Iran is not defined by a regime which only exists because in 1953 the CIA overturned a democratically elected government and installed a Shah (their yes man, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi). A puppet who imposed a monarchical autocracy on the Iranian people. It was an egregious act by the US that led to the rise of religious fundamentalism and ultimately to the Islamic revolution of 1979. Once again, US foreign policy incubated a revolution that made the world a more dangerous place.
So why did the US install him? Because the democratically elected government that ousted the Shah in 1951 nationalised Iranian oil for the benefit of the people.
The people of Iran are proud, with deep cultural ties and a history that reaches back thousands of years. They are NOT defined by the monsters for whom the US created a permissive environment to create an Islamic terrorist state. This was the work of the U.S. and British governments, NOT the people of Iran. Once we define a nation by the actions of its leaders, we create the same permissive environment for genocide, just as we did in Gaza and are now witnessing in Lebanon.
The geopolitical fractures we see today are not an accident; they are the result of a declining power attempting to prove its relevance. Even in the best of times, navigating geopolitics is an impossible task, as Barack Obama found out with Syria. It could be argued that his failure to act in 2012 on the use by Bashar Hafez al-Assad of chemical weapons on the civilian population, contributed to where we are today. Obama has long been someone I deeply admire, but to say I was disappointed by his handling of the situation would be a gross understatement.
It didn’t stop there; he had seemed adept at foreign affairs stumbles, not least of which was the breach of the Budapest Memorandum, which he broke when Russia invaded Crimea in 2014. It’s another great example of a long legacy of US failed foreign policy, borne out by the now four-year war in Ukraine. Of course, there were wins too. The climate change agreement signed with China, and the easing of the trade embargo on Cuba. If you’d like a more in-depth study of his foreign policy, warts and all, I would highly recommend a piece by Dr Michael J. Boyle, an Associate Professor of Political Science at La Salle University in Philadelphia. He wrote a piece for The Foreign Policy Institute entitled: ‘The Tragedy of Obama’s Foreign Policy’
There is no question that the office of the US presidency has the power to deliver defining moments. For example, the original US-Iran deal. Trump has spent years of his life claiming the deal was an abject failure, but compared to the abject failure he is currently presiding over, Obama appears to have set the gold standard.
Understanding the truth about the original deal Obama signed in 2016 is absolutely critical to understanding how we got where we are. The best way I can help with this is to refer to a Brookings Institute piece by Emma Borden from October 3rd 2016, which opens with:
On January 17, President Obama commended a trio of nearly simultaneous breakthroughs with Iran as evidence of “what’s possible with strong American diplomacy.” These included Implementation Day, which marked the certification of Iran’s compliance with its initial obligations under the comprehensive nuclear deal and the corresponding lifting and/or waiver of a vast array of international sanctions on Tehran. The administration also announced the release of five Americans detained in Iran and the settlement of a decades-old financial dispute between the United States and Iran.
This is where the $1.7 billion contentious payment to Iran comes into play. This was NOT US taxpayer money; it was Iranian funds previously frozen by the US government. It was Iran’s own money being reimbursed. The obvious question is, what led to the seizure of the funds? The piece notes:
In the 1960s and 1970s, Iran was the largest partner of the U.S. Foreign Military Sales (FMS) Program. As an Obama administration official explained earlier this year, “As part of the FMS Program, a Trust Fund was established with Iranian funds to pay U.S. contractors as work progressed on the various contracts.” In February 1979, days before the culmination of Iran’s revolution, the United States and Iran agreed to a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that halted these payments and voided many of the remaining purchases. The MoU also called for Iran’s unexpended FMS funds to be placed in an interest-bearing account.
To cut a long story short, relations with Iran tanked after Iran seized the US Embassy in Iran and took 52 staff and diplomats hostage on November 4, 1979. As a result, Iranian funds held in the US were frozen. This also led to the infamous failed rescue attempt (Operation Eagle Claw) ordered by President Carter on April 24, 1980. Almost certainly an act that ensured he was a one-term president.
