John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY DANIEL LAZARE IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“Trump’s Persian-Gulf Car Crash
"Trump has taken an insane U.S. policy towards Iran and made it even crazier"
That is a perfect summary of Trump’s chaotic efforts.
It is pathetic that this kind of thing happens with a powerful nation like the United States.
It reflects Trump's catering to the lobby for another country, one with a population the size of Ecuador.
Why does he do that?
Because he very much suffered intense fear about losing his office and approached some American oligarchs for support. They happen to be oligarchs whose greatest focus is Israel.
So, we get men like John Bolton and Mike Pompeo appointed to powerful offices. We get Trump violating international law giving away what is not his to give, Jerusalem and part of Syria.
And we get the total mess of policy towards Iran. Ripping up a valid, working treaty. Hurling insults and threats. Engaging in serious economic warfare. Trying to intimidate with warships and bombers.
All for what? This is a country which has kept its obligations. This is a peaceful country. And this is a country with which America could and should build a solid relationship for the long-term.
But America doesn't even try.
Israel hates Iran because it is a competitor for influence and importance in the Middle East, not because it in any way fears Iran. Nuclear states don't get attacked by non-nuclear ones.
Israel also was concerned that Iran’s keeping to its obligations and building relations with the EU and others was something to which it needed to put a halt. Now, there’s quite a reason for generating hostilities, preventing improved relations for others. Just destructive.
And modern Iran is a state with a record of starting no hostilities, quite in contrast to both Israel and the United States.
This is a country with the population of Germany and a land mass several times that of France. It has important resources, important modern achievements despite efforts to hold it back. It has industrious, creative people. And it has a fascinating ancient history.
There is no lucid reason for America to treat it as an enemy.
Iran has demonstrated conclusively its regard for rule of law, scrupulously carrying out its treaty obligations.
Only Israel and someone like John Bolton say otherwise. Every single expert and major power say they are wrong.
Israel’s record for dishonesty in trying to get what it wants has become almost legendary. So many dark operations and violent activities, always covered with words not to be trusted.
We had two Presidents, Obama and Sarkozy, in live-mic incidents, tell us what we rarely hear about such matters, that the long-term Prime Minister of Israel was someone who simply could not be trusted, who never told the truth. That’s pretty powerful testimony.
Yet, here is the United States blindly following that politician’s narrow interests to the point of harming its own long-term ones. Good relations with a state like Iran are in America’s interest.
Economic warfare in a time of world economic fragility is not in the interest of the United States.
Threats of war with the risk of really starting one are not in the interest of the United States.
Humiliating and hurting Iran’s more than eighty million people are not in the interest of the United States.
Ignoring allies like France and Germany and the EU, just trampling on their interests as treaty signatories of the Iran nuclear agreement, is absolutely not in the interest of the United States.
I should have thought the number-one priority of a President of the United States would be doing what’s in the best interests of the United States, but that is not at all what we see.
