[Peace-discuss] [Peace] Trump torpedoes Iran nuclear accord

Wed May 9 22:38:12 UTC 2018

On Wed, May 9, 2018 at 5:32 PM, Carl G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu>
wrote:

You’re both forgetting the organizing in this country against the US
> government's Central American wars of the 1970s and ‘80s - arguably
> involving more Americans than the Vietnam protests of the ‘60s.
>
> A decorated (indicted) hero of those wars, Oliver North, has just become
> head of the NRA.
>
> What happened after 1975 was the construction of a vicious
> counter-narrative, neo-conservatism, to join the business community's
> counter-attack on ’the Sixties,’ neoliberalism.
>
> Beginning in the Carter* administration, neolib and neocon lies dominated
> US politics.
>
> President Bush I celebrated the real success of the first Gulf War
> (1990-91): “...by God, we've kicked the Vietnam syndrome [ = reluctance of
> Americans to engage in neo-colonial wars, after Vietnam] once and for all!”
> ______________________________
>
> * "At one point, President Jimmy Carter actually said that the U.S. owed
> no reparations to Vietnam because 'the destruction was mutual.’”
> <http://www.vvaw.org/veteran/article/?id=265&print=yes>
>

While (mostly) true, this contradicts my/our theorem about history rhyming
in what way, precisely?

> On May 9, 2018, at 5:02 PM, John W. via Peace-discuss <
> peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>
>
> On Wed, May 9, 2018 at 4:52 PM, Karen Aram <karenaram at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Unfortunately, thats not what we did in the sixties. Once the Vietnam war
>> was over, everyone went home, I left the country, many went to California
>> to join communes, and navel gaze, while others got swept up into the
>> eighties, where greed was good.  So here we are on the brink of nuclear
>> war, and climate catastrophe, pick your poison.
>>
>
> Right you are, Karen.  And more or less my point.  Every several decades
> there's a new generation of young idealists who are going to "straighten
> out" the mess their parents made.  And always, always, always with the same
> result.  Or, if not EXACTLY the same result, close enough that "it rhymes",
> as Carl is fond of quoting.
>
>
>
>
>
>> On May 9, 2018, at 14:43, John W. <jbw292002 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> "It's a breath mint!"
>>
>> "It's a candy mint!"
>>
>> "It's a BREATH mint!!"
>>
>> "It's a CANDY mint!!"
>>
>>
>> STOP!!  You're BOTH right!!!
>>
>>
>> Lets just burn down this whole rotten system and start over, like we did
>> in the '60's!!!!!
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, May 9, 2018 at 4:31 PM, Karen Aram via Peace <
>> peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>>
>> Mort, et al
>>>
>>> I think your statement that David and Carl, “let Israel off the hook too
>>> easily is a bit unfair," given I have been following them on NFN for years,
>>> and accompanied Carl and others on AWARE as well. I think the point is that
>>> it’s the US who is responsible, this is an important distinction to make
>>> given so many people constantly blame others, especially Israel, for
>>> everything. Stay on FB, and it will become quite apparent.
>>>
>>> Your statement "*Nevertheless, the virtual unanimity in Congress with
>>> whatever Israel proposes is further evidence of the toxic influence of
>>> Zionists, their lobbying and money, on U.S. foreign policy. There seems to
>>> be inadequate counterweight offsetting their pressures, given the mentality
>>> of the Trump administration.”* is quite accurate, and no one is denying
>>> the power of the lobbying group AIPAC.
>>>
>>> My point is “no ones hands are tied, everyone has free will, one can
>>> always resign when being pressured to do that which is illegal or just
>>> distasteful, what a message that sends.  Unfortunately our Representatives
>>> are motivated only by self interest therefore they will support anyone, who
>>> makes it worth their while. We know where Trump’s sympathies lie, just
>>> viewing  the most awful people he has appointed to positions of power. And,
>>> many of these same people were his advisors before he was elected.
>>>
>>> My point is, when we blame others for that which we are responsible, we
>>> lesson opposition. The focus must be on what the USG is doing, no matter
>>> who we are influenced by, no matter who is in power. Most Americans are
>>> confused and focused on “getting rid of Trump,” which I think we all agree,
>>> will solve nothing, then we have Pence, then we have the Speaker of the
>>> House, then the next election we have another Democrat. One can say Obama,
>>> brought about peace with the Nuclear Accord, but choking that down with the
>>> destruction of Libya and his expansion of the Bush wars from two to eight,
>>> does us absolutely not good.
