Hillary's war-drums on Iran; Russia unwilling?
Posted by Helena Cobban
February 24, 2010 5:03 PM EST | Link
Filed in AIPAC , Iran 2010 , US foreign policy
Hillary Clinton was on Capitol Hill today, telling US lawmakers that,
- "Iran has left the international community little choice but to impose greater costs and pressure in the face of its provocative steps... We are now working actively with our partners to prepare and implement new measures to pressure Iran to change its course."
Until today, U.S. spinmeisters had been expressing some confidence that Russia would join the "twist the screws tighter" policy. But today, Xinhua reported from Moscow that,
- Russia will honor a contract to deliver its advanced S-300 air defense systems to Iran after resolving a series of problems, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday.
Clinton probably feels herself under some pressure from the success that AIPAC, the very powerful America Israel Public Affairs Committee, has had in its massive, well-funded campaign to get legislators to adopt resolutions mandating unilateral U.S. sanctions on Iran in the event Iran refuses to dance immediately to Uncle Sam's tune on the nuclear issue.
These resolutions have two harmful effects. They would unilaterally penalize U.S. businesses at a time that businesses elsewhere continue to trade with Iran. And they restrict the administration's ability to commit fully to the pursuit of foreign policy, which is, of course, a responsibility reserved to the administration under the U.S. Constitution.
But hey, why should AIPAC care about mere inconveniences like that!
Hello Helena,
It's great to read you again !
I don't think there's any serious possibility of Russia or China going along with US, sorry, "UN" sanctions on Iran.
For some time now, the Russians have done pretty much what the EU and US does with regard to Israel - making a few 'tut tut' noises for show, and perhaps making the occaisonal token gesture, such as delaying, but not cancelling, an arms shipment, while all the time maintaining friendly relations with Iran. Fact is, the Russians have no interest in sanctioning Iran, and the WEst would have to offer some fairly major carrots to entice them to do so.
As for China, they get a lot of their oil via Iran and would be acting very much against their self interests by sanctioning Iran. Now, since when have the Chinese ever acted against their perceived self interest?
"The international community" according to the US is the UN Security Council, with its pandering Secretary General and its increasingly subservient atomic energy agency. Unfortunately the UNSC is getting out from under the US thumb, with Russia and China rebelling against US world autonomy. So the US has had to rely on a north Atlantic treaty to fight its war in Afghanistan, which abuts no ocean particularly the Atlantic.
So the professed "international community" has now been reduced to the US and its lackeys the UK and France, and Germany, plus ten other non-permanent member countries which couldn't care less about any concocted threat from Iran -- Austria, Japan, Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Lebanon, Uganda, Brazil, Mexico, Gabon and Nigeria.
Let's look at this "international community".
Japan is huge economically, but it is the largest recipient of Iranian oil exports, so they haven't been included in Clinton's "international community".
Turkey and Lebanon, actually located in the ME, are friendly toward Iran, so they're out.
Brazil is huge, but Brazil's president has said that the world should avoid isolating Iran. "I'm going to Iran in May to buy things from them. Brazil exports to Iran are worth one billion dollars a year and imports nothing from them," President Lula recently said.
Mexico, with a rich history of US imperialism, is not a backer for more, anywhere.
And so on. The 125-nation Non-Aligned Movement has fully supported Iran's legal nuclear program.
Considering all this, Clinton's "international community" has been reduced to the US, France and the UK (plus the ever-reliable Germany, which is not in the UNSC). France's Sarkozy is currently pursuing better relations with Russia, a US whipping-boy, but Russia and Iran share an interest in the Caspian area. China is the second-largest recipient of Iran's oil exports.
So much for "the international community" -- now reduced to the US, UK and Germany. Oh, and Israel of course, that tiny country.
As long as the US remains the huge financial center and market for international goods that it is, economic pressure can coerce other countries to go along; maybe not all, but some. Mexico and Japan are both economically dependent on the US so I would not be surprised to see them go along reluctantly while spouting something about further diplomacy. China is a sure no and most likely Russia too. Both have their own interests, economic and diplomatic,and, among other things, the US foreign policy under Clinton has been antagonizing both.(Not to mention Clinton being so transfixed on Iran that she is ignoring major issues other places, including our own Western Hemisphere).
When the North Atlantic Treaty Organization became the Needless Afghanistan Trespassing Operation, the former began its effective dissolution. What an outstanding coup for America's belligerent, maladroit, with-us-or-with-the-terrorists "foreign policy."
Yet, this self-defeating "foreign policy" hasn't changed since America's ruinous, failed War on Southeast Asia, towards the end of which humiliating debacle, historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. wrote in The Imperial Presidency (1973):
"The policy of indiscriminate global intervention, far from strengthening American security, seemed rather to weaken it by involving the United States in remote, costly and mysterious wars, fought in ways that shamed the nation before the world and, even when thus fought, demonstrating only the inability of the most powerful nation on earth to subdue bands of guerrillas in black pajamas."
Even more humiliating today, the self-styled "most powerful nation on earth" -- after bleeding 5,000 dead soldiers and squandering a trillion dollars (over nearly a decade) -- has demonstrated only the inability to subdue bands of guerrillas who don't even wear black pajamas. As a Russian veteran of his own empire's dissolution (due to misadvernturism in Afghanistan) said recently: "The Soviet empire collapsed due to competition with another superpower. The American empire seems about to collapse due to competition with goat herders."
Meanwhile, as always, follow the money for a truly sick sense of how things really stand with Dubya Obama's latest escalation against the unsubdued, poppy-growing guerrilla goat herders. From Andrew Higgins reporting for the Washington Post:
"Officials puzzle over millions of dollars leaving Afghanistan by plane for Dubai"
"KABUL -- A blizzard of bank notes is flying out of Afghanistan -- often in full view of customs officers at the Kabul airport -- as part of a cash exodus that is confounding U.S. officials and raising concerns about the money's origin."
"The cash, estimated to total well over $1 billion a year, flows mostly to the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai, where many wealthy Afghans now park their families and funds, according to U.S. and Afghan officials."
Somehow, I keep remembering that scene from "The Godfather" where the American-supported Cuban dictator finally admits to his wealthy "have more" base that he can no longer hold off the guerrillas and therefore has to leave now. Then comes the immediate stampede where the jewelry encrusted rich Cubans take off in a panic for their yachts and airplanes heading for Florida. I'll bet Ahmed Chalabi in his swell London Condo gets one hell of a belly laugh out of this farce. "Yes, we can!"
When does the revolution start?
Frankly, Israel should get on with its attack on Iran. I'm getting bored.
We all know that such an attack will throw everything up in the air in the Middle East, including the future existence of the state of Israel. But Israel wants it, so get on with it. Sanctions have no effect.