Blunting America's Sanctions Against Iran

Updated June 2019

With representatives of the Trump Administration repeatedly making comments about Iran like this:

After 40 years, the Islamic Republic of Iran has failed to fulfill its promises to uphold and safeguard the rights of its citizens. The 40th anniversary of the Iranian regime only serves to highlight four decades of failure and broken promises.

— John Bolton (@AmbJohnBolton) February 11, 2019

 

...and this:

.@SecPompeo: The United States will continue to stand with the people of #Iraq as they chart a future based on Iraqi interests, not those dictated by #Iran. pic.twitter.com/fPpeFazrzs

— Department of State (@StateDept) October 3, 2018

 

...one would almost think that Iran has no friends anywhere in the world.  Much to Washington's chagrin, recent developments would strongly suggest otherwise.

Here is an article from Iran's Press TV:

On March 18, 2019, the Chairman of the Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Baqeri met in Damascus with his counterparts, Syrian General Ali Abdullah Ayyoub and Iraqi Lieutenant General Othman al-Gahnimi to discuss future co-operation, particularly in the struggle against terrorism.  The three leaders believe that militants and terrorists were bankrolled by the United States at the beginning of the conflict in Syria in 2011 and that Russian assistance was required to reverse the course of the war and protect the Assad government.

Here is a key quote from the article:

"Baqeri added that withdrawal of foreign forces that are present in Syria without any authorization from the country's government is also top on the agenda of the three states.

Commenting on the presence of Iranian forces in Iraq and Syria, Baqeri said terrorists active in those countries posed a threat to Iran's security, adding that the Islamic Republic dispatched its military advisors to the two Arab countries at their request.

Baqeri emphasized that no foreign armed forces should be deployed to any country in the region without its legal permission, adding that Iran will continue its fight against terrorists in Syria as long as the legal Syrian government demands it."

Here is a direct quote from the Major General:

"[Those foreign] forces who are present in Syria without any authorization from the country's government must leave the Syrian soil as soon as possible... 

As Iran has come to Syria at the official invitation of Syria's government, the presence of other countries should also take place through the Syrian government's coordination and authorization."

When Iran's Major General Baqeri refers to "foreign forces" that are present in Syria he is referring to the United States which has not received any form of permission from the Syrian government to participate in the ongoing conflict.   He also warned about the efforts made by the United States to fuel insecurity in the Middle East

During the meeting, Bashar al Assad met with the three key military personnel as shown in this picture from SANA:

Here is a quote from President al-Assad from the meeting:

"Syria's strong relation with both Iran and Iraq has been enhanced further during the war on terrorism and its backers in which the blood of the Syrian hero soldiers was mixed with that of the Iranian and Iraqi soldiers. The meeting, for the principles, mainly dignity and honor, which distinguish our peoples and of which we are proud, proves that Syria, Iran and Iraq are in the same battle and trench against the same enemy." 

On March 20, 2019, Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Shiogu met with President al-Assad to deliver a letter from President Vladimir Putin.  At the meeting, the two men discussed several key issues including the fight against international terrorism, Middle East security and post-conflict settlement including efforts to help Syrian refugees return home and improving the delivery of humanitarian aid.

Despite Washington's attempts to isolate Iran, this meeting actually shows that there is a very strong alliance between Iran, Iraq and Syria.  What is particularly ironic about this alliance is the fact that one of the nations, Iraq, has been the "beneficiary" of a decade and a half of American state re-engineering.  Iran, Iraq and Syria along with Russia have all come to the realization that, by working together, they can protect each other from the terrorist threat that looms in the region.  By co-operating with each other, the four main parties involved in the Syrian conflict will blunt the impact of American sanctions against Iran and will only serve to increase Iran's influence in the region, the exact opposite of Washington's plan for the region.

