Will it reach a CKrescendo soon? Yes, we’re lookin’ at you, Bibi. Also: your wife wears combat boots (on her face), so there!
‘Washington escalates “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran’, 6 September 2019, wsws.org, Bill Van Auken
“In abrogating US commitment to that deal [the JCPOA], in flagrant violation of international law, the Trump administration embarked upon a strategy of US aggression and regime change in Iran. This has involved the steady escalation of a “maximum pressure” campaign aimed at starving the Iranian people into submission, combined with a buildup of US military forces in the Persian Gulf in preparation for armed intervention.
The “maximum pressure” campaign’s stated aim is to drive Iran’s oil exports, which account for the overwhelming share of the country’s earnings, down to zero. According to most estimates, exports of Iranian crude oil have been slashed by roughly 80 percent.
Trump gloated over the effects of the sanctions during a White House press briefing Wednesday. “They’ve got a big problem,” he said. “They’re getting killed, financially. Their inflation is at a number that few people have ever seen inflation at. (sic)”
The measures taken by the United States amount to a criminal act of collective punishment against Iran’s 83 million people. In addition to slashing the country’s export income, the US sanctions regime has also frozen Iran out of the US-dominated world financial system, severely hindering the country’s ability to import vital necessities, including food and medicines that are technically exempt from the US blockade.
As a result, children on cancer wards are being denied the drugs needed to combat the disease and are dying in growing numbers. What imported drugs are available are in short supply, and their prices have skyrocketed. The financial sanctions have disrupted supply chains for Iran’s own extensive pharmaceutical industry, further reducing the availability of drugs and condemning many more to an early death. Among Iran’s working people, those not being killed outright by the sanctions are more and more being driven into poverty and hunger as the cost of food, housing and other basic necessities skyrocket.
There is no evidence, however, that the sanctions have destabilized the Iranian government, while its principal base, Iran’s capitalist ruling class, continues to reap profits, even as masses of workers are confronting increasingly desperate conditions.” [snip]
And while I suppose Iran’s ruling class continuing to reap profits, wsws does say the same about the Maduro government, Xi’s, and of course Putin’s oligarchs, I at least find myself hoping that it’s not quite so.
“Since then, Washington has been flailing about for a means of escalating its drive for regime change in Iran. On Wednesday, the Trump administration unveiled a new set of sweeping sanctions aimed at paralyzing the shipment of Iran’s oil exports. Claiming that the shipping network being used to evade Washington’s unilateral sanctions is run by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force, it threatened to target any “non-U.S. persons who knowingly provide significant goods, services, or support” to Iran’s oil shipments with punishing sanctions. “Failure to take heed … bears grave consequences,” an administration official told the Washington Post.” [snip]
Trump himself swings wildly between offers of negotiations and threats of all-out war.
Remember we were told that FM Zarif had paid a ‘surprise visit’ to the G7 Summit, and wondered how that went?
“At the G7 summit last month, he seemed to embrace a proposal by French President Emmanuel Macron to extend a $15 billion line of credit to Iran to convince it to continue abiding by the terms of the JCPOA, which was supposed to trade a severe curtailment of Iran’s nuclear program for a lifting of the sanctions that have been re-imposed by Washington. Macron’s invitation to Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif to talks at the G7 were seen as a preparation for direct US-Iranian negotiations.
On Wednesday, however, Washington indicated it had no intention of allowing France to go through with the deal, while Trump told reporters that he didn’t need Macron to talk to Iran. Administration officials speaking to the media dismissed the “French scheme,” exposing the sharp conflicts between Europe and America over the Iranian question.”
Now this is both terrifyingly nutz and dangerous, but he offers no link to the Times piece, and I couldn’t kick it up externally, albeit paywalls and all that rot. Were they all anonymous US and Israeli officials, as the NYSlimes often quotes in their war fervor?
“The threat that the escalating tensions produced by US imperialism’s “maximum pressure” campaign will erupt into a full-scale war was underscored by a lengthy article published by the New York Times Wednesday reviewing the protracted collaboration between Washington and Israel in relation to Iran.
Citing US and Israeli officials, the article made clear that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is actively considering the launching of a unilateral military strike against Iranian nuclear installations, an action that would receive a green light from the Trump White House. Confronting a growing political crisis and the threat of criminal prosecution, Netanyahu has in recent weeks ordered Israeli military strikes against targets allegedly linked to Iran in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.”
Related evidence?
“The article also underscored the bipartisan character of the protracted US campaign for regime change in Iran. Trump, the article states, “inherited a loaded gun: military plans for an Iran strike that had been meticulously refined during the Obama years.” The Times piece cites how, under the Obama administration, the Pentagon built a full-scale replica of Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility in a desert in the American southwest, destroying it with a 30,000-pound bunker-busting bomb designed by the US Air Force.”
‘Iran will give Europe two months to save nuclear deal – Rouhani’, 4 Sept. 4, 2019, RT.com
“Europe has two months to negotiate sanctions relief for Tehran, otherwise the country will initiate ‘phase three’ in its rollback of commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has said.
