While speaking to his President, Khamenei told him not to trust the United States.
“This does not mean that we cannot interact with the same enemy in certain situations. There is no harm in that, but do not place your hopes in them. Do not trust the enemy,” Khamenei told Pezeshkian.
Iran has significant reasons to distrust the United States. In 2015 the United States, Iran and several other countries signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), better known as the Iranian nuclear deal. The deal placed significant restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of Western sanctions on Iran.
In 2018, former US President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal. In 2022, current US President Joe Biden rejected an offer to return to the deal. Since the US withdrawal, Iran is believed to have significantly advanced their nuclear program.
“I think this is just to placate the new president. He’s a reform president. He ran on that ticket to try to open up more avenues to the West,” former senior security policy analyst at the Office of the Secretary of Defense Michael Maloof told Sputnik’s The Final Countdown. “But [JCPOA] is clearly dead, as far as I’m concerned, simply because for three and a half years they tried through the Biden administration and got nowhere. And if Trump comes in, you can almost be guaranteed that he will cancel any agreements.”
For countries around the world, the US reneging on deals is nothing new, it is nearly par for the course. In 1990, as East and West Germany were in the process of unification, then-US Secretary of State James Baker assured Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev that “neither the President nor I intend to extract any unilateral advantages from the processes that are taking place,” and that the US Government understood that “not only for the Soviet Union but for other European countries as well it is important to have guarantees that if the United States keeps its presence in Germany within the framework of NATO, not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction.”
However, over the next three decades, NATO continued to expand eastward, eventually resulting in the Ukraine conflict.
In 1990, US Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie was called into a meeting with then-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, who had been amassing troops on the border of Kuwait over an oil and border dispute. According to leaked diplomatic cables, Glaspie reportedly told Saddam that “the President had instructed her to broaden and deepen our relations with Iraq,” and that the US “took no position on these Arab affairs.”
Less than three weeks later, Iraq invaded Kuwait, likely interpreting Glaspie’s comments as an assurance the US would remain neutral. Less than a week after that, the US began Operation Desert Shield. Four months later, it started Operation Desert Storm and launched its first airstrikes on Iraqi forces.
“So countries are going to question if they can take the US at its word,” explained Maloof. “And that’s why you’re seeing more than 40 countries, maybe up to 60, wanting to join BRICS and get out from under the dependency of the Western financial system and sanctions altogether.”
The Iran nuclear deal is a moot point at this juncture. “[The International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA)] discovered that the Iranians had actually exceeded 60% and had gone up to 90% enrichment, ‘accidentally.’ So, they have that capability. So, what’s the point of an IAEA inspection any longer?”
But the effects of the United States Empire’s lies will be much more profound than a rapidly advancing Iranian nuclear program, they will destroy its geopolitical influence, decimate its economy and isolate it from much of the rest of the world.
The first to go will be the end of effective unilateral sanctions from the West, a phenomenon that has already begun. “That’s why you see Iran now a prominent member of BRICS, a prominent member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SGO),” Maloof said. “They have learned to get around Western sanctions and it’s going to increase, and that’s why they’re flourishing in many respects.”
It is not only Iran. The West has imposed as many sanctions as it could muster against Russia following the start of its special operation in Ukraine. Despite this, Russia grew its economy to the largest in Europe and the fourth largest in the world in purchase power parity (PPP).
While sanctions were never effective in their stated goal of removing leaders from power, they were able to limit the economic growth of that country at the expense of the population living there. Now, even that tool is leaving the American cupboard. “Over time, they have learned to find ways around [sanctions] and it has actually strengthened them. It’s allowed them to become more self-sufficient to build more indigenous industries, which Iran has done,” explained Maloof.
“We’re sanctioning some of our closest allies for even wanting to trade with Russia. Turkiye, for example, a member of NATO, we’re threatening [them] with sanctions all the time. So that’s why these countries are saying, ‘Look, we’re just going to get off from under this. We can’t fight the US, but we’ll find a way around them. And that’s what’s happened,” Maloof continued.
As BRICS and the SCO grow, so will de-dollarization, which will end the United States’ ability to print money with abandon, avoiding most of the inflation by shipping those dollars overseas where they are typically held by companies and nations for international transactions.
“We have no response to [de-dollarization]. And yet, I’ve seen reports as late as this morning of even West African countries now seriously considering going off of the dollar, or de-dollarization, and switching to tangibles such as gold,” Maloof recounted, pointing specifically to Ghana, which is nominally a Western ally and whose vice president just advocated a switch to gold.
“There’s a gathering storm out there now of some 60 countries that want to join BRICS. And you know, they’re up to 11 right now, but it’s picking up. And they’re going after countries that have natural resources, particularly gold [and] oil, tangibles that can support their currencies and they’re trading more in their currencies, until which time BRICS can come up with its own currency if they decide to go that route.”
Following the adage that if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail, the United States is not equipped to deal with the new reality, only able to look through the prism of force.
“All we can think of is in terms of defensive alliances and people want infrastructure development. Look, we just got kicked out of a bunch of African countries, so did the French, because of our reputation,” said Maloof. “These kinds of things are affecting our ability to come up with an alternative to the route that we’ve been going, which is now, in effect, obsolete.”
“All we can think of is in terms of defensive alliances and people want infrastructure development. Look, we just got kicked out of a bunch of African countries, so did the French, because of our reputation,” said Maloof. “These kinds of things are affecting our ability to come up with an alternative to the route that we’ve been going, which is now, in effect, obsolete.”
Regardless of who wins the US presidency in November, the situation is unlikely to change due to ignorant, arrogant and stubborn US leadership.
“Even if [Former US President Donald] Trump were to win, I doubt that he will be surrounded by advisers that will give him this kind of strategic plan. We need a strategic plan, not a reactionary plan, and nobody has come forward with a strategic plan on how to deal with this, because this element of BRICS and de-dollarization is a long-term process,” Maloof described. “They’re also driven by ideology, and we’ve got to get over that. We’ve got to be looking at the real world in real terms. And this is what has been our downfall in terms of policy formulation.”
“This is what has driven us to where we are, to isolation in many respects, long-term isolation, with growing isolation in Latin America and Africa,” Maloof continued. “And the Russians and Chinese are filling that void.”