Posts tagged : "U.S. foreign policy"

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: Foreign policy decisions made by US President Donald Trump have been widely criticized both by his opponents and his own party. Commentators are struggling to make sense of many of his actions, including upending international agreements of which the United States has been an integral part for decades. President Trump’s overhaul of America’s foreign policy seems to stem from a perception by the current administration for a need to transform how the United States conducts itself abroad. As Jeanne Morefield writes in the Boston Review, Trump’s foreign policy reflects “like a funhouse mirror, a twisted image of U.S. imperialism.” His speeches are a far cry from the eloquence of Barack Obama...

Kourosh Ziabari - ODVV: Saudi Arabia is the world’s leading exporter of crude oil and one of the top 20 major economies of the world. It’s the largest economy of the Middle East and the fastest growing healthcare market among the GCC countries. The largest state in Western Asia, the kingdom is the biggest Middle East trading partner of the United States and Britain. Despite huge strides towards becoming a stable economy, Saudi Arabia has been lagging behind for many years in addressing shortcomings in its human rights record. Reports about the suppression of civil rights activists, journalists, clerics, religious minorities and women emerge from Saudi Arabia frequently. Over the past months, the Arab monarchy has been under fire...

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 - ODVV: Reports by the international organizations indicate that Saudi Arabia continues to remain a major human rights violator. In 2018, Saudi authorities carried on with their campaign of arbitrary detention, trial and conviction of peaceful protesters. 146 executions were carried out this year and the kingdom's involvement in the military campaign in Yemen claimed numerous innocent lives. A distinguished human rights lawyer tells the Organization for Defending Victims of Violence that despite introducing social reforms, Saudi Arabia remains a serial human rights violator and doesn't welcome criticism of its actions and policies. "The Saudi government is an authoritarian regime and doesn’t tolerate dissent of...