by Pepe Escobar (cross-posted with the Asia Times by special agreement with the author)
Iran is considering conducting all trade in euro and yuan amid uncertainty over whether Brussels can challenge the dominance of US law and prevent possible sanctions
The Trump administration’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), has monopolized the highest levels of government in Tehran around the clock since the decision was announced on May 9.
Prime Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who met yesterday with the European Union’s energy chief Miguel Arias Canete, reiterated that mere words of support from the Europeans are not enough. The JCPOA joint commission meets in Vienna this coming Friday to analyze all options ahead.
EU diplomats in Brussels told Asia Times that, contrary to rumors, the European Union is not considering offering financial aid to Tehran in exchange for concessions towards a possible new nuclear deal.
What Brussels is desperate to achieve before the first US sanctions kick in from August is to devise a mechanism to contest the dominance of extraterritorial American law – and reassure President Hassan Rouhani, who allegedly has “limited” trust that France, Britain and Germany will affirm an independent foreign policy.
Tehran, meanwhile, is considering conducting all its trade and commercial transactions in euro and yuan.
Ahmad Bahmani is the Europe and Americas adviser to Ali Akbar Velayati, who happens to be the top foreign policy adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. So what Bahmani says comes from the highest levels of the Iranian government.
Bahmani received Asia Times for an exclusive exchange of ideas in an unassuming office in Tehran. He preferred not to have his picture taken, implying the man in the spotlight is Velayati.
The Beltway could do worse than listen to Bahmani. Here are the highlights of our conversation:
On the New World Order – Surveying the chessboard since “the first McDonald’s opened in Moscow”, and considering when the world was bipolar (“now there are at least six poles”) Bahmani notes whether, three decades later, Romania and Poland may qualify as “examples of true progress” as “socialist parties in Eastern Europe are the ones steadily advancing.” Meanwhile, all over Western Europe, “people want change.” He evokes Brexit, Catalonia, Syriza (the Radical Left party in Greece), the National Front in France; everywhere there’s “change in classic political divisions.”
On Barjam (how the JCPOA is referred to in Iran) – Bahmani is pleased the agreement has been broken – vindicating Ayatollah Khamenei who, on the record, always insisted the Americans cannot be trusted. Yet he’s not sure “the Europeans will align with us. They may not have the necessary independence. Europe does $450 billion a year in business with the US, and only $30 billion with Iran. Yet if they back down, it will show their population’s European governments have no independence.”
On Iranian psychology – “Here, when we achieve something with great effort, we cling to it in full force. So at the moment, there’s a feeling of untrustworthiness in relation to the West. For six years the core of Iranian diplomacy revolved around Barjam. Soon the EU will have to respond to other issues. We have no illusions.”
On Iranian resilience – “The US spent $7 trillion in Afghanistan and Iraq. Commenting on it, Trump said, ‘We just expanded our cemeteries’.” Bahmani evokes Iran’s vast topography – from the hottest spot on the planet to minus 35 degrees Celsius temperatures – to stress, “we know how to defend ourselves.” He makes the connection between Iran’s massive reserves of oil and gas and the capacity of blocking the Persian Gulf in the event of war.
And he extols resilience: “It would be better if Iran had no oil. We suffered four decades of embargo. During the 1980s, in the Iran-Iraq war, everyone was against us; we couldn’t buy katyusha rockets for 10 times the price. Never a day without sanctions forced us to become more creative. In 1979 Iran had 50% illiteracy. Now we have 5 million students, compared to 30,000 then; 95% of our villages have access to everything; 93% of medicines are now produced locally – and exported. We managed to convert [that] threat into opportunity.” He does make the eulogy of Made in Iran. And then comes the clincher: “The Americans are not capable of conquering Iran.”
On regional alliances – After I reveal US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin let it slip that the Trump administration’s real objective is to press harsher sanctions to get a different JCPOA, Bahmani says that Mnuchin is “already in a position of weakness”. He counteracts with Iran’s alliances across Southwest Asia. Iraq (“We know who the next prime minister will be but we cannot say it”). Hezbollah (“they used to be supported by a third of Lebanon; after the latest elections they have 60 to 65%.”) Damascus. Saana. Gaza (“there’s new allegiance to Ayatollah Khamenei.”) That “makes six allies, including Iran. Plus sympathizers in Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and Turkey.” As for Saudi Crown Prince MBS, “he has bought everyone else.”
On the near future – “We are not worried. Both systems active during the Cold War failed. We need to create a third system.” After 9/11, “show me one American victory in this region. For four decades they have tried in vain to install a security system in the Middle East.”
On Israel – Bahmani stresses that he knows “the history of Israel in detail since 1948.” He emphasizes 1982 in Lebanon was “the last Israeli victory.” Then there was 1986 (“after 16 days they accepted all of Hezbollah’s demands.”) In 2000, “they left Lebanon in a hurry.” He enumerates a pattern of war every two years; 2006; 2008 (“they bombed Gaza for 20 days”); 2010 (“the war of 11 days”); 2012 (“8 days”); 2014 (“51 days”). He mentions Iranian intel monitoring Israeli “financial movements to European accounts. Israelis may be getting ready to leave in case of a land war.”
On Israel’s bombing of the T4 base in Syria, when seven top Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps military advisers were killed, and the Syrian response, striking four sensitive Israeli positions in the occupied Golan Heights with 20 missiles (this was a Syrian, not Iranian, response; here, in Arabic, is a detailed breakdown of the targets) – “According to the agreement between Israel and Hezbollah after the 2006 war, if Hezbollah launches a missile and Israel does not respond, a skirmish, or a larger war, is over. That was the case between Israel and Syria here. And the ones who played the role of intermediary were the Russians.”
I ask whether Tehran should expect further Israeli strikes in Syria. Bahmani: “Not for the moment, no. This is just a chapter. A new one may be opened, in a month or two.”
If Iran is so stable, then what about all the unrests and Iranians(mostly the severely unemployed and the poor) themselves who are fed up the Theocratic regime.
So we must have “Regime change” every time there is a demonstration? Ehhh Glasgow 3 weeks ago 80 000 people, so “regime change” in GB ? What about the Palestinians, there would be nice with an “regime change” but you forgot that one also…
Mod: DLA – Please remember where you are posting. I deleted your harsh insult but I’m allowing the balance of your post. This is not the first time that you have stepped “over the line”. Moderation rule #2 clearly states “All comments have to be courteous to me (The Saker), the blog’s author, moderators, any guest author and all the other commentators. You are welcome to criticize and even attack ideas, but not people.”
I’ve been in demonstrations outside the White House, the largest had 250,000, but alas, no regime change then either. And of course, now demostrators in DC are threatened with 75 years in prison in the Land of the Free.
Your name says it all, did you know this term is only around 150 years old, same age of the zionist cult. Before there was no such thing as “Judeo-Christians”; they don’t meet.
Contrary to many fantasies about Russia and its roll fighting the NWO, NWO is almost complete. Once Zios infect body of country there is no way out, unless the nation is spiritually mature and not infected by greed and materialism.
What many people do not know is the fact that our dream about a truly independent and heroic Russia and Putin is just a dream. Russia is already under control of Zios, the center of NWO is not Washington, Paris or even London, the capital of NWO is Tel Aviv. Just look how the most powerful nations of earth bowing before them, did you not notice how simultaneously they dictate orders to Washington and Moscow. US goes against all world, all norms, all agreements in order to please the masters in Tel Aviv, while Russia goes against her only and few remaining allies. Do not make any mistake, Bibi-Butcher gave ultimatum to Russia, the so called leader of resistance in the world, the leader of resistance can not even supply a defensive weapon to an ally, who was been devastated and destroyed.
Nobody requires from Russia to fight Tel Aviv, Russia is not able to even criticize crimes of this tiny nation.
With Russia under wing of NWO, there is no more hope remaining in the world. No sane person will expect any thing from China, because the real God of China is money and we know who controls the money. So practically the NWO is here.
Iran and its allies are the only people with courage and spiritual power and heroism on earth, but they alone can not do anything, It Will be miracle IF they survive next decade. The only fearless Russian leader is Kadyrov of Chechenia, but his power and possibilities are limited. It is obvious that from all those Russian politicians Kadyrov is under toughest sanctions and blockage.
Russia did not give up anything in Syria, or anywhere else for that matter, regardless of what Tel Aviv had to say. The idea here, is to slowly squeeze the reptiles out of any sphere of power without starting any major war. Things can escalate very quickly and there are absolutely no mechanisms for de-escalation. Think about it, Syrian advances were not even slowed down with whatever bibi had to deliver to Putin. That is all that matter.
I lost you when Tel Aviv was named NWO capitol. Have a bit more faith.
Many Jewish officers were fighting and killed in the Red Army against Nazism. Many of their families lives in the 1.2 million Russian colony in Israel.
Why should they not be represented on Victory Day in Moscow without thinkers making NWO theories?
When a man act and make results, all the lazy guys always critizise him for not doing enough.
Wishful thinking. There will be no regime change in Iran.
Moses Pompeo delivers 12 Commandmets to Iran
https://www.veteranstoday.com/2018/05/21/moses-pompeo-delivers-the-12-commandments-to-iran/
I wonder if those were written by the same man who wrote the 13 demands the anti-democracy Saudi regime issued to Qatar? Since we now know as of this last weekend that MBS and Israel actively meddled in the American elections and helped the Trump crime family get elected, then the answer is likely “yes”.
Daily Dose 22.05.2018 – The greatest sanctions of the world history
(You can change the video’s subtitles to English)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEI7gggh2YI
America is picking a fight with Iran. It has no option but to do this. Iran has vast reserves of oil and gas and by the end of this year intends to join the Eurasian Economic Union, which would significantly strengthen the Union, including China, which officially is not a member of the Union, but is connected indirectly. Quite simply Wall Street wants to break the back of Eurasia as an economic and political block. Iran joining the Union would automatically lead others to do the same, and by this I mean European countries, which would have at their disposal the Eurasian Economic Union and the Silk Road.
As I have written before, analysts have stated that it’s only a matter of time before there is a rift between European and US elites, as politics is at the mercy of economics. There is no question that Europe is looking towards the East, and Washington knows it.
US sanctions have as an aim the destabilization of Iran and regime change. It won’t work. Ordinary people remember the times of the Shah and have no intention of seeing Iran reduced to another Ukraine. The US might try, as a last resort, an aerial campaign against Iran, but this would be a dangerous political adventure, which would receive support from few. The damage would be enormous, pushing Europe further towards the East. An invasion of Iran is out of the question, as the Iranian military and terrain would present a serious challenge..
As things stand now, Iran is now even more looking towards the East. The US is pushing it towards the Russian-Chinese camp. More foolishness from Washington.
Mr. Escobar touched the key topic in his introduction, “devise a mechanism to contest the dominance of extraterritorial American law”
That’s really starting to get under the European’s skin. Its costing their businesses billions of Euros already, and now the US is demanding billions more.
We’ve seen “sanctions” go from a UNSC thing, to now being a solitary US dictat. And this is what the Europeans want to stop. They know talking to Trumpette won’t do any good, so they’ve got to find another way.
It actually doesn’t seem hard to get around the US sanctions. Between shell companies and front men, this doesn’t seem difficult. But the Europeans don’t want to just dodge around them, they obviously want to contest and defeat the US assertion that they get to dictate to the rest of the world what to do.
“devise a mechanism to contest the dominance of extraterritorial American law”
It’s not American law, but maritime law, commercial law. The law of the banksters for the banksters. British East India Company law. Pirate law. Mafia law. The Talmudic law of the Globalists.
Europe cant do anything……………………LOL. They have been licking US boots for too long. Europe is finished.
French Total is already packing, Maersk the largest shipping company in the world is packing. The rest will follow. A word from Washington and everybody are leaving Iran.
The chocolate drinking Europeans thought they could survive on service and blow jobs to US wars. Now the devil is knocking at their door requiring their soul.
Very well put. I just made the same point. Forgot about Maersk.
Its more than just remember the times of the Shah. Its remembering that the Shah was installed by a CIA and MI6 led fake-revolution against the democracy that the Iranians tried to establish. Its remembering the Shah’s torture chambers and prisons and executioners.
The Iranians of that time called the USA “The Great Satan”. A fitting title for people who installed and empowered a torturer to rule over them, while the torturer and his family stole the wealth of Iran.
The people from that revolution would be in their 60’s now. Could the youth look their grandparents in the eye or feel any pride if they did any less to stand up to the Great Satan than their grandparents did? On top of that, their grandparents can tell them what the cost would be if the Great Satan was allowed to return and to reopen the torture chambers and prisons again. Not like the Great Satan can claim they’ve changed since those bad ol days, seeing how they just put one of there chief torturers in charge of their covert armies.
No, Iran is not going to surrender or allow a phony color revolution scheme to deny them their country again.
The Empire has it’s back against the wall. If it cannot continue pushing forward, and achieving some kind of economic success, it will collapse. We cannot depend on the Empire behaving rationally now, it is like a wounded dinosaur that is in danger of losing everything and coming apart. With Trump ceding everything to the neocons, the future looks really dangerous for all of us.
