the Europeans nor Russia and China nor indeed many of the Persian Gulf Arab states, wants an escalation of what is a nascent war against Iran. They know that if the US mounts an enormous assault on Iran, the war will widen from Lebanon to Afghanistan. No rational person would support this.

President Rouhani made it clear to the United States that he could not understand who, other than his Foreign Minister, could be expected to speak for his country on international matters. Part of Iran’s goal here is to maintain its sovereignty and dignity, and to select a new foreign minister would mean that Iran had buckled under US pressure. This is not going to happen. The Iranians are not going to replace Zarif.

But the Zarif issue is actually a red herring. Even before the sanctions on him personally, the United States showed no appetite for diplomacy. Iran spent several years negotiating with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, as well as with Germany and the European Union, to produce the JCPOA, which was then ratified by the United Nations in 2015. After the US withdrew from the deal, Iran continued to indicate its desire for a diplomatic solution while Washington refused to come to the table.

The problem facing any negotiations is that the US position is untenable. The US wants to prevent Iran from exercising its right under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (of 1968) to enrich uranium even to low levels (4.5 %, which is far from the 90% enrichment needed for a nuclear weapon). It is this impossible position by Washington that stands in the way of a diplomatic solution. Until Washington accepts Iran’s right under international law to enrich uranium for energy-generating purposes, there will be no permanent deal.

By the way, the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, has long issued a fatwa (religious edict) saying Islam prohibits manufacture of any weapons of mass destruction.

The Europeans indicated quickly that they were unhappy with the sanctions on Zarif. Carlos Martin Ruíz de Gordejuela, a spokesman for the European Union’s foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, said that they regretted the decision. The Europeans say that they will continue to work with Zarif to maintain open diplomatic channels.

Europe’s tolerance toward Trump’s shenanigans is being stretched, albeit to nowhere near its limits. The European Union, despite noises about its practical need for Iranian oil, has been unwilling to mobilize any political opinion on behalf of either the ailing JCPOA or against the wide unilateral US sanctions now on Iran.

Zarif has been working hard to build various coalitions around the world to prevent the United States from controlling the narrative. At the recently concluded Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) ministerial meeting in Caracas, Zarif held center stage.

NAM, whose 120 member countries make it the largest political bloc inside the United Nations, has long opposed American unilateralism. In Caracas, they welcomed Zarif’s declaration that unilateral sanctions by the US against Iran and Venezuela are a form of “economic terrorism.”

A subset of NAM members formed a group of 25 countries that have come together to oppose directly US unilateral sanctions, not only against Iran but also against Cuba, Venezuela, Russia, and elsewhere. This group has moved slowly to consolidate itself.

Zarif has also traveled to and made contact with countries along the Persian Gulf, on a mission to forge a non-aggression pact. Iraq and Oman have indicated that they would join such a pact, and Kuwait may also join. Furthermore, sources say that Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are contemplating entry into the pact. All of these countries will have a lot to lose if a war breaks out against Iran, but the surprise here is the UAE, which is a close ally of Saudi Arabia. Recently, the coast guards from Iran and the UAE held a joint meeting – the first in six years.

Zarif and the Iranians have been forging a formidable set of alliances designed to put a moat around the possibility of war against Iran. If close US allies such as Qatar and the UAE – both of whom host US military bases – have indicated a readiness to sign non-aggression agreements with Iran, then Washington faces a problem. The sanctions against Zarif are not merely due to his eloquence on US television. He is being sanctioned to send a message to those US allies who have become part of these new platforms.

The United States has walked itself into a corner. By sanctioning Iran, it suggests that it is not interested in diplomacy.

Iran has lawful right to nuclear energy program

In accordance with the international treaty JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), and as testified by inspectors of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran’s uranium enrichment project is for peaceful purposes.

Stay with us for an article on the ‘Globetrotter’ site, titled “Iran has lawful right to nuclear energy program”, by Vijay Prashad, an Indian historian and journalist, who is the chief editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental Institute for Social Research. He has written more than 20 books, including “The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World”.

During the recent Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) ministerial meeting in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif charged the United States with “economic terrorism.”

He was referring to the unilateral US sanctions that have clobbered Iran, which, like most countries, is reliant on the financial system that remains dominated by the US.

The United States has had a sanctions regime in place against Iran for decades, almost since the victory of Islamic Revolution in 1979. The US, France and Germany later reneged on their nuclear-energy contracts with Iran and kept billions of dollars of Iranian money. Matters sharpened in 1996, when the US administration of Bill Clinton signed the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act. Since then, the US pressure on Iran has increased, then decreased, and increased again – but it has never been withdrawn.

The United States, since 1979 but more firmly since 1996, has alleged – without any shred of evidence – Iran is trying to produce a nuclear weapon.

