Brian H. Appleton

Thanks Mola and Dingo Daddy

the issue of sovereignty is critical to me...I wish I could share your confidence Mola that colonial powers cannot occupy or change the regime. They did it in 1953 with the overthrow of Mossadegh. The US military personnel and their dependants were even exempt from Iranian law under the SOFA (status of forces agreement.) The goal ever since we were kicked out in 1979 is return Iran to a vassal client state. I think it is interesting that during the colonial era, only Russia and Japan managed to avoid being colonized and they did this by sending their students abroad to learn the foreign technologies and then closed their doors to any foreigners and their investment. What I find so troubling about the "globalization" is that Multinationals are running the world. Their goal is to reduce the world population to homogenous consumer units, whether they would put it in those words or not, that is the net affect. With the "progress" and "modernization" comes the end of tradition, indigenous culture and sovereignty. As I have stated so many times before, I am not a supporter of the IRI and its perversion of Islam and its horrific violation of human rights but nor am I a supporter of globalization. The rioting at the G20 conference in Toronto tells me others are not happy with it either. I have seen the results of corporations with no morality running the world, the results of a society in which nothing is personal...it is disfunctional, families, friendships, culture, religion...it is all bought and sold like so much merchandise. Technology becomes obsolete in six months and everyone is in debt up to the tops of their heads trying to pay for the latest whatever...and the same phenomena of embracing fundamentalist religion out of fear of the future which the politicians then exploit takes place here too, not just Iran. This decade has been marked by the neocons recapturing the Congress and anti evolutionary dogma working its way into school curriculae, not to mention the opposition to stem cell research...sometimes I feel like we are in a new Dark Ages. Meanwhile Iran which has gone to the trouble to be a member of the NPT unlike Israel, India and Pakistan and has allowed voluntary inspections for years which the USA calls "obligations" is pillaried...it is absurd the way that the politicians have even suggested that Iran's missiles are a threat to Europe and Russia. There is only one way that the US administration has succeeded in getting the UN to pass another round of sanctions and gotten Russia and China and Turkey to go along with it and that is by intimidation and threats. The tactic of punishing any trading partner with Iran...it is just a form of bullying pure and simple. The USA spent 600 billion dollars on its "defense" budget last year. That is more than the entire military budget of the rest of the world put together and China's spending was a distant second. Who is the enemy? Schools go without books, people go unemployed, but the wars get funded. This is the priority of our society. What was the military necessity of invading Iraq? Has invading Afghanistan ended the El Qeda? As far as I'm concerned El Qeda is on the payroll.

 Why would China which depends on oil and gas from Iran go along with the sanctions and the same for Turkey, why would Russia with its contract to complete the Bushehr reactor go along with it...does anyone really believe that the deployment of US military personnel into every country bordering Iran and half the Navy in the Perisan Gulf at a price tag of God only knows what cost to the American tax payers are just there as a warning with no intent of attack and occupation and return on investment? 

What frightens me now that the US Geodetic Survey of Afghanistan has been completed and an estimated one trillion dollars worth of iron and precious metal deposits has been mapped out, what is going to happen to Afghanistan...I predict it will be over run with foreigners, be sliced in several parts by gas pipelines and look like a moonscape pocked by crater holes in no time as a result of all the mining operations...and what will the social cost be to a society which is essentially tribal based? If what has happened elsewhere to indigenous populations, is any indication, there will be a rise in prostitution, drug addiction and alcoholism. The invasion has already returned the cash crop to heroin production for the US market.

Lastly, in terms of the effectiveness of sanctions. If one day the president of the USA refused to leave office at the end of term, how many middle class Americans would risk their lives to attack the establishment, take on the military and the police? The idea that sanctions can make people miserable enough to overthrow their government is preposterous. Look what happened to the post election protestors in Iran who went up against the Revolutionary Guard and the Basiji! How many of these fat and comfortable politicians who feel so self rightious about passing the next round of sanctions would risk their own lives and property for anything they believe in?

Brian H. Appleton

aka

Rasool Aryadust

Hey Fred, at least Iranian lobbies are Iranian

much better than backing Israeli lobbies, isn't it ?

Don't get me wrong, it is nothing personal, but you really does protest too much when you go after other people for "lobbying". Sanctions do hurt Iranian people the most, not the government. That is undesputable.

Brian, thank you for this essay. All Iranians can agree on what is good for their own families, even if no political agreement is on the horizon.

Brian,

Every story has a beginnig, a middle and an end. United States foreign policy is at its end due to the manipulation of Israeli lobby. The same people who brought us the Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan wars. //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Israel_Lobby_and_U.S._Foreign_Policy

If it's hopless you have nothing to worry about. Hopeless are the USA congress and other centers of power regarding a policy that supports peace and prosperity for the people of Middle East. Meanwhile Iranians inside Iran will take care of Iran. Colonial powers can damage Iran but cannot occupy it or change Iran's regime. People inside Iran were the ones who overthrew the dictatorial regime of Shah and people inside Iran are the ones who have been pushing for reform and change. 

Ahura says

"The Islamic Republic of Iran regime has killed more than half a million
Iranians in prolonging the war with Iraq, has executed thousands of
freedom seeking Iranians, has imposed inhumane Sharia laws on Iranians,
has curtailed the freedom of speech, has enslaved the women, has
destabilized the middle east by engaging in terrorist acts, has
brainwashed Iranian youths with religious fanaticism, has plundered the
oil revenues of the country, and has actively pursued nuclear weapons to
prolong its reign of terror over Iranians. Without the slightest doubt
IRI is the enemy of Iran, and unarmed freedom seeking Iranians are no
match against the armed IRGC thugs and their ruthless mullah bosses who
beat, rape, imprison, and execute them.

The simple reason that sanctions will be effective in loosening IRI’s
grip on Iran is that the regime does not like it. It must deprive it
from its source of income, alienate the masses who can see their plight
because of IRI policies, and help opposition movement in Iran to
overthrow this regime.

The Iranian expatriates must look beyond their petty business interests
and stop supporting IRI now that there is a golden chance to help remove
the regime by starving the beast."

And, he is right. Absolutely right. You see Brian, we Iranians can even share ideas in time of sanctions.

Never late to learn....//davidharvey.org/reading-capital/

Enough is enough!

Not that it will change the mission of CASMII lobby or its conjoined twin, but just for the information of those who might have just landed from outer space.

When it is said:

“What the sanctions will accomplish is to lose the goodwill of the Iranian people towards the USA, as they will suffer and be punished by these sanctions while their government will only tighten its grip and increase its under siege mentality justifying its extreme measures ….”

Aside the nonsense about the loss of “goodwill”, the assumption is for the past thirty one years the Islamist Rapists ” have not been raping, maiming, stoning, lashing and murdering Iranian men, women and children or looting the country and will now do so thanks to the sanctions.

The not too photogenic lefties who in the name of fighting American “Imperialism” have been whitewashing all the crimes of the Islamist Rapists have to take a breather and take a look at what they have knowingly or otherwise been accomplices to. Stop the hypocrisy, enough is enough!

BTW,  “When have sanctions ever toppled a regime?” Apartheid South Africa