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

Kourosh Ziabari - ODVV: Relations between Iran and the United States have become increasingly tense in the recent weeks, as some observers have warned the two countries are on the cusp of a military confrontation. Statements by Iranian and American officials point to a worrying rise of tensions and escalation of hostilities. Iranian president Hassan Rouhani has likened the situation of the country to the gloomy days of war with Iraq (1980-1988) when Saddam Hussein’s army invaded different Iranian cities and Iran had to defend itself with empty hands under the weight of the global arms embargo, which made it unable to purchase advanced weaponry to use in the conflict. The Trump administration has used different options at its...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: US President Donald Trump took to Twitter on Sunday night to threaten Tehran: “If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran.” The statement came two weeks after the US deployed an aircraft carrier to the region, and just over a month after the Trump administration blacklisted Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist entity. Despite a cooling of Persian Gulf tensions in recent days, the US president’s antagonism towards Iran has not dwindled and his administration seems to be determined to chip away at the Islamic Republic at any cost. In May 2018, President Trump ruffled feathers in Tehran by withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, an agreement endorsed by the...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: Strangulating economic sanctions are no novelty for the Iranian people, who have borne the brunt of international embargoes for almost four decades now. The United States introduced its first set of punitive measures against Iran shortly after the 1979 hostage crisis. After that tragic episode, the United States added to its sanctions on Iran on multiple occasions, rendering it a pariah state disconnected from the global banking, financial, energy and transportation sectors. The latest round of sanctions by the United States targeting Iran were announced in August and November 2018, sparking panic among Iranians, unprecedented fluctuations in the exchange market and the closedown of hundreds of...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: Iran’s relations with the United States seem to have come to a nadir under the current administration. One of the first decisions President Donald Trump took after entering the White House was to introduce a widely-contested “Muslim ban,” preventing the entry of the citizens of Iran and several other Muslim-majority countries into the United States. He also withdrew the US from the UN-backed Iran nuclear deal and reimposed hard-hitting economic sanctions against Tehran. The proponents of the sanctions say they will result in a change in the Iranian government’s behavior and compel Tehran to restrain its regional influence and militarism. Opponents say the measures are controversial because of...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: US foreign policy is a hot topic of discussion in the media. Since his inauguration in 2017, President Donald Trump has been embroiled in controversy with world leaders: from hanging up on then-Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to being scoffed by French President Emmanuel Macron over his use of Twitter. The peculiarity of Trump’s foreign policy is not only because he has been involved in so many spats with his counterparts and high-ranking politicians around the world. The unilateralism of the Trump administration and the president’s disregard for accords and treaties are unprecedented in the history of the United States, giving rise to concerns that America is isolating itself...

Kourosh Ziabari - ODVV: The imposition of new sanctions against Iran by the United States after the de-certification of the Iran nuclear deal by the U.S. President Donald Trump is being widely debated these days. These sanctions are mostly controversial because of the highly detrimental impact they leave on the lives of the ordinary citizens in Iran while they don't have the endorsement of the United Nations Security Council and the European Union. The critics of the sanctions argue that they make it impossible for Iran to import food, medicine and other humanitarian goods, lead to the impoverishment of average citizens by debilitating Iran's currency rial, reduce the purchasing power of the Iranians and at the same time violate the...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: It has been more than six months since US President Donald Trump withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), popularly known as the Iran nuclear deal. The JCPOA was the outcome of months of talks between Iran, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, Germany and the European Union to find a viable solution to Tehran’s nuclear dilemma. Leading up to the agreement in 2015, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and then-US Secretary of State John Kerry spoke to each other more than any other top diplomats in the world. This demonstrated that Iran and the United States, despite being rivals, can sit together respectfully and solve their differences through...

Kourosh Ziabari - ODVV: Iran is on the headlines once again. The United States has imposed the second round of sanctions against the Middle East nation after withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, popularly known as the Iran nuclear deal. This time, the sanctions target Iran's oil and banking sectors and are expected to have an onerous effect on its economy. This is while the International Court of Justice had ruled following a complaint lodged by Iran to this court that the U.S. sanctions are illegal due to their detrimental impacts on the life of ordinary citizens and should be suspended. The United States ignored the ruling. A prominent human rights activist told the Organization for Defending Victims of...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: Withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), popularly known as the Iran nuclear deal, was one of US President Donald Trump’s main campaign promises. He fulfilled this promise on May 8 and sent shockwaves across the world. This is an agreement that was upheld through the UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which the United States itself had voted in favor of under the Obama administration. Now, Iran-US relations are at a record low. The Trump administration has imposed grueling sanctions against Iran that have started to erode the country’s economy and already devastated its currency, the rial. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has rejected any talks with the...

Kourosh Ziabari - International Policy Digest: The United States is run by a businessman turned politician who is unwavering in his ignorance about many essentials including respect for multilateralism and concern for the value of human life outside the US borders. It’s difficult to convince Donald Trump to be mindful of the suffering of ordinary Iranian citizens while imposing new sanctions on the Middle East nation or instruct him to read 109 pages of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (Iran nuclear deal) to figure out that long before announcing the unilateral withdrawal of the United States from the agreement, he started violating its letter and spirit through his unhelpful public statements about the JCPOA being a badly...

Kourosh Ziabari - International Policy Digest: As the Iranian people brace for the next round of economic sanctions by the United States to be introduced in early November, debate about the unilateral withdrawal of the U.S. from the landmark July 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and six world powers continues in the international media. These days, a great deal of the mainstream media coverage of the Middle East goes to Iran and every new development pertaining to Iran is somehow linked by experts and pundits to the U.S. sanctions and the departure of the United States from the nuclear deal, be it the imminent suspension of British Airways and Air France flights to Tehran or the introduction of an assistance package by the European...

Kourosh Ziabari - Foreign Policy Blogs: When President Donald Trump announced on 8th May that the United States would not be a party to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran deal, anymore, it was easily predictable that new tensions between Tehran and Washington will emerge soon. It didn’t take long for the European Union to voice its regret over President Trump’s decision and say in an unequivocal manner that Trump’s unilateralism won’t mark the premature death of the Iran deal, signed and sealed only three years ago.   Britain, France and Germany issued a statement in which they reiterated their continued commitment to the JCPOA as long as Iran abides by its nuclear commitments. They said...