Squeezing Iran

More news on the continued demonization of Iran emerged yesterday, as the UN Security Council voted to impose yet another round of sanctions against Tehran for its alleged “refusal to bring its nuclear program into compliance with international inspection”, as The Globe and Mail put it. The Globe reported on the sanctions with all the asterisk-plagued “objectivity” you would expect from the voice of Bay Street, even as Washington (interesting, that) bureau writer Paul Koring was unable to mask the massive hypocrisy viz a viz the United States and Israel:

“There is no double standard at play here,” Mr. Obama said, although he did not directly address critics who argue Washington turns a blind eye to Israeli’s clandestine nuclear arsenal while attempting to prevent Tehran from building one.

Clearly, no double standard at all. But wait...there’s more!

The sanctions will likely worsen the already grim state of Iranian-American relations and could be the death knell of Mr. Obama’s as yet unrequited offer to extend the hand of friendship to the regime in Tehran. Mr. Obama nevertheless voiced hope that relations with Tehran could still improve.

“These sanctions do not close the door on diplomacy,” he said. “We would like nothing more than to reach the day when the Iranian government fulfills its international obligations – a day when these sanctions are lifted, previous sanctions are lifted, and the Iranian people can finally fulfill the greatness of the Iranian nation."

In other words, regime change. So let me get this straight: the same president who spent his first 18 months in office fellating AIPAC by maintaining the American elite’s single-minded focus on escalating tensions with Iran, relentlessly criticizing that country at every conceivable opportunity, insisting that “all options” are still “on the table”, and finally, refusing an arrangement brokered by Turkey and Brazil that would have shipped Iran’s enriched uranium abroad for reprocessing – in essence, an agreement made in good faith with Iran that would have solved the nuclear dispute and satisfied declared American demands – and we’re supposed to believe that Obama extended a hand of friendship to Tehran? An offer which remains “unrequited”?

The stench of political cynicism here is unbearable. It’s clear that the United States never had any real interest in negotiations with Iran. Don’t be fooled by Obama’s gentler rhetorical approach compared to Bush/Cheney, his occasional references to the greatness of the Iran people, etc. Nothing has changed. The goal of Western elites has been and always will be regime change, creating a more pliable Iranian government that will open the country up to foreign investment – if necessary by suppressing its native population in the manner of the Shah prior to the 1979 revolution.

In that manner, Obama never seriously considered Iranian diplomatic overtures, nor has he ceased the relentless manner in which the U.S. aims to bludgeon that country into submission, either through diplomatic sanctions or military force. That capitulation to elite interests has been there from the very start of his presidency, and his so-called offers of negotiation have always been insincere, his compliments always backhanded. In his inauguration speech, Obama declared:

To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

No single sentence better illustrates the hypocritical, cynical policy of the United States towards Iran. First, we have denunciations of corruption and the heavy-handed silencing of dissent – as if the American government has not fully tolerated and even propped up such regimes when it serves their own interests, as if dissent from Beltway conventional wisdom is not rigorously silenced (ask Helen Thomas). It’s all there – the faux democratic posturing, the laughable implication that American politicians do not “cling to power through corruption”, and finally, the projecting of American aggression onto that of its targeted enemy nation. Iran has repeatedly extended its diplomatic hand to America over the past decade – witness its 2003 overture to the U.S. after the invasion of Iraq, which would have satisfied American demands, but which the Bush administration arrogantly slapped away. Likewise, this year's deal with Turkey and Brazil would have satisfied the supposed demands of the “international community” regarding Iran’s nuclear program. But that agreement was never seriously entertained by the U.S. government, which has one goal and one goal only: regime change.

It is the United States, not Iran, which refuses to unclench its fist. The latest round of UN sanctions are merely the latest evidence of its characteristic imperial aggression.