Hysteria reigned supreme after the first round of US sanctions were reinstated against Iran over the past week. War scenarios abound, and yet the key aspect of the economic war unleashed by the Trump administration has been overlooked: Iran is a major piece in a much larger chessboard.
The US sanctions offensive, launched after Washington’s unilateral pullout from the Iran nuclear deal, should be interpreted as an advance gambit in the New Great Game at whose center lies China’s New Silk Road – arguably the most important infrastructure project of the 21st century — and overall Eurasia integration.…
As I have been saying, the objective is to defeat competitors using economic warfare. The chief competitor of the US is China. Taking down China involves first taking down Iran and Russia.
If economic warfare doesn't do it, then kinetic warfare will follow, unless the US leadership changes and the policy of permanent US global hegemony is abandoned.
Asia Times
Pepe Escobar
See also at AT.
M. K. Bhadrakumar
See also at AT.
The final whistle is a long way off for the four-decade-old Islamic regime in Tehran, which has been playing patiently against all the odds...Trump scores an own-goal in the game against Iran
M. K. Bhadrakumar
See also
Untrustworthy. Agreement-incapable.
Why The Supreme Leader Banned Direct Talks With The US
Reza HaghighatNejad
20 comments:
“The complex interconnection of Iran with both Russia and China is even tighter than in the case of Syria in the past seven years of civil war.” ~ Pepe Escobar
This is an example of how propaganda works.
Propaganda does not seduce people via sophistry, but by implanting buzzwords in the public mind via endless repetition.
It's effective. Even Escobar has been programmed.
The Empire claims that its terrorist mercenaries are native-born Syrians, and that the proxy war from outside Syria is a “civil war” inside Syria. Escobar repeats this lie. He has been seduced by the propaganda.
All Syria propaganda revolves around a handful of endlessly repeated catch-phrases…
[1] “Civil war”
[2] ISIS™
[3] “Humanitarian intervention”
[4] Russia, Hezbollah, and Iran are evil
[5] Assad is a dictator who “gasses his own people”
Once the masses believe these core lies, they believe everything else. Logic, proof, and evidence become irrelevant.
To repeat: propaganda consists of a few catch-phrases and buzzwords, endlessly repeated. All other aspects of propaganda are secondary chatter.
Another example is “Skripal gassing.”
There has been endless chatter about why Russia did it, how Russia made the “Novichuck,” and blah-blah-blah, but no one asks, “How do we know there was any gassing at all? How do we know that this Sergei Skripal exists at all? How do we know that this ‘Novichuck’ exists at all?”
Once the “Skripal gassing” buzzwords are implanted in the public mind via endless repetition, the public accepts the lie as “fact,” and proceeds from there. Even skeptics believe the core lie.
Therefore most of the debates about the Skripal gassing hoax are between people who essentially believe the hoax.
Another example is “Russian meddling.” Once this buzzword is implanted in your mind, you do not need any proof or evidence.
Still another example is “six million™ gassed.” Once this lie has been implanted in your mind, you will believe all the other lies about WW II.
If you change your computer’s BIOS, the change will govern everything in your computer -- good, bad, or neutral.
Likewise, if you accept a false catch-phrase, the catch-phrase will govern everything in your mind -- good, bad, or neutral.
"It’s not exactly a wise move to threaten China" Does anything wise come out of Washington?
You guys are so biased anti war that you think economic sanctions are the same as war....
We don’t have to do business with any nation....
Franko, does your mommy know you're using her computer?
Should have added that we don’t even have to do business with any nation that does business with any nation...
Should have added that we don’t even have to do business with any nation that does business with any nation...
I don't believe that is the case based on the current "liberal" world order — WTO and all that.
It seems that DJT wants to change that order, based on exercise of national sovereignty. Rather than abrogate treaties he is using tariffs and "national security."
Interestingly, China and Russia oppose it, as does most of the Anglo-American elite.
Matt, are those your views? They read as if they are your views, but perhaps they're not. When confronted, you explain the apparent defence of violence and murder as the predictable actions of "morons". If it is yet another unusual explanatory defence of the "morons" who run the country (rather than the condemnation which everyone else here dishes out), it'd be good to know the battle lines. Perhaps lines something like: Matt on one side defending 'Murica because powerful corrupt elites are the definition of 'Murica, and then everyone else on the other side who put principles above country (as narrowly defined by the corrupt elites who would gladly see Americans die to line their pockets).
Matt: "We don’t have to do business with any nation...."
First of all, as Tom notes, that is against the law, but law does not apply to the indispensable nation. Just as important, however, laws apply to others with full force: woe betide an oil and gas rich country saying the same to the US, right? That would be an act of war - refusing to sell American oil that just so happens to lie beneath the territory of another country.
The problem is when US firms make a big capital investment and then the foreign nation reneges... see Venezuela currently... you can’t renege... agreements don’t last forever they have a term ...
Iran should just get over it, move on and compete... if they instead try to make it physical and it will be on... this is the history of mankind get over it...
Matt, but the actual history is that the US is the one that generally reneges on deals, makes it physical etc. in the last few decades. There really is a real truth of such matters, agreed on by most scholars and most of the world and supported by evidence weighed by usual standards.
Just as the usual story of WWII is the one supported by the evidence etc, is basically right, and not ones that make out Hitler's Germany to be the victim rather than the clear aggressor whose crimes clearly dwarf those committed against it.
Just because the US was the good guy in WWII doesn't make it not the bad guy now. Just because the US is the bad guy now doesn't make it not the good guy then.
What you just said, Matt, is that other countries should keep their agreements with the US, while the US doesn't have to do that and they should just get over it. That is a definition of empire.
No problem, but then the US cannot call itself a liberal democracy and represent that that is leader in liberal world order under "Western values."
Kiss the republic good bye? How long before someone just declares himself the new Caesar?
Galg you are referring to the GWOT we were under our rights to kill them all... and ofc we didn’t... could have... but didn’t... still can in like a day but ofc don’t...
You guys are all biased anti war and don’t understand the GWOT..
"Rights?"
Kill who, exactly?
Please explicate.
Tom think of it like "supply & demand!" from our Art degree Economists meanwhile we are in permanent surplus... iow whatever we want to produce we can produce in abundance but the ecoonomorons say we are under "supply & demand!"...
iow we could kill all in the Afghanistan nation in like a day, and yet there are people going all around saying "the US lost in Afghanistan!"...
Both are demonstrating the same thing...
We are having a hard time recognizing the surplus conditions weve been given...
All the Taliban need do is outlast the US and they know it.
This is also true of the Islamic world.
Could the US "kill them all."
Americans don't have the stomach for it.
We are having a hard time recognizing the surplus conditions weve been given...
I don't see that as the issue. The issue is who makes the profit. That's Capitalism 101.
It's obvious that the issue is demand rather than supply, but there is no way under capitalism to increase demand given the assumptions.
Change the assumptions that that weakens capitalism, it is feared.
There's a dialectic between greed for profit and fear of losing control of the system.
So it boils down to the guts. Americans don't have the stomach to "kill them all," and neither do they have the stomach to pursue capitalism to its logical conclusion.
So we are stuck in never-never land, stuck in the dilemma of cant' go forward in those directions and can't change direction for fear of losing.
Matt: "The problem is when US firms make a big capital investment and then the foreign nation reneges..."
First of all, THAT isn't the problem. Washington is making it the problem AFTER ensuring that is exactly what will happen. Imperialism 101.
Second of all, that's the problem every company in the world has. It's called business. It's the price of doing business. Tough luck. Get over it. Boo hoo, what do you want, rainbows and unicorns? The right are the biggest snowflakes there are. Man up, and man up big time if you're a multi-billion dollar company that can't get it's risk assessment right and goes crying to big Uncle Sam: "Please, Uncle Sam, can you...boo hoo...murder a whole country with your big planes and tanks just for me...boo hoo...because I really need to hit this quarter's...boo hoo...a few million dead and a few million gallons of blood should do the trick...boo hoo..." What a bunch of snowflakes! If you can't compete with a company from Sweden or Finland or China without crying to the Pentagon and CIA, then crawl into a corner and die.
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