The so-called Iran “nuclear deal,” officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was hailed as “historic” when the United States among other nations became a signatory of it. Then-US President Barack Obama, attempted to make convincing statements regarding America’s commitment to the deal.
However, America’s rhetoric compared to its actual actions diplomatically, militarily, and geopolitically told two different stories.
US Was Waging Proxy War with Iran when the Deal was Signed
The deal was created in 2015, 4 full years since the United States engineered a destructive proxy war in Syria – one of Iran’s closest and most crucial regional allies. By 2015, the United States had already committed to direct military intervention in Syria, occupying Syrian territory, directly arming, funding, and providing air support for militants seizing Syrian territory, and even constructing military bases within Syria’s borders.
By 2015, the United States was revealed to have poured billions of dollars into arming militants ranging from Kurdish groups in Syria’s northeast, to militants aligned to Al Qaeda and even the so-called “Islamic State” (ISIS) in northern and southern Syria.
While US President Barack Obama posed as conciliatory toward Iran, the US was steeped deeply in not only a proxy war against Syria, but ultimately a proxy war aimed directly at Iran.
According to years of US policy papers, dismantling Iran’s allies in Syria and Lebanon were crucial prerequisites toward eventually undermining and overthrowing the government and political order in Iran itself.
In 2009, US corporate-financier sponsored geopolitical policy think tank, the Brookings Institution, would publish a 170-page report titled, “Which Path to Persia?: Options for a New American Strategy Toward Iran” (PDF), in which it proposes several options, including having Israel attack Iran on Washington’s behalf. The report states (emphasis added):
…the Israelis may want U.S. help with a variety of things. Israel may be more willing to bear the risks of Iranian retaliation and international opprobrium than the United States is, but it is not invulnerable and may request certain commitments from the United States before it is ready to strike. For instance, the Israelis may want to hold off until they have a peace deal with Syria in hand (assuming that Jerusalem believes that one is within reach), which would help them mitigate blowback from Hizballah and potentially Hamas. Consequently, they might want Washington to push hard in mediating between Jerusalem and Damascus.
In hindsight, it is clear that no “peace deal” would be struck with Syria, and instead, the wholesale destruction of Syria would be orchestrated. Many of the proposals presented in the Brookings report in regards to triggering conflict and regime change in Iran have been instead used on Syria.
Betraying the “Nuclear Deal” is Stated US Policy
Signing an agreement posing as rapprochement while simultaneously waging proxy war against a principle party of the agreement already indicates US intentions regarding Iran and America’s commitment to honoring the agreement.
Beyond US policymakers openly conspiring to weaken or altogether dismantle Iran’s regional allies before setting upon Iran directly, years before the JCPOA was signed, US policymakers pledged to propose then intentionally betray a “superb offer” to help portray Iran rather than the United States as both an irrational threat to global security and a nation bent on acquiring nuclear weapons for the “wrong reasons.”
The 2009 Brookings Institution report “Which Path to Persia?” would explicitly describe this ploy, stating:
...any military operation against Iran will likely be very unpopular around the world and require the proper international context—both to ensure the logistical support the operation would require and to minimize the blowback from it. The best way to minimize international opprobrium and maximize support (however, grudging or covert) is to strike only when there is a widespread conviction that the Iranians were given but then rejected a superb offer—one so good that only a regime determined to acquire nuclear weapons and acquire them for the wrong reasons would turn it down. Under those circumstances, the United States (or Israel) could portray its operations as taken in sorrow, not anger, and at least some in the international community would conclude that the Iranians “brought it on themselves” by refusing a very good deal.
Shortly before US President Barack Obama ended his second term in office, preparations were already underway to backtrack on the Iran deal. With US President Donald Trump now presiding over US foreign policy, the US is preparing to either entirely withdraw from the deal, or rewrite its conditions in such a fashion that Iran will be unable to accept it.
As the End Game Approaches in Syria
While regime change and the total division and destruction of Syria would have been ideal for US policymakers who then seek to wage war upon Iran, Syria and its allies have paid a significant price in personnel and materiel.
Despite this, Syrian forces have retaken virtually all significant population centers across the nation, including Syria’s largest city Aleppo where reconstruction is already beginning. Syrian forces have also crossed and are currently establishing a stronghold east of the Euphrates River, further complicating the partitioning of Syrian territory as envisioned by US policymakers and their Kurdish and Arab proxies.
