A $10 billion sanctions waiver (the waiver program to release funds is conditioned on Iran only being able to access humanitarian supplies)…. Thats a **** ton of humanitarian supplies! Feed a couple mid-sized cities for a year or so????
10 billion tax payer funded bribe to try buy some temporary Iranian aggression pause to score foreign policy points for the election
Brandon and his Admin apparently really want an all out shooting war in the Middle East. They also seem to want Iran to finally get a functional Nuke. Madness. Absolute Madness. Iran is a full-blown enemy of the US. WTF are we doing.
And it’s been reported before that these funds do not obviously adhere to the rules given on how to spend the money.
Good lord Democrats are traitors. It’s just unreal at this point.
So is Biden
(The above were comments from the “Tex Ags Board” Nice to know a few kids got the drift of it.)
Republican lawmakers are outraged by President Joe Biden’s decision to renew a US sanctions waiver that benefits Iran, despite the regime’s continued attacks on US interests. (Outrage? Maybe, but it has not made the news as of last night. I found this story off the board.)
The waiver, signed and transmitted to the US Congress late Wednesday, allows Iraq to purchase electricity from Iran for billions of dollars and pay for it by transferring hard currencies to accounts in third countries such as Oman and Qatar.”
The fact that the administration will not even tell the American people how much money Iran has accessed over the last four months—money that subsidized three American soldier deaths and nonstop attacks on the American Navy—should prompt the U.S. Senate to immediately pass the No Funds for Iranian Terrorism Act and send to the president’s desk,” he said, referring to legislation that would cut off Iran’s access to previously frozen funds.
…
Iran International has information confirming that the waiver will allow Iraq once again to pay for its energy imports with hard currencies via accounts in third countries. The Biden administration claims that money going into these accounts can only be used to purchase non-sanctionable good, but so far there has been no accounting for the $10 billion that Iraq transferred to Oman last year.
Critics say the waiver should not have been renewed, not least because Iran continues to fund armed groups that are hellbent on harming Americans and forcing the United States to pull out from the region.
“Why is Biden granting sanctions relief to Iran while its proxies aim to kill US personnel,” asked Rep. Pat Fallon on his X account. “Does Biden want to fund terrorism or does it want to protect our troops abroad? Another chapter in the Biden foreign policy legacy of disgrace!”
I say again: Why is Biden granting sanctions relief to Iran while its proxies aim to kill US personnel?
Does Biden want to fund terrorism or does it it want to protect our troops abroad?
While we watch if Biden can get his next sentence together.
This was this past September 2023:
It was not just Biden and his admin, @SenatorCardin and many on @SFRCdems are responsible for the released funds to the regime. A bill that passed the House and stalled like many other Iran bills by the Senate Democrats would have prevented this. pic.twitter.com/jR8iEww6id
The cynic in me suggests that Biden wants to try and keep the lid on until after the November election. It seems that WWIII will be hard to avoid with these savants running our foreign policy.
The US has held secret talks with Iran this year in a bid to convince Tehran to use its influence over Yemen’s Houthi movement to end attacks on ships in the Red Sea, according to US and Iranian officials. The indirect negotiations, during which Washington also raised concerns about Iran’s expanding nuclear programme, took place in Oman in January and were the first between the foes in 10 months, the officials said.
The US delegation was led by the White House’s Middle East adviser Brett McGurk and its Iran envoy Abram Paley. Iranian deputy foreign minister Ali Bagheri Kani, who is also Tehran’s top nuclear negotiator, represented the Islamic republic. Omani officials shuttled between the Iranian and American representatives so they did not speak directly, the officials said. The talks underline how the Biden administration is using diplomatic channels with its foe, alongside military deterrents, in a bid to de-escalate a wave of regional hostilities involving Iranian-backed militant groups that was triggered by the Israel-Hamas war.
The Washington Free Beacon has vetted the story. Worth going over with an excellent analysis.
Europe’s fertilizer plants are shutting down due to the high cost of natural gas.
We know what happened in Sri Lanka when fertilizer is not used in farming. Having just witnessed the chaos in Sri Lanka, it doesn’t take an economics major to figure out what happens to the food supply when countries don’t use fertilizer.
