By Ángel Guerra Cabrera on June 27, 2019
A year ago, Donald Trump, in the purest Hitlerian style, decided to break the agreement on Iran’s nuclear program, whose official name is the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The outlandish action and the re-imposition by Washington of suffocating economic sanctions on the country of the ayatollahs triggered and has aggravated the new U.S. conflict with that nation, to such a degree of tension that the slightest human error could lead to the catastrophe announced last week by Vladimir Putin. This, assuming that the ongoing US military escalation in the Persian Gulf is only limited to the usual Trump practice of bringing conflicts to a head and then negotiating from a more advantageous position. Because there is nothing more like the U.S. aggression in recent weeks towards Iran than those that preceded the wars against Iraq and other countries such as Vietnam, including false flag operations against tankers in the region for which Tehran is blamed along with other lies. Bolton knows a lot about creating this type of scenario.
Regardless, it is valid to continue quoting Putin: “A U.S. military action against the Persian country would only contribute to an explosion of violence in the area, and the initiators of such an action must take into account the negative consequences.” Already this outcome, just in the area around the Gulf of Hormuz alone, would be of an unprecedented magnitude, because Iran is much more powerful militarily than Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya put together and whose combatants have demonstrated great loyalty. It also has missiles pointed at U.S. ships, dense anti-aircraft defenses and allies in the region that could extend the eventual war way beyond its borders and do a lot of damage to the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia, the primary buddies of Washington and also main enemies of the nuclear pact with Tehran.
How many more millions of deaths, how much more destruction will there be? How much more destruction of world heritage treasures? How many hundreds of thousands, or millions more refugees caused by U.S. wars since 2003? A gigantic human wave that would come knocking desperately at the doors of Europe reaching even the United States itself, because those who flee from hunger and violence, as we are seeing in Mexico, have unsuspected capacities to cross deserts, seas and oceans.
I suppose that out of prudence, Putin refrained from referring to a possible development of military actions in which Russia, more than any other country, could become involved, even if it does not want to. It is very difficult to imagine that the two great contenders, if not China could also be sucked into the bonfire and resort to the use of nuclear weapons. Perhaps that is why the Russian president was careful to warn that the aggressors must take the negative consequences into account. Just look at the map and reflect.
The JCPOA was negotiated over years and signed in 2015 by China, France, the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia – the permanent members of the UN Security Council – plus Germany, the European Union (EU) and, of course, Iran. By disengaging from its commitment to Iran, Washington also forced its European partners and Japan to abandon most of their economic exchanges with Iran under the threat of harsh sanctions; a threat also directed at China, India and other countries. The EU, which could be badly damaged by a conflict in Iran also fears Trump’s sanctions, has not confronted Washington with the energy that would be required to maintain its commitments under the JCPOA. In addition, its U.S.-based companies are leaving Iran for fear of sanctions.
The JCPOA seeks to ensure the strictly peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program and the Persian country has complied with its harsh stipulations to the letter which has been certified periodically by the inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency. These are the toughest inspection standards ever applied to any State. In exchange for this compliance, the economic sanctions that were unjustly and arbitrarily drowning Iran were gradually lifted. The transnationals returned to do business and Iran was able to start receiving limited credits and selling quantities of oil on the international market. After all, Iran, a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, always assured that it had no intention of developing an atomic weapon. In contrast to Israel, which together with Trump and the Zionist fundamentalists of the White House – such as Bolton, Kushner, Pence and Pompeo – come on the scene and accuse Iran of being a terrorist threat, but it is the Jewish state that is the terrorist threat by defying all international law, possessing no less than 200 nuclear weapons and has attacked all its neighbors, while Iran has never attacked any other country. And now the lords of money are demanding that Iran continues to honor the agreements even if it dies of hunger in the process.
Source: La Jornada, translation, Resumen Latinoamericano, North America bureau