Wednesday, May 9, 2018

Iran deal pullout: war, peace or self-inflicted wound

A version of this was published in the Sky Hi News May 16, 2018
https://www.skyhinews.com/news/muftic-iran-deal-pullout-war-peace-or-a-self-inflicted-wound/

Update: 5 13 18:
This is truly a way to destroy the Atlantic Alliance. Originally the sanctioned
appeared to be those who supplied nuclear material for production..a challenge since we have already sanctioned Russia for other things without any behavior modification resulting and China, both signers..
Now it appears to trading anything "with the enemy" is included with the threat.
.The rest are our closest allies in Europe and they are making it clear they will
not abide. This is making America a jackass again.


White House National Security adviser John Bolton on Sunday said U.S. sanctions on European companies that do business with Iran were "possible, but Secretary…
YAHOO.COM

A version of this posting below was published in the Sky Hi News May 16, 2018.

Only President Donald  Trump and Israel think Iran is on the brink of gaining nuclear weapons, so President Trump announced the US will pull out of the Iran deal.. The international  inspectors there on the ground, our own intelligence services, and all of our European allies agree: the deal is working. However, Trump made a campaign commitment to pull out, so now he has had to fabricate a reason to break the Iran agreement . Israel  has its own agenda. It always opposed the Iran deal and believes bombing facilities or threatening it is the answer. Israel provided Trump an excuse that flies in the face of every other intelligence service and UN inspector findings. The Israeli claim was based on old intelligence information, and was parsed on debatable verb “tenses”, whether Iran HAD the capability to restart its nuclear program versus whether it HAS that capability now and in the future in spite of the deal.


Give Trump credit. He is is living up to his  campaign promise to pull out of the Iran deal. However one of his campaign promises he could  break is that we would not get involved in a useless war in the middle east. This pullout  approach could be a risk with huge consequences to our blood and treasure and a self inflicted wound, shooting our national interests in the foot.


Critics of the pullout have been vocal. Some call it an historical blunder like invading Iraq to search of WMD. So now, we will have no inspectors and we will slam economic sanctions on Iran? What did we replace inspections with? Nothing. What did we gain as a country? Nothing. What are we losing as a country? Ten years of Iran not restarting their full blown nuclear program and  a plan for indefinite inspections continuing forever. What will be the unintended consequences? North Korea will play Trump and know all the while any agreements with him are to be signed with a wink and a nod.. Now our Arab allies will have the green light to begin their own nuclear weaponization, an arms race in the most war conflicted space on earth. Does this move to pull out of the Iran deal have a hidden intent, critics ask,  to unleash Israel and their strange bedfellows, the Sunni Arabs, to start a war with Iraq and then sucker in the US to fight it for them?

The theory of the ultrahawks’ and Trump’s reasoning for pulling out is that such a threat of war will keep Iran from restarting their nuclear program.   The Iranians think there is a crazy man in the White House, so Iranians are motivated to keep their nuclear development in cold storage. Really? Re-instating sanctions and trying to cripple their international banking will bring Iran to its knees, force them to renegotiate,  and foment a desperate population to bring on regime change. That theory has some major flaws in practice.


Trump's strategy will only work if our other partners in the deal pull out, too, and restart sanctions, but that is not happening. So far the Western European signers say  they will stand by the deal. The US has had virtually no trade with Iran since the fall of the Shah so our solo sanctions would have zero impact on Iran.. We will become instead a bellacose supporter of those now unleashed to use military strikes, risking a wider war and an Arabian nuclear arms race as the rest of the world , including China and Russia, continues buying Iranian oil and products.










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