Natural gas in the U.S. is up a staggering 525% since closing at $1.48 in June 2020. Since June 2022 it has jumped 70 percent.
Europe is in the same dire straights. It is getting too costly to produce fertilizer. “Depending on the weather, it could be a challenging winter,” said Rob Thummel, senior portfolio manager at Tortoise Capital Advisors. “But not as challenging as in Europe. They are at risk of running out of natural gas. We aren’t.”
Attempts are made to blame Putin. But Putin isn’t the one that introduced sanctions. In fact he was willing to continue the exports. He was more than happy to give Europe all the energy that they required. Europe demanded sanctions. This is where the bizarre story begins: In an earlier post:
“If Europe continues importing gas from Russia, why shouldn’t Ukraine benefit from it?” so goes the statement. Yet Zelensky demands constantly from all governments to stop the purchase of Russian energy.
Why is Russia paying billions to a country it’s invading that can be used to finance its defense?
Why would Russia put its economic lifeline and massive amounts of gas at risk by using a country that it’s currently bombing with all the adroit aim of a drunk in a toilet as a transit point if it could be easily replaced? Neither Europe nor Ukraine are prepared to kick their addiction to Russian gas. Putin knows it, which is why behind the scenes business is going on as usual.
Europe and Ukraine are asking Americans to make sacrifices while they keep on doing business with Putin.
Why is Naftogaz, Ukraine’s state owned gas company, continuing to transport millions of cubic meters of Russian gas to Europe each month.
One answer is that Russia continues paying billions to Ukraine to transport its gas.
Ukraine earns about $2 billion in transit fees from the Russian use of its pipelines to move gas to Europe. Russia, and Putin’s cronies in particular, obviously make even more than that.
And that’s not all. Fertilizer!! Why they do it, I don’t know. Do they WANT to kill their own economies? It makes no sense. And this will not be over soon.
Reuters of course seeks to blame Putin. But he’s not the one who introduced the sanctions. He’s offered to let the gas and oil exports continue.
I pick up his story. Well worth the full read:
The entire energy and food crisis is being sold as “inevitable”, but it is nothing of the kind. They are the result of choices being made in Brussels, Berlin, Amsterdam etc., about which nobody has asked your opinion. Something I jotted down a few days ago:
Is the west using Ukraine as an excuse to commit mass economic suicide? And, you know, fulfill some WEF-related goals? Why else would they cut off all economic ties to Moscow, at a time when it’s obvious they have no alternative sources for much of what they import from Russia? Moreover, why does a country like Holland aim to close 10,000 of its farms when it’s crystal clear that that will exacerbate the coming global food crises?
If you don’t like Putin, that’s fine, but why should your own people suffer from what you like or not? And of course you can ask whether it’s a good idea that a country the size of a postage stamp is the world’s no. 2 food exporter. But it is. And if you try to change that by doing a 180º, also on a postage stamp, it is very obvious that is not going to go well. And all the so-called leaders know this. But they still do it.
:
…..
But now it’s starting to look like this was all scripted. Because “we” could have kept communication channels with Russia open, “we” could have negotiated for peace for the past 6 months. Not doing that was a deliberate choice. A choice that you and me, another “we”- had no voice in whatsoever.
The Dutch could have negotiated with their farmers, and slowly addressed their perceived problems with nitrogen oxides, while keeping food production going. And we could have found a way to keep Russian and Ukrainian crops available on world markets too. But it doesn’t feel at all like “we” wanted that.
Someone made a list of what EU won’t get anymore with the Russia boycott.: “nat-gas, rare earths, inert gases, potash, sulfur, uranium, palladium, vanadium, cobalt, coke, titanium, nickel, lithium, plastics, glass, ceramics, pharmaceuticals, ships, inks, airplanes, polymers, medical and industrial gases, sealing rings & membranes, power transmission, transformer and lube oils, neon gas for microchip etching, etc., etc.”
….