>>>
>>> I like the WSWS.ORG <http://wsws.org/> position which is “we need to
>>> change our whole damn system."
>>>
>>> *See More* from Karen Aram
>>>
>>> On May 9, 2018, at 12:22, Brussel, Morton K <brussel at illinois.edu>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Given all this ratiocination, i remain with the strong impression e.g.
>>> from their recent NfN program, that Carl and David let Israel off the hook
>>> too easily in its pushing for wars in Syria and Iran by the U.S.. Yes, of
>>> course there are others—weapons makers, Saudis, etc—, also pushing for
>>> these wars. Nevertheless, the virtual unanimity in Congress with whatever
>>> Israel proposes is further evidence of the toxic influence of Zionists,
>>> their lobbying and money, on U.S. foreign policy. There seems to be
>>> inadequate counterweight offsetting their pressures, given the mentality of
>>> the Trump administration.
>>>
>>> On May 9, 2018, at 8:43 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss <
>>> peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> Carl
>>>
>>> Stop with the “Trump Administration” being manipulated by Israel.” This
>>> is where your credibility comes into question.
>>>
>>>
>>> On May 9, 2018, at 06:03, Carl G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Israel is pushing the U.S. to go to war with Iran. We shouldn’t let it
>>> happen.
>>>
>>> Fifteen years ago the U.S. government attacked Iraq and killed a million
>>> people - on the basis of lies that Iraq had dangerous “weapons of mass
>>> destruction.”
>>>
>>> During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump talked of his opposition
>>> to the attack on Iraq:
>>>
>>> “Look at the war in Iraq and the mess that we’re in. I would never have
>>> handled it that way ... What was the purpose of this whole thing? Hundreds
>>> and hundreds of young people killed. And what about the people coming back
>>> with no arms and legs? Not to mention the other side. All those Iraqi kids
>>> who’ve been blown to pieces. And it turns out that all of the reasons for
>>> the war were blatantly wrong. All this for nothing!”
>>>
>>> A principal instigator of that shameful US war against Iraq was the
>>> government of Israel, who wished to remove Iraq as a regional rival in the
>>> Middle East.
>>>
>>> Now Israel is trying to repeat that crime, urging the US to attack and
>>> kill Iranians.
>>>
>>> But the US is part of a deal with Iran and six other countries that
>>> guarantees that Iran will not develop even one nuclear weapon. (The US has
>>> thousands; Israel has at least two hundred.)
>>>
>>> The ‘Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,’ known as the Iran nuclear
>>> deal, is an international agreement reached in Vienna in 2015 between Iran
>>> and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council
>>> (China, France, Russia, Britain and the US), plus Germany and the European
>>> Union.
>>>
>>> President Trump has announced he will violate the agreement and
>>> ‘withdraw’ from the deal. The Israeli government cheers, because they want
>>> the US to attack Iran, for their benefit.
>>>
>>> (Aaron Maté writes, “Trump cited Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's
>>> bogus speech from last week. Without doubt this effort is coordinated. Will
>>> any Democrats call for an investigation of this Trump collusion with a
>>> foreign power [like ‘Russiagate’]?”)
>>>
>>> In order to get its war on, Israel has attacked Iranian troops in Syria
>>> (who are there legally, unlike US troops) -- including a bombing last week
>>> that registered as a 2.6 earthquake on seismographs. An Israeli
>>> government advisor has all but admitted that killing Iranians in Syria is
>>> designed to provoke an open war with Iran. Meanwhile, Israeli snipers kill
>>> peaceful protesters in Gaza, including children and journalists.
>>>
>>> We should not let the Trump administration be manipulated into war. The
>>> president and our Congressional representatives should be urged to remember
>>> the lessons of Iraq and not attack Iran - among other things a
>>> more populous and better armed country, with powerful allies, notably
>>> Russia and China. War with Iran risks a much larger war - even a nuclear
>>> war.
>>>
>>> The largest anti-war demonstrations in history occurred around the world
>>> before the US attacked Iraq. As Americans we must do even more to prevent
>>> this new criminal war.
