Tag Archives: Iran

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The Iran Nuclear Deal Isn’t Just a Good Idea — It’s the Law

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English: The United Nations Security Council C...
English: The United Nations Security Council Chamber in New York, also known as the Norwegian Room (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On May 8, President Donald Trump announced US withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, colloquially known as “the Iran nuclear deal.”

While that decision has come under criticism for being both a really bad idea and a severe betrayal of trust, both of which are true, it’s worth noting that the US withdrawal is also a breach of treaty obligations, and that such obligations are, per the US Constitution and co-equal with it, “the Supreme Law of the Land.”

But wait — aren’t defenders of the withdrawal correct in noting that the JCPOA isn’t a treaty at all? Yes, they are, although some err in referring to it as an “executive order.” It isn’t even that. It’s merely a “State Department Political Commitment” which can be wadded up and thrown in the trash any time …

… except that the treaty in question is not the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. It’s the United Nations Charter, delivered to the US Senate by President Harry Truman and duly ratified by that body on July 28, 1945 by a vote of 89-2.

Under Article 25 of the UN Charter, “members of the United Nations agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council.”

On July 20, 2015, the members of that body, including the United States, unanimously endorsed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in UN Security Council Resolution 2231.

It seems unlikely that Samantha Power, US ambassador to the UN at the time, didn’t know what she was committing the US government to when she voted for the resolution rather than exercising the US’s veto power on the Security Council. After all, the resolution itself contains text “[u]nderscoring that Member States are obligated under Article 25 of the Charter of the United Nations to accept and carry out the Security Council’s decisions.”

Was the JCPOA a “good deal?” Not especially so for the  Iranians. Even though they apparently had no nuclear weapons program after 2004 at the latest, and even though they were apparently in full compliance with their obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (unlike the US), they made a bunch of concessions to US demagoguery (and demagoguery from Israel, an ACTUAL rogue nuclear state) in order to get some of their own money (seized by the US government) back and get some sanctions (which should never have existed) lifted.

For the US government, it was an excellent deal, a face-saving way of hitting the reset button on nearly 40 years of failed policy vis a vis Iran. By letting Iran rejoin “the civilized world,” the US received the same opportunity — an opportunity that Trump just blew by way of loudly warning the world that the US government can’t be trusted to keep its word. Or honor its treaty obligations.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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$400 Million: The Partial Price of Peace?

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Hundreds (RGBStock)

When the US government sends $400 million in cash, stacked on pallets, to Iran on the same day the Iranian government releases four imprisoned Americans, it looks an awful lot like ransom.

On the other hand, when the US government decides to keep $400 million sent to it by the Iranian government pursuant to an arms deal  for 35 years without ever shipping the arms, it looks an awful lot like stealing.

And when the US government reaches a settlement to finally pay back that money with interest, it looks an awful lot like  justice.

Yes, the simultaneity of payment and release looks pretty damning on both ends.

On the other hand, it seems very understandable from both ends.

The Iranians have had good reason to distrust the US government for more than 60 years, ever since the US overthrew their elected government and saddled them with a US-approved dictator, then stole their money when they overthrew that dictator.  As often as the US has screwed them, why would they trust the US to repay them absent some kind of leverage?

President Obama, on the other hand, wanted to secure the return of those prisoners, and he seems to genuinely want to improve US relations with Iran after more than three decades of cold (and sometimes not so cold) war.  Coughing up cash that the US owed to Iran anyway probably looked like a good way to make progress on both of those fronts.

Yeah, I guess it looks kind of bad. But you know, I don’t have any heartburn over it. And I find it hard to give much credence to Republican temper tantrums over the whole thing.

I don’t recall Republicans complaining about the Iranians timing their release of hostages from the US embassy in Tehran to coincide with the inauguration of a Republican president (some people even believe that that Republican’s running mate negotiated a secret deal with the Iranians to stretch the matter and create that coincidence).

I do recall Republicans defending that same president when he was discovered to have traded arms to — not to merely have returned money to, but to have intentionally armed — Iran in return for assistance in achieving the release of American hostages held in Lebanon by Iran’s Hezbollah allies.

It seems to me that all is well here, election year partisan bluster notwithstanding. Peace gets messy now and again, but it beats the alternative.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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US Military Adventurism: The Definition of Insanity

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September 11, 2001 attacks in New York City: V...
September 11, 2001 attacks in New York City: View of the World Trade Center and the Statue of Liberty. (Image: US National Park Service ) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On October 22, US Army Master Sergeant Joshua L. Wheeler died near Hawija, in northern Iraq, while taking part in a mission aimed at rescuing prisoners from Islamic State forces. Wheeler is the first American soldier — or at least the first one we’ve been told about — to die in combat in Iraq since 2011.

I’m not an expert on US foreign policy in the Middle East, but I have long taken an interest in the subject, especially since Thanksgiving weekend of 1990, when I mobilized with my Marine Corps reserve unit and headed for Saudi Arabia to participate in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm (that kind of thing tends to powerfully focus one’s attention). Over the intervening quarter century, I’ve reached one conclusion:

US intervention in the Middle East always makes things worse.

Sometimes more obviously and quickly, sometimes more subtly and slowly, but always.

Worse for the people there, and worse for Americans too.

The US overthrew Iran’s elected government in 1953, replacing it with the Shah’s authoritarian regime. It took 25 years for that poison fruit to ripen into revolution, a hostage situation, and an anti-American theocracy.

The US supported Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in his eight-year war against Iran. Two years after that war ended, the US found itself kicking Saddam’s army out of Kuwait and establishing a permanent military presence on soil which Osama bin Laden deemed off-limits to infidels. You probably remember how that turned out.

The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 empowered Iran’s theocrats and various Sunni Islamist groups. The country remains a shambles more than a decade after that empty “victory.”

For nearly 40 years, since the Camp David accords, the US has  paid through the nose to keep a lid on the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. Consequently, the incentive is for both sides (as well as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, who also get payoffs) to keep the conflict at a permanent simmer and occasionally let it boil over instead of settling it. If the conflict ends, so do the US aid checks.

As the old Alcoholics Anonymous saying goes, insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results. And the first step in recovery is admitting you have a problem.

Let the Middle East solve its own problems. Let Master Sergeant Wheeler be the last American to die for this seemingly endless series of mistakes.

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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