|
Hands off the
Iran Deal
Iran seeks to renew its civil fleet by ordering $25
billion of new aircraft from Boeing and Europe’s Airbus.
But Republicans in Congress voted to block the sale,
clearly choosing Israel’s demands over jobs for tens of
thousands of US workers. Rarely have we seen so raw an
exercise of power.
By Eric S. Margolis
December 03, 2016
"Information
Clearing House"
- President-elect Donald Trump vows to either tear up or
rewrite the recent international nuclear deal with Iran,
calling it ‘disastrous,’ and ‘the worst deal ever
negotiated by Washington.’
Iran, which has
closed important nuclear facilities, shut down half its
centrifuges, and neutralized its stores of nuclear
material under the international agreement, must be
wondering if it’s nuclear deal was not really, really
disastrous.
In his rush to
condemn the Iran deal, Donald Trump seems to be
forgetting that the pact was co-signed by Britain,
France, Russia, China, Germany and the UN. Backing out
of the pact will be no easy matter and sure to provoke a
diplomatic storm.
The outgoing CIA
director, John Brennan, calls Trump’s plan to junk the
Iran deal ‘the height of folly.’ Brennan warns that
doing so would further destabilize the Mideast and
embolden hard-liners on all sides. He could have added
that if Iran resumes nuclear enrichment, Israel’s far
right government will likely go to war with Iran in
order to preserve its Mideast nuclear monopoly.
An Israeli attack
on Iran could quickly drag in the United States and
become a major Mideast conflict. The Pentagon is not
anxious to get involved in yet another war in the Muslim
world. Interestingly, some Iranian hardliners actually
hope the US will attack Iran: ‘America will break its
teeth on Iran, and that will be the end of its Mideast
empire,’ as one overconfident Iranian told me.
Adding to
tensions, the Iranian nuclear deal has been under heavy
attack in the US that may sabotage the pact even without
Donald Trump’s intervention. The US Israel lobby has
made sabotaging the deal with Tehran a priority. Equally
important, Israel’s extraordinary influence over the US
Congress and media has been directed at overturning or
at least derailing the nuclear accord.
Iran is loudly
accused of sponsoring ‘terrorism’ for supporting the
Palestinian cause and Lebanon’s resistance movement
Hezbollah and Yemen’s shadowy Houthi tribal movement.
This while the US is arming, supplying and financing
ultra-violent anti-regime jihadists in Syria and waging
war in East Africa.
US Congressmen and
senators hypocritically blasted the late Fidel Castro
for being a dictator while hailing Egypt’s brutal
dictatorship of Field Marshall al- Sisi and, of course,
China’s dictatorship. At least Castro was esteemed, even
loved, by most of his people. One seeks in vain any
traces of affection for US-backed dictators like Sisi or
the Saudi royal family.
Meanwhile,
Israel’s partisans have been waging what they call
‘Lawfare’ against the Iran deal by trying to obstruct it
in many legal and bureaucratic ways, particularly by
refusing to removed most of the US trade and financial
embargo on Tehran stipulated in the agreement. Europe is
also forced, unwillingly, to comply with many of the US
trade sanctions against Iran.
One of the more
egregious examples was recent efforts by Israel’s
supporters in Congress to thwart the sale of some 200
commercial US and European jets to Iran. Over 30 years
of US embargo have left Iran with a dilapidated and
often perilous transport fleet that has killed large
numbers of Iranians in crashes caused by mechanical
failures.
Iran seeks to
renew its civil fleet by ordering $25 billion of new
aircraft from Boeing and Europe’s Airbus. But
Republicans in Congress voted to block the sale, clearly
choosing Israel’s demands over jobs for tens of
thousands of US workers. Rarely have we seen so raw an
exercise of power.
Abrogation of the
international nuclear deal with Tehran would almost
certainly undermine the dominant moderates in Iran’s
government and boost the hardliners back into power.
They have all along claimed that the US cannot be
trusted. Besides, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un has nuclear
weapons and no one dares attack him.
But Trump will
need Russian and European support for America’s other
foreign policy headaches. Europe is totally behind the
Iran deal and fears its rejection will ignite yet
another crisis on its doorstep.
Mr. Trump is
strongly advised to leave Obama’s Iran deal alone. It’s
one of the outgoing administration’s few real foreign
policy successes.
Eric S. Margolis
is an award-winning, internationally syndicated
columnist. His articles have appeared in the New York
Times, the International Herald Tribune the Los Angeles
Times, Times of London, the Gulf Times, the Khaleej
Times, Nation – Pakistan, Hurriyet, – Turkey, Sun Times
Malaysia and other news sites in Asia.
http://ericmargolis.com
Copyright Eric S.
Margolis 2016
The views
expressed in this article are the author's own and do
not necessarily reflect Information Clearing House
editorial policy. |
