RNA - The poll couldn’t be more accurate: In yet another violation of International Law and protocols, US Republicans and Democrats have reached agreement on legislation that allows new sanctions against Iran, Russia, and North Korea.
The Countering Iran's Destabilizing Activities Act, which was passed by the Senate a month ago, was held up in the House of Representatives after Republicans proposed including North Korea sanctions in the bill. The House is set to vote on Tuesday on a package of bills on sanctions covering Iran, Russia, and North Korea.
Obviously, President Donald Trump's flagrant bullying - much denounced even by the Republican Party establishment - is no sign that he has lost the ongoing plan to antagonize North Korea or derail the Iran nuclear deal with the P5+1 group of countries. The dirty secret is that GOP leaders secretly admire and envy his power as a bully. Worse, Trump's bullying resonates not only with his hardcore supporters, but also to many in the Christian-Zionist classes and much of the white-supremacist population.
Some might argue that there has been endless elite and media bemoaning of Trump as a bully. Much of this misses the key point and is hypocritical, for Trump's bullying is largely a reflection of the establishment's own bullying and the centrality of bullying in American foreign policy.
The truth is that Trump's bullying is a deep part of American culture. This is especially true of the political and media establishments, who present themselves as being civil and savior, and anything but bullies. The inconvenient truth is that bullying is embedded in American culture, governing elites and most powerful institutions: the military, the corporation, and the state. Whatever their personal values, they all live in a society that bullies the world through militarized capitalism. That says why they never bother to play by international rules and protocols, much less stick to international deals such as Iran’s nuclear agreement.
Likewise, the Republican Party's neoconservative establishment embraces a global militarism that threatens and bullies all nations opposing US interests, mainly Iran, Russia, China, North Korea, Syria, and Yemen. But these foreign policies are packaged in bogus ideals like preserving human rights and humanitarian intervention. High-flown rhetoric hides the underlying War Party’s commitment to international bullying. Although Trump preaches many of the same universal values with a pledge to “save the world from tyranny,” he is still explicit in his embrace of Xenophobia, Islamophobia, Iranophobia, Russophobia, and even torture.
Trump's blatant foreign policy bullying threatens not just Iran, Russia, or North Korea, but the entire international community because it draws attention to the subtler bullying that is commonplace within the Democratic Party. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton is more hawkish than many Pentagon generals. She favored the war in Iraq, the intervention in Libya, no-fly zones in Syria, and more ground troops to occupy the Middle East forever.
It is crucial, therefore, to the warmongers that their international bullying be disguised as a legitimate practice that serves universal purposes such as protection of freedom and human rights. Faith in their rule can be maintained only if most of the world community sees militarism, war, and corporate power not as bullying, but as "moral intervention" in the case of the military, and "protecting the good or efficient operation of the UN" in the case of war and regime change.
In the prevailing environment, independent nations such as Iran, Russia and North Korea don’t have to abide by America’s self-serving rules and bullying tactics, including its illegal sanctions. Other sovereign nations alike don’t have to embrace the bullying code of the US military either, much less learning to view US-instigated violence and terrorism as "moral intervention" to protect International Humanitarian Law.
Likewise, other nations seeking to survive and succeed in a violent, destabilized world - even Washington’s allies in Europe - cannot be complicit about the use and abuse of American military power and bullying tactics to rule the world. Threats to independent nations, competitors and even US partners are part of the Great Game.
The only good news is that those who can't live by America’s bullying and exceptionalism often can stand out and not lose. Any doubters should ask Iran, Russia, North Korea, Iraq, Yemen and Syria, which see President Trump at the helm of a large ship that has been going in a specific direction for a few decades, and that he has what they see as some limited capacity to steer that ship in a new direction. The new legislation by the Republicans and Democrats, in particular its coercive quality, proves beyond any doubt that that change will never come.
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