"The new group is just for show, providing a smokescreen for the people behind
Trump who are really running the Iran policy, such as Netanyahu and the US
Israel Lobby,” Jim W. Dean told Tasnim in an interview.
"They are not only delighting in killing the JCPOA but now trying to eliminate
Iran’s counter-terrorism activity in the region,” he added.
Jim Dean is the managing editor of VeteransToday.com and a regular geopolitical
commentator on various media outlets around the world. He and Sr. Editor Gordon
Duff have begun their own bridge building campaign with Iranian university youth
via Skype conferences. Jim comes from an old military family going back to the
American Revolution.
Following is the full text of the interview:
Q: As you know, the US government’s hostility toward Iran has recently
entered a new stage. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has formed a dedicated group
to coordinate and run the country's policy towards Iran following President
Donald Trump's unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran.
Pompeo announced the creation of an Iran Action Group (IAG) at a news
conference, naming Brian Hook, the Department of State's director of policy
planning, as its head. What do you think about the group and its objectives and
do you think that it would be able to reach its goals?
Dean: The new group is just for show, providing a smokescreen for the people
behind Trump who are really running the Iran policy, such as Netanyahu and the
US Israel Lobby. They are not only delighting in killing the JCPOA but now
trying to eliminate Iran’s counter-terrorism activity in the region.
The Iran Action Group will act as a front for a policy that has already been
decided upon. Lost in all of the manufactured chaos is a big elephant in the
living room.
The US is treating Iran like "it” had broken the JCPOA, along the lines of N.
Korea popping up with nuclear testing and firing off intercontinental missiles,
to justify its current hostile actions, throwing everything it has at Iran via
the escalating sanctions. But the problem there is that Iran has not broken the
agreement. The US has. So we literally are watching the geopolitical landscape
turned upside down, the real aggressor playing the victim, like a bad dream.
And lastly, some of this US behavior is pure punishment for Iran’s helping
Syria, like it did with Iraq, in fighting off the US coalition proxy terrorist
attacks on both countries. This sets a dangerous precedent if the US is allowed
to get away with this charade, as the tactic will be used on others in the
future.
Q: The Trump administration recently threatened to cut Iranian oil exports to
zero, saying that other countries must stop buying its oil from Nov. 4 or face
financial consequences. Washington later softened its threat, saying that it
would allow reduced oil flows of Iranian oil, in certain cases. Since oil is a
strategic product and countries around the world always demand it, do you think
that the US is able to carry out this threat at all?
Dean: This is an overt act of war, unprecedented in peacetime when Iran presents
no threat to the US at all, but only refused to be subjugated by the US. But the
oil embargo is a crazy move. Part of its goal is to create oil supply shortages
which will drive up consumer energy prices worldwide so Trump’s oil friends can
get richer. But the American nemesis, Russia, will get a major boost in its oil
and gas revenues.
Struggling third world countries with so many people living on the edge would
all be collateral damage when they don’t deserve having that done to them. Even
the American consumer will effectively be paying a bonus to Trump’s energy
buddies through higher energy prices.
Iran’s announced poison pill for the total oil sanctions is to close the Straits
of Hormuz to all the other oil exporters in the Persian Gulf, sending oil up
over $200 a barrel like a rocket. That would destabilize the whole world economy
with the high energy prices creating a ripple effect to drive up other products.
There is a method to this madness. Trump’s rich buddies will get even richer. We
suspect the Saudis have already made him a partner.
Q: Trump's threat is part of his walking away from the Iran nuclear deal. He
also plans to fully reinstate anti-Tehran sanctions from November 4. In the
meantime, the EU has vowed to counter Trump’s renewed sanctions on Iran,
including by means of a new law to shield European companies from punitive
measures. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas recently said Europe should set up
payment systems independent of the US if it wants to save the JCPOA. What do you
think about the EU’s role in reducing Washington’s pressures against Tehran and
saving the deal?
Dean: We are really in a no man’s land here with an unpredictable future. Just
this week the EU stated that it would sanction all of its corporations that
followed the US sanctions. Specifically how this would be done was not
explained.
So we have to ask how could the EU financially punish its own business
infrastructure and that be a good thing? It seems like a lose-lose play to me.
Maybe the EU leadership thinks it would be a loyalty test for its business
community. But we know historically that corporations are loyal only to their
own interests. Benjamin Franklin once addressed this, "Merchants have no
country”.
The US economy is booming, the stock market has created fortunes in paper
wealth, the kind that can be erased quickly in a major stock market decline
which will happen when the balloon bursts and we see a worldwide recession
triggered by these reckless sanctions.
The US says these harsh sanctions are not intended for regime change in Iran, a
lie of course, but to change its behavior, meaning that the US should be able to
topple the governments it wants around Iran to replace with US puppets that
would allow more advanced US military bases to control the region via a "soft
occupation”. We are living in very dangerous times.
Source:Tasnim