This morning’s news reports that Saudi oil tankers (Guardian) have been attacked or sabotaged in a UAE port. True? Or Not? Hard to tell.
Meanwhile Secretary of State Pompeo(ous) is in Brussels meeting with EU negotiators who are trying to salvage the Iran nuclear agreement. Presumably he is telling them they can’t do that.
Reports last week had Bolton and Pompeo seeming to promote open conflict with Iran, either behind Trump’s back or, imho, probably in collusion with him.
Much of this appears to be on behalf of Israel, (cf. the overthrow of Sadaam Hussain and the war in Iraq). See Andrew Bacevich’s review in Sunday’s NYTimes.
In the meantime, loblog has this essay by Elham Portatheur …, an Iranian woman studying in the U.S., reporting that we are already at war:
“Those who feel relieved by thinking that Trump will not engage in an actual war and is merely interested in making threats should realize that the war has already begun. U.S. sanctions are producing a level of suffering comparable to that of wartime. Sanctions in fact are a war waged by the United States against the Iranian working- and middle-classes. These groups struggle to make ends meet as unemployment dramatically increases even as the inflation rate skyrockets. The same people that the Trump administration is pretending to want to set free are the ones that are hit hardest by current U.S. policies in the Middle East.”
Update: As far as I can tell, actual evidence of an attack has yet to emerge. Obviously this raises the question of whether there was actually an attack; if there was, what did it consist in and who carried it out? Iran? Israel? Saudis? etc. raising the possibility of a false flag operation.
May 14: NYT story: Headline: White House Reviews Military Plans Against Iran: in Echos of Iraq war. Facts presented: Bolton presses for more troops...
Update 2: A critique of the NYTimes story at Loblog arguing that the reporters are stupid or beating the drums of war. Headline: "Newspaper of Wreckage." IMO: The reporters may be stenographers as the writer claims, but not clear they are beating the drums for war.
May 15: The International Crisis Group calls for taking the U.S. and Iran off a collision course.
Former head of the Republican Party in Florida says Mr. T had better get Maduro out of office in Venezuela or forget about carrying Florida in 2020.
ReplyDeleteTrump is waiting for a call from the ayatollahs. Maybe sabotage in the UAE is the call he is waiting for.
China titted for tat, tradewise, but there is too much of their exporting to ours to keep that up. Maybe they could start a run on our debt.
Bff Kim Jung Un is now giving Mr. T deadlines: Cave by the end of the year, or it's back to threats and missile tests. Just in time for the election year.
How in the world could Obama, Clinton and Kerry leave so many messes that only I, Donald can save us from?
I guess the Dems will take Florida. The WashPost explains why Maduro and Co. are stay put:
Delete"Though both the Trump administration and Maduro’s far-left foreign defenders prefer to describe the Venezuelan crisis in political terms, the reality is that the regime is less a government — much less a socialist one — than a criminal gang. That has two consequences that are complicating its removal. First, the money it is reaping from criminal activity is serving as a prop that allows it to survive U.S. sanctions.
Perhaps more importantly, the toxic taint on almost every top official makes it much harder to pursue the usual formulas for a peaceful transition, including the creation of a transitional government and amnesty for those who step down."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/the-real-reason-venezuelas-maduro-survives-dirty-money/2019/05/12/ba96413e-7263-11e9-8be0-ca575670e91c_story.html?utm_term=.4fe0ca974cd5&wpisrc=nl_opinions&wpmm=1
This is a very worrying situation. Trump's foreign policy/diplomacy knowledge is pitiful, and his closest advisors are a hawk (Boulton), a born-again Rapturist (Pompeo), and an opportunist (Kushner).
ReplyDeleteWhat self-respecting emperor/president wouldn't want a new cycle of misery ascribed to his leadership? This may be the last opportunity for the American Empire to cause some real mischief. Gotta have fun while you can. This is all appallingly disgusting to me.
ReplyDeleteDoes Congress have any say about these matters?
ReplyDeleteWell, Congress has to appropriate money for wars. But Trump is building a wall with money it didn't appropriate for walls. He's talking to a head of state (Victor Orban) today who has a compliant parliament, a judiciary that knows who is boss and all the media owned by his buddies. Trump is, no doubt, getting ideas. On the other hand, he may prefer another buddy, al-Sisi's shortcut: Throw your enemies in prison and forget about them. And then Duterte is about to take over the last possible opposition in the Philippines, the Senate. He takes care of enemies more efficiently than Sisi; he kills them. All of those birds are, more or less, elected. Lots of ideas †here for POTUS.
DeleteNo sense trying to keep the Russians from meddling in 2020 if there is isn't going to be an election here.
Economic sanctions are not war. I doubt that Syrian civilians would agree with the Iranian's assessment that to "struggle to make ends meet as unemployment dramatically increases even as the inflation rate skyrockets" is the equivalent of living through wartime.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds as though the American sanctions are effective at bringing about the result that sanctions are designed to bring about: exerting economic pressure and suffering. To what end? Despite the alarmist rhetoric, I don't particularly believe that Bolton et al are seeking war. Presumably the desired effect is to incentivize Iran to behave against Israel and Saudi Arabia. Whether the sanctions will weaken the mullahs or stiffen their resolve remains to be seen.
Hate to drop this on you, Jim, but some experts (and I) consider sanctions an act of war. Whether I block your driveway or come over and slash your tires I get the same effect. Blocking your driveway would be less destructive and more "humane," but either way, you ain't going anywhere.
