Caitlin JOHNSTONE
Democratic Party royal family member Chris Cuomo delivered a pearl-clutching, hand-wringing monologue on CNN last night about how appalling and outrageous it is for Republicans to accuse Democrats of having covert loyalties to a foreign government.
Our confrontation with Iran is part of a larger overconfidence in our military to solve all the world’s problems.
Andrew J. BACEVICH
The President has called Iran the “world’s top terrorist” but, if a state-actor like Iran that uses force is now to be considered a terrorist then Donald Trump’s America would be terrorist #1, as it has destroyed far more than Tehran could dream of.
Why doesn’t the U.S. respect the decision made by the Iraqi Parliament and move out of Iraqi territory? The short answer is, because the US doesn’t respect anybody’s – any country’s – decision or sovereignty, as long as it doesn’t meet their objectives.
Now, the US is steadfast and will not leave the region. Already President Assad has requested that the US leave Syrian territory. They didn’t. The stakes are too immense for the US. It has all to do with their move towards world hegemony by territory and by finance – meaning by the US dollar.
In October of last year, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) released its flagship World Economic Outlook. In that report, the IMF said that the global growth rate would stumble at 3% in 2019. A month ago, the IMF’s main economists returned to this theme; ‘Global growth’, they wrote, ‘recorded its weakest pace since the global financial crisis a decade ago’.
The U.S. assassination of General Qassem Soleimani has not yet plunged us into a full-scale war with Iran thanks to the Iranian government’s measured response, which demonstrated its capabilities without actually harming U.S. troops or escalating the conflict. But the danger of a full-blown war still exists, and Donald Trump’s actions are already wreaking havoc.
In a first major test of Boris Johnson’s premiership, the British leader has shown himself to be the dangerous sycophant that many feared he would be to US President Donald Trump.
Britain has always been a loyal lapdog for American imperialism. Remember Tony Blair’s obsequious services to GW Bush in the destruction of the Middle East. But under Johnson the sycophancy is even more sinister.
The president has squandered much of his promise with his hard line on Iran.
Scott MCCONNELL
Fifteen months ago I had a private conversation with President Trump about Iran.
President Trump’s White House press statement on Wednesday following retaliatory Iranian airstrikes on U.S. bases in Iraq was packed more than usual with lies and irrational claims.
Try as I did, I found it impossible to send New Year’s greetings to friends in Iraq given the unthinkable and shameless actions of Trump and his regime in the last weeks. His decision to assassinate Iranian Major General Qasim Soleimani at the Baghdad airport led to the Iraqi Parliament voting to expel all foreign troops from Iraq. Trump’s quick response to that was “If they do ask us to leave, if we don’t do it in a very friendly basis, we will charge them sanctions like they’ve never seen before ever. It’ll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame.”
