Donald Trump’s reckless decision to unilaterally withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal moves the world community backwards. This decision reduces our standing in the international community and calls into question our commitment to international agreements. I understand those facts are not understood by Trump, nor does he care.
But the facts of the matter must care to the citizenry.
The pattern Trump is using is to disrupt the existing alliances of this country and render our standing with other countries as unstable and unreliable. If one has followed the news over the past months regarding Iran it was most plan to see Israeli President Netenyahu being behind the curtain willfully distorting the picture. Gues who he leads by the nose!
Over and over the issues have been treated with the most careless use by the Trump Administration. One of the most outrageous attempts at soiling the truth was Trump claiming–repeatedly–that Iran got “many billions of dollars, some of it in cash”. Trump always makes it seem that the United States casually handed Iran billions of dollars in cash. What he never is able to grasp is that this was always Iran’s money. The money were Iranian assets that had been frozen.
As for the $1.7 billion in cash that was received by Iran at the time of signing of the accord it has been explained often it was related to the settlement of a decades-old claim between the two countries. An initial payment of $400 million was handed over on Jan. 17, 2016, the same day Iran’s government agreed to release four American detainees, including The Washington Post’s Jason Rezaian.
It is only in the ginned up partisanship world that Trump uses for his own purposes where anyone suggests the cash could be viewed as a ransom payment. But then Trump tried to sell bigotry over President Obama’s birth certificate, too.
Trump’s undoing of the Iran deal is concocted to let him do what he wants to do–namely dismantle any deal made by Obama. It’s red meat to his under-educated base, without regard for any long term geopolitical consequences.
At the end of the day Trump left the Iran nuclear deal because of intense pressure from Israel and its powerful donors. He couldn’t locate Iran on a map. He doesn’t care about Iran. He cares about political cover, funding, donor support, and avoidance of angering AIPAC. And throw in doing whatever he can to undermine President Obama, our first African-American to sit in the Oval Office.
Until we recognize the pernicious effect of Israel and its interest groups we will be doomed to perpetual war in the Middle East.
CAFFEINATED POLITICS 