Tagged with US

There are big lessons to be learnt from the Iran deal

John Kerry & Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Sharif

The US-Iran agreement, albeit temporary, may well be the diplomatic coup of the decade, or indeed the biggest peaceful shifting of the tectonic plates since the last World War in the most dangerous area on the planet. But it is as well, for future reference, to identify the specific mechanisms which allowed this breakthrough to proceed.

First, it came about because sanctions were applied to Iran which seriously threatened the political and economic stability of the country. These pressures had caused Iran’s currency to halve in value against the US dollar in the last 2 years, its foreign exchange holdings in excess of $50bn to be frozen, and crucially its oil revenues to be cut by more than half. Restrictions had been placed on Iran’s trade in gold, petrochemicals, car and plane parts which cumulatively took their toll. Continue reading →

Is Russia now in charge of Middle East policy?

Putin and the Mid-eastThe US has been comprehensively outmanoeuvred over Syria.

First, the Commons vote induced Obama to seek a vote in Congress to shore up his authority to take military action against the background that US public opinion shared UK public opinion in resisting any further intervention in the Middle East.

Then as uncertainty grew about the vote in the House of Representatives, he grasped eagerly at the lifeline thrown him by the Russian proposal that the Syrian chemical weapons sites be placed under international control. Continue reading →

The West is too riddled with self interest to lead on Syria or other world affairs

TOPSHOTS-SYRIA-CONFLICTObama’s key line that the attack on Syria would be a short, surgical strike was designed to win over those who were appalled at Assad’s (virtually certain) use of chemical weapons and wanted him to be punished, but without risk of another long war. His latest deviation from this line – that the missile strike is part of a wider scenario leading to regime change in Damascus – was designed to win over key Republican leaders in order to help win the Congressional vote next week, but it will inevitably alarm and turn off those in the first category. Continue reading →

The special relationship and the difference a day makes

Union & US flagsSuddenly, politics is before and after ‘last Thursday’. Before last Thursday, Britain was America’s poodle, prepared to pay the ‘blood price’ for our special relationship, riding pillion passenger to US foreign policy, whatever the blowback.

Since last Thursday, Britain has determined its own destiny. It has rejected participation in another murderous and futile US war in the Middle East. And it has broken the first link in the bloody chains that have bound us to US policy over decades.

Quite an achievement, and one from which I am still reeling. But the extent of Thursday’s impact only began to become clear as President Obama spoke on Saturday. Rather than announcing some imminent and supposedly ‘limited’ punishment on Syria, Obama threw the decision back to Congress. There has certainly been pressure from Congress members – including a petition from over 100 of them – but who can seriously doubt that the major factor was Thursday’s rejection of war by British MPs? Continue reading →

A US attack on Syria won’t stop chemical weapons: there’s a better way

TOPSHOTS-SYRIA-CONFLICTAn American military strike against Syria in the next few days is a virtual certainty, despite the fact that US public opinion seems as tepid about this action as in the UK.

What may be driving the US is not so much an abhorrence against a resort to chemical weapons – the US said nothing when Israel used the white phosphorous chemical agent against the Palestinians in Gaza two years ago, nor when Iraq used chemical weapons (probably supplied by the West) against the Iranians in the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s. Continue reading →