Republicans have sought to misrepresent the US-Iran nuclear deal over and over again. I would simply point you to a summary published by the Centre for Arms Control and Non-proliferation. I’d also ask you to take a look at the details of the deal from the US Government archives. There’s also a summary of the deal itself from the Centre for Arms Control and Non-proliferation.
To recap, Obama handed Iran $1.7 billion, but he had a SIGNED agreement that provided access to Iran’s nuclear program. Was it perfect? No. However, it aimed to ensure transparency through inspection, so any violations could be identified and addressed. It was a carrot-and-stick approach, an agreement also supported by the European Union. Obama did not relinquish control of the Strait of Hormuz, nor did he spend tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to impose the agreement. He certainly didn’t make Iran great again by making it a major new player in the Middle East.
Robert Pape, author and Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, specialising in international security affairs, explains in detail the position Trump finds himself in today as a result of his stupidity.
Iran is a beautiful country steeped in ancient history. A history which has seen it repel invaders time and time again. It’s estimated that just 20% of the population supports the regime, yet the US and Israel have deliberately targeted civilian infrastructure.
Hundreds of hospitals and schools have been destroyed. In addition, cultural sites and energy generation facilities have been damaged. This is NOT a holy war as Trump and Hegseth would have you believe; it’s just another pointless war prosecuted by greedy white men in search of geopolitical power and wealth.
Nothing has changed since 1953, when the US actively destroyed democracy in the country to install a dictator; Trump thinks he can now deliver regime change again by installing a new monarchical leader in the form of himself, working from home to control Iranian oil. This has NOTHING to do with liberating the Iranian people; he’s more than happy to deal with a repressive regime as long as they do his bidding and pay a licensing fee to him personally into his Qatari bank account.
Unfortunately, he’s picked the wrong regime. Iran is NOT Venezuela; it’s able to call on centuries of lived experience of invaders. They have no intention of fighting a conventional war; for them, it’s about asymmetric warfare. They can instigate an attack anywhere in the world to target American interests. They’ve just chosen not to push that button YET.
Trump is out of his league and now desperate for an off-ramp. Iran is very aware of this and is happy to provide one, but the cost will be crippling both politically and economically. The cost already makes the $1.7 billion unfrozen assets in 2016 look like small change. It has cost twenty times that, just in US military spending to prosecute this performative made-for-TV global event.
It is, without question, the biggest political and military failure in American history. Not because the U.S. military underperformed; on the contrary, it has been outstanding, as one would have expected. They’ve carried out their orders to the letter. The question remains: Did they carry out illegal orders? Only time will tell. They are certainly lions being led by religious donkeys, that’s for sure.
There is little question that Trump, as Commander in Chief, may well find himself accused of war crimes, and or crimes against humanity. Every day the US remains in this war costs billions, while Trump’s popularity dips ever further. He’s already on political life support, seemingly unaware it’s the lies that are killing him.
Iran is a smart enemy, better at social media than Trump. They are more than prepared to wait him out, because every day he remains in this quagmire is another nail in his coffin. He’s spent his entire life expecting someone to clean up the mess he leaves behind. That’s why he’s lashing out at allies and threatening to leave NATO. He’s a paper tiger in quicksand without a plan and no exit strategy.
Even when he has nowhere to turn, he can’t help himself; his self-enrichment gag reflex kicks in as he considers a ‘joint venture’ with Iran to share the proceeds of tolls on ships navigating the Strait of Hormuz. He’d shaft the world to make a buck.
Then he has Batman and Robin (Witkoff and Kushner) lurking on the sidelines to ensure he gets a cut of any reconstruction contracts that might arise from what he’s destroyed.
Just as Hitler became delusional in his bunker when it was all over, Trump is facing the same fate. The lies, the twisted narratives, the fantasy that the people believe in him are all part of a cancer that is eating him alive.
When he’s gone, if America does not hunt down and jail his enablers, I fear there is no hope for a better tomorrow.
THANK YOU for the foundation of truth we rely upon.
Thank you Martin. Today’s post was very helpful for me to understand some
missing pieces in my lexicon of foreign affairs.