The High Cost of War on Innocents

With the War on Terror continuing and Washington threatening to accelerate its war operations in Syria, monthly data from the United States Air Forces Central Command - Combined Air Operations Center is particularly pertinent.  This monthly report provides us with updated statistics for two ongoing conflicts; Operation Freedom's Sentinel/Resolute Support and Operation Inherent Resolve.  Let's look at each in turn followed by data that shows us how these and other military operations are impacting civilians living in these war zones.

Here is the data current to the end of January 2018 for Operation Freedom's Sentinel/Resolute Support (OFS), the successor to Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan which began on January 1, 2015:

What impact has the 17 years of conflict in Afghanistan had on the nation's civilians?  According to UNAMA's 2017 Annual Report, a total of 3,438 Afghani civilians were killed and 7,015 were injured throughout 2017, following a record-breaking year in which 11,434 civilians were killed or injured.

Here is a graphic from the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) for end of 2017 showing how many Afghani civilians were killed and injured since 2009:

Here is a pie chart showing what caused this year's civilian casualties so far:

Given that we are now in the 17th year of conflict in Afghanistan, it is interesting to see this in the quarterly report (Q3 2017) on Operation Freedom's Sentinel by the Lead Inspector General for Overseas Contingency Operations:

"On August 21, 2017, President Trump announced the broad parameters of a strategy for Afghanistan and South Asia. The President stated that the United States’ primary interest in Afghanistan continues to be preventing the nation from being a safe haven for terrorist organizations that threaten the United States and its allies. The President outlined five core pillars of U.S. strategy going forward:

• Enacting a conditions-based rather than time-based approach;

• Integrating “all instruments of American power—diplomatic, economic, and military—toward a successful outcome”;

• Requiring that Pakistan stop providing safe haven for terrorist organizations;

• Asking India to increase its already sizeable economic and development assistance in Afghanistan; and

• Expanding the rules of engagement to allow commanders in the field to “fully and swiftly [wage] battle against the enemy.”

President Trump stated that rather than nation building or using “American military might to construct democracies in faraway lands,” the United States will prioritize “killing terrorists.” The President added: “From now on, victory will have a clear definition: attacking our enemies, obliterating ISIS, crushing al Qaeda, preventing the Taliban from taking over Afghanistan, and stopping mass terror attacks against America before they emerge.”

The President said that the United States would continue to support the Afghan military against the Taliban, but did not identify what would constitute an end of the war in Afghanistan. “Someday, after an effective military effort, perhaps it will be possible to have a political settlement that includes elements of the Taliban in Afghanistan. But nobody knows if or when that will ever happen,” the President said." (my bold)

So much for tens of thousands of casualties and trillions of dollars worth of the War on Terror.

Here is the data current to the end of December 2017 for Operation Inherent Resolve, the current operations in Syria and Iraq against the Islamic State:

Notice the significant increase in the number of weapons released for calendar 2017 with year-over-year growth of 28.7 percent, hitting a new high of just under 40,000 weapons used.

If you want to get a sense of what these air attacks look like, here is an example from near Raqaa from March 2017:

What kind of impact has this had on Iraq's civilian population.  Here, from Iraq Body Count, is a compilation fo the number of documented civilian deaths per month since the beginning of 2012:

Here is a table showing the monthly civilian deaths in Iraq since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003:

The number of Iraqi civilians killed as a result of combat is still well in excess of 10,000 annually, 15 years after hostilities began.

From the Syrian Network for Human Rights, here is a graphic showing how many Syrian civilians were killed in 2017 and which groups were responsible:

As you can see from this data that is rarely covered by the mainstream media, war is very much alive and well and innocents are still dying at very high rates thanks to the endless War on Terror.    With Donald Trump threatening Syria with imminent war and the ongoing sabre-rattling against both Iran and North Korea, the innocent civilians living in these threatened regions are likely to find their plight pretty much ignored by the mainstream media as well as by Washington.  Stay tuned for Washington to take aim at Iran and North Korea.  While the global military-industrial complex enriches itself, civilians continue to pay with their lives.  

