John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PATRICK LAWRENCE IN CONSORTIUM NEWS

 

“Regrouping the Nuclear Dealmakers

“There are three good reasons for Iran to go back to the table”

 

I couldn’t agree less.

Go back to the table? That reads like mainstream corporate output.

Iran has done nothing, except lawfully abide by its nuclear agreement for four years, something affirmed by every expert and major country on earth.

The United States arbitrarily ripped up a valid, working international agreement, and did so consulting no one beforehand. Its own major allies do not even accept its action.

The United States also has severely attacked Iran’s economy with sanctions. Severely.

Such sanctions, used frequently now by the United States, are nothing more than coercive efforts to apply American law universally, ignoring local and international laws. It is America ignoring the rule of law, simply the West’s most important civilising principle.

On top of those destructive acts, the United States now has clearly threatened war. The threat, whether intended to actually be carried out or not, is totally in violation of international law.

How does anyone “negotiate” with people who have taken such steps?

What is the meaning of “negotiation” under dire threat?

It’s really an exact repeat of behavior seen in the late 1930s from Germany against states such as Czechoslovakia. Hitler would suddenly throw terrifying rages during talks with high officials and scream the gravest threats, trying to set them completely off balance, to get his way. Sound familiar?

No one should validate that approach to international affairs. It is the very opposite of what the world requires for peace and security and stability. After four years of faithfully abiding by an international agreement, Iran, suddenly, should enter new negotiations, facing new and unrelated demands from an impulsive and dangerous man whose only real motivation, as we shall see, is his own domestic political situation?

What Trump did to create this situation is simple and sleazy. In serious fear of impeachment and other threats to his security in office, he approached some exceedingly wealthy people in the United States for support and reassurance, people whose chief concerns are with other matters.

He received money and support for his re-election in 2020 and for any possible attempt at his impeachment, undoubtedly. Seriously big money.

But he was required to pay a price. That price included ripping-up a valid, working international agreement, appointing frighteningly dangerous men like John Bolton and Mike Pompeo to important offices, and being seen as very solicitous of Israel’s views about a country that it has always deeply resented as a competitor for regional influence, Iran.

This is a country that has never represented any real threat to Israel – ever hear of a non-nuclear country attacking a nuclear one? – although Israel has made many threats against it, even once spending a small fortune during Obama’s time planning and preparing for a large surprise (non-nuclear) attack, and Israel has carried out, over the years, a number of murderous dark ops against Iran.

So, the whole world must now pay in fear and apprehension for Trump’s becoming comfortably tucked into office? That really is what America’s ghastly behavior towards Iran represents. The Congress, of course, will not interfere in any matter touching Israel – every successful member of Congress being either already beholden to Israel’s lobby or deeply fearful of offending it – so, it just quietly stands back, allowing Trump his own way, literally, a madman in charge.

And a law-abiding country, one that has never attacked anyone in its entire modern history, Iran, is supposed to validate the vicious prejudices and demands of a country, Israel, that has been almost continuously at war for seventy years? One that has attacked every neighbor that it has, some more than once? One which holds at least five million people as desperate captives and has held them for almost an entire lifetime? One that has an illicit nuclear arsenal and substantial stocks of poison gas? A country that refuses to cooperate with any international arms control and one that stands in violation of dozens of United Nations’ Resolutions and international laws?

Makes sense to me.

John Chuckman

COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

 

I’m glad the Independent’s headline put “anti-Semitic” in quotes.

I think The Guardian would not have.

What I saw quoted from Labour MP, Naz Shah, from Facebook could only be called anti-Semitic by extremists of the Israel Lobby.

Critical, yes. Anti-Semitic, no.

____________________________

 A reader comment:  “There has never , ever , in history been a “Palestinian state ” . Israel wasnt “recognised” is was created by United Nations decree in a free vote.

“You clearly dont know what you are talking about.”

 

I know very well the history of Israel’s “creation,” and it is a pretty sordid story, full of deception, pressure, terror, and unfulfilled promises.

As just one example, Israel accepted the Right of Return, a UN principle, when it was given membership and has always ignored it, just as it has ignored more than twenty UN Resolutions condemning its acts for decades.

Israel is simply a lawless state by any definition.

And today’s re-created state got its start by wheedling a British official, Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour in 1917, during the Great War to make a rather vague promise in a brief note to Britain’s Zionist Federation. This was later elevated into a “founding document” for Israel.

And later, in 1948, as the people who were to become Israelis were busy shooting up and terrifying the native Palestinians, Israel’s lobbyists abroad won crucial American recognition from President Truman by intense lobbying and the promise of substantial support in the form of media and cash for his election campaign. Truman was in serious political trouble in the 1948 election and grabbed the offer of help much as a drowning man grabs a life preserver thrown to him. Yet he believed sincerely that recognizing Israel was a bad idea, and he left us some sharp comments on the whole matter.

Imagine the pride you could feel in a state based on a vague promise from an imperial power which itself had no business being in Palestine and which had even less business making the suggestion of offering it to a third party as though it were a load of used furniture?

But Israel hides behind the skirts of the United States to carry on safely with its lawlessness. And it keeps that position behind the skirts with a powerful American Lobby which takes full advantage of America’s ill-considered campaign finance laws, allowing money to run elections. What Truman started continues to this day.