The negative impact of the sanctions exist in part because the other signatories of the JCPOA, which the US unilaterally withdrew from last year, have failed to underwrite and engage in continued trade with Iran to neutralize US sanctions, and also because the supposed key to the maintenance of trade, the “INSTEX” mechanism set up by Europeans, looks like some kind of bad joke, like the proffer of a feast of fine food which merely masks a plate of offal fit only for a dog. It’s no wonder long suffering but proud Iranians don’t trust Westerners, and particularly Americans.
From afar, like from the US, it has been presumed that Iran would, at a minimum, not engage with the US at all unless the US eradicated the sanctions first as an act of good faith and would not at least be of a mind to start any further negotiations without the concept, if not the immediate fact, of a fully restored JCPOA. This makes sense, of course, because Iran did nothing but abide by the JCPOA as it was, unlike the US, which ought never be trusted (without serious guarantees) by any country regarding any deal whatsoever. Maybe a proper guarantee for Iran might be a $200 or more billion bond?) But it was President Rouhani who allegedly indicated that Iran might be willing to meet with American negotiators IF it would somehow clearly benefit Iran. But then President Rouhani fast reversed himself perhaps under pressure from Ayatollah Khamenei.
Nonetheless, it seems apparent that some of Iran’s leaders are vaguely warming to fresh ideas, and that if it is true that Trump wants a more comprehensive “deal” than that of the JCPOA, Iran likewise would be able to demand and expect iron-clad guarantees from the US that the sanctions would never again be brandished.
At any rate, the Trump Administration must by now be aware that the sanctions and other moves by the US and its Middle East allies, primarily the Saudis, the Zionists, and the UAE, have not at all destroyed Iran’s government, nor have they fomented a popular uprising. One could almost argue that the US has lost, or is fast losing its capacity to foment regime change, since all the world now knows that “regime change” actions are not premised on some idealistic notion of spreading goodwill or “democracy” in foreign lands, but rather at bottom they are all about the destruction of political and military competition anywhere with the imposition or the ignition of plunder and chaos.
Trump, in fact, may actually imagine he wants a better “deal” than the JCPOA was, and he further may imagine that if he gets a better deal, he will be lauded and thus have a far better chance of winning reelection late next year. Even if Trump is far more intellectually challenged than his advisors and other Neocons, he is not without a relative degree of innocence and warmth, which the Neocons are completely bereft of. (Currently, US voter polls suggest Trump will lose to the top four Democrats fighting for the nomination.) But let’s not kid ourselves. Even Trump’s former appointees like General James Mattis (and others) have more or less stated that Trump himself knows very little and has a mind more chaotic and unmoored than any that has ever previously presided at the White House.
Here’s the problem in a nutshell:
Forget talk about new “deals” and potential agreements between the US and its competitors or its alleged enemies. It seems (upon fair examination) that the US government as constituted in recent decades is not sophisticated enough nor imbued with the wisdom necessary to have a plan or plans that distinguish between different countries and also, therefore, crafts ideas and mutually beneficial proposals tailored to those countries for negotiation. And would the US, for example, get off Iran’s back finally if, for example, Iran agreed to limit the development of its ballistic missile program, or returned to the limits the JCPOA imposed on its enrichment of uranium (or even set deeper limits to enrichment) and to other facets of its nuclear program? Would the US get off Iran’s back if Iran marginally unfriend its Syrian and Iraqi and Lebanese neighbors in some nominal way, say simply by declaring that Iran is henceforth strictly adopting a comprehensive political or military “neutrality” in the Middle East, just as Switzerland, say, has long done in Europe? In other words, Iran saying, in effect, “We won’t mess with anyone anywhere, nor try to influence anyone anywhere, as long as no one messes with us or threatens us specifically.”
The correct answer here to these questions is probably “NO”. And the reasons for this answer are inherent in continued carte blanche US support for the Zionists and anything they want. (They have been in a panic over the mere whiff of future negotiations between the Trump and the Islamic Republic – they only appear to want the destruction of Iran. Moreover, one can easily presume John Bolton and Mike Pompeo and V.P. Pence among corrupted others think exactly like the Zionists.) The reason for “NO” is also inherent in what the US did to Ukraine in 2014, even though Trump is now threatening to cancel $250 million in further military aid to Kiev, and it is also inherent in what the US has stirred up in Hong Kong this summer, where the unrest looks a lot like the cheer-led support the US gave to the Ukrainian color revolutionaries, which never has resulted in any sort of real gains for Ukraine.
No. The real US government game with Trump and minions may simply be the attempt to preserve US hegemony and diktat militarily and economically worldwide with no care at all what this might mean, internally, for other countries. There is no benevolence evident yet in the Deep State of the US wants China to implode. It wants Russia to lose its grip in the Mideast and its friendship with China. It wants the peaceful Chinese-led Belt and Road initiative across Asia to fail. It wants, in a word, yet more chaos benefitting the so-called Empire of Chaos and its fascist makeup.
Still, fresh negotiations between the U.S and Iran could be a positive development but posited on a clear willingness of the US to dampen the fervor of its long established kissing of Israel’s hindmost parts and some determination to balance its diplomacy towards fairness in the Middle East. Any tangible evidence of such a shift, which might include initially Trump’s dismissal of Pompeo and Bolton, could well be the oil that lubricates welcome change, along with the flow of the sale of Iranian resources worldwide once again with the lifting of sanctions.
MNA/TT