I’ve been reading the Ayatollah Begs To Differ and recently hung out with some Iranians. The two I met support the US sanctions on Iran. I wouldn’t say I beg to differ, but I really don’t know. I don’t think a nuclear Iran is an existential threat and I don’t think half boycotts work (ie Cuba, or anywhere). I think the hostility towards Iran, like too much American policy, is driven by Israeli aggression and is not really in the interests of anybody.
Sri Lanka’s Self Interest
Sri Lanka burns crude oil for power, and is almost entirely dependent on Iran. These dealings with Iran put it in line for US sanctions unless it gets a waiver. For commenters who want to somehow loop this back to the Sri Lankan war, go ahead (actually, please don’t), but this is really about another cold war the US is having with Iran, largely on behalf of Israel.
Iranian Nukes
Iran going nuclear is seriously not the worst thing that could happen, or even especially bad. The worst thing would be Pakistan having nukes and to be forever teetering on collapse, which is already happening. This nuclear thing is a particular paranoia of the US from the Cold War and US Republicans candidates (with the exception of Ron Paul) seem to enjoy positioning Iran as a new Soviet Union.
Which it’s not. They don’t have nukes, nor do they have rockets that could reach anywhere the US.
Ayatollah Controllah
The biggest moral issue with Iran is not its nuclear program but the fact that they crushed protests and have ignored their peoples demand for change, and that the rulers seem to have rigged elections. That’s some bullshit against their own people. I think the nuclear issue is actually popular within Iran and unlikely to break the ruling elite apart.
This whole sanctimonious sanction policy is largely derived from the US’s unhealthy entanglement with Israeli policy, to the detriment of both. I mean, it seems like Mossad is killing Iranian scientists with car bombs, which is kinda uncool. They’re also blowing up Iranian centrifuges with computer viruses, which is cool, but still kinda douchey.
Anyways, I’m just kinda thinking out loud here. I dig the green revolution in Iran, but I don’t think half-assed sanctions from America (the other cheek being China and Russia) is much more than a pada show at the expense of Iranian people and now, seemingly, anybody that dares deal with them. I’m personally with Ron Paul on this one. The US should just mind its own business.
This is familiar stuff of course. It’s déjà vu all over again. Parallels with Iraq are uncanny. It’s as though we are back in 2003, under George W. Bush, with the US and its allies hitting Iraq with sanctions after crippling sanctions before unleashing the full “shock and awe” of the biggest war machine known to mankind.
Ironically, the senator from Illinois who voted against that war and promised a “new way forward with the Muslim world” is now threatening the same treatment to Iran.
But who said this had anything to do with Iran’s nuclear ambitions? This is not about Iran; it never was. This is about maintaining the Western hegemony in the region.
We are near total reliance on Iranian crude imports. Sapugaskanda refinery is almost entirely reliant on imports of Iran’s crude. Sri Lanka presently enjoys a four-month credit facility from Iran. So we are going to suffer a lot.
Yes, Israel is pushing this war
America’s “entangling alliance” with Zionist Israel has coarsened them as a nation, probably irretrievably. It’s sort of a reinforcing effect, like bullies each vying for the “glory” of being the grosser sadist.
The Zionists have, so cleverly, “entangled” themselves into their alliance with feckless America that there is no escape from the tentacles.
War on Iran can push USA into utter bankruptcy. They are rotten to the core, and the Zionists have led USA into the sordid abyss.