Throwing Sand in the Gears of Trumpism: Iran Puts US on Notice

Rasa - Iran is not going to sit idly by while the Trump administration demonizes Iranian citizens and violates international protocols.

News ID: 427065

Date: 02 February 2017 - 23:41

RNA - According to a Foreign Ministry statement, Iran would stop US citizens from entering the country in retaliation to Washington’s visa ban against Iran and six other Muslim countries. Iran is also seeking to replace the dollar with a new common foreign currency in all financial and foreign exchange reports. The policy will come into force in March, as the US does not have a significant role in Iranian trade and could be replaced with currencies of key partners like the European Union and China. Iran already has agreements with Russia, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Iraq to use national currencies in the local trade.

The US ban, however, makes it virtually impossible for relatives and friends of an estimated 1 million Iranian-Americans to visit the United States. The Trump administration is also ratcheting up the rhetoric over Iran’s recent missile test, accusing it of being “highly provocative” and threatening non-specific action, which might include military force. National Security Adviser Michael Flynn says the Trump Administration is “putting Iran on notice,” claiming the test threatens stability across the region and “places American lives at risk.” Other US officials say a lot of options are under consideration.

This is ridiculous. Iran has been on Washington’s watch-list and a subject of unjustifiable hostility since the 1979 Islamic Revolution which ended US puppet Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi’s despotic rule. According to Nabila Massrali, the spokeswoman for European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, “The Iranian ballistic-missile program was not part of the 2015 nuclear deal and hence the tests are not a violation of it.”

Nevertheless, Washington still claims in practice very little happened to provoke the missile test. This is a misleading statement too. Iran did not carry out the test in response to Washington’s provocative actions. Missile tests have been part and parcel of Iran’s defensive doctrine for decades; they are never meant to put the US on a war-footing. The same way, Trump’s decision to ban Muslims from travelling to the US has put the international community on Iran’s side over the matter, particularly with so many European powers already concerned the Trump Administration is deliberately trying to sabotage the nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1.

Meaning, unjustifiable US hostility toward Iran has persisted for decades and the nuclear deal changed nothing. True, international sanctions ended, but US ones largely remain in place, with new President Donald Trump and bipartisan congressional hardliners calling for more.

Billions of dollars of Iranian assets remain frozen. Tehran is wrongfully blamed for regional terrorism and elsewhere. Congress continues to pass legislation authorizing Iranian assets be used to compensate victims of Israeli Mossad terrorism – wrongfully blamed on Tehran. High crimes committed in Syria and Yemen by America, NATO, Israel, Saudi Arabia and other regional rogue states go unpunished too – Iran targeted to pay compensation to their victims.

All this continued hostility is for one reason only: Sovereign Iranian independence frees it from US control. Washington and company want unchallenged regional dominance – pro-Western puppet regimes. Imperial wars on Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya and elsewhere aim to achieve this objective. Iran remains largely untouched (thanks to its armed forces that are combat-ready), yet unjustly vilified, cited for nonexistent and unsubstantiated aggression and terrorism, criticized for its legitimate missile program solely for defense.

All told, the Trump administration is not acting in good faith. Quite the contrary, Tehran seeks mutual cooperation among all nations, regional peace and stability, abolition of nuclear weapons, and normalized ties to the West. It wants its sovereign independence respected. Instead, US hostility persists.

The latest missile allegations fall under the same category. They aim to undermine Iran’s defensive doctrine, rescind the nuclear deal, block European companies from trading freely with Iran, prohibit the Export-Import Bank and other international lending agencies from financing any entity doing business with Tehran, and obstruct normalized relations with Iran - all in flagrant violation of International Law and UN protocols.

Tehran has other good reasons to bear such animus toward war-party Washington: The 1953 CIA Coup and the Shah; the imposed Iraqi war of the 1980s (with all those Western-made chemical weapons) during which America assisted Saddam’s regime with intelligence like satellite imagery and maps in advance of what Washington knew would be gas attacks; Bush’s ‘Axis of Evil’ and regime change threat in 2001; America never meeting its end of the bargain as per the nuclear deal. The list of shame goes on.

In summation, Iran’s latest missile test are imperative as upgrading its missile defense program is by definition a historic achievement and deterrent. But it is also banning Americans from visiting Iran and replacing the dollar with other currencies which altogether will put Trump and other warmongers on notice. It will illuminate the new realities and possibilities on today’s political battlefield.

The United States has lost the chance now to revise its century-old hostile policy towards Iran and try find common grounds for standing against common enemies. ISIL and other Al-Qaeda affiliates as well as their rich Saudi masters are posing a major threat to the United States' national security, and the country's national security advisor is pointing the finger at Iran. Such a blind and delusional foreign policy and national security doctrine is destined to fall and these are the poor American people who will receive the blow for such a historic blunder.

The new US president should come to realize that growing hostilities towards Iran will wear off his chances for buying Russian cooperation that he would direly need when Saudi proxy forces of Al-Qaeda come back to strike at the United States once again.

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