By Farhang Jahanpour, TFF Board
Speaking at the Heritage Foundation this morning, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo practically declared war on Iran. His unprecedented threats against Iran went even beyond what President Trump had said in the past.
Commenting on the speech, JStreet wrote: “With their decision to violate the historic JCPOA arms control agreement, the president and his ‘war cabinet’ have created a strategic disaster of their own making and undone the major accomplishments of the previous administration. They have made the US, Israel and the world less safe.”
Let us review what the US administration is demanding.
After 12 years of intensive talks, initially between Britain, France and Germany (the EU-3), and finally between Iran and the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany (P5+1), Iran and the leading world powers reached a landmark agreement. The nuclear deal (officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA) was the result of the efforts of the greatest experts in nuclear non-proliferation, including experts from the IAEA and departments of energy and intelligence service of all those countries.
Now, Mike Pompeo wants to reverse the provisions of this uniquely important international agreement, and he has practically shredded not only the Iran nuclear deal, but also the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) agreement. His list of 12 demands goes well beyond any international law and the IAEA rules. Let me mention just one here:
The IAEA that is the only legal body in charge of monitoring the deal has, on eleven separate occasions, certified that Iran has fully complied with the terms of the deal.
But Pompeo says: “Second, Iran must stop enrichment and never pursue plutonium reprocessing. This includes closing its heavy water reactor.” Demanding that Iran should stop enrichment goes against NPT rules. As for “never pursuing plutonium reprocessing”, this is precisely what Iran has agreed to do under the JCPOA, and has destroyed her heavy water reactor.
In a forthcoming analysis, I’ll go through some of the many intolerable conditions, Pompeo has established.
President Trump and his two senior officials, Mike Pompeo and John Bolton, seem to be preparing the ground for a disastrous war with Iran.
Their hostility towards Iran does not seem to have anything to do with Iran’s nuclear programme, but has everything to do with an obsession for regime change.
In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, Bolton condemned the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran as a “massive strategic blunder.”
However, he went on to say that American policy, “should be ending Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution before its fortieth anniversary.”
He continued: “Recognizing a new Iranian regime in 2019 would reverse the shame of once seeing our diplomats held hostage for four hundred and forty-four days. The former hostages can cut the ribbon to open the new U.S. Embassy in Tehran.”
This obsession with the past and a deliberate decision to bring about a regime change in Iran will have incalculable costs.
Prior to Iraq war, Paul Wolfowitz, the author of that war, predicted that it would be a “cake walk”, that it “would pay for itself”, and that “US forces would be welcomed with roses”. Fifteen years after that disastrous war, American forces are still operating in that country, and the war which has cost trillions of dollars to US taxpayers has killed and wounded millions of innocent Iraqi people, shattered that country and has given rise to a number of vicious terrorist movements.
It should be clear to everyone who is familiar with the Middle East that a war against Iran will not be like Iraq, it will be much worse.
It will kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people, will set the Middle East on fire and will do a great damage to Israel and other US allies that she seemingly wishes to support.
It is time for the Europeans, for the peace-loving Americans and for millions of concerned people all over the world who will be paying the cost of this misadventure to stop this madness before it is too late.