The Creation of ISIS

Updated November 2017

While the Trump administration in Washington brandishes its anti-terrorism mantra, a look back in time explains why the situation in Iraq and Syria devolved to the point where the Islamic State, the current global "terrorism boogeyman" arose to such prominence.  This background information came to light when Judicial Watch published a series of documents in May 2015 about the attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi.  While most of the mainstream (i.e. the "real media") focussed on the State Department and its foreknowledge of the Benghazi attack, in fact, another document shows how the United States and its allies in the region were complicit in the creation of ISIS and how the group could be used in the West's anti-Assad program.   

Here is the heavily redacted formerly "Secret/No Forn" document from the Defense Intelligence Agency  in its entirety:

The Department of Defense Information Report on Iraq begins by noting that there are two sides to the situation in Syria:

1.) Supporters of the Assad Regime - Russia, China and Iran

2.) Supporters of the Opposition to Assad - the West, Gulf Countries and Turkey

Since the Sunni - Shia split is critical to understanding the Middle East, let's start by looking at a map of the region showing which nations have Sunni and Shia majorities and which nations are currently experiencing internal and external sectarian violence:

It is also key to note that al-Qaeda and ISIS are both Sunni; ISIS believes that in order to purify Islam, Shia Muslims must die.  As well, Syria's ruling class is Alawi, an offshoot of Shia as shown on this complex diagram:

It is also important to look back at a bit of history; Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) became the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in April 2013 when it began to operate in both Iraq and Syria.  In February 2014, al-Qaeda officially renounced any connection with ISIS after attempts at reconciliation between the leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, failed. 

Let's go back to the Department of Defense document.  The document notes that the Muslim Brotherhood and AQI (Al-Qaeda in Iraq) are the major forces that were driving the insurgency in Syria and that, from the beginning, AQI supported the Syrian opposition because it considered Assad's government to be a sectarian regime which was targeting Sunnis.

The document goes on to explain the situation in Syria and Iraq, and makes the following conclusions:

1.) The Assad regime will survive and control Syria.

2.) A proxy war will develop with the regime getting support from Russia, China and Iran to aid the Assad regime in retaining control the coastal territories of Syria (i.e. western Syria).  Opposition forces, supported by the West, Turkey and the Gulf States, want to retain control of the eastern areas that are immediately adjacent to the western Iraqi provinces of Mosul and Anbar.

3.) As the situation evolves, there is the possibility of establishing a Salafist principality (Salafists are a branch of Islam that is most puritan and doctrinally rigid, seeking to imitate the life of Mohammed in every aspect of their lives.  It is most often associated with the jihadist movement).  Here's the key paragraph from the document:

Basically, in 2012, the Western powers, the Gulf States and Turkey were quite comfortable using AQI/ISIS to achieve their goal of removing Bashar al-Assad from power.  This map shows the Pentagon's intentions:

With the benefit of knowing what has happened since 2012, it is quite obvious that, in their haste to overthrow Bashar al-Assad, the United States and the Obama Administration, in particular, made a grievous error by assuming that they could use Al-Qaeda in Iraq to achieve their goals of regime change in Syria.  The evolution of AQI into the now-much dreaded ISIS is yet another fine example of an unintended consequence of a poor understanding of the geopolitics and religion of the Middle East by those who "lead" us. 

America's Destiny with Iraq

With the 15th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon behind us, I wanted to take a look back in time at some of the events of the day, particularly how quickly the events led to the very lengthy and spectacularly unsuccessful "War on Terror".

Since you've likely forgotten some details of the attacks, here is a timeline showing what happened on September 11, 2001:

 7:59 am – American Airlines Flight 11 takes off from Boston’s Logan International Airport en route to Los Angeles.

8:14 am – United Airlines Flight 175 takes off from Boston; it is also headed to Los Angeles.

8:19 am – Flight attendants aboard Flight 11 contact ground personnel and inform them that the plane has been hijacked and the airline notifies the FBI.

8:20 am – American Airlines Flight 77 takes off from Dulles International Airport outside of Washington, D.C. headed to Los Angeles.