AMERICA’S ORDER TO IRAN: Surrender Your Sovereignty Or…No caps please – its like screaming. Mod
Watching secretary of state Mike Pompeo outline Trump administrations Twelve Conditions for negotiating a new deal with Iran, you would get a feeling you are watching the Hollywood movie ‘Root’ where a slave owner is dictating to his wayward slave the conditions that may yet make him spare his life. According to Suzanne Maloney, a former state department official at the Brookings Institution
“Pompeo as not outline a strategy, but rather a grab bag of wishful thinking that can only be interpreted as a call for regime change in Iran.”
It is a complete hasbara to say the least even their European partners are not amused as their interest were considered irrelevant when Trump decided to quit the deal which made Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council to say “with friends like America, who needs enemies.” Such policy is a threat Euro-Atlantic integration, but trust the Europeans to be subservient as ever to America’s dictat. Some say it is due to European economic consideration, I say it is due to their inherent weakness as capitalist, in their scale of preference material wellbeing always trounces pride. According to Barbara Slavin, director of the Future of Iran Initiative at the Atlantic Council Pompeo
“…is not asking the leopard to change its spots, he’s asking it to become a lamb.”
Mike Pompeo with his irascible iranophobia is simply dictating terms of surrender to Iran not negotiating, or how does demanding that a nation should eradicate the development of its defensive prowess amount to negotiation?
How does demanding from a nation surrounded by numerous America military base on all sides to stop supporting its allies in her region and not defend her strategic depth amount to policy?
Which country would agree to negotiate an end to its pursuit of scientific and technological research for the development and independence of her citizens and society?
Which polity led by rational leaders would continue to seat at the negotiation table with a nation that terminate international agreement signed by her previous administration just because it doesn’t sooth the whims and caprice of the present administration?
Clearly, America as gone rogue and to borrow tge term of the Saker its ‘non agreement capable.’
The icing on the cake is that if Iran fails to comply with all these demands, as Iran will surely not, in Pompeo’s word
“Iran will face the strongest sanctions in history.”
Did you perceive that as a strategy, don’t sweat it is just a ballyhoo which will amount to null as I will dissect it further. Iran has remain under one form of sanction or the other for almost four decades and thriving for a fact, under sanctions Iran became the leading scientific nation in the middle east overtaking Israel and Turkey and developed most of her defence technology indigenously. Think am bluffing, do a google search. Immediately after Pompeo delivered is address, Iran foreign affairs minister Javad Zarif wrote in a twit
“US diplomacy sham is merely a regression to old habits: imprisoned by delusions & failed policies—dictated by corrupt Special Interest—it repeats the same wrong choices and will thus reap the same ill rewards. Iran, meanwhile, is working with partners for post-US JCPOA solutions.”
Meaning the sanctions will bite but will fail to bring Iran to her knees. This bring us to the high point: if after all the most draconian sanctions have been applied and Iran still remain adamant what next?
The climax, do I hear you say…? Yes, you are right the options left is either America CAPITULATE or start a TOTAL and DEVASTATING WAR against Iran.
Obviously, neither nuclear weapons proliferation nor malignant activities of Iran are what America is concerned about as the US wine and dine with some of the most despicable and undemocratic regime today on planet earth without remorse, so long as they bend the knee and accept America’s hegemony to lord it over them, which is exactly Iran’s guilt. If Iran should be If Iran should bend the knee today, stop the criticism of Israel and stop supporting national movements fighting for independence across the middle east, then Iranian leaders may kill all their citizens and America will smile and say “hey! Iran is one of the most peaceful nation in the middle east.” Case closed.
Now back to the sanctions and its aftereffects, let us assume sanctions failed and America resort to war against Iran, what would be the outcome of such conflagration? To answer this allow me to quote one of the icon of the Western world Winston Churchill
“Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.”
There is a Yoruba adage which says “it is the beginning of a conflict that you will know, nobody knows where it could end.”
However, I belive there are still some rational actors in Washington the likes of Admiral Mike Mullen the chairman joint chiefs of staff during Obama administration – who still have the courage to resist the neoconservatives demand for blood orgy.
I will conclude this piece with another quote from Winston Churchill
“You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.”
Anyone understand what Bahmani meant in the On Israel section when he was quoted as saying,
“Israelis may be getting ready to leave in case of a land war.”
Leave what or where? Planet earth?
Many Israelis have the comfort of dual (or more) citizenship. Bolt holes are not lacking.
The same situation, it seems to me, means that for many Israelis there is no incentive to make the effort to be good neighbours with the other countries in the ME since, if they can’t be top dog and the hegemon fails to support them, they can always bugger off back to Europe, the USA or Patagonia.
When the dual citizenship issue is front page news, last interloper can turn off the lights in Jerusalem.
The operatives of George Soros, Macron and Merkel, talk about workarounds but cannot deliver. The sanctions are on businesses not governments. And, EU rules about government subsidies are extremely strict. Look at the ‘Austerity’ forced on Greece by the Soros EU leadership team.
The Globalists that would like to subsidize business with Iran are effectively blocked by the EU Constitution and bureaucracy they created to control smaller EU countries. Given that Merkel and Soros have gone out of their way to offend Eastern Europe, there is no chance that a special rules waiver will be approved.
______
Remember that Iran is a comparatively tiny economy. Its GDP is less than the Boston “Metropolitan Statistical Area”. Businesses may take significant risks to do business in a giant market such as China. That same risk-reward calculation means that few or no firms will take risks to access Iran’s very small market.
Argentina. Huge land being prepared as a new Jewish homeland for elites, since Ukraine ain’t working out as planned.
https://new.euro-med.dk/20180104-the-2-israel-in-patagonia-argentine-refuge-for-israeli-elite-after-gog-magog-attack.php
They are very aware of it, but can’t do much. The country is entirely in the hands of western bankers. Its military is practically non-existent now. The brits sank the “disappeared” Argentinean submarine. They can do nothing. Ruination through usury carefully planned. The bankers will eventually propose to cancel debt for territory.
https://www.change.org/p/exigimos-declarar-la-emergencia-territorial-especialmente-en-la-patagonia
And there is always the possibility of promoting and financing a good old independence movement in Patagonia. Check out this NYT piece from 2002 suggesting the idea
Some in Argentina See Secession As the Answer to Economic Peril
https://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/27/world/some-in-argentina-see-secession-as-the-answer-to-economic-peril.html
Interesting.
Patagonia just to happens to be a preferred destination for Jewish and Western oligarchs who want a “bug-out” location in case of a global nuclear war (or other global catastrophe) occurs.
What better way for these Jewish and Anglo elitists to save their own asses by conniving to carve out a huge slice of land from Argentina in case Doomsday comes?
I lived for a year in Córdoba Province in Argentina which is the main German enclave in Argentina. Even used to go to the Oktoberfests there which were quite enjoyable. Lots of the people there knew that Hitler and Marten Bormann moved there after the fall of Germany in 1945. It is said that they made a deal with Truman that they would be left alone for a submarine full of enriched, weapons grade uranium. Hitler was pretty much non compos mentis by then and Bormann ran the show. Historian Joseph Farrell likes to describe Bormann as follows – Imagine Dick Cheney but without his warmth and compassion. Bormann was so confident that he would write multimillion dollar checks against Deutsche Bank over his real name. That appears to be a historical fact and I have seen photocopies of them in books by reputable historians. I read a few years ago that the Russians finally did a gene test on “Hitler’s bunker skull” and it proved to be that of a woman. Maybe these Israelis can buy Hitler’s old mansion in Córdoba. Would be suitable for them.
Bahmani had a lot of interesting things to say. For example:
“He mentions Iranian intel monitoring Israeli “financial movements to European accounts. Israelis may be getting ready to leave in case of a land war.”
;-D
thanks Pepe – very wonderful article – super great that you are so informed about Iran. Iran is awesome.
The Israelis say 20 missiles were fired that night.
Nasrallah said on that “Night of the Missiles”, 55 missiles were launched by the Syrians at sensitive targets in the occupied Golan Heights.
I’ll take Nasrallah’s account of events over Israel’s version anytime and everytime.
Selah
Excellent article. Thank you Pepe! It is very refreshing to hear the views of Iran itself, and a good antidote for despair.
You can’t expect anything from Washington’s EU satraps.
Before US economic warfare/ strangulation has even begun, Brussels has caved.
Volkswagen, Siemens, Renault, Peugeot, Total have already pulled out of Iran – before sanctions have even started.
The EU has left its businesses to fend for themselves – they will get nothing but empty words, no action, from the Ziocon whores like Macron/ May/ Merkel.
They will just make a few empty noises and gestures to try to disguise what utterly contemptible, grovelling, obsequious stooges they are.
S.W.I.F.T. is headquartered in Brussels. E.U. should demand taxation of any U.S. transaction, to the exact same amount that the U.S. government fines or causes losses to the European companies. US is causing opportunity costs to the European firms due to the sanction against Russia & Iran. Specifically in the Iranian case, they threatened the E.U. firms with fines. E.U. should counter with electronic transaction fees on any U.S. related transfers, to off-set the effects of these illegal third party sanctions.