August 8, 2018
RT.com

Showdown Over Iran Looms as Trump Turns Up the Heat on Tehran

by George Galloway

For nearly 50 years economic sanctions have been the default position of western countries seeking to bring others to heel, make them succumb, or in the most extreme circumstances roll over, cry "Uncle Sam" and be "regime changed".

The fact that quarantine - or siege - is an act of war rather than an alternative to war is easily elided with a compliant media.

For most of my life I have struggled to explain that the US embargo on Cuba for example - still more the claimed extra-territoriality of that embargo - as a result of which gigantic US fines are levied on foreign companies doing business with Cuba entirely legally under their own countries' law. That the embargo on Cuba is lawless brigandry need hardly detain us. Perhaps St. Augustine said it best in his book "The City of God".

Describing an encounter on the high seas between Alexander the Great and a pirate ship, Alexander demands:

"How dare you terrorize these waters as a thief?"

The Pirate captain answers: "How dare you terrorize the whole world? You with your great Navy, can call yourself an Emperor, and call other men as you please."

I lived up close and personal enough to smell it, the long devastating regime of economic sanctions against Iraq which killed 1.7 million of Iraqis, according to UN figures (not to be confused with the deaths during the invasion and subsequent occupation from 2003). . . .

Iran has been ostracized, invaded, subverted and sanctioned ever since.

The first rays of light in this dark story appeared with the P5+1 Nuclear deal the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran in which Iran undertook to so verifiably limit its nuclear energy industry as to preclude forever the creation of a nuclear bomb . . .

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"Background: The Iran Nuclear Deal," The Wisdom Fund, August 8, 2018

"Neocons, Netanyahu Pushing U.S. Into War With Iran, Russia," The Wisdom Fund, March 15, 2017

Will Porter, "Iran Sanctions Aren't Just Counterproductive, They're an Act of War," libertarianinstitute.org, August 8, 2018

Eric Margolis, "To Hell with U.S. Jobs, Let's Get Iran!," libertarianinstitute.org, August 11, 2018

Andre Vitchek, "They Lied To You About Iran," countercurrents.org, August 19, 2018

[There's no evidence behind the national security adviser's dire warnings about Tehran's nuclear intentions.--Joe Cirincione, "Bolton's Big Iran Con," defenseone.com, January 12, 2019]

"Media Amplify Iran War Propaganda - Play Up Intelligence Lies," moonofalabama.org, May 11, 2019

Janine Jackson"Corporate Media Is Gunning for War With Iran," truthdig.com, May 11, 2019