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell wants Europeans to be obedient little critters, and take the punishment for the policies he and his ilk have carved out. Because “we” are destined to win. Mr. Borrell is planing to do just fine this winter, mind you. With the best steak your money can buy, real fine wine, to be consumed in comfortably heated homes, restaurants and offices. A picture of Marie Antoinette pops up in my brain.
EU high representative and foreign policy chief Josep Borrell gave a surprisingly blunt assessment of the Ukraine war and Europe’s precarious position in an AFP interview published Tuesday, admitting that Russian President Vladimir Putin is betting on fracturing a united EU response amid the current crisis situation of soaring prices and energy extreme uncertainty headed into a long winter. Borrell’s words seemed to come close to admitting that Putin’s tactic is working on some level, or at least will indeed chip away at European resolve in the short and long run, given he chose words like EU populations having to “endure” the deep economic pain and severe energy crunch. He cited the “weariness” of Europeans while calling on leadership as well as the common people to “bear the consequences” with continued resolve.
The author takes aim at Macron and it is spot on
Talking of Marie Antoinette. Emmanuel Macron is the little man of grand vision. He foresees the ‘End Of Abundance’, a veritable “tipping point” in history. And he’s just the man to lead you through it. I’ll give him this: he’s got good speech writers. But speech writers don’t keep the people warm and fed.
France is headed toward the “end of abundance” and “sacrifices” have to be made during what is a time of great upheaval, President Emmanuel Macron told his cabinet on Wednesday upon returning from summer break. The country has faced multiple challenges lately, ranging from the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine to the unprecedented drought that has battered the whole European continent this summer. Yet, Macron believes that the crisis is actually of a much bigger scale and that structural changes are imminent.“
Some could see our destiny as being to constantly manage crises or emergencies. I believe that we are living through a tipping point or great upheaval. Firstly, because we are living through… what could seem like the end of abundance,” he said. The country and its citizens must be ready to make “sacrifices” to meet and overcome the challenges they are facing, he continued. “Our system based on freedom in which we have become used to living, when we need to defend it sometimes that can entail making sacrifices,”Macron added
“Faced with this, we have duties, the first of which is to speak frankly and very clearly without doom-mongering,” Macron stressed. The president called upon his cabinet to show unity, be “serious” and “credible” and urged ministers to avoid “demagogy.” “It’s easy to promise anything and everything, sometimes to say anything and everything. Do not give in to these temptations, it is demagoguery,” the president said, adding that such an approach “flourishes” today “in all democracies in a complex and frightening world.”
There is a pattern in the messages of today’s Marie Antoinettes. Borrell wants you to take it lying down, Macron wants you to do that for a long time (like the rest of your lives), and the Belgian PM makes it more concrete: you’ll be freezing for the next 10 years. After which, supposedly, renewables will have been built to keep your kids warm. Spoiler: they won’t be.
Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo might have spilled the beans about the duration of Europe’s energy crisis. He told reporters Monday, “the next 5 to 10 winters will be difficult.” “The development of the situation is very difficult throughout Europe,” De Croo told Belgium broadcaster VRT. “In a number of sectors, it is really difficult to deal with those high energy prices. We are monitoring this closely, but we must be transparent: the coming months will be difficult, the coming winters will be difficult,” he said. The prime minister’s comments suggest replacing Russian natural gas imports could take years, exerting further economic doom on the region’s economy in the form of energy hyperinflation.
How long will this last, you said? Well, according to AP, “Washington expects Ukrainian forces “to fight for years to come.” “Included in the package are advanced weapons that are still in the development phase..”
Years could pass before some of the weapons in the upcoming “largest ever” package of US military assistance to Kiev actually reach Ukraine, according to Western media reports. On Tuesday, a number of mainstream media outlets cited anonymous US officials as describing the impending announcement of a $3 billion package of military aid to Ukraine. If confirmed, it would be the largest of its kind so far. Washington is by far the biggest supplier of military hardware to Ukraine as it fights against Russia. However, some of the promised equipment “will not be in the hands of Ukrainian fighters for months or years,” according to NBC News, one of the outlets that reported the upcoming package. Included in the package are advanced weapons that are still in the development phase, it explained.
