Sanctions are viewed as representing the middle ground in international politics. Considered more severe than verbal condemnation, they are less severe than the use of force.
America is the only country in the world that uses sanctions as a weapon of war. The list of sanctioned countries is growing but apart from creating mass starvation and deaths, the Washington warlords have achieved little.
The US-imposed sanctions on Iran have largely failed primarily because the rest of the world is fed up with US bullying and blackmailing tactics. Instead of Iran, it is the US that stands totally isolated.
Islamic Iran may initially suffer a setback due to America’s illegal sanctions but Trump’s policy will spell the death knell of dollar hegemony.
While Iran has fulfilled its part of the bargain in the nuclear deal, the US is putting hurdles in its way by refusing to release Iran’s frozen assets. Instead, US courts have indulging in grand larceny by awarding Iranian money to families making ludicrous claims. One Judge, George Benjamin Daniels of US District court in Southern New York is shown in the picture. Is there a better definition of Uncle Tom.
The Rahbar, Imam Seyyed Ali Khamenei of Iran has repeatedly drawn attention to the importance of developing a ‘Resistance economy’. This includes reliance on indigenous talent and production to eliminate the need for imports or external support.
Having seen the total failure of its sanctions regime on Islamic Iran, Washington is now opting for a soft-power approach. It hopes to penetrate and undermine Iran through a charm offensive. Islamic Iran, beware!
Islamic Iran and Russia have signed a massive trade deal that would be conducted in their local currencies bypassing the US dollar. Countries around the world are getting fed up with US policies and are abandoning trading in dollars.
While the nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 continue, the Rahbar, Imam Seyyed Ali Khamenei has called upon officials and people to continue on the path of the resistance economy as well as safeguard their Islamic cultural values against Western onslaught.
To overcome the effects of illegal US-led sanctions, the Rahbar, Imam Seyyed Ali Khamenei calls for reduced reliance on oil exports and reconfigure the economy to knowledge-based exports.
The US continues to play a duplicitous role vis-a-vis Iran. It has just slapped sanctions on dozens of companies doing business with Iran. The Islamic Republic has reacted angrily to these latest sanctions.
American hypocrisy became evident, yet again, on December 12 when the Treasury Department slapped new nuclear-related sanctions on Iran even while the Obama regime has said it would not do so. At the same time, Wendy Sherman, the top US nuclear negotiator told Congress it could impose new sanctions if they were not nuclear-related. The deal appears to have been placed in jeopardy.
The suffering of the people of Gaza may have been overshadowed by events in Egypt but their suffering continues. It has in fact intensified. A number of organizations have demanded lifting the siege of Gaza.
Can US leaders — in the executive as well as congressional branches — be considered rational? Almost daily, they threaten to bomb Iran, not to mention the imposed raft of sanctions aimed at undermining the Islamic Republic. The latest round of sanctions was slipped through the inappropriately named National Defence Authorization Act (NDAA). US President Barack Obama signed the NDAA on the last day of 2011 when most people were engrossed in New Year festivities to take much notice.
In the face of its collapsing economy and spiraling domestic unrest, the US is blithely proceeding with its blueprint of remaking world cartography. After dispatching Muammar Qaddafi in a hail of gunmetal, US imperialists are confronting the Syrian stumbling block, item No. 2 on its regime change wish-list.
The UN Security Council passed a unanimous resolution on February 26 imposing sanctions on the Qaddafi regime freezing assets of the beleaguered ruler and his close associates as well as referring him to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague for war crimes.
Under the terms of a peace agreement signed in 2005 between northern and southern Sudan, the latter is expected to vote for secession in a referendum in 2011. But the traditional competition between nomadic groups in the south for the best cattle and grazing land has developed into a serious ethnic conflict in recent months, so the region could be too unstable to hold either the elections due next year or the referendum.
The US followed through on its threats to impose severe economic sanctions on Iranian institutions on October 25, when it announced unilateral measures against the Revolutionary Guard Corps, three major Iranian banks, and more than 20 Iranian companies. However, the fact that it imposed the sanctions unilaterally, instead of via the UN, as initially threatened, indicates caution about the US’s belligerence even among allies that are supporting it publicly, and there was outspoken criticism of the US from Russian president Victor Putin during a state visit to Iran.
The US has imposed economic sanctions on Syria, on the pretext that Damascus supports terrorism and is keen to possess weapons of mass destruction (WMD)...
