Trump Pushes the World towards the Abyss

By Angel Guerra Cabrera on January 16, 2020

Photo: Bill Hackwell

The list of United States aggressions against Iran dates back to the 1950’s. Murdering General Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force, on January 2, is only the beginning of a new chapter in the conflict between the two countries. Perhaps it is the darkest and most threatening chapter of all. The ordering of the murder of one of the highest ranking officials of a State who was visiting another State, both of them U.N. members, was a premeditated decision by Trump and Secretary of State Pompeo who knew the coordinates of the diplomatic mission that was taking Soleimani in a commercial flight from Damascus to Baghdad. It was in fact a well-timed ambush.

Let’s go some decades back. In 1953, a coup d’état organized by the CIA ousted Iran Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. The coup was in response to Iran’s oil nationalization, a measure achieved by Mosaddegh with mass popular support in 1951. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the bloody Shah, an imperial dictator, characterized by his servility to Washington and for being the U.S. watchman in the Persian Gulf for a long time. The Shah started Iran’s nuclear program basing on the country’s needs to generate electricity and allocate Iranian large oil fields to boost the country’s petrochemical industry. A memorandum signed in 1975 by war criminal and U.S. State Secretary Henry Kissinger noted that selling equipment to Iran’s nuclear industry would yield $ 6 billion in profits for U.S. corporations. In 1976, then U.S. President Gerald Ford gave orders not only to support Iran’s plans but also led to signing a multimillionaire agreement that would have allowed a pro-U.S. Iran to have access to large amounts of plutonium and enriched uranium—elements to easily manufacture an atomic bomb. What a lucrative business this was for the Westinghouse and General Electric corporations.

But in 1979, the program was abruptly halted as the anti-imperialist revolution headed by Ayatollah Khomeini succeeded in the Persian country. He would later try to resume the program but western corporations left under different excuses. Then came the war on Iraq (1980-1988) and the pressures of the United States and its Western allies delayed Iran from completing the nuclear reactor with Russian assistance, which only started to generate electricity nationwide in 2011. Party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), Iran has strictly met its international commitments on nuclear matters. This has been repeatedly certified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has conducted unprecedented inspections on Iran and has never found any evidence indicating that the country was preparing to produce nuclear weapons. Besides, Iran has been repeatedly sanctioned by the United States and its allies, affecting the country’s economic development and its people’s welfare. Nevertheless, openly demonstrating the cynicism and double standard of Washington’s international order, Israel—not a party to the NPT and which would not survive without the U.S. economic and military aid—has at least 200 nuclear bombs stockpiled provided by its Western ally, all outside international law.

It should be remembered that President Obama achieved with difficulty an agreement aimed at solving the conflict of Iran’s nuclear program. It basically consisted of Iran ceasing to enrich uranium without resigning its nuclear program in exchange for a gradual lifting of sanctions. The deal was estimated as creative and realistic by many analysts. Also known as the P5+1 and Iran, the pact was signed in 2015 following years of diplomatic labor among the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council—the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, France, and China—plus Germany, and the European Union. But during his electoral campaign Trump described it as the “worst” agreement signed by the United States throughout its history. It was to be expected. Besides the then candidate’s triviality and ignorance, his campaign was being paid for with Zionist money precisely in exchange for quitting the P5+1, and a large amount of his southern voters is made up of Zionist Christians—a by-product of Neo-Pentecostalism. He has withdrawn the United States, among others, from the NPT; the Paris Agreement on climate change; the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty; the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, all of them highly significant for humanity’s survival.

Iran will not give up. By suffocating Iran’s economy and threatening it militarily, the U.S. President is substantially strengthening the reasons for an armed conflict that would not only bring the Middle East but also the entire humanity to a nuclear abyss, if things get complicated.

Source: La Pupila Insomne, translation, Resumen Lationamericano, North America bureau