8:24 am – Hijacker Mohammed Atta makes the first of two accidental transmissions from Flight 11 to ground control.

8:40 am – The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) alerts North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD)’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) about the suspected hijacking of Flight 11. In response, NEADS scrambles two fighter planes located at Cape Cod’s Otis Air National Guard Base to locate and tail Flight 11.

8:41 am – United Airlines Flight 93 takes off from Newark International Airport en route to San Francisco.

8:46 am – Mohammed Atta and the other hijackers aboard American Airlines Flight 11 crash the plane into floors 93-99 of the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

8:50 am – White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card alerts President George W. Bush who is in class reading a book at an elementary school in Sarasota, Florida that a plane has hit the World Trade Center.

9:03 am – Hijackers crash United Airlines Flight 175 into floors 75-85 of the WTC’s South Tower, killing everyone on board and hundreds inside the building.

9:08 am – The FAA bans all takeoffs of flights going to New York City or through the airspace around the city.

9:31 am – Speaking from Florida, President Bush calls the events in New York City an “apparent terrorist attack on our country.”

9:37 am – Hijackers aboard Flight 77 crash the plane into the western façade of the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.

9:42 am – The FAA grounds all flights over or bound for the continental United States. 

9:59 am – The South Tower of the World Trade Center collapses.

10:07 am – After passengers and crew members aboard the hijacked Flight 93 contact friends and family and learn about the attacks in New York and Washington, they mount an attempt to retake the plane. In response, hijackers deliberately crash the plane into a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, killing all 40 passengers and crew aboard.

10:28 am – The World Trade Center’s North Tower collapses.

1 pm – From a U.S. Air Force base in Louisiana, President Bush announces that U.S. military forces are on high alert worldwide.

2:51 pm – The U.S. Navy dispatches missile destroyers to New York and Washington, D.C.

5:20 pm – The 47-story Seven World Trade Center collapses after burning for hours.

6:58 pm – President Bush returns to the White House after stops at military bases in Louisiana and Nebraska.

Let's change the subject for one moment at look at an open letter that was written by members of the Project for a New American Century to President Bill Clinton in February 1998:

Interestingly, this letter which was dated over three and a half years prior to the events of September 11, 2001, was signed by former Secretary of Defense, the Honorable Donald Rumsfeld.

Now that you have the timeline and some background information, let's look at what was happening at the National Military Command Center (NMCC) which is located in the Joint Staff area of the Pentagon.  The NMCC is primarily responsible for generating Emergency Action Messages to launch control centres around the globe and provides operations monitoring and reporting for all military communications.  This is where Donald Rumsfeld found himself on 9/11 after he assisted with the Pentagon's injured staff as shown on this video:

As shown on this memo, written by Department of Defense staff member, Steven Cambone at 12:05 pm EST, the National Security Agency had intercepted a phone call from one of Osama bin Laden's operatives in Afghanistan:

It states that UBL's  (Osama bin Laden's) operative had "heard good news" and that there was more to come.

Here is a memo written at 2:40 pm EST:

It states that Donald Rumsfeld wanted "info fast" to judge whether it was good enough to "hit S.H. at same time, not only UBL".  In case you couldn’t guess, S.H. is Saddam Hussein.  The note also states that there is a "need to move swiftly" and that the "near-term targets needs - go massive - sweep it all up.  things related and not" and that this needed to be done to "get anything useful".

If you wish to look at the original scans of the meeting notes taken on September 11, 2001, you can find them here.  

Let’s look back at the timeline.  American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 am EST and American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon at 9:37 am EST.  By 2:40 pm EST or just under five and six hours later, Donald Rumsfeld, a key member of the Project for a New American Century, whose goal it was to remove Saddam Hussein from power, had already stated that it was time to “hit Saddam Hussein”.

And, that's how the seeds for the endless and extremely costly War on Terror were planted.  Less than one-quarter of a day after the North Tower of the World Trade Center was hit and Saddam Hussein was already a dead man walking.

