Are There Really Iran-US Peace Talks?

Or Is It Buying Time for Another War?

No week goes by in Washington without another display of Trumpism, i.e. the expressed desire by the president to turn our constitutional republic into an expression of Trump-world that honors and glorifies, as he put it recently, “me.” Trumpean conceit has included his Tr(i)ump(hal) Arch in Arlington, his bid to rename the Kennedy Center, his takeover of the Institute of Peace, his seizure of the District of Colombia’s public golf courses, and a declaration two weeks ago that he continues to consider awarding himself a Congressional Medal of Honor. How a draft dodger comes up with that proposal remains a mystery as one does have to serve in the armed forces of the United States of America to qualify.

Last week encompassed two bizarre demonstrations of how Donald Trump can turn the ordinary functions of government into mechanisms to glorify himself. First up was the disaster of the Lincoln Monument reflecting pool where the president hired a political crony illegally without a competitive bid to drain and then repaint and resurface the waterway to suit his color choice of USA-blue. The job predictably turned out badly and way over the cost estimate and it was soon discovered that paint was peeling and floating to the surface, together with leakage of the treatment used to seal the work done, and blooms of algae. The result was so toxic that ducks who landed on the water’s surface have died! Trump, who had said that the new finish was so tough that it could not be cut by a knife, immediately targeted blade-wielding vandals who turned out to be nonexistent. What was “existent” was photos of Trump in his heavily overweight armored official limousine accompanied by other similar vehicles in convoy driving through the pool before the new surface covering the unfilled pool was allowed to dry, leading to the reasonable assumption that it was the president and his brain dead friends that had actually caused the damage.

The other awkward display involved the appearance of the new US Passport to commemorate America’s sesquicentennial which features a picture of Donald Trump glowering out at the bearer with fists clenched appearing on the inside page. All right, no living president has ever sought to appear on a passport issued by our nominally republican and constitutional government but critics immediately pounced on something else that was not visible in the preview of the document. Apparently, inside the passport there will also appear the admonition “Welcome, but be good!” which rather suggests that Donald Trump or whoever advises him in the State Department believes that US passports can be issued to foreigners who use the document to enter the United States. That admonishment to behave is, of course, a complete misunderstanding of the nature and purpose of the document, which is only issued to people who are already American citizens and are using the document to reenter the United States where their behavior should not be subject to a caution in a passport. Maybe Trump wants to arrest everyone and the warning is “probable cause.”

Finally, one suspects there is more to come as Trump will celebrate the Fourth of July holiday a day early at a commemorative ceremony at Mount Rushmore. One has to expect that he will be announcing the addition of his carved head to the others already on display at the monument.

But last week’s prime event has to be the entry into the negotiations phase of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) which actually might lead to something good if it ends the God-awful war with Iran that was instigated by Israel. Unfortunately, killing by the Jewish state in the Middle East region continues, as do tit-for-tat attacks by both the US and the Iranians, and the Israelis are almost certainly planning to interfere with and disrupt any real move towards a peace agreement. The Fourteen Points that constitute the MOU also include a number of red lines both from the US and Iran which threaten to derail the entire process. Many observers in the US, Europe and the Middle East believe that the most likely outcome from the ceasefire and pause in the fighting will be another war after Israel and the US have regrouped and rearmed.

Consider the Points in the MOU that can be exploited by critics and will inevitably cause problems: The negotiations are all about ending the war but a substantial percentage of congressmen and the Zionist controlled US mainstream media are aligned with the Israel Lobby forces even though last week a resolution calling for an end of the war passed through Congress by a slim margin, all of which means there is little enthusiasm for either ending the war or continuing it and pretexts will be found to delay or even derail the process. Those legislators in most cases actually want the war to continue, acting under orders to disrupt the discussions coming direct from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv. The so-called “Israel-Firsters” have chosen to be focused on what for them are particularly negative issues in the document, including in particular the agreement to return the billions of dollars in Iranian “frozen” money to Iran. MOU Point Eleven states that “The United States of America undertakes to make fully available for use the frozen or restricted funds and assets of the Islamic Republic of Iran upon the implementation of this MOU. The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran will mutually agree on the procedures related to the release of these funds during the negotiations.”

And there is also the contention that Iran has deliberately continued to resist US demands that it dismantle its uranium enrichment program, which is only partially true limited only to insistence on the right for ongoing enrichment for civilian purposes. There is also some disagreement on what inspection process will be allowed. Point Eight of the MOU states, and Iran agrees, that “The Islamic Republic of Iran reaffirms that it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons.” The complete lifting of US sanctions on Iran is also surfacing as an issue that is being disputed in the minds of those in Washington and more particularly Israel who choose to see Iran as a continuing threat and choose to describe it as a terrorism supporter, which it is not. It is Israel that is the major source of terrorism and political instability in the Middle East and beyond.

For that reason, it is one point in in the MOU in particular, the First of fourteen, that is causing extreme heartburn at the top levels of the respective governments involved. It demands the “…permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon, and undertake from now on not to initiate any war or any military operation against each other, and to refrain from the threat or use of force against each other and ensuring the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon.” Clearly Israel will not accept the Lebanon bit and Netanyahu and his hawkish team have said so in no uncertain terms. US attempts to restrain Israel by both President Trump and Vice President JD Vance have been unsuccessful. The question becomes what will they do to disrupt the process and will it possibly include something like false flag attacks attributed to Iran but carried out by Israel to kill American soldiers still poised at bases in the Middle East.

Another point to cause problems is Point Five which basically calls for the unimpeded reopening of the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping. Iran has clearly indicated that it will supervise that process in its territorial waters, which extend to half the Strait, the other half of which is under the control of Oman. It has already called for tolls to cover administrative costs which the US has rejected. There have already been a number of shooting incidents from both sides over control of Hormuz, including drone attacks on several third country commercial ships, on Iranian defense sites by the US, and retaliatory attacks with drones on Bahrain and Kuwait, which have large American military concentrations.

Point Six is another potential problem. It calls on the United States of America to “…undertake with regional partners to develop a definitive, mutually agreed plan with at least $300 billion for the reconstruction and economic development of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Money for Iran’s reconstruction is also a particular sore point with the US Congress and the US mainstream media which portrays the payout as a “reward” for a terrorist state.

So, given the recurring violence, the intention of Israel and its friends in Washington to sabotage the deal, and the obvious other possible deal-breaker red lines in the fourteen point MOU, one might have to be an optimist to assume that the resumed talks in Switzerland, if they really take place, will arrive at a peace agreement in something like 45 days. Indeed, many foreign policy experts are predicting that the attempt has little chance of succeeding, but let us hope they are wrong. An end to a pointless war that should never have been fought would be a desirable outcome for everyone involved even if some issues have to be finessed to avoid a breakdown in the discussions. Let us hope that all parties will abandon their hubris and will actually do the right thing so the world and its people who are now confronting a version of economic and political disaster will benefit.

https://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/are-there-really-iran-us-peace-talks/