“Europe has another two-month deadline for negotiations, agreement, and a return to its commitments,” Rouhani warned at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
Tehran has been calling on the EU to provide relief from the sweeping sanctions that were imposed by Washington after the US unilaterally left the 2015 deal, known as the JCPOA. Iranian officials have warned that they will gradually reduce their commitments under the agreement if this does not happen.
In early July, Iran activated the ‘first phase’ of this strategy by increasing its stockpile of enriched uranium beyond the 300kg limit imposed by the JCPOA. The ‘second phase’ – enriching uranium beyond 3.67 percent – was effected shortly afterwards.”
(cross-posted at caucus99percent.com)
davidly
Greyson Smythe
LeMoyne
juliania2
ohiobarbarian
stephenadavis1
wendyedavis
café babylon 
h/t b at MoA:
via FARS news Sept.5:
“Hook, who heads the state department’s Iran Action Group, has emailed or texted roughly a dozen captains in recent months in an effort to scare mariners into understanding that helping Iran evade sanctions comes at a heavy price.
In late August, The US Treasury Department blacklisted the Iranian oil tanker – recently freed from a month-long detention in Gibraltar – and sanctioned its captain after an attempt to confiscate the ship failed.
Iran had condemned the “illegal move” of London and described it as “tantamount to piracy”. Tehran accused the UK of doing Washington’s bidding and helping the US attempt to stifle the Islamic Republic’s oil exports, rejecting London’s claim that the supertanker was carrying crude for Syria.
Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei had slammed Britain’s illegal seizure of the oil tanker, warning London of a pending response to the seizure of the supertanker that he referred to as a case of “piracy”.
Then a week later in mid-July, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) impounded the British tanker ship, ‘Stena Impero’, as it was passing through the Strait of Hormuz en route to Saudi Arabia “for failing to respect international maritime rules”. The Stena Impero is still in Iranian custody, while Tehran has stated that the fate of violator British oil tanker seized in the Iranian waters depends on a decision made by the judiciary.
The recent moves by foreign powers in the Middle East such as US sanctions on Tehran’s oil, UK seizure of Iranian supertanker, as well as, “sabotage operations” on oil ships have intensified the turmoil in the region and the turmoil in the international energy market, affecting global crude prices in recent months.
https://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13980613001271
Zavad Zarif Retweeted Bruno Rodríguez P
“#US #EconomicTerrorism against Cuba, China, Russia, Syria, Iran &… deliberately target civilians, trying to achieve illegitimate political objectives through intimidation of innocent people. US rouge [rogue] behavior now includes piracy, bribery & blackmail. We salute Cuba & stand w/it”
US and Israel greed does not bode well for the world economy. How can the citizens of those two countries justify the damage being done in their governments’ name?
welcome to the café, spritlevelbalance. now the answer to your Q would be complicated as hell, but in this case, they justify it because they want to believe that iran is in search of nuclear bombs, never mind that they’ve always been in compliance with the IAEA inspectors, both likkud in israel and
obomba, now trump, believing or pretending to believe that iran wants to ‘wipe israel off the map’, sort of an old, possibly mis-translation of some rant former president achmedinejad (sp?) had gone on years and years ago.
so it’s not greed, really, that’s the motivating factor: it’s killing their economy, same in russia, venezuela, and cuba. possibly soon bolivia, as was completed in allende’s chile to ‘make the economy scream’ in order to foment a right-wing revolution, as happened decades ago. of course it’s war by other means…for now…and it’s hard to say if rumors of bombing the nuclear installation is just by way of a psyop or not, but either way, it’s a dangerous game.
but the sides have been chosen: US, israel, saudi arabia (wahabbi muslim) v. iran (shiite muslim), proxies and allies, and as the amerikan empire is flailing and falling, failing to cede to a multipolar world, this quote is what the world is seeing now:
“There was no corner of the known world where some interest was not alleged to be in danger or under actual attack. If the interests were not Roman, they were those of Rome’s allies; and if Rome had no allies, then allies would be invented. When it was utterly impossible to contrive such an interest—why, then it was the national honor that had been insulted. The fight was always invested with an aura of legality. Rome was always being attacked by evil-minded neighbors, always fighting for a breathing space. The whole world was pervaded by a host of enemies, and it was manifestly Rome’s duty to guard against their indubitably aggressive designs. They were enemies who only waited to fall on the Roman people.”
~ Joseph Schumpeter, 1951
Yes, Wendy, you make sense. Greed is perhaps too mild a human condition to describe the capitalist war on social economies. The fact that China has sided with Iran against the US sanctions (to buy their oil) is exposing the farcical unilateral policies of the empire.
Thanks for the Roman quote.
indeed, spiritlevel; just imagine if the world were to cooperate, not compete, what it would mean for all people of the earth. the notion of zero sum must have originated in the west, no?
even the west’s acceptance of a multi-polar world aided by true by diplomacy, not war in its many guises…would look so different. but here we are, and this dying empire (as per schumpeter) is killing itself. maybe us along with it.