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Iran Deal is About Staving Off the Coming Oil Shock
Iran Deal is About Staving Off the Coming Oil Shock
The US wants to use Iran to sustain its regional influence in the face of the next global economic recession
The Iran nuclear deal signals a major shift in the geopolitics of the Middle East. Integral to the equation is oil, economics, terror – and US hegemony.
The Bush administration had initiated a long-term covert strategy to undermine Iranian influence in the Middle East and Central Asia, combined with overt pressure through diplomatic initiatives and economic sanctions.
Under Obama, this strategy accelerated, largely in concert with other Gulf powers like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE, who have long sought to roll-back Iranian influence.
Yet even as the strategy accelerated, unlike its predecessors which openly declared their warmongering hostility to Iran, the Obama administration had used the pressure to forge an unprecedented deal with the country.
Averting regional war
The reasons for the shift are, of course, pragmatic. For years, US intelligence agencies have told the White House that there is simply no evidence Iran is trying to build a nuclear bomb.
And the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has repeatedly certified that uranium is not being enriched to levels necessary for weaponisation, nor is it being diverted to a secret weapons programme.
Meanwhile, senior US military officials have long warned that the sort of US-Iran military confrontation which frothing neoconservatives have been pining for would likely fail and destabilise the entire region.
What about an Israel-Iran confrontation? A classified Pentagon war simulation held in 2012 found that an Israeli attack on Iran would also lead to a wider regional war.
Unlike the neocons, for the military pragmatists in successive US administrations, war with Iran could never be a preferred option.
The added bonus is that Iran might notch down its involvement in Iraq and Syria.
– See more at: http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/iran-deal-about-staving-coming-oil-shock-1366649799#sthash.fMD7hQbp.dpuf
The Anglo-American empire is preparing for resource war
The Anglo-American empire is preparing for resource war 
The control of resources remains a core factor in US considerations for sustaining global US hegemony in the face of rising geopolitical influence of its major rivals
Last week, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff released the new National Military Strategy of the United States of America, 2015.
The report’s main theme is that “globalisation” and “demographics” are pushing forward trends that are undermining US military superiority, including its capability to sustain “international order”. It sets out how the US military intends to keep ahead of those trends.
Although imbued with flowery technocratic language, when read closely in the context of recent history, the document is ultimately a blueprint to shore-up a dying empire, and reveals much about the reigning ideology of US military supremacism.
Challenges
“The United States is the world’s strongest nation, enjoying unique advantages in technology, energy, alliances and partnerships, and demographics,” the document observes. “However, these advantages are being challenged.”
The report notes that globalisation is catalysing “economic development” while simultaneously “increasing societal tensions, competition for resources, and political instability”.
Of course, the strategy document does not mention that since 1980, under the age of neoliberal globalisation, even as GDP per head has risen, the “vast majority of countries” have experienced a “sharp increase in income inequality,” as documented by a flagship 2014 report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
In the wake of the new era of slow growth and brutal austerity ushered in after the 2008 global banking collapse, the risk of the dire economic climate sparking civil and political unrest is increasing. But what the document also misses is that growing risk is itself a symptom of the uneven “economic development” that constitutes GDP “growth”.
– See more at: http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/anglo-american-empire-preparing-resource-war-1170119289#sthash.zPz1ELd2.dpuf
Western Collusion With Egypt’s Reign of Terror
Western Collusion With Egypt’s Reign of Terror
Germany’s detention without charge of a journalist critical of Abdul Fattah al-Sisi is part of a pattern of Western collusion in Egypt’s war on democracy
Why was Al Jazeera journalist, Ahmed Mansour, detained by German authorities under an Egyptian arrest warrant for three days, before being released without charge?
The popular Egyptian-British presenter, who hosts Al Jazeera’s Arabic-language show “Without Frontiers,” told a press conference this Tuesday that the German government had still failed to explain why he had been arrested and detained in the first place.
According to initial reports, German authorities had detained Mansour on the basis of an “international arrest warrant” and extradition request from Egypt. Of course, there is no such thing as an international arrest warrant.
Political decision
Those vague claims were followed by a more official explanation, put forward by a German government spokesperson, that the Egyptian arrest warrant came through via Interpol’s “red notice” system. In October 2014, Mansour was convicted in absentia – without trial – for the trumped up charge of torturing a lawyer in Tahrir Square in 2011.
But Interpol has confirmed that there was no such notice for Mansour, and had refused to issue the Cairo warrant.
Germany has not signed an extradition treaty with Egypt, and so is under no obligation to consider such a request. So why did Germany decide to accede to the request?
According to the German publication, Zeit Online, before making its decision to arrest and detain Mansour, the German Federal Office of Criminal Investigation took the step of asking Germany’s Ministry of Justice and Federal Foreign Office to assess the case against Mansour. Only after those reviews was Mansour detained at Berlin’s Tagel Airport. There can be no doubt, then, that this was a political decision.
– See more at: http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/western-collusion-egypt-s-reign-terror-1040634338#sthash.NOqnDCOK.dpuf