The Clinton's Long Relationship With Iraq

Given that most Americans in 1998 were paying attention to Bill Clinton's wandering penis and wondering where it would show up next rather than his actual duties as President of the United States, it is understandable how few of us were paying attention when he signed into law the Iraq Liberation Act.

Here's what Bill Clinton had to say about the Iraq Liberation Act back in both November and December 1998: 

Regime change was obviously the order of the day.  The Clinton Administration was willing to do whatever it took to see the end of Saddam Hussein, claiming that they wanted to replace him with a government that focussed on peace.  The President noted that the best way to assure peace in the region and global security was to put in place a new Iraqi government.

Just to ensure that the message got through to American voters, here's an excerpt from a speech that was given to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Pentagon on February 17, 1998:

Let's look at part of the speech that wasn't covered in the video:

"Iraq repeatedly made false declarations about the weapons that it had left in its possession after the Gulf War. When UNSCOM would then uncover evidence that gave lie to those declarations, Iraq would simply amend the reports.

For example, Iraq revised its nuclear declarations four times within just 14 months and it has submitted six different biological warfare declarations, each of which has been rejected by UNSCOM.

In 1995, Hussein Kamal, Saddam's son-in-law, and the chief organizer of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program, defected to Jordan. He revealed that Iraq was continuing to conceal weapons and missiles and the capacity to build many more.

Then and only then did Iraq admit to developing numbers of weapons in significant quantities and weapon stocks. Previously, it had vehemently denied the very thing it just simply admitted once Saddam Hussein's son-in-law defected to Jordan and told the truth. Now listen to this, what did it admit?

It admitted, among other things, an offensive biological warfare capability notably 5,000 gallons of botulinum, which causes botulism; 2,000 gallons of anthrax; 25 biological-filled Scud warheads; and 157 aerial bombs.

And I might say UNSCOM inspectors believe that Iraq has actually greatly understated its production.

As if we needed further confirmation, you all know what happened to his son-in-law when he made the untimely decision to go back to Iraq.

Next, throughout this entire process, Iraqi agents have undermined and undercut UNSCOM. They've harassed the inspectors, lied to them, disabled monitoring cameras, literally spirited evidence out of the back doors of suspect facilities as inspectors walked through the front door. And our people were there observing it and had the pictures to prove it.

Despite Iraq's deceptions, UNSCOM has nevertheless done a remarkable job. Its inspectors the eyes and ears of the civilized world have uncovered and destroyed more weapons of mass destruction capacity than was destroyed during the Gulf War.

This includes nearly 40,000 chemical weapons, more than 100,000 gallons of chemical weapons agents, 48 operational missiles, 30 warheads specifically fitted for chemical and biological weapons, and a massive biological weapons facility at Al Hakam equipped to produce anthrax and other deadly agents.

Over the past few months, as they have come closer and closer to rooting out Iraq's remaining nuclear capacity, Saddam has undertaken yet another gambit to thwart their ambitions.

By imposing debilitating conditions on the inspectors and declaring key sites which have still not been inspected off limits, including, I might add, one palace in Baghdad more than 2,600 acres large by comparison, when you hear all this business about presidential sites reflect our sovereignty, why do you want to come into a residence, the White House complex is 18 acres. So you'll have some feel for this.

One of these presidential sites is about the size of Washington, D.C. That's about how many acres did you tell me it was? 40,000 acres. We're not talking about a few rooms here with delicate personal matters involved.

It is obvious that there is an attempt here, based on the whole history of this operation since 1991, to protect whatever remains of his capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction, the missiles to deliver them, and the feed stocks necessary to produce them.

The UNSCOM inspectors believe that Iraq still has stockpiles of chemical and biological munitions, a small force of Scud-type missiles, and the capacity to restart quickly its production program and build many, many more weapons....

...Now, let me say to all of you here as all of you know the weightiest decision any president ever has to make is to send our troops into harm's way. And force can never be the first answer. But sometimes, it's the only answer.

You are the best prepared, best equipped, best trained fighting force in the world. And should it prove necessary for me to exercise the option of force, your commanders will do everything they can to protect the safety of all the men and women under their command.

No military action, however, is risk-free. I know that the people we may call upon in uniform are ready. The American people have to be ready as well."

It certainly sounds like the Clinton Administration was preparing for significant military intervention.

With the former President's decisive comments on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction in mind, let's look at this quote from Arms Control Association...

"UN weapons inspectors worked in Iraq from November 27, 2002 until March 18, 2003. During that time, inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the United Nations Monitoring, Verification, and Inspections Commission (UNMOVIC) conducted more than 900 inspections at more than 500 sites. The inspectors did not find that Iraq possessed chemical or biological weapons or that it had reconstituted its nuclear weapons program."

...and this comment from the letter accompanying the report "The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction" from 2005:

"We conclude that the Intelligence Community was dead wrong in almost all of its pre-war judgments about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. This was a major intelligence failure. Its principal causes were the Intelligence Community's inability to collect good information about Iraq's WMD programs, serious errors in analyzing what information it could gather, and a failure to make clear just how much of its analysis was based on assumptions rather than good evidence. On a matter of this importance,we simply cannot afford failures of this magnitude. "

Now, let's go back to Bill Clinton and the Iraq Liberation Act.  Here is the text of the Act:

Note that in section 6, the Bill already had plans for a war crimes tribunal with the purpose of "...indicting, prosecuting and imprisoning Saddam Hussein and other Iraqi officials who are responsible for crimes against humanity, genocide and other violations of international law.".

Here are some of President Clinton's comments after he signed the bill into law on October 31, 1998:

"Today I am signing into law H.R. 4655, the "Iraq Liberation Act of 1998." This Act makes clear that it is the sense of the Congress that the United States should support those elements of the Iraqi opposition that advocate a very different future for Iraq than the bitter reality of internal repression and external aggression that the current regime in Baghdad now offers. 

Let me be clear on what the U.S. objectives are: 

The United States wants Iraq to rejoin the family of nations as a freedom-loving and lawabiding member. This is in our interest and that of our allies within the region. 

The United States favors an Iraq that offers its people freedom at home. I categorically reject arguments that this is unattainable due to Iraq's history or its ethnic or sectarian makeup. Iraqis deserve and desire freedom like everyone else. 

The United States looks forward to a democratically supported regime that would permit us to enter into a dialogue leading to the reintegration of Iraq into normal international life."

It's interesting to put this date into historical perspective; two short weeks earlier, lawyers for Paula Jones had demanded a $2 million settlement in the sexual harassment case against President Clinton.  His lawyers refused to pay more than $700,000.  Two weeks after the Iraqi Liberation Act was signed, Paula Jones dropped her sexual harassment appeal in return for a payment of $850,000.  The President made no apology or admission of guilt.

While many of us love to pin the current disaster that is Iraq on the Bush II Administration and its neoconservative deep thinkers, it's pretty clear that President Clinton was heading in the same direction.  Sometimes, it's pretty hard to tell the difference between a DINO and a real, honest-to-goodness neocon, isn't it?  It also should give us reason to ponder the long-term ramifications of this statement about Iran and the P5+1 nuclear deal from Ms. Clinton in mid-January 2016:

“But we shouldn’t thank Iran for the prisoners or for following through on its obligations. These prisoners were held unjustly by a regime that continues to threaten the peace and security of the Middle East. Another American, Bob Levinson, still isn’t home with his family. The treatment of our Navy sailors earlier this week was offensive, including the release of a demeaning and provocative video. Iran is still violating UN Security Council resolutions with its ballistic missile program, which should be met with new sanctions designations and firm resolve.

So we can’t take our eye off the ball. As President, my approach will be to distrust and verify. I will vigorously enforce the nuclear deal as part of a comprehensive strategy that confronts all of Iran’s negative actions in the region and stand side-by-side with our ally Israel and our Arab partners.”

....and this verbal commentary:

God help us all.