DeleteBack when we were sanctioning Iraq (and Iraq was Iran's enemy), there were severe food and medicine shortages in Iraq (even though medicine was supposedly not covered). We could have achieved the same thing by bombing their warehouses. Or by invading. The end is the same; the means are only various tactics. Anyhow, we infringed on Iraq's sovereignty and killed some people. God bless, America.
"Sanctions" is the new bombing. Bombing was what we thought was better than trench warfare, since it achieved the same result with the enemy but inconvenienced us less. Then someone figured out how to shoot down bombers, so now we bully people with antiseptic-sounding "sanctions." Result is, and is intended to be, approximately the same.
So far, sanctions (which are not sanctioned by the leftliberalsocialist U.N.) have gotten some tankers attacked. Is that "the result sanctions are designed to bring about"?
After they worked against the apartheid regime in South Africa, sanctions became a popular tool for forcing other countries to toe the line. Iraq under Saddam is one example. Venezuela is now another.
DeleteOne of the important criticisms has been the fact that civilians rather than governments become the primary target. That was true in Iraq and at least partly true in Venezuela.
Here is a link to an article by Joy Gordon about the Venezuela sanctions. She also wrote about the Iraqi sanctions criticizing CWL's editorial support of them, but I can't find that link...
https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/target
I think she would say they are war by other means and that they can certainly violate just war principles.
"One of the important criticisms has been the fact that civilians rather than governments become the primary target." That point was made on NPR this morning by a Cuban who lost his pizza business to Trump's re-imposition of "sanctions" on Cuba.
DeleteThe Cuban example is even better than the South African. Eisenhower imposed the first sanctions, which were continued, and occasionally built upon, by JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton and Bush II. Fidel Castro died in bed and the government's Cuban advisers in Miami never got the chance to ride into Havana on an American tank and declare themselves the first dictators of "free Cuba." Obama got rid of most of the sanctions. Because he did, Trump put them back on. Because the record shows they do sooooo much good.
BTW, Maduro is still bunkered in Venezuela, which Mike Pence declared destroyed weeks ago.
Just to note:
Delete1. Defense of the South African sanctions rested on the "fact" that African South Africans called for them and lobbied the rest of the world to observe them. (I "" fact because I have never really read the history.)
2. They succeeded in bringing down the apartheid government, ergo, they must be a good idea.
3. The white Afrikaner government may have been more susceptible to moral suasion than Saddam Hussein was, and apparently Maduro is....who in fact may believe that moral right is on his side! Don't think so, just speculating.
Hi everyone - I don't strongly support (nor strongly oppose) the imposition of sanctions by the US against Iran. In my previous comment, I was simply disagreeing with the Iranian writer (propagandist?) that equated the effects of sanctions with the effects of warfare. Let us hope that she never experiences having American military power brought to bear against her and her family.
DeleteFor what it's worth: the United Nations, at its inception, pretty clearly envisioned that the imposition of sanctions would be a tool in the peacekeeping and diplomatic toolbox. This is Article 41 of its Charter:
"The Security Council may decide what measures not involving the use of armed force are to be employed to give effect to its decisions, and it may call upon the Members of the United Nations to apply such measures. These may include complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations."
To be sure, that Charter envisioned that it would be the Security Council, and not the US unilaterally, that would apply those economic sanctions. Of course, many conservatives and others would point out that the Security Council has become unworkable and irrelevant for carrying out the UN's mission.
I certainly share the concerns expressed here about sanctions that result in food or vital medications being denied. Inasmuch as this is a unilateral US action without participation by many (any?) other countries, it doesn't seem likely that the Iranian government would have no other recourse to import those necessities.
I am more concerned about this situation snowballing: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/us-orders-non-emergency-government-employees-leave-iraq_n_5cdbe1d4e4b0c39d2a13e3c6
DeleteIs this the judgment of the State Department (Pompeo), or does it have cooperating military advice and info? The indications that Bolton and Pompeo are engineering these shafts of news and info are alarming. But where are the military, the CIA, etc. who are likely to have sterner minds about the merits of attacking Iran.
DeleteOf course, the plan may be to provoke Iran, or its Republican Guard, or a militia to do something that will drag both countries into a war that would be foolish and utterly destructive, not only of Iran but other parts of the ME, including Iraq and perhaps even Saudi Arabia.
So I have a question, did Iran actually violate the terms of the former agreement? It seemed like it was, to an extent, keeping them in check.
ReplyDeleteAs far as I can tell, Iran has kept to the agreement even after Trump withdrew. Iran was working with the EU to keep it going by circumventing the U.S. threat to the EU and others to bar anyone who traded with Iran by cutting them out of the U.S. payment clearing system.
DeleteIn today's 5/14 WSJ, Gerald Seib has a rundown of the potential long-term consequences for the U.S. of brandishing sanctions as we do. One of the major ones, he cites, is the development of other financial mechanism developing outside of U.S. control and other trading patterns developing without U.S. participation. The current power of the U.S. sanctions tool is the dollar being used for international payments and the size of our economy.
Here's the link, but there's a pay wall..
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-risks-in-overusing-americas-big-economic-weapon-11557750009
Just a reminder. Trump is likely to keep his base no matter. But he cannot win reelection unless he has more. Being in a war would be an easy way to get enough people in the middle to get him another term. And of course, are we likely to impeach a president during war?
ReplyDeleteThis writer makes the point that the US is on the verge of an unjust war: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/henrykarlson/2019/05/catholics-must-reject-the-trump-administrations-war-drums/?fbclid=IwAR2YjPA2_arj8Fep-Y3OgMqEMR1g0MdBEwWortZaDgExujSeAihxMaRniJo
ReplyDeleteI wish I thought he was wrong.