In response, North Korea has said if nuclear weapons are a threat to humanity
then how come the United States and other nuclear weapons states have built so
many, brandishing weapon after weapon after weapon for the past 70 years?
Indeed, it doesn’t take a strategic mind to realise who is begging for war and
who is insisting on peace. The War Party in Washington has been showing it over
and over again in places like Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan. It is beyond
pitiful, but that is what the Trump White House is. They will not change, even
when it comes to committing themselves to international peace talks, much less
international deals. You wouldn’t be hard pressed to think of one:
1- Recent US behavior in the Middle East tends to reinforce questions over
whether the United States is really a factor for stability. One recent example:
the Trump administration has announced a ‘surge’ of troops in Afghanistan and
Syria, only simultaneously to announce its intention to withdraw from the Iran
nuclear deal.
2- The Trump administration has announced the United States’ return to Asia, and
some old allies in the region welcomed renewed attention from Washington. But
many nations suspect the United States’ return really means engaging in a form
of containment of China. Some even say that since the Taiwan Strait has become
calmer, the US is turning to the South China Sea as a new pressure point to keep
China in check.
3- The same is true about the Korean Peninsula. Here the nuclear detonations map
must now be extended to include the H-Bomb detonation in the DPRK. It is hard to
believe the Trump administration could not clearly see that the mock invasions
of the DPRK called Team Spirit didn’t single-handedly agitate the tensions on
the Korean Peninsula, until you consider that the Military Junta in Washington
DC is also going to sell billions of dollars more to South Korea in weapons now
that things are getting hot.
4- The Trump administration has just blamed Pakistan for its failure in the
longest war on Afghanistan. Expect President Trump soon to be waging a new wave
of disturbing assassination campaign in Pakistan that eclipses all that came
before it in scale and brutality.
5- The Trump administration has overseen a projected fivefold increase in drone
strikes in Yemen while also expanding ground operations to support the Saudi-led
war against the poorest country in the Arab world. British bases help US drones
find their targets, while British intelligence officers draw up kill lists of
targets for drones to strike. Thousands of civilians have been killed this year
and many more innocent people stand to lose their lives if this criminal
campaign continues unchecked by the United Nations.
6- The US is hardly alone in waging its vicious and unaccountable war on Syria.
Saudi Arabia and several other Persian Gulf Arab states are a compliant co-pilot
in the regime-change program. The program is being undertaken with the full
cooperation of ISIL and Al-Qaeda terror proxy forces.
7- Ambassador Haley claims Iran has violated the spirit of the 2015 nuclear
accord and that President Trump is likely not to certify Iran’s compliance with
it next time. There is no legitimate reason for such a step, but if Trump – who
must certify compliance every three months – takes it, he would almost certainly
set in motion another nuclear crisis side by side with the one with North Korea.
Two basic facts are before us: first, that the nuclear accord is very much in
the interest of all parties, the US in particular; and second, that the IAEA
confirms Iran is not in violation of the agreement. In fact, it is the US which
has on several occasions violated the deal by imposing new sanctions on Iran.
All this and more should have made it clear by now who is begging for war and
who is insisting on peace: The Trump administration is simply looking for a
pretext to launch a new war somewhere and scrap the Iran nuclear accord come
what may. And there may well be enough votes in the Senate to bring those about
if Trump chooses to make a clean break.
In the prevailing circumstances, it’s a waste of time to argue that rather than
keep begging for an imminent war with a sovereign nation – a path already shown
to be totally unproductive with North Korea – the US ought to be thinking about
how to improve relations with the international civil society.
SOURCE: Fars News Agency