The same caveat was cited by the Associated Press, which said that it may take “a year or two” for the arms to reach the battlefield, according to its sources. Washington expects Ukrainian forces “to fight for years to come,” US officials told the AP. The AeroVironment Switchblade 600 drone is an example of a weapon system that was promised to Ukraine months ago but has yet to be delivered. Defense News said this week that the Pentagon plans to sign the contract necessary for sending 10 of the so-called “kamikaze drones” within a month. Last month, Ukrainian Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov called on foreign suppliers of arms to use his country as a testing ground for new weapons. He pledged to provide detailed reports about the experiences of Ukrainian soldiers with the prototypes provided to them.
The author concludes:
And there is no logical reason for this, there is only the ideology of a few handfuls of little men with grand visions. Hate of everything Russia has kept the west going for 100 years or more. And these little men feed off of that. They can only do that by refusing to talk. Because that’s exactly what Russia does not refuse. Only, they want to talk as equals.
“What’s the point of having this superb military you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?’ Madeleine Albright screamed at Colin Powell. Her stinging rebuke could not have been better designed to scrape a raw American nerve, challenging the nation’s machismo and role as leader of the free world. Powell reacted furiously. ‘I thought I would have an aneurysm,’ he recalled. ‘American GIs are not toy soldiers to be moved around on some global game board. Source
When you stop valuing one person’s life, the number of dead then just become an inconvenience. Is there a hell? A special place for special treatment to those who think this way? Madeline Albright just died. Dead of cancer.
The interview:
An Iraqi mother peeks through her black and gold embroidered hijab to gaze upon her child dying in her arms. The malnourished toddler lies motionless — his eyes shut, his skin pale. The words of 60 Minutes correspondent Leslie Stahl can be heard.
“We have heard that half a million children have died,” she says, referring to the effects of the U.N. sanctions effort in Iraq. Pausing for a brief moment to regain her thought, Stahl continues, asking then US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, “Is the price worth it?” The camera pans to Albright, who responds in a tempered diplomatic tone, “This is a very hard choice, but we think the price is worth it.” For Stahl, this historic interview would result in an Emmy award and wide journalistic praise. For Secretary Albright, however, her choice of words would spark a heated response from swath of the Arab world and would reinforce a narrative of anti-US sentiment festering since the very inception of the Iraq sanctions. Read more
Today, the press wouldn’t even ask a question like this. Good question and soulless response. Longer interview farther down.
The U.S. has a nasty belief that sanctions are the way to bring a “country to heel.” Albright was a believer. Economic destruction. Starvation.
With sanctions it may be cheaper material wise, the cost is in the large number of innocent lives that suffer. Corrupt people with power in Iraq did not suffer, their needs came first over the masses.
By the end of the 1970’s Iraq had received an award from UNESCO for its campaign to eradicate illiteracy. Before the implementations of sanctions, over 80 percent of the nation regularly drank safe, clean, drinking water, child mortality rates were comparable to European nations and Irai children had access to a nearly universal primary school education. For all intensive purposes, Cockburn writes, 1989 Iraq was, “a rich modern city.”
The combination of sanctions and coalition bombings resulted in the destruction of nearly half of Iraq’s infrastructure by 1991. Telecommunications, agricultural development, and electrical power sustained crippling blows. In Gordan’s book, Martii Ahtisaari, the Under Secretary General for Administration and Management for the U.N. at the time of the sanctions said of the sanctions affect, “the recent conflict has wrought near-apocalyptic results upon the economic mechanized society…Iraq has, for some time to come, been relegated to a pre industrial age.’”
More complete interview. The clip moves on to a different topic at the end.
The numbers of children who died is in some dispute but even at best, hundreds of thousands of children died no doubt.
“There are no operational water and sewage treatment plants and the reported incidence of diarrhea is four times above normal levels,” one post-war assessment reported; “further infectious diseases will spread due to inadequate water treatment and poor sanitation,” another predicted.