>>>
>>> If the US and Israel attack Iran, there should be general work stoppages
>>> - strikes - and street demonstrations across the US.
>>>
>>> In the meantime, write the president and our Congressional
>>> representatives -  Representative Rodney Davis, Senator Tammy Duckworth,
>>> and Senator Dick Durbin.
>>>
>>> —CGE
>>>
>>> On May 9, 2018, at 7:57 AM, Karen Aram via Peace <
>>> peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> Trump torpedoes Iran nuclear accord
>>> 9 May 2018
>>> US President Donald Trump announced yesterday that America has withdrawn
>>> from the Iran nuclear accord, is reimposing crippling economic sanctions on
>>> Iran, and will soon add further unspecified sanctions.
>>> In doing so, Trump ignored warnings from Washington’s closest European
>>> allies and cosignatories of the nuclear accord—Britain, France and
>>> Germany—that such action risks plunging the Middle East into all-out war.
>>> Whilst provocative and incendiary, yesterday’s announcement is not in
>>> the least surprising.
>>> As the World Socialist Web Site warned in a perspective published in
>>> April 2015 in response to the announcement that Iran and the great powers
>>> had reached the “framework” for a nuclear accord: “In a broader historical
>>> sense, the deal is not worth the paper it is written on. If and when it is
>>> expedient, the US will shred the agreement, as has happened many times in
>>> the past. The Libyan regime of Muammar Gaddafi cut a deal in 2003 to give
>>> up its WMD [Weapons of Mass Destruction] programs only to find itself the
>>> target of a NATO-led war for regime-change in 2011. Amid its own economic
>>> decline, US imperialism will stop at nothing in its reckless drive for
>>> global domination at the expense of its major rivals.”
>>> Changing what needs to be changed, there are striking and instructive
>>> parallels between imperialist diplomacy in the 1930s and today. In the
>>> run-up to World War II, all sorts of diplomatic agreements were signed,
>>> only to be shredded soon after, with the Nazi regime leading the wolf pack.
>>> In this, Trump is only more brazen and thuggish than his White House
>>> predecessors.
>>> His speech was a rant. The wars the US has waged, fomented, and aided
>>> and abetted in the greater Middle East over the course of the past
>>> quarter-century have blown up complex societies, from Afghanistan and Iraq
>>> to Libya, Syria and Yemen. Yet the billionaire, fascist-minded demagogue
>>> accused Iran of being “the world’s leading state sponsor of state
>>> terrorism,” whose “malign” and “sinister” activities have caused “havoc” in
>>> the Middle East.
>>> The International Atomic Energy Agency, which has subjected Iran’s
>>> nuclear program to the most intrusive inspection regime in history, all the
>>> other signatories of the Iran accord, US Defense Secretary James Mattis
>>> and other top members of the Trump administration all state categorically
>>> that Iran has fulfilled all its obligations under the Iran deal to the
>>> letter and has not had any nuclear-weapons program for at least a decade
>>> and a half. Yet Trump claimed Iran is on the cusp of threatening the US
>>> with nuclear-armed ballistic missiles.
>>> As proof for these lies, he pointed to the April 30 show-and-tell
>>> presentation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which was panned
>>> by the European Union and all but the most right-wing Western media outlets
>>> as hype and lies. The New York Times, which is an expert at war propaganda,
>>> deception and forgery, felt professionally affronted that Washington was
>>> associating itself with so crude a performance, headlining its editorial
>>> response “Netanyahu’s Flimflam on Iran.”
>>> Near the end of his speech Trump underscored—using language akin to that
>>> of a mafia don touting an “offer you can’t refuse”—that Washington has
>>> embarked on an escalating campaign of economic, diplomatic and
>>> military pressure aimed at reimposing on the Iranian people the type of
>>> neocolonial subjugation that prevailed under the savage US-backed
>>> dictatorship of the Shah.
>>> First he sung a paean to the Shah, claiming that prior to the 1979
>>> Revolution Iran “commanded the respect of the world.” Then he declared
>>> Iran’s leaders will reject Washington’s demands for a “new” US-dictated
>>> “deal,” adding, “I’d probably say the same thing if I was in their
>>> position. But the fact is, they are going to want to make a new and lasting
>>> deal.”
>>> Trump made a brief reference to North Korea in his statement,
>>> immediately after boasting that by blowing up the Iran deal he had
>>> demonstrated “The United States no longer makes empty threats.”
