Posts tagged : "Iran-U.S. relations"

Asia Times - Kourosh Ziabari: Joe Biden’s election has revived certain hopes that the landmark Iran nuclear deal, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), may soon be restored and usher in a new era of stability to the region. Biden vowed on the campaign trail he would rejoin the JCPOA and enter broad negotiations with the Islamic Republic to address a wide array of sticking points that continue to blight bilateral relations. Iran, which resorted to so-called “remedial measures” after the Trump administration withdrew from the JCPOA in May 2018, has since rolled back several of its commitments under the deal, including recommencing its sensitive uranium enrichment activities. At the same time,...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: The Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s was one of the most traumatic episodes of the 20th century for Iranians. While a new governmental system was being crystallized in a turbulent social context in the wake of a revolution, the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein waged an all-out internecine war against his fragile neighbor, inflicted unspeakable human suffering on the people of Iran and razed the country’s infrastructure to the ground. The goal was to nip the fledgling Islamist movement spearheaded by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in the bud and prevent revolutionary Iran from emerging as a force of hostility against the Arab states of the Persian Gulf region and the alliance of Western powers. Described as...

Asia Times - Kourosh Ziabari: New US President Joe Biden has started his tenure with a flurry of executive orders aimed at annulling various of his predecessor’s policies and decisions. But his move to repeal an entry block imposed on several Muslim nations signals a potential more conciliatory foreign policy in the Middle East. In January 2017, Donald Trump signed Executive Order 13769, officially titled Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States, which blocked the entry of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen nationals to the US. It also suspended indefinitely the admission of Syrian refugees and slashed the total number of refugees taken by the US to 50,000 per year. Since all...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Forty-two years ago, Iran was a crucial party to the alliance of Western powers, crowned by US president Jimmy Carter as “an island of stability in one of the most troubled areas of the world.” Today, the same country, having undergone a political metamorphosis, is the bête noire of that alliance, aggregated by George W Bush into an “Axis of Evil,” blamed as culpable for a catalogue of challenges facing humanity. As a comeuppance for its post-1979 policies and actions seen by the world as destructive and malign, Iran has been disciplined with unsparing economic sanctions. The United States, the foremost enforcer of these punitive measures, oversees sanctions regimes targeting nearly 30...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Nearly one week since the high-profile assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh on the outskirts of Tehran and the world is waiting to see how Iran’s rulers respond. While a dramatic retaliatory attack may not be imminent, newly tabled legislation promises to accelerate Iran’s nuclear program in defiance of the assassination’s apparent aim of curtailing its progress and perceived threat. Fakhrizadeh, a brigadier general with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and a key figure in Iran’s nuclear program was ambushed and killed on November 27 in what many observers have described as an “extraterritorial targeted killing.” Iranian authorities have reflexively blamed...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Reports that US President Donald Trump consulted senior aides about military attack options on Iran has raised speculation that a new destabilizing conflict could be imminent in the twilight of his tumultuous term. Trump reportedly backed away from launching a strike when confronted with the scenarios such a hit would likely set in motion. But there are still concerns the lame-duck president may fire parting salvos at his Iranian adversary, leaving behind a conflict for his rival President-elect Joe Biden to untangle. Trump raised the strike option in a November 12 meeting at the Oval Office with his top-tier cabinet members, namely Vice-President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, acting...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: The theatrical presidential race in the US is over after a blistering campaign season. Even though the loser has defied a long-standing tradition by refusing to concede defeat and congratulate his challenger, it is safe to assume Joe Biden will be sworn in on January 20, 2021, as the 46th president of the United States. Newspapers, radio and TV stations, and news agencies are flooded with analysis and commentaries about how this election was epoch-making and unparalleled, what should be expected of Joe Biden, eyed by millions of Americans, as well as people in the four corners of the globe to undo the damage done by the eccentric Donald Trump to the pillars of democracy and multilateralism, and what...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: Ever since his inauguration in 2017, US President Donald Trump has placed an emphasis on unilateralism and the rejection of international organizations and treaties as the hallmarks of his foreign policy. Trump has assumed an aggressive modus operandi in dealing with US partners worldwide and alienated many allies. He repealed US participation in the UN Human Rights Council, UNESCO, the 2015 Paris Climate Accord, the Treaty on Open Skies, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Even in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, he pulled the US out of the World Health Organization. The president has pledged to draw an end to the “forever...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: With less than two weeks to the US presidential election, Iranians, like much of the world, are carefully watching the heated contest between the incumbent Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Joe Biden, who has opened up significant leads in the pre-election polls and many observers say has the potential to make the Republican president a one-termer. Although foreign policy is not usually a determining factor in how the American people elect politicians, the outcome of the November 3 ballot will have reverberations beyond the US borders, and America’s friends and foes have already begun contemplating the contours of their future relations with the United States under the two possible scenarios:...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: The 75th United Nations General Assembly that ran from September 22 to 29 was not impervious to the blight of the Covid-19 pandemic, and unlike in preceding years, New York City was not the rendezvous of top-tier leaders and high-profile delegations flocking to Manhattan to mark what has usually been a monumental diplomatic event and a magnet for the world media. The General Assembly this year was eviscerated of its traditional exuberance characterized by hotly anticipated or rare encounters between heads of state and government, impassioned speeches during the General Debate sessions, particularly those by the rulers of “rogue states” who are otherwise banished from international forums, and...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: As US President Donald Trump’s administration tightens incremental sanctions on Iran to impair the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, derail its regional escapades and bring it back to the bargaining table, citizens of Iranian origin living overseas including expatriates and international students are collaterally feeling the sting of the punitive measures against their country of birth. The US sanctions regime against Iran is now a multi-layered, sophisticated constellation of embargoes expanded over time through numerous Congressional acts and executive orders by the US president. It targets any sort of trade and banking transaction with the beleaguered nation and extraterritoriality applies to...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: September 11, 2001, was one of the darkest days in US history and a watershed moment in the global consciousness around the West’s relations with the Muslim world. The terror attack on that day, which The New York Times once called “one of the most audacious attacks ever against the United States,” sabotaged the notion of the impregnability of America and violated the honor of a nation envied by friends and foes for its economic strength, political stability, military might and technological supremacy. The images of the 9/11 attacks, seared into the national collective memory of Americans, immortalized by detailed chronicles of investigative journalists and documentary photographers, might...