Iran has rejected this accusation – especially in view of the fatwa or religious edict of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, that Islam prohibits manufacture of all weapons of mass destruction.

Iran points out that it is merely acting within what is permitted by the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Iran signed in 1968. The NPT allows its members to develop a nuclear energy program, which includes the enrichment of uranium into fuel for nuclear reactors. Iran began its nuclear power program in 1957. The United States of America – alongside France and Germany – provided nuclear plants and fuel for the development of nuclear energy in Iran.

Article IV of the NPT clearly states that all signatories have the right to “participate in … the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.” This includes the enrichment of uranium, at a threshold much below nuclear-weapons grade.

After victory of the Islamic Revolution, the West ended support for Iran’s nuclear energy program. Iran only restarted the program in the 1980s, but this time with limited access to technology and fuel.

It was from this period – when Iran restarted its nuclear energy program – that the United States has made the claim that Iran is not obliged to enrich uranium.

The US says that Iran’s requirement to enrich uranium – at any level – is the pathway to nuclear weaponization – an allegation that Tehran firmly rejects.

Iran says the NPT allows it to enrich uranium. Here is the real gap between the two countries. This alternative perception of what Iran is legally allowed to do is at the root of the problem.

When Iran signed the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), it agreed to freeze uranium enrichment at a low level. This was a major concession, which permitted the deal to be signed.

When President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the JCPOA, Iran argued that it was no longer obliged to freeze its uranium enrichment at 3.67%. Behrouz Kamalvandi, the spokesman for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, announced this July that Iran had exceeded this cap, reaching 4.5%.

In response, the US government rushed to push for new, harsh sanctions on Iran’s nuclear supply network, which includes sanctions on companies in Belgium, China and Iran. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused the Iranians of being “weapons of mass destruction proliferators” – despite the regular reports of the IAEA that there is no diversion.

Though Iran has exceeded the cap placed by the JCPOA – after a two months ultimatum, a year following the US breach – it has only reached 4.5%, which is far below the 90% enrichment level needed to produce a nuclear weapon.

In 2010, Iran had offered to freeze its enrichment level at 5%, just above where it has now reached. That offer was rejected. In 2011, the Russians proposed a “step-by-step” plan, which once more proposed the 5% enrichment level as well as a comprehensive plan for transparency (including the full array of International Atomic Energy Agency surveillance) and a limitation on centrifuge research and production. This was also rejected by the United States and its European partners.

The head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, argues that the US and Iran have different views on the NPT. That treaty allows countries to enrich uranium as long as it is at a level merely for nuclear energy and not for nuclear weapons. Iran insisted that the JCPOA affirmed Iran’s right to enrich uranium.

That was “Tehran’s condition for entering the negotiations,” Shamkhani said earlier this month.

The JCPOA has the imprimatur of international law with UN Security Council resolution 2231 of 2015. That resolution says that the initial restrictions on Iran “will be followed by a gradual evolution, at a reasonable pace, of Iran’s peaceful nuclear program, including its enrichment activities, to a commercial program for exclusively peaceful purposes, consistent with international non-proliferation norms.” The full array of restrictions were to end in 2023.

Iran is a signatory of all the major treaties against weapons of mass destruction: the NPT (1968), the Biological Weapons Convention (1996), and the Chemical Weapons Convention (1997). Based on these conventions and treaties, Iran claims the right to a peaceful nuclear program. The United States denies Iran the right to develop a peaceful nuclear energy program. That is the basic problem.

The US has weaponized the NPT and the International Atomic Energy Agency to fulfill its political goals.

India, unlike Iran, is not a signatory of the NPT. India not only has a nuclear energy program, but it has a declared nuclear weapons program (having tested such weapons in 1974 and 1998). The United States has circumvented the NPT to arrange for the delivery of enriched uranium to India.

Israel has a nuclear weapons program. The United States fully backs Israel and has never called for IAEA inspections inside Israel. This shows that the US objection to Iran is not based on international law, but merely on its political objectives.

At the Caracas meeting, the mood in the Non-Aligned Movement was against the US view. The NAM has regularly affirmed Iran’s right to a peaceful nuclear energy program. Zarif pointed to the “new wave of extreme one-sided adventurism” of the United States, which, he said, is “threatening peace and stability all around the world.” Iran’s “peaceful nuclear program,” Zarif said, is being disallowed by the United States, which has breached the JCPOA and violated the UN Security Council resolution.

There is no exit here. The United States, however isolated, refuses to accept that Iran has the right – under international law – to a nuclear energy program (which includes enrichment).

As long as the US holds this view, and as long as the other countries sit back and allow the US to throw its weight around, there will be no solution to the standoff around Iran.

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.