With Russian and Iranian forces deeply dug in on the ground in Syria, the likelihood of the US and its partners making any further headway against Syria is unlikely and faces a “now or never” moment in regards to pivoting the conflict and its regional resources toward Iran. Reconstruction in Syria and the loosening of sanctions versus Iran will only further impede possible future operations against Iran.
US Forfeits Illusion of Independent Israeli Foreign Policy
Signaling increasing signs of desperation and aggression, the US has opened its first official military base in what has for all intents and purposes been for decades a “forward operating base” for Wall Street and Washington in the Middle East – Israel.
The Times of Israel in an article titled, “In first, US establishes permanent military base in Israel,” would note:For the first time in history, the United States on Monday established an official, permanent military base in Israel: an air defense base in the heart of the Negev desert.
Dozens of US Air Force soldiers will call home the new base, located inside the Israeli Air Force’s Mashabim Air Base, west of the towns of Dimona and Yerucham.
Brig. Gen. Tzvika Haimovitch, head of the IAF’s Aerial Defense Command, announced the establishment of the installation on Monday evening.
“It’s nothing short of historic,” he said. It demonstrates the “years-old alliance between the United States and the State of Israel.”
While it is indeed “historic,” it is also notable for the significant concession it represents. For decades Anglo-American interests benefited from the perception that Israel possessed its own aggressive, independent foreign policy. Maintaining this perception allowed the US and its Western allies to use Israel to carry out regional aggression while maintaining plausible deniability.
The aforementioned Brookings document specifically cited this as one of several possible means for provoking war with Iran – by having Israel appear to unilaterally attack Iran, with the US only joining in direct military intervention once Iran either committed to retaliation or a staged attack on Israel could be blamed on Iran.
With a permanent US military base on Israeli soil, plausible deniability and the illusion of an independent Israeli foreign policy vanishes completely. This may signal a much more blunt approach by Washington regarding any upcoming aggression against both Syria and Iran.
Regional Consolidation in Preparation for What?
The US finds itself overtly consolidating its positions in the Middle East at a time when the global balance of power teeters dangerously close to irrevocably undoing American hegemony.
Preparing the Middle East for war with Iran has been a work-in-progress since the end of the Cold War. It is an agenda that has transcended multiple US presidencies and has included everything from US-backed terrorism in the form of organizations like Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), to US-backed color revolutions like the “Green Revolution” in 2009, to the current proxy war being waged against Syria and the ongoing diplomatic maneuvering surrounding the Iranian “nuclear deal.”
Radical shifts in US policy regarding Iran are not owed to new occupants in the White House, but rather the shifting geopolitical realities as the US declines and other nations incrementally rise upon the world stage. Today, the US has exhausted its international clout, repeatedly abused international mechanisms for conflict resolution, and is openly pursuing a war in Syria with the aid of militant groups internationally designated as terrorist organizations. As its ability to wage war against Ian behind a smokescreen of legitimacy dwindles, the likelihood of it openly carrying out an act of aggression increases.
US policymakers may hope that after consolidating its positions in the Middle East, it can carry out a single, sweeping act of military aggression Iran’s allies will be unable or unwilling to contest.
Desperate hegemons are dangerous hegemons.
Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine“New Eastern Outlook”, where this article first appeared.
Look people, it’s clear that Washington wants to subjugate the world. This is the common thread through the last three administrations (regimes?) in Washington.
It’s beyond clear that Trump’s behavior toward Iran is simply beyond understanding. It’s beyond clear the Trump’s behavior toward North Korea is just about the most immature thing I’ve ever witnessed. Trump’s threat towards Venezuela and Syria are a matter of public record.
It appears that Trump has been attacked to the point that he is suffering some form of mental breakdown. Can we afford to have this man in charge of nuclear weapons and the world’s more powerful military?
Trump is a sock puppet and he will do what the hand says. If Trump is removed he will be replaced with another sock.
Yes, he was a close friend of the Clintons for years, and we see how that benefited her in the lack of jail time. One has to wonder why all these puppets like to have somone’s hand up their ass for so long. This government has alienated its’ own people for far too long. The best thing about this last election is that the majority of us have lost whatever illusions we had about freedom and “representative” government. Me? I’ve been an anarchist for a very long time. There is no situation that government cannot worsen. That is its’ purpose. As Machievelli wrote, it is the desire of the people not to be oppressed, while it is the desire of the “great” to oppress the people. Some things never change. But this government is on its’ last legs. I see very little support for it, and that is needed for it to continue these outrages.
In the next life; Whenever, wherever, and however it may be. I do believe my psyche will forever be scarred for the events which are unfolding presently. For in them, I see the destruction of humanity for the love of money, for the love of power, for the love of material possession. I know this, for it is in this life I have wept uncontrollably.
The hatred of one another, for these, its the saddest thing I’ve ever seen.
I will forever know to what ends humankind will deceive itself. Create enemies of itself. Kill and murder itself. To what ends is mankind’s benefit in this. To whom do all these errors belong. If it be not each and every one of us, then who else is here to own it. I see no one conscious enough to know, other than they. Yet they are them and them be us. For it was us whom unleashed they. They, be the murderers, the liars, the thieves, the violent, the merciless, the adulterers, the blasphemous, the gluttonous, and those whom have had their hearts consumed with hate.
They kill and eat animals, they treat each other as animals. They destroy and consume, they extort and lie. And they are us. From our lack of compassion, and our absence of kind acts, were they created. Through our empowering of forces to exercise just that, force. We have created the conditions necessary for they. They do not uphold the conditions and agreements necessary to better ourselves. They introduce malice, manipulation, and molestation to the lives and doctrines of man.
They have a way of life, and it’s ends are death. Just as us had a way of life, which is eternal.
Everyday, I narrowly survive. for they have transformed the earth, from abundant producer of us, to the scant reorganizing of they. For the sake of the law which they use to encage and enslave; even though, they say it be for freedom and liberty. They act in the interest of they, which are sensual delights. And in that interest, all of humanity has found itself targeted. And though us, has the power to change it’s creation back to it’s true origin. They sabotage, and infiltrate, until its actions are acts of terror. under it’s governance, self governance be illegal, because they made it so through continuous and habitual acts of violence, and hate.
Though us seemingly rests at it’s whims, the father of us will not allow They to further their conquests beyond what be bearable to us. Rest assured that the lights shines upon us all. And darkness cannot exist where light shines.
So if it be within each person, let us shine, and purge darkness from ourselves. For it has become necessary in a darkness such as this. Do consider the fuel necessary for a light such as yourself. May it be your sustainment for the trip to heaven. For the heavens are designed to be reached by the living.
Let us cease doing things for the sake of material gain, and begin doing things which are of us. So that we may abandon, once again, the yolk of the law: so that we may rest in the glory of kindness, as commanded.
This statement, in defense of war monger Trump (who has escalated 7 wars, threatened genocide against North Korea and is seeking a pretext to attack Iran), stopped me cold: “Radical shifts in US policy regarding Iran are not owed to new occupants in the White House, but rather the shifting geopolitical realities as the US declines and other nations incrementally rise upon the world stage. ”
The new occupants in the White House are the old neo-cons and the generals, whom Trump has given a free hand. Don’t blame Trump; he only appointed his staff and gave the Pentagon permission to wage war.
It’s not Trump and his band of neo-cons; its “shifting realities.” Can we bring “shifting realities” up for war crimes? Trump may not have created US foreign policies but he has taken them to a new level and intensified the aggression. Those who excuse war criminals are complicit in war crimes, Tony. You slipped this time……it’s time to name names….it’s hard to argue with or denounce “shifting realities.”
The US is duplicitous and untrustworthy and has been for some time. Its allies are beginning to get the picture and are not happy about it. They must by now have prepared alternative plans for the potential full blown betrayal of them by their erstwhile “friend” (with friends like that who needs enemies) and “ally”. Every time the US uses its reserve dollar status to sanction one country or another, it reduces its soft power with the rest of the World. Too many nations are now wondering if they will ever find themselves being sanctioned. No wonder BRICS and its alternative financial system is being considered by all.
Only through the “neutralization” of American ziocons and the subsequent elimination of zionist IsraHel, will the world be free of the coming nuclear armageddon.
For those of you who refuse this premise, you and your children be damned. For those of you who are incapable of accepting this, you betray your children/grandchildren to Hell.