As far as Moscow and Beijing are concerned, they are hardly shivering with fear in the face of renewed State Department “warnings” to China not to invest and Russia not to sell weapons to Iran
By Pepe Escobar
Scores of middle-aged, mild-mannered, bearded gentlemen – the technocrats of the Iranian military bourgeoisie – are now officially enjoying the http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2208 of “terrorists”, at least from a Washington point of view.
The demonization of http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=1930 drags on relentlessly as the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has been officially branded a proliferator of weapons of mass destruction and its elite Quds Force a supporter of terrorism. The latter has for months been accused of supplying Shi’ite militias in Iraq with weapons that are killing US soldiers.
The new round of US sanctions also targets Iran’s Defense Ministry, as well as three major Iranian banks accused of financing “the usual suspects”; Shi’ite militias in Iraq, Hamas in Palestine, Hezbollah in Lebanon and – absurd as it may sound – the Taliban in Afghanistan*. The banks are the state-owned Bank Melli, Bank Mellat and Bank Saderat. The US State and Treasury departments jointly announced the new sanctions, citing the Islamic Republic’s defiance over its continued nuclear program and its alleged involvement with terrorist organizations. The new restrictions are unilateral and aim to prevent businesses and other groups both within and outside the US – but that do work within the US – from dealing with individuals who are part of any of the banks, military forces and other organizations in Iran that were named, including the IRGC.
The move follows President George W Bush’s comments last week that implied that Iran obtaining nuclear weapons could lead to “World War III”, and Vice President Dick Cheney’s speech on Sunday in which he said that “the international community is prepared to impose serious consequences” if Iran does not comply with demands.
Sanctions do bite – as some Iranian conservatives have started to publicly admit. But Tehran won’t be in a hurry to mount a hug-and-kiss expedition to Washington. http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=1346 has been fighting a US blockade and sanctions for almost five decades – and has managed to survive with dignity.
The more than 20 companies and individuals affiliated with the IRGC that are now excluded from the American financial system – and nodes of the international banking system – will still have plenty of opportunities of doing business with Russia, China or Arab monarchies. They may barter. They may exchange goods with services. And they may resort to the black market.
As far as Moscow and Beijing are concerned, they are hardly shivering with fear in the face of renewed State Department “warnings” to China not to invest and Russia not to sell weapons to Iran.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IJ27Ak03.html
* It is indeed absurd to blame Iran for aiding the Taliban. The Taliban are fanatical Sunni Islamists, whose allies inside Pakistan have carried out a savage sectarian war against local Shia. Iran is, of course, a Shia nation, and their clients in Afghanistan are the Hazara Shia, who speak a Persian dialect. The Hazara were ruthlessly persecuted by the Taliban, and many ethnically cleansed Hazara found refuge in Iran. Tehran’s interest in Afghanistan extends to helping to prop up the present government in Kabul, making Iran a de facto ally of the US.
According to some analysts, a US war with Iran, which would have an Afghan as well as Iraqi front, would probably lead to a collapse of the Kabul regime in the absence of Iranian aid. The ensuing chaos would probably lead in turn to an Islamist overthrow of the nuclear-armed Pakistani government. Such a development would draw a response from India and plunge much of South and Southwest Asia into a region-wide war. Such subtleties are probably lost on George Bush, who was reportedly surprised to find out that there are Shia Muslims in Iraq. His neocon advisers are doubtless in no rush to enlighten him.
Despite their linguistic, historical, cultural and religious links with Iran, the Hazara are not Persians racially. They are partly descended from Mongols driven out of Persia when the Safavid Shah Abbas finished off the Ilkhanate (1256–1353 AD), a vast Mongol empire founded by Hulegu, a grandson of Genghis Khan himself, and which stretched from modern-day Pakistan and Afghanistan through Persia and Mesopotamia to parts of the Caucasus and what is now Turkey. They were so significant as a political and military powerhouse that before the Ilkhanids adopted Islam, the desperate Crusader States sought an alliance with them against the Muslims, as did the Armenians and the Byzantine Greeks.