“Despite simultaneously tackling multiple domestic and foreign fronts, the King and Crown Prince find themselves emboldened by popular support and an unrivalled consolidation of power.”
Read more: http://globalriskinsights.com/2017/11/anti-corruption-saudi-arabia/
“Trump’s decision to decertify the Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), appears to have fallen in line with the views espoused by several of his top donors. These funders believe that Iran poses an apocalyptic threat only addressable through military action, including the use of nuclear weapons.”
Read more: http://lobelog.com/future-of-jcpoa-in-hands-of-gop-indebted-to-billionaire-iran-hawks/
“U.S. President Donald Trump dealt a blow to the Iran nuclear deal on Friday, as he announced that he would not certify that Iran is in compliance with the agreement. While the unravelling of the deal is neither automatic nor certain, Trump’s announcement will have clear implications for the agreement – and for U.S. diplomacy. Going forward, two key things to watch will be how Congress and international businesses will react to the Trump administration’s moves.”
“It originated in the early 1990s when the neocons in the George HW Bush administration realized that with the Cold War’s end, the Warfare State was in grave danger of massive demobilization like the US had done after every war until 1945. So among many other invented two-bit threats, the Iranian regime was demonized in order to keep the Imperial City in thrall to its purported national security threat and in support of the vast global armada of military forces, bases and occupations needed to contain it (including the Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf and US bases throughout the region).”
“For visitors the lure is the culture and history of a sophisticated civilisation, with no fewer than 19 Unesco heritage sites, which had been inaccessible for decades when Iran was shunned as a pariah state. Now the country is also viewed as safe in comparison with other states offering similar attractions in the region – Syria, Egypt, Turkey, Tunisia, Libya – places which have become no-go areas due to the varying degrees of threats from terrorism or civil war. Mr Trump’s repeated threat to withdraw the US from the nuclear agreement, achieved through years of painstaking negotiations, is creating concern that Iran will be pushed back towards isolation.”
“Bloomberg also debunks the ‘official narrative’ behind the Gulf crisis and suggests that Saudi Arabia’s isolation of Qatar, ‘and the dispute’s long past and likely lingering future are best explained by natural gas.’ The reasons for nat gas as the source of discord are numerous and start in 1995 ‘when the tiny desert peninsula was about to make its first shipment of liquid natural gas from the world’s largest reservoir. The offshore North Field, which provides virtually all of Qatar’s gas, is shared with Iran, Saudi Arabia’s hated rival.'”
The Trump administration has in the past week made various degrees of military threats against three more countries that pose no threat to U.S. citizens or their property. A leaked phone call discussed sending troops to Mexico; a campaign promise to seize Iraq’s oil was reiterated; and Iran was put “on notice” and new sanctions were put in place after a missile test, emboldening the Iranian government’s divisive political strategy.
“Most U.S. news accounts last night quickly skimmed over — or outright ignored — the rather critical fact that the U.S. ships had ‘drifted into’ Iranian waters. Instead, all sorts of TV news personalities and U.S. establishment figures puffed out their chest and instantly donned their Tough Warrior pose to proclaim that this was an act of aggression — virtually an act of war: not by the U.S., but by Iran. They had taken our sailors ‘hostage,’ showing yet again how menacing and untrustworthy they are. Somehow, the U.S. media instantly converted the invasion of Iranian waters by U.S. ships into an act of aggression by Iran.”
“The real threat to peace circa 1990 was that Pax Americana would not go away quietly in the night. In fact, during the past 25 years Imperial Washington has lost all memory that peace was ever possible at the end of the cold war. Today it is as feckless, misguided and bloodthirsty as were Berlin, Paris, St. Petersburg, Vienna and London in August 1914. The modern Warfare State has been the incubator of American imperialism since the Cold War, and is now proving itself utterly invulnerable to fiscal containment, even in the face of a $19 trillion national debt. So 101 years after the Christmas truces along the Western Front there is still no peace on earth.”
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/christmas-2015-why-there-is-no-peace-on-earth/
“Netanyahu and his government were engaged in an all-out campaign to torpedo the nuclear agreement with Iran, and that effort wasn’t limited to using their American fifth column to put pressure on Congress and the Obama administration. Israeli intelligence planted malware in the hotel computers where US negotiators were staying during the negotiations in Switzerland: they intercepted highly sensitive inside information on the talks, and leaked it. Did they leak to members of Congress opposed to the Iran deal? It no doubt occurred to the US intelligence community to ask this question, and answering it was a matter of national security.”
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2015/12/31/mossad-caucus-exposed/