One year ago on August 27 British teenager Harry Dunn was killed by a reckless driver who crashed into his motorbike. But all the while his family have been denied justice. Why? Because the driver fled to the U.S. under diplomatic immunity.
Trump Washington continues its selective aggression against other governments that fail to toe the line of deference and economic submissiveness to what Trump calls “the Greatest Country in the world.” Its relentless hostility and commercial sanctions are intended to exert pressure on the citizens of these countries and cause so much deprivation, discomfort and distress that they will try to overthrow their governments by force.
Marshall AUERBACK
The emergence in recent weeks of a coalition of neocon Republicans and former national security officials who have thrown their support behind the candidacy of Joe Biden is an ominous development to those who believe U.S. foreign policy should be guided by the principles of realism and military restraint, rather than perpetual wars of choice.
President Trump called it “historical” citing previous peace agreements in the region (the last one being between Jordan and Israel in 1994) while his son-in-law, awkwardly, heaped praise on him in a White House moment which made the president look like a belligerent tyrant of an African state and Jared Kushner his overpaid media consultant flown in for the event.
As the United States sinks deeper into a multi-faceted global crisis that no politician seems able or even willing to address, one hears more and more often demands for radical change in who runs the country and to what end. Of course, Donald J. Trump offered such a dramatic shift in priorities four years ago, but he has been unable to deliver due to his own inability to execute and the ill-conceived machinations of those whom he has chosen as advisers.
You have to hand it to the sociopaths running U.S. foreign policy, they are very adept at creating no-win scenarios for their opponents. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was just handed a major defeat at the United Nations Security Council, who voted down a resolution to extend the arms embargo against Iran.
That embargo is set to expire in October as part of the U.S. unilaterally pulling out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), known colloquially as the Iran Nuclear Deal.
More than two years ago, in May 2018, the Trump administration unilaterally walked away from the international nuclear accord with Iran signed by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany. President Trump derided the deal as the “worst ever” and proceeded to re-impose crippling U.S. sanctions on Iran.
For Netanyahu, a strategic alliance with the Gulf has always been about more than just grabbing the occupied territories. It is central to his vision of an unreformed, maximalist, ethnic supremacist, Israeli state secure in the Middle East, serving as a regional hegemon alongside US global power.
Among the most brutal realities for Palestinians is loss of support from Arab states, who pay lip service to their own populations, while drawing closer to Israel with economic interests and Iran in mind, write Medea Benjamin and Ariel Gold.
Medea BENJAMIN, Ariel GOLD
