by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
There seems always to be some combination of imperialists and Zionists available to sabotage any normalization of relations with Iran. This time, it’s the French, Israelis and Saudis, allowing the U.S. to play the role of frustrated peace-seeker. “The Saudis and the French are equal opportunity crooks,” but in terms of threats to peace in the region, nobody is more warlike than Israel.
Freedom Rider: Axis of Evil: France, Israel, Saudi Arabia
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
“Israel wants Iran to be completely destroyed as a political and economic force.”
Iran has never invaded or occupied another nation, it hasn’t killed civilians with drones, it never had any colonies, nor did it enslave millions of people or keep a huge portion of its population behind bars. Its political system is run by a class of conservative clerics and can’t be called democratic in the classic sense. Then again, the same can be said for countries who only choose leadership from among those given a stamp of approval by the wealthiest 1%. Despite these attributes, Iran is demonized by forces in the West who want that nation to exist only as a vassal state.
Because Iran refuses to give up its nuclear power capabilities western nations have exacted crippling sanctions which have impoverished its people and deprived them of food and medicine. This country is a target of imperialism and Zionism and literally cannot win, no matter how much it bows down to the wishes of western powers.
The United States is also in a no win situation with Israel, its alleged ally. Israel gets the lion share of American foreign aid and pledges of fealty from politicians at every level of government. In return for this largesse Israel routinely gives American presidents marching orders about what it does and does not want.
Right now Israel wants Iran to be completely destroyed as a political and economic force. Sanctions are never harsh enough and threats are never bellicose enough to please America’s “greatest ally.” President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry are now like the school wimp who gets tired of being beaten up for his lunch money and they want to change the game, if only a tiny bit.
So it was inevitable that recent talks between Iran, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Russia and China were doomed to be scuttled by Israel. Like his predecessors, Obama is punished by Jerusalem no matter how deftly he toes the line, especially because other states can be counted on to do Netanyahu’s bidding.
France has joined with Israel and with Saudi Arabia in quashing the true Arab spring, deciding who does and does not stay in power in Syria or Libya and finally in scuttling any chance for a nuclear power agreement with Iran. The Saudis and the French are equal opportunity crooks. The Saudis will give the French the right to build nuclear power plants there, the French sell the Saudis armaments and voila, a deal between two devils.
“France has joined with Israel and with Saudi Arabia in quashing the true Arab spring.”
Israel and its most hard line American friends have been trying to push the United States into attacking Iran for many years. George W. Bush was stopped in 2007 when his own National Intelligence Estimate inconveniently reported that Iran had no nuclear weapons capability. Obama in his shrewdness concluded that it would be too difficult. He has not given up on American imperial design but there is a point beyond which the United States will not go. When Vladimir Putin stepped up to Obama and put an end to talk of attacking Syria, the US tacitly admitted that it wasn’t attacking Iran either.
Of course NATO nations, Russia and China all have nuclear weapons and so does Israel. The treachery is all the more despicable because Iran shouldn’t be forced into negotiations in the first place. As a signatory to the Non Proliferation Treaty it has the right to develop nuclear energy and in fact it has the right to develop nuclear weapons, something its arch-enemy Israel has already done. But rights are only for people and governments who have the power to exercise them.
At the eleventh hour the French threw a monkey wrench into the agreement. Like a good little supplicant, Secretary of State John Kerry denied what was true to anyone who was paying attention and instead blamed the Iranians who are in fact the most eager for a deal.
The Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif was driven to complain on twitter. Apparently diplomatic circles are not unlike feuds between gossiping teenagers.
“No amount of spinning can change what happened within 5+1 in Geneva from 6PM Thursday to 545 PM Saturday. But it can further erode confidence”
“Mr. Secretary, was it Iran that gutted over half of US draft Thursday night? and publicly commented against it Friday morning?”
These talks will resume once again but will remain a farce. Not only are Israel and its fellow criminals eager to keep any agreement from taking place but they have enlisted the help of congressional accomplices like John McCain who have vowed to increase the disastrous sanctions.
Obama and Kerry don’t deserve any sympathy because they are in their own league of wrong doing. It is the people of Iran and of the whole world who are suffering. Imperialism and Zionism are true threats to peace in the world and the government of the United States is in the thrall of both.
Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well as at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.
Black Agenda Report's late Executive Editor, Glen Ford, gave this interview a decade after Hurricane Katrina to explore how the narrative of "starting over" is being used to whitewash the forced…
In this 2015 Real News Network interview the late Glen Ford, Black Agenda Report co-founder and Executive Editor, analyzed why an article in The New Yorker marking the 10th anniversary of Hurricane…
Twenty years ago, the world witnessed more than the suffering of hurricane Katrina's victims. The United States was exposed as a failed state controlled by the cruelties of racialized capitalism.
“It’s not like New Orleans was caught off guard. This could have been prevented.”
A forgotten history of cross-racial labor solidarity in 1890s New Orleans offered a glimpse of a potential future. Its deliberate destruction set the stage for the city's modern transformation into a…
