And you have to love this: Pompeo now proposes to invoke a "snapback" clause that provides for sanctions to be restored if Iran violates the agreement's terms never mind, he says, that the Trump administration repudiated the pact two years ago. When this is rejected, as it is certain to be, it will be embarrassment No. 2.
The Trump regime concurrently announced that it had seized more than a million barrels of Iranian fuels en route to Venezuela. This was supposed to be a bold, chest-out assertion of American power and control of the high seas and its fearless stance against Iran.
Here's the thing: Iran sold the oil, freight-on-board, well before four Greek-owned tankers set sail with it. Tehran thenceforth had nothing to do with the transaction. It now emerges that the Greek ship owner, George Gialozoglou, had been in talks with Washington for weeks to organize the seizure. I suspect he purchased the fuel precisely to provide the occasion for the U.S. to commandeer it.
When a first cargo of Iranian fuels sailed in late May, Iranian vessels carried it and the U.S. left it alone. The incident last Friday was almost certainly staged for appearances, in sum embarrassment No. 3 by my count. Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran's foreign minister, confirmed this judgment on social media numerous times over the weekend.
I believe Trump when he says there is more coming in his wars without weapons against China. The U.S. is now committed to preventing non-Western nations that do not conform to the neoliberal order from rising in any field wherein they threaten to best U.S. companies. If you can think of a clearer measure of American weakness, please let me know.
When Pompeo was defeated in the Security Council last Friday, Kelly Craft, the regime's U.N. ambassador, used an interesting phrase. The U.S. will "stop at nothing" to re-impose the embargo against Iran, even if it does so unilaterally, as is likely to prove the case. I believe Craft, too. We should all find those three words fearful as we gaze into the future.
The ship seizure last week was sheer farce, but by way of it the U.S. effectively claims the right to piracy at sea. I do not use "world war" as a figure of speech.
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