America's Dangerous Fixing With Iran

The US obsession with Iran dates from the Islamic Revolution in 1979, when Iranian students seized the American Embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans hostage for more than a year. This traumatic experience has psychologically made it impossible for American politicians to calibrate US policies. It's the reason, for example, that Trump has now threatened to destroy 52 targets in Iran, including cultural sites, one for each of the hostages in 1979, if Iran avenges Solejman's murder.

Trump is claiming the right to kill a leader in a foreign country and commit war crimes if that country is avenged. However, this criminality has been widely applauded in the US. It reflects a kind of post-traumatic stress disorder of the US political system, at least on the right. It is similar with the reckless beginning of America's Middle East wars following the September 11, 2001.

The fact that Trump is psychologically disturbed increases anger. We remember that he boasted that he could shoot somebody in Fifth Evaju “and not lose a vote”. On his command to kill Soleiman, he is clearly determined to test that proposal.

What most of the American public and most of the American political elite fail to understand is that the US committed much more crimes against Iran than the other way around. The US has deliberately created an enemy simply because of its wrong actions.

Key points date back to the early 1950 ' s. Initially, the U.S. and United Kingdom ousted Iran's government in 1953, after democratic-elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh moved to regain control of Iran's oil, which was taken over by the British Empire. The US later replaced the democracy that had collapsed with the authoritarian regime of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlav, who was supported by SAVAK, his brutal intelligence agency and secret police over a quarter century, from 1953 to 1978. Iranian students seized the American Embassy in Tehran after the fallen Shah was admitted to the US for medical treatment.

A year later, the US armed and encouraged Saddam Hussein's Iraq to invade Iran, triggering an almost decade-long war that left some 500,000 Iranians killed. Since 2014, about 75 thousand Iranians continued to be treated for injuries from chemical attacks used by Saddam.

The US also hit civilian targets. In 1988, the U.S. Army brought down Iran Air 655 easily identified as an A300 Airbus if the U.S. had taken adequate precautions by killing all 290 people on board. And, in 1995, the Iranian public became subject to severe US economic sanctions that have never been lifted, only to be exacerbated over time.

This continued after September 11. Iran backed the US-led invasion of Afghanistan to wipe out the Taliban and also backed the new US-backed President Hamid Karzai. In January 2002, however, American President George W. Bush called Iran part of a “Wicked League”, along with Saddam Iraq and North Korea.

Similarly, instead of encouraging all Middle Eastern countries, including Israel (with about 80 nuclear missiles), to adhere to the Nuclear Arms Nonproliferation Treaty and support efforts to create a nuclear-gun region, the US exercised exclusive pressure on Iran.

Then, in 2015, the United States, under the leadership of President Barack Obama, the United Kingdom, France, China, Russia and Germany, negotiated an agreement with Iran under which Iran agreed to end nuclear weapons processing in exchange for lifting economic sanctions from the US and others. The UN Security Council unanimously supported the nuclear agreement, officially known as the Joint Action Plan. However, according to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, JCPOA was an act of reconciliation. Trump unilaterally denied the agreement in 2018, the only signatory to do so, and then significantly tightened US sanctions.

The aim of stricter sanctions is not aimed at changing Iran's behaviour, but at destroying the Iranian economy in an effort to destabilise the regime. Iran is now in a depression caused by the US, with GDP under 14 percent between 2017 and 2019, and inflation in 2019 reached 36% (both according to the IMF's latest estimates), and with a severe lack of drugs and other vital goods. Meanwhile, despite JCPOA's opposition, the US has continued to insist that Iran maintain its terms.

The U.S., seemingly unconscious of this story, and led by an emotionally unbalanced president who believes he can commit murder in broad daylight and get away with it, is still continuing psychological trauma.

At this point, the world must remember the wise and consistent words of a very different American president. In June 1963, just a few months before the victim of an attacker, John F. Kennedy addressed the Irish parliament:

Despite the shores and barriers that now divide us, we must not forget that there are no permanent enemies. Hostileness today is a fact, but it is not a government law. The reality of our times is God's children's instability and our common sensitivity on this planet. ”

There is no reason why Iran and the United States cannot be at peace. Based on the 2015 nuclear agreement and their many common interests, a new relationship is still possible. But with Iran's vengeance now developing, it is urgent that the European Union now not follow President Trump's reckless administration on a spiral of escalation that could end up in war. /Buriment: Project Syndicate/In Albanian by: BIRN/