Sanctions can be more
deadly than bullets
By Philip Giraldi
January 21, 2020 "Information
Clearing House" -
Supporters of Donald Trump often make the point that
he has not started any new wars. One might observe
that it has not been for lack of trying, as his
cruise missile attacks on Syria based on fabricated
evidence and his recent assassination of Iranian
general Qassem Soleimani have been indisputably acts
of war. Trump also has enhanced troop levels both in
the Middle East and in Afghanistan while also
increasing the frequency and lethality of armed
drone attacks worldwide.
Congress has been
somewhat unseriously toying around with a tightening
of the war powers act of 1973 to make it more
difficult for a president to carry out acts of war
without any deliberation by or authorization from
the legislature. But perhaps the definition of war
itself should be expanded. The one area where Trump
and his team of narcissistic sociopaths have been
most active has been in the imposition of sanctions
with lethal intent. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
has been explicit in his explanations that the
assertion of “extreme pressure” on countries like
Iran and Venezuela is intended to make the people
suffer to such an extent that they rise up against
their governments and bring about “regime change.”
In Pompeo’s twisted reckoning that is how places
that Washington disapproves of will again become
“normal countries.”
The sanctions can kill. Those
imposed by the United States are backed up by the
U.S. Treasury which is able to block cash transfers
going through the dollar denominated international
banking system. Banks that do not comply with
America’s imposed rules can themselves be
sanctioned, meaning that U.S. sanctions are de
facto globally applicable, even if foreign
banks and governments do not agree with the policies
that drive them. It is well documented how sanctions
that have an impact on the importation of medicines
have killed thousands of Iranians. In Venezuela, the
effect of sanctions has been starvation as food
imports have been blocked, forcing a large part of
the population to flee the country just to survive.
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The latest exercise of United
States economic warfare has been directed against
Iraq. In the space of one week from December 29th
to January 3rd, the American military,
which operates out of two major bases in Iraq,
killed 25 Iraqi militiamen who were part of the
Popular Mobilization Units of the Iraqi Army. The
militiamen had most recently been engaged in the
successful fight against ISIS. It followed up on
that attack by killing Soleimani, Iraqi militia
general Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, and eight other
Iraqis in a drone strike near Baghdad International
Airport. As the attacks were not approved in any way
by the Iraqi government, it was no surprise that
rioting followed and the Iraqi Parliament voted to
remove all foreign troops from its soil. The decree
was signed off on by Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi,
based on the fact that the U.S. military was in Iraq
at the invitation of the country’s government and
that invitation had just been revoked by parliament.
That Iraq is to say the least
unstable is attributable to the ill-advised U.S.
invasion of 2003. The persistence of U.S. forces in
the country is ostensibly to aid in the fight
against ISIS, but the real reason is to serve as a
check on Iranian influence in Iraq, which is a
strategic demand made by Israel and not responsive
to any actual American interest. Indeed, the Iraqi
government is probably closer politically to Tehran
than to Washington, though the neocon line that the
country is dominated by the Iranians is far from
true.
Washington’s response to the
legitimate Iraqi demand that its troops should be
removed consisted of threats. When Prime Minister
Mahdi spoke with Pompeo on the phone and asked for
discussions and a time table to create a “withdrawal
mechanism” the Secretary of State made it clear that
there would be no negotiations. A State Department
written response entitled “The U.S. Continued
Partnership with Iraq” asserted that American troops
are in Iraq to serve as a “force for good” in the
Middle East and that it is “our right” to maintain
“appropriate force posture” in the region.
The Iraqi position also
immediately produced presidential threats and tweets
about “sanctions like they have never seen,” with
the implication that the U.S. was more than willing
to wreck the Iraqi economy if it did not get its
way. The latest threat to emerge involves
blocking Iraq access to its New York federal
reserve bank account, where international oil sale
revenue is kept, creating a devastating cash crunch
in Iraq’s financial system that might indeed destroy
the Iraqi economy. If taking steps to ruin a country
economically is not considered warfare by other
means it is difficult to discern what might fit that
description.
After dealing with Iraq, the
Trump Administration turned its guns on one of its
oldest and closest allies. Great Britain, like most
of the other European signatories to the 2015 Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) has been
reluctant to withdraw from the agreement over
concern that Iran will as a result decide to develop
nuclear weapons. According to the Guardian,
a United States representative from the National
Security Council named Richard Goldberg,
had visited London recently to make clear to the
British government that if it does not follow the
American lead and withdraw from the JCPOA and
reapply sanctions it just might be difficult to work
out a trade agreement with Washington post-Brexit.
It is a significant threat as part of the pro-Brexit
vote clearly was derived from a Trump pledge to make
up for some of the anticipated decline in European
trade by increasing U.K. access to the U.S. market.
Now the quid pro quo is clear: Britain,
which normally does in fact follow the Washington
lead in foreign policy, will now be expected to be
completely on board all of the time and everywhere,
particularly in the Middle East.
During his visit, Goldberg
told the BBC: “The question for prime minister
Johnson is: ‘As you are moving towards Brexit … what
are you going to do post-31 January as you come to
Washington to negotiate a free-trade agreement with
the United States?’ It’s absolutely in [your]
interests and the people of Great Britain’s
interests to join with President Trump, with the
United States, to realign your foreign policy away
from Brussels, and to join the maximum pressure
campaign to keep all of us safe.”
And there is an interesting
back story on Richard Goldberg, a John Bolton
protégé anti-Iran hardliner, who threatened the
British on behalf of Trump. James Carden, writing
at The Nation, posits “Consider the
following scenario: A Washington, DC–based,
tax-exempt organization that bills itself as a think
tank dedicated to the enhancement of a foreign
country’s reputation within the United States,
funded by billionaires closely aligned with said
foreign country, has one of its high-ranking
operatives (often referred to as ‘fellows’) embedded
within the White House national security staff in
order to further the oft-stated agenda of his home
organization, which, as it happens, is also paying
his salary during his year-long stint there. As it
happens, this is exactly what the pro-Israel think
tank the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies
(FDD) reportedly achieved in an arrangement brokered
by former Trump national security adviser John
Bolton.”
The FDD senior adviser in
question, who was placed on the National Security
Council, was Richard Goldberg. FDD is largely funded
by Jewish American billionaires including vulture
fund capitalist Paul Singer and Home Depot partner
Bernard Marcus. Its officers meet regularly with
Israeli government officials and the organization is
best known for its unrelenting effort to bring about
war with Iran. It has relentlessly pushed for a
recklessly militaristic U.S. policy directed against
Iran and also more generally in the Middle East. It
is a reliable mouthpiece for Israel and, inevitably,
it has never been required to register under the
Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938.
To be sure, Trump also has
other neocons advising him on Iran,
including David Wurmser, another Bolton
associate, who has the president’s ear and is a
consultant to the National Security Council. Wurmser
has recently submitted a series of memos to the
White House advocating a policy of “regime
disruption” with the Islamic Republic that will
destabilize it and eventually lead to a change of
government. He may have played a key role in giving
the green light to the assassination of Soleimani.
The good news, if there is
any, is that Goldberg
resigned on January 3rd, allegedly because the
war against Iran was not developing fast enough to
suit him and FDD, but he is symptomatic of the many
neoconservative hawks who have infiltrated the Trump
Administration at secondary and tertiary levels,
where much of the development and implementation of
policy actually takes place. It also explains that
when it comes to Iran and the irrational
continuation of a significant U.S. military presence
in the Middle East, it is Israel and its Lobby that
are steering the ship of state.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D.,
is Executive Director of the Council for the
National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible
educational foundation (Federal ID Number
#52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S.
foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is
councilforthenationalinterest.org, address
is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its
email is
inform@cnionline.org.
This article was
originally published by "Unz"
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