>>> Whatever the immediate outcome of the planned talks between Trump and
>>> North Korean leader Kim Jung-un, the US repudiation of the Iran deal makes
>>> clear that the Korean Peninsula “peace talks” are a tactical maneuver aimed
>>> at facilitating US imperialist violence and banditry. Should a deal be
>>> reached, it will only be to free America’s hands for confrontations with
>>> its more substantial adversaries. If and when US strategic
>>> priorities change, or circumstances allow, Washington will invoke the most
>>> flimsy and contrived pretext to jettison a Korean denuclearization
>>> agreement.
>>> The Democrats and wide sections of the US military-intelligence
>>> establishment have, it should be noted, decried Trump’s turn to
>>> negotiations with Pyongyang and more or less announced that they would
>>> repudiate any deal he signs with the North Korean regime.
>>> No doubt the European imperialist powers are angered and shaken by
>>> Trump’s indifference to their counsels. French Prime Minister Emanuel
>>> Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel both came to Washington in late
>>> April to personally plea for Trump not to jettison the Iran deal. On
>>> Monday, it was British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson’s turn, although he
>>> only had audiences with Vice-President Pence and Secretary of State Pompeo.
>>> Once again US imperialism has brushed aside the concerns of its
>>> ostensible European allies in the naked pursuit of its own interests.
>>> Whatever is said in public statements, relations between the imperialist
>>> powers are ever more venomous as each pursues its own interests under
>>> conditions of economic crisis and ever-intensifying geopolitical and
>>> commercial rivalry.
>>> The history of the last century demonstrated that the imperialist
>>> appetites of the British, French and German ruling elites are no less
>>> voracious than those of the capitalist rulers of America.
>>> If they have sought to dissuade Trump from jettisoning the Iran deal it
>>> is only because this would cut across their attempts to exploit Iran
>>> economically, and because they fear the destabilizing impact of a war with
>>> Iran, including soaring oil prices and a further mass influx of refugees.
>>> In their vain attempt to convince Trump to remain in the deal, the
>>> Europeans joined with him in making a whole series of fresh demands on
>>> Teheran, including for drastic limits to its ballistic-missile program, and
>>> pledged their steadfast support for Israel—thus encouraging both Trump and
>>> Netanyahu to proceed with their offensive against Iran.
>>> This points to another of the chief concerns of the European
>>> imperialists, which underscores that their intentions are no less
>>> belligerent. Along with the Democratic Party and much of the US
>>> military-intelligence apparatus, they have been arguing that the best
>>> strategy for bringing Iran to heel, and integrating that campaign with
>>> NATO’s military-strategic offensive against Russia, is to concentrate on
>>> prosecuting the war for regime change in Syria. As was frankly admitted by
>>> political leaders and the capitalist media in the run-up to last month’s
>>> US-French-British airstrikes on Syria, this alternate imperialist strategy
>>> could rapidly result in direct military clashes between US and Russian
>>> forces, with all that entails.
>>> Washington’s trashing of the nuclear deal constitutes an immense crisis
>>> and devastating exposure of Iran’s bourgeois nationalist regime. Terrified
>>> of the growing class contradictions in Iran, the Islamic
>>> Republic’s bourgeois-clerical regime placed its hopes in a rapprochement
>>> with US imperialism and Barack Obama’s phony promises of a new US Mideast
>>> foreign policy. No matter that it was under Obama that the US attacked
>>> Libya, launched a similar regime-change operation in Syria and supported
>>> the military in restoring its bloody grip over Egypt.
>>> Since Trump, an avowed opponent of the Iran deal from its inception,
>>> came to office, Teheran has desperately appealed to the Europeans to shield
>>> them from America’s wrath. Meanwhile, in line with these efforts
>>> to ingratiate itself with the imperialists and woo investment, the Iranian
>>> bourgeoisie has pressed forward with its anti-working-class austerity
>>> policies.
>>> In response to Trump’s announcement, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani
>>> and the Europeans announced that they intend to stay in the nuclear deal.
>>> In doing so, Rouhani is clutching at straws.
>>> Keith Jones
>>> WSWS.ORG <http://wsws.org/>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Peace mailing list
>>> Peace at lists.chambana.net
>>> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
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