Combine this with harsh and arbitrary restrictions on medicines, the destruction of Iraq’s vaccine facilities, and the fact that, until this summer, vaccines for common infectious diseases were on the so-called “1051 list” of substances in practice banned from entering Iraq. Deliberately creating the conditions for disease and then withholding the treatment is little different morally from deliberately introducing a disease-causing organism like anthrax, but no major U.S. paper seems to have editorialized against the U.S. engaging in biological warfare–or even run a news article reporting Nagy’s evidence that it had done so. (The Madison Capitol Times–8/14/01–and the Idaho Statesman–10/2/01–ran op-eds that cited Nagy’s work.)
Another opinion:
….Other critics of Albright, however, featured fewer degrees of civility. Mixed within the analytical criticisms of Albright’s seemingly indifferent tone when speaking about Iraqi civilian casualties and the US’s neglect to properly address humanitarian concerns resulting from the prolonged sanctions, were a slew of attacks on the secretary targeting her female identity and supposed jewish ancestry. US news outlets, like the Los Angeles Times, swiftly condemned such criticism, denouncing the attacks on Abright as misogynist, anti-semitic, and inaccurate. This sentiment was shared vocally by members of the US State Department, whose spokesman Glyn Davies called Arab backlash against Albright, “biased and reprehensible.”
Though some of the criticism directed at Albright was surely laced with unsavory sentiment, the US press condemnation of criticism towards the Albright in totality failed to address the real underlying feeling of distrust and anger felt by a large group of people as a result of US foreign policy measures. As Joy Gordon notes in her book,Invisible War,one of the greatest catalysts of this anger seems to have arisen through the US and Albright’s perceived unwillingness to share the burden of responsibility for the deaths resulting from the sanctions. The United States deflected culpability, and held strong to the position that the Hussein regime was, “flatly responsible for whatever suffering there was.”
Here is an interview maintained by the government.
I will choose a few points. The full read is worth the ride.
Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright Interview on NBC-TV “The Today Show” with Matt Lauer Columbus, Ohio, February 19, 1998 As released by the Office of the Spokesman U.S. Department of State
MR. LAUER: On “Close Up” this morning — the showdown with Iraq. As UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan heads to Baghdad in a last-ditch diplomatic effort to end the standoff, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is traveling around the United States making the administration’s case for a possible strike against Saddam Hussein. Madame Secretary, good morning to you, good to see you.
……
MR. LAUER: That’s true. You did have people who stood up and expressed their concern over military action against Iraq. Did you walk away from the meeting, Madame Secretary, with a different point of view, a different perspective on the situation?
SECRETARY ALBRIGHT: Absolutely not. I think that we know what we have to do, and that is help enforce the UN Security Council resolutions, which demand that Saddam Hussein abide by those resolutions, and get rid of his weapons of mass destruction, and allow the inspectors to have unfettered and unconditional access. That’s what we have to do.
Matt, we would like to solve this peacefully. But if we cannot, we will be using force; and the American people will be behind us, and I think that they understand that.
MR. LAUER: I’m just curious. Do you think yesterday’s session helped or hurt your case? I mean, back in the early 1990s, Madame Secretary, you used to appear on this show as an analyst for foreign affairs with William Hyland. And you’d come on and talk about the Administration’s reaction to foreign affairs. If you were analyzing yesterday’s performance by you and your colleagues, how would you rate it?
SECRETARY ALBRIGHT: I thought our performance was great. But I think that the issue here is that there were people who disagree. I would probably say that there were a few dozen hecklers who disagreed. But what I would have said, actually, is that there were more people that asked questions and directed their thoughts about the fact that we ought to send in ground forces.
That’s what I found interesting — that there are more Americans who really would like us to go in and finish off Saddam Hussein. That was the message that I got from that meeting.
MR. LAUER: And you lead me right into my next question, because one man you heard from yesterday was a retired serviceman named Mike McCall, whose son died during the Vietnam War. Here’s what he said.
(Audio clip)
SECRETARY ALBRIGHT: Well, we had a half-a-million troops there in 1991. And the decision was that they could not take out Saddam Hussein. And I don’t think, frankly, that if we got into it, that the American people would want us to send in huge numbers of forces. So we are doing what must be done.
First of all, we would like to have a diplomatic, peaceful solution and have him give unfettered access to these places, so that we could tell what is happening with his weapons of mass destruction. But otherwise, the purpose of a very substantial strike will be to substantially reduce his weapons of mass destruction threat and his threat to the neighbors. We think that is an appropriate goal, and our goal — and we’ve said this, Matt — may not seem really decisive; but what we’re trying to do here is contain Saddam Hussein. We’ve managed to do that for seven years. This has been a successful policy. Whenever he puts his head up, we push him back.
…
MR. LAUER: Mike, let me ask you to stand by, and let me ask a couple more questions to Madeleine Albright.
Madame Secretary, your trip to the Middle East several weeks ago was not as successful as I think you would have liked, in building a coalition against Saddam Hussein at this point — certainly not as successful as the coalition in 1991. Have you spoken to President Bush or former Secretary of State Baker and asked for any advice on gaining support from the Arab world?
SECRETARY ALBRIGHT: First of all, I think my trip actually went pretty well, because this is a very different situation from ’91, when there was a cross-border invasion of one Arab country into another. And frankly, I got a lot more support than is publicly visible, because these people live in the region.
MR. LAUER: So they’re saying one thing in public, and saying something else to you in private?
SECRETARY ALBRIGHT: Yes, yes. And we feel comfortable that should we have to use military force, that they will be very cooperative.
And as a matter of fact, I did talk to both former President Bush and former Secretary of State Baker; and they both agreed that we have a much more complicated situation than they had on their hands. And they were very supportive, and I especially enjoyed — well, I enjoyed talking to both of them, because they do have some very good points.
Mnuchin said Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif would be targeted with US sanctions along with others. Now this is so sweet. Kerry’s BFF Zariff gets nailed.
Just who is Javad Zarif and his family ties with John Kerry?
John Kerry and daughter Vanessa Kerry Nahed
Kerry has been doing all he can to make sure his own idiotic Iranian deal stays in place by visiting the major principles. Meeting with Iranian Prime Minister. I will get to that, but first some of the best from the past.
Kerry’s daughter Vanessa is married to an Iranian national and physician. His best man at the ceremony was the son of Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s Minister of Foreign Affairs. Zarif was Kerry’s chief counterpart in the nuclear deal negotiations.
“I am proud of the Iranian-Americans in my own family, and grateful for how they have enriched my life,” Kerry said in the official statement. Kerry also said he was “strongly committed to resolving” the differences between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran, “to the mutual benefit of both of our people.”
Anyone who has been around my blog knows I have been outraged that Iranian born Jarrett who still has friends in Iran has not been fully exposed for who she is, let us recall this information about Kerry, and his daughter’s husband’s family who happens to live in Iran. How in the world did Kerry even get a security clearance.
“But what if the regime simply decides to round up Nahed’s family members and torture them? Or sends its goons to visit them at home? Or exerts some form of more subtle pressure on them that gets no publicity, and then makes it known they want the United States to release Iranians jailed in the United States on terrorism charges or for attempting to procure weapons technology or military spare parts”?
Our patriot Kerry:
Kerry exposes Iranian family tie — and subjects family to blackmail
Secretary of State John Kerry exposed a secret that journalists and academics have been agonizing: the fact that his daughter has married an Iranian-American who has extensive family ties to Iran. Ed: You bet the agonizing was really deep – instead of reporting the facts, remaining complicit.
Trump’s sanctions were also imposed on eight senior commanders of Navy, Aerospace, and Ground Forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the US Treasury Department said as well as Kerry’s friend Zariff
These commanders sit atop a bureaucracy that supervises the IRGC’s malicious regional activities, including its provocative ballistic missile program, harassment and sabotage of commercial vessels in international waters, and its destabilizing presence in Syria,” the department said in a statement.
Once more Kerry as the traitor he has always been. Doing all he can to make sure his own Iranian deal stays in place by visiting the major principles.
Former Secretary of State John Kerry is actively working to keep the Iran nuclear deal in place as U.S. weighs the future of the deal, according to a new report.
Kerry, who served as the nation’s top diplomat under former President Barack Obama, was an instrumental leader in the development of the 2015 Iran deal,
The Boston Globe reports Kerry met with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif to examine how to preserve the deal.
Additionally, he has met and spoken with several European officials on the matter, including German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and French President Emmanuel Macron.
If we thought the latest kerfuffle over Kerry’s mixing into foreign policy regarding Iran recently was a Logan problem, add the concept of Feinstein walking around congress on an unsecured line talking on her IPhone to Iranian Prime Minister Zarif.
This didn’t take long now did it? Europe huffs and puffs.The media are so sure that Trump is wrecking our important relationships with our allies across the pond.
This as we just celebrated D-Day when we gave up our precious treasure of blood and life of our young men for them. And Germany? What penance are you willing to give to us for us having to shed blood twice last century for your attempt at self-aggrandizement.
Even today, we pay for Europe’s security and now we ask you all to kick into the kitty by engaging in FAIR trade with us. So we want Europe’s support in fixing the feckless Iranian deal. After much bluster it looks like they are caving like a cheap suit:
After an initial hesitance over how the returning U.S. sanctions will affect Iran’s oil buyers, European refiners are beginning to wind down purchases from Iran after tanker providers, insurers, and banks began to shun Iranian deals and destinations for fear of exposing themselves to secondary sanctions.
Several large European companies in France, Spain, Italy, and Greece are reportedly admitting that they won’t risk U.S. sanctions and are unable to find tankers and insurer providers willing to facilitate shipments of Iranian oil to Europe, Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing company and trading sources.
Iran’s total oil exports have averaged around 2.5 million bpd in recent months, peaking in April, just before the U.S. withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal. Iran says that its May oil exports were higher than this year’s average, but it now looks like European refiners are choosing not to risk and have started to figure out ways to wind down Iranian oil purchases.
Iran’s oil exports to Europe account for around one-fifth of the total, while most of the Iranian crude goes to China and to India.
“We cannot defy the United States,” a senior source at Italy’s Saras, which operates a 300,000-bpd refinery on the island of Sardinia, told Reuters.
“It is not clear yet what the U.S. administration can do but in practice we can get into trouble,” the source noted.
A drop in crude trading between Iran and Europe could complicate efforts by the European signatories of the nuclear deal – France, Germany and Britain – to salvage the agreement.
Refiners including France’s Total, Italy’s Eni and Saras, Spain’s Repsol and Cepsa as well as Greece’s Hellenic Petroleum are preparing to halt purchases of Iranian oil once sanctions bite, the sources said.
Search as I might, I could find precious little on the Iran hearing held yesterday, covered by C-Span. It was a damning acknowledgement that the administration’s refusal to release the agreement of suspension of sanctions to the public would reveal that the administration did not understand the technical aspects to which they agreed, or did and did not want it to see the light of day because it would reveal their evilness. Either way, Obama has been had, as well as the United States. One can only wonder if the mischievous Iranian born Valerie Jarrett or Kerry’s Muslim in-laws who still live in Iran, had a hand or was the cause of this treachery. PJ Media was one of the few sources I could find. First-
“But what if the regime simply decides to round up Nahed’s family members and torture them? Or sends its goons to visit them at home? Or exerts some form of more subtle pressure on them that gets no publicity, and then makes it known they want the United States to release Iranians jailed in the United States on terrorism charges or for attempting to procure weapons technology or military spare parts”?
WASHINGTON — President Obama heartily defended his nuclear deal with Iran at the State of the Union, vowing to veto a sizable bipartisan movement in Congress to keep sanctions pressure on the Islamic Republic. But here is the real story:
“Iran will remain perilously close to a nuclear weapon. The joint plan of action allows Iran to continue to produce 3.5 percent enriched uranium which is the key starting material for any Iranian effort to produce HEU for weapons. Iran’s stockpile of this material will continue to grow during the course of this nuclear deal, though several White House statements, as well as Secretary Kerry, have incorrectly claimed otherwise.”
Jones warned that “as this stockpile of enriched uranium grows, the number of nuclear weapons that Iran can produce from it will grow as well.”
“Iran’s stockpile of 3.5 percent enriched uranium in the form of uranium hexafluoride is not supposed to grow. Iran is supposed convert the excess into an oxