Saturday, 26 December 2020

Trump’s final month in office could be his most dangerous one – update

 Update: Washington has sent Nuclear Submarines to the Persian Gulf, in a move to “deter” Iran. This combined with Mike Pompeo laying the blame on “Iranian-backes forces” for the alleged “attacks” on the US embassy in Baghdad, leaves us in a very dangerous situation.

Trump’s final month in office could be his most dangerous one – update

December 22, 2020

By Aram Mirzaei for the Saker blog

Only one month remains of Donald Trump’s presidency. It seems inevitable that the Biden administration will take over the White House come January 20th. While the Trump administration has been very aggressive against the Islamic Republic during the past four years, it has nonetheless refrained from starting a full-fledged war. This could all change as he is about to leave office.

A few days after the election in November, reports emerged that Trump had “asked his advisers last week about the options he could have to attack Iran’s nuclear sites.”

However, “a range of senior advisers dissuaded the president from moving ahead with a military strike,” The New York Times reported. According to the report, Vice president Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and others reportedly told the outgoing president that such action could spiral out of control.

Despite the NYT being notorious liars, I could imagine this report being true. I’ve for long maintained that Trump is an imbecile surrounded by war hawks and Zionist extremists. Nonetheless, those extremists and hawks still understand the consequences of a direct attack on Iran. Trump on the other hand does not. Zionist chieftain Benjamin Netanyahu knows that Trump is an imbecile and has done his utmost to take advantage of it. Netanyahu has for long dreamed of a US-Iranian war as it would do a lot of harm to his main enemy Iran, while it would cost Israel nothing when US soldiers are the ones being sacrificed to save the supremacist Zionist regime. Knowing that Joe Biden would be far more reserved in his approach towards Iran compared to the belligerent “maximum pressure” policy of the Trump regime, it is no coincidence that Netanyahu chose to assassinate Iranian scientist Dr Mohsen Fakhrizadeh only weeks after the US election.

Much like when Iran responded to Martyr Soleimani’s murder, Netanyahu and the Zionists had hoped that Iran would somehow retaliate again and enter the Zionist trap- to drag Iran into a war.

During these past four years, Trump has offered Israel a lot of “gifts” to prove his loyalty to the Empire. It is no coincidence that his administration has been very generous to Netanyahu and his friends since Trump has chosen to surround himself with the most extreme Zionists around, including his son in-law Jared Kushner. The relocation of the US embassy to Jerusalem, the recognition of the occupied Golan Heights as “Israeli territory”, and the recent “peace deals” between certain Arab states and Israel have all been very important moves for the Empire. Being wary that Trump, in his last month in charge could offer Israel a final gift in the form of an attack on Iran, Tehran has been preparing itself for any possible scenario.

Any attack by the US on Iranian soil will lead to war. That war will quickly become a regional war unless they expect Hezbollah, Hashd Al-Shaabi, the Houthis and many more to just sit idly by while the leader of their alliance is being attacked. Despite the risk of starting a regional war, Trump could make such a move in order for Biden to “inherit” the war, thus giving Israel the ultimate gift.

These are just speculations of course, but the sudden “attacks” on the US embassy in Baghdad, General Frank McKenzie, saying that the US is “ready to respond” if Iran attacks it on the first anniversary of the assassination of the Quds Force commander Major General Qassem Soleimani, and Mike Pompeo’s increasing obsession with Iran, are all causes for concern.

Trump’s policy of absolute subservience to Israel has only made Zionist hawks like Netanyahu much bolder and more audacious. It will also leave its mark for years after his exit from the White House as Bibi will now demand the same level of subservience from the Biden administration. Netanyahu has taken upon himself to show the former Vice President who is calling the shots, before Biden has even had the chance to take office.

In an obvious message to Biden, Netanyahu told him that “There can be no going back to the previous nuclear agreement. We must stick to an uncompromising policy of ensuring that Iran will not develop nuclear weapons.”

The fact that Biden has remained rather coy about how he intends to “return the US to the JCPOA”, makes me believe that he has readily agreed to continue the policy of the Trump administration in one way or another.

“I will offer Tehran a credible path back to diplomacy. If Iran returns to strict compliance with the nuclear deal, the United States would rejoin the agreement as a starting point for follow-on negotiations. With our allies, we will work to strengthen and extend the nuclear deal’s provisions, while also addressing other issues of concern,” he wrote in an article for the CNN website.

“Strengthening” the deal’s provisions and “addressing other issues of concern” sounds a lot like someone who is hoping to alter the deal in some form. This was something that Trump also hoped to achieve with his “maximum pressure” campaign. It is no coincidence that German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas all of a sudden is calling for a “nuclear deal plus” either. They all want to include Iran’s missile program into the deal because it has started to become a concern for the Zionist Empire and its vassals. So you can see that going back to the original JCPOA seems impossible at this point.

There is also the matter of how the JCPOA is viewed in Iran these days. Many Iranians had huge hopes for the JCPOA. They were hoping to finally be able to enjoy the benefits of an economic recovery after decades of sanctions and blacklisting. Most of them now consider the JCPOA to be evidence of the failure of diplomacy with the US. To them, despite long negotiations and concessions, Iran is still suffering from sanctions and is in no better position economically than it was before the JCPOA. This is why the Iranian “conservative bloc” emerged victorious in the parliamentary elections earlier this year, and it is also why I believe they’ll win the presidency next year.

With the “conservatives” in power, Iran will not so easily want to return to the stipulations of the JCPOA either. Last year Iran began scaling down on its commitment to the JCPOA agreements, in response to Washington’s withdrawal and Europe’s inability to stand up to the US. Iran has since lost billions of dollars worth of trade revenue due to the sanctions that Washington reimposed- why would Iran want to just return to the JCPOA without compensation for the damage done to its economy?

The Islamic Republic will be facing the 8th President since its birth when Biden assumes power. Nobody is expecting Biden to change anything in US policies towards Iran and the rest of the world for that matter. Trump is really hated in Iran, to the point where he is regarded as a terrorist. Iranian president Hassan Rouhani recently said: “We are by no means excited about [Joe] Biden coming to power, but we are happy with Trump leaving as a terrorist and a person who even blocked Iran’s access to [COVID-19] vaccines; we are happy because he failed to adhere to basic moral and human principles,”

Personally, I understand the hatred towards Trump, it is easy to dislike such an imbecile who has no self-control. But in anger, it is also easy to lose sight of the bigger picture; Trump was in many ways a preferable enemy. Assad said it several times too, noting how the imbecile openly bragged about stealing Syrian oil. Trump was a clumsy and irrational enemy, the Europeans and many liberals realized this too, hence the great animosity towards him and his rule. His maximum pressure policy has left Washington rather desperate and pathetic, whereas his predecessor managed to portray Washington as a serious negotiator when the JCPOA was first announced.

Unfortunately, there’s also the other side to his irrationality. Trump’s irrational behaviour after what he perceives to be electoral fraud, could cost many people their lives if and when he decides to give his friend Bibi Netanyahu his final gift.


River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
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