The noise from the Persian Gulf over the attacks on Norwegian and Japanese tankers is just the latest indication that our administration knows nothing about international politics or how the world really works; the point being neither of the tankers are ours. But if we want to get into this we first have to have an understanding of how Iran works.
Iran is a country that was once a close American ally but as a result of our policy blundering, it has become, at least at the leadership level, our enemy. I say at the leadership level because if we consider the population, of the country, we find that Iran is more like the United States than any nation in the Middle East, with the possible exception of Israel. Iran has an educated, middle class population that would love to be friends with us but considering our history of betrayals it’s a wonder they would ever consider partnering with us on any level.
It all started in 1953 when our CIA and British MI6 orchestrated a coup that ousted Mohammad Mossadeq, Iran’s popular, democratically elected Prime Minister, because he wanted to do business with the Soviet Union as well as the West. We replaced Mossadeq with Mohammad Reza Pahlevi, The Shah of Iran, and an American puppet that stole more than his share of Iranian treasure in his 26 years of rule.
The Shah was kicked out in 1979 during a revolution led by secular and religious leaders and two weeks later the Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile to take over the leadership of the nation. Then on April 1, 1979 the Islamic Republic was formed.
Later in 1979 the staff of the US Embassy was seized and held hostage for 444 days. They were finally released on the day Ronald Reagan took office; suspicious timing when one considers later events. Those events transpired in 1985 when it came to light that the US was shipping weapons to Iran, allegedly in exchange for Iran’s help in freeing US hostages being held by Hezbollah, with the profits going to rebels in Nicaragua. Iran/Contra ring a bell?
Then in 1988 the USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian airliner killing all 299 civilians aboard. We claimed it looked like a fighter plane. Sure it did.
In1999 backed by U.S. promises of help, Iranian students erupted in a huge protest against the religious right. They were beaten down by the military when America refused to honor its phony pledges of support and crapped out. With this history of betrayal how can anyone in Iran believe anything the U.S. claims?
So here we are. In 2015 Iran signed a nuclear deal negotiated by Barak Obama with the inclusion of Britain, France, Germany & China. It wasn’t perfect. It addressed only a nuclear agenda and did not in any way refer to any other activities by Iran, many of which were abhorred by western nations. But it did put off the development of nuclear weaponry for 15 years.
Then came Trump! As part of his election campaign strategy, Trump attacked almost all of our treaties with other nations; especially our trade treaties and anything that Obama had negotiated. The Iran Nuclear Deal fell under that umbrella. It wasn’t that Trump had read the treaty and found items to which he objected. We all know he doesn’t read. But it was Obama’s work and so it had to go. Yes, there were a lot of Republicans who didn’t like the treaty but they had already been proven wrong in their contentions. It did exactly what it was supposed to do, nothing more and nothing less. It put off Iran’s nuclear development until 2030.
But Trump thought that by trashing that deal he could negotiate a better one and look like a hero. Now he looks more like an asshole. Now if he goes to the table Iran will want the end of allsanctions in exchange for what Obama already gave them for the lifting of just a few sanctions. Once again, Trump has brilliantly negotiated himself into the toilet.
Last year when Trump pulled us out of the treaty he was unable to show any evidence to back up his claims that Iran had violated any part of it. The other nations, seeing that Trump was doing what he does best, lying, remained in the treaty, but when we began hitting Iran with more sanctions, the treaty began to fall apart and now Iran has announced that in ten days they will surpass the treaty limitations on enriching uranium.
And now the attacks on the tankers! Suddenly Mike Pompeo and John Bolton, as slimy a pair of warmongers as can be found in any swamp, a duo that loves every war in which they personally don’t have to fight, are producing all kinds of evidence of Iran’s culpability in the attacks. Does this strike anyone as eerily similar to Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction as produced by Bolton and Cheney?
We all know that Trump, the bully, is too cowardly to get involved in a war but he better be careful or his pair of degenerate warmongers will lie us into a situation where some accidental violent act will be one step too far. It doesn’t take much to start a war when everyone’s guns are locked and loaded. One incident and we will be back in Iraq.
At this point Bolton and Pompeo are producing evidence that Iran is behind the attacks on a mass scale. So far their problem has been that no one really believes them. Led by Trump and his cavalcade of lies, U.S. credibility is at an all time low. No one believes anything that any American official says and no one should. Japan, owner of one of the damaged tankers has already made it clear they don’t accept our “proof”.
To add to the already touchy problem, Iran has its own political problems. Iran can be loosely described as a religious democracy, the ultimate contradiction in terms. Though there are parliaments and various elected councils the basis of power lies in three areas.
The current Supreme Leader- Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who replaced the father of the Iranian Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini when he died in 1989. There have only been two Supreme Leaders, they were appointed by a religious council, steeped in Sharia law and they are indeed the last word on everything, especially since they control the military.
President Elect- Hassan Rouhani elected in 2013, the second most powerful person in Iran, supported by the secular and independent, non-religious aspects of the population. But he has nowhere near the power that the Supreme Leader does.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps- IROC.- Created in 1979 by Khomeini. It is separate from the regular military and often at odds with them. It operates as an independent military force creating havoc across the Islamic world. It was recently designated a terrorist organization by Trump.
Because each of these power sources are usually opposed to each other and have different agendas, it is difficult to access any singular agenda for the nation. Each sends its own signals and each seeks its own goals. The Trump administration would love to kick the Supreme Leader out of power but just doesn’t have the stomach or the balls to do so. Bolton and Pompeo would love a war but I don’t think Trump will let them have their way.
It would appear that even though he doesn’t have the most power, President Rouhani has the best chance of getting some kind of acceptable deal done, if only because he is the most intelligent and most malleable among the trio of, Supreme Leader, Trump and himself. Trump would love to stick a pin in this mule; let’s see if the mule kicks him.
The biggest problem right now is that Trump has gotten his way. He cancelled the Nuclear Treaty and started clamping down even more on his sanctions. Of course he had no idea what results these actions would produce or how to deal with them. It’s hard to figure what Trump thought would happen because he is so uneducated diplomatically and such a liar that there is no way for anyone to speak to him logically.
Just look at the results of the madness that has transpired in the last couple of days. Trump’s sanctions are killing Iran economically. We have reduced their oil exports to almost zero and oil is the lifeblood of the nation. The Iranian dollar has lost 60% of its value and the nation is on the brink of collapse. They had to fight back! Did they attack the tankers? Who really knows? But if they did; I repeat, the tankers aren’t ours. We have no legitimate reason to start a war over them. Unfortunately, the Iranians really need some kind of incident to shake up the economically disastrous status quo. But don’t believe me, just read the words, spoken 32 years ago by a serious businessman and political commentator.
“The world is laughing at American politicians for protecting ships we don’t own, carrying oil we don’t need, destined for allies who don’t help:” Donald Trump
So let’s say they did attack the tankers and it didn’t achieve the desired result. So they take a shot at one of our unmanned drones and knock it down. Was it over their territory or over international waters? Who knows? Who cares?
But now Bolton and Pompeo have an excuse to declare war. Thank God they don’t have the authority. But they did talk Trump into mounting a limited attack on Iranian targets. He okayed it but later shut it down, claiming that he did so to avoid Iranian casualties. This sounds very nice but how do you believe anything this guy says?
He then states that he would like to have a meeting with the Ayatollah. Of course the Ayatollah has already stated that he will never meet with Trump because Trump is a liar. Trump isn’t smart enough to realize it isn’t the Ayatollah he needs to meet with anyway. He needs to meet with the President who is a much easier guy to deal with. But if you watch closely you will realize that this may never happen at all. Trump’s lies are coming home to roost and the Ayatollah may be only the first of what could become a long line of international leaders who want nothing more to do with an inveterate liar whose word means absolutely nothing. Some will just ignore him, hoping that the next year and a half will fly by without doing too much damage to the rest of the world. Some like Macron will cut him off or move against him, having decided, it seems, that he is too destructive to be allowed to do as he pleases.
Trump’s stupidity, dishonesty, crude behavior and inability to plan anything beyond its initial stage have now brought the world to the edge of war. It may not happen in Iran but if left to his own bumbling devices Trump will inevitably end up killing our kids or someone else’s before he is kicked out of office.