True Left

The United States has reportedly seized the cargo on four #Iranian tankers that had been headed to #Venezuela. The State Department made the announcement on Friday. The U.S. said the shipment was in defiance of U.S. sanctions.

Unearthed interview of former British spy sheds light on how the overthrow of PM Mohammed Mossadegh unfolded.

"Even though it has been an open secret for decades, the UK government has not officially admitted its fundamental role in the coup. Finding the Darbyshire transcript is like finding the smoking gun. It is a historic discovery," Taghi Amirani, the director of Coup 53, was quoted by the Guardian newspaper as saying.

With Trump’s re-election prospects up in the air, a heated U.N. meeting on Iran shows world powers' fading fear of confronting the United States.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday sought to reassert America’s waning influence on the world stage, challenging the U.N. Security Council to extend a U.N. arms embargo that is due to expire in October. Instead, America’s top diplomat received a scolding from friends and foes alike in the 15-nation council, which roundly criticized Washington for withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal two years ago without a clear plan to limit Tehran’s nuclear activities.

On a day when the European Union pointedly excluded the United States from a “safe list” of countries permitted to travel to the 27-member bloc, the council’s chilly reception of Pompeo added to a portrait of an increasingly isolated United States and underscored how little deference other countries pay the Trump administration as it faces a grim reelection contest. The U.N. debate came amid a sharpening blowback in Washington to revelations that the Trump administration failed to act on months of intelligence warnings that Russia offered Taliban fighters bounties to kill U.S. and coalition troops in Afghanistan.

The pointedly critical tone of the debate saw Germany accusing Washington of violating international law by withdrawing from the nuclear pact, while Berlin aligned itself with China’s claim that the United States has no right to reimpose U.N. sanctions on Iran. Russia’s U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, compared U.S. sanctions on Iran to the killing of George Floyd, saying they were akin to “putting a knee to one’s neck.”

The dispute centered on the fate of the nearly moribund 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which capped Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon but which the United States abandoned in May 2018. European parties to the deal, like Iran, want to keep it alive; the Trump administration wants to kill it before the election, lest any future Democratic administration bring it back to life.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke to the UN on Thursday, urging the world to step up sanctions against Iran. Pompeo cited the very treaty that the Trump administration itself had already shredded. The UN Security Council reminded him that the US has no right to invoke a treaty it had itself reneged on. Pompeo lashed out at the EU in turn, accusing it of "siding with the Ayatollahs." Rick Sanchez reports. Then former US diplomat Jim Jatras and former UK MP George Galloway share their insights.

"Maybe Pompeo is living in a quantum world where Schrodinger's cat can be alive and dead at the same time, the US can be in and out of the deal at the same time and sanctions can be unilateral and multilateral at the same time. But nobody else is in that quantum world. And he's gonna have to come back to Earth at some point."

The Trump administration is pushing the US war on Iran into high gear with these new ramped-up sanctions that are more extreme than just about any sanctions anyone has ever applied anywhere.

These sanctions are now stopping basic medical equipment from getting into Iran such as the Mepilex dressings from Sweden that are used to treat wounds, serious wounds. Apparently, Trump and his Zionist backers want Iranians to be wounded and not to heal. They want to inflict horrific pain on ordinary Iranian people.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said a UN arms embargo on Iran would be lifted by October 18, during a weekly cabinet meeting in Tehran on Wednesday.

"Ten years of cruel arms embargo will be removed next Sunday," Rouhani said. "This is one of the JCPOA's privileges. It lifted the arms embargo and as of Sunday, we will be able to buy arms from anyone and sell arms to anyone."

The Iranian president also remarked that the US did not achieve any foreign policy breakthrough in the last four years.

The UN arms embargo on Iran is scheduled to expire on October 18 in line with the provisions of the JCPOA.

Tehran will not renegotiate the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal with the next US president, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson told a press conference on Monday.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran has repeatedly stated that the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] is a thing of the past and that it can't be reopened by anyone," said Saeed Khatibzadeh, adding that Iran "does not change its policy with the coming and going of anyone."

"There are three important changes that must happen, otherwise there won't be any change. A change in thinking and mentality of the US decision-makers, a change in speech and the way the US talks to the world and the great nation of Iran, and then taking the right steps back from the wrong path and compensating for the past. We are monitoring closely. It is too early to say what will happen in the future,” said Khatibzadeh.

US President-elect Joe Biden was Vice-President when the nuclear deal was struck. He recently said the US could rejoin the accord if Iran returns to complying with it.

*SOUNDBITES*

SOT, Saeed Khatibzadeh, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson (Farsi): “There are three important changes that must happen, otherwise there won’t be any change. A change in thinking and mentality of the US decision makers, a change in speech and the way the US talks to the world and the great nation of Iran, and then taking the right steps back from the wrong path and compensating for the past. We are monitoring closely. It is too early to say what will happen in the future.”

SOT, Saeed Khatibzadeh, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson (Farsi): “The Islamic Republic of Iran has repeatedly stated that the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] is a thing of the past and that it can’t be reopened by anyone. The US has violated UNSCR [UN Security Council Resolution] 2231, has withdrawn from the JCPOA, has inflicted material damage on the Iranian people, and this makes the US legally responsible for withdrawing from JPCOA and violating UNSCR 2231, which is natural for Iran to be a plaintiff. And the US should be held accountable for its illegal, anti-international, and anti-Iranian behaviour.”

SOT, Saeed Khatibzadeh, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson (Farsi): "The US government is due to take office in January. After coming to power, we make our decisions based on the new circumstances and environment, within the framework of what already exists, and we must first see where the US government's actions are heading. These are actions that matter, not words, messages, I do not know, speculation, media analysis or institution analysis.”

SOT, Saeed Khatibzadeh, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson (Farsi): "We recognise the established government, we do not recognise any team. An established government must be formed in the US, and then they are the ones who must take action and we will be the observer.”

SOT, Saeed Khatibzadeh, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson (Farsi): "The US has hit the international community's trust the hardest. It will be very, very difficult for the international community to accept that the US will live up to its commitments. That is why we pay so much attention to actions, not words."

SOT, Saeed Khatibzadeh, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson (Farsi): "Iran does not change its policy with the coming and going of anyone. Going under the illusion of Trump's security, it may make some people in one or two of our neighbouring capitals reason that they can’t always pay for and buy security. To lobby, and buy security. To lobby, and buy weapons. To lobby, and kill the Yemeni people. This is a clear message from Iran to them. What we said seven years ago in this government and in previous years is still valid. The sooner they reach the rationale that we should look for a local mechanism in this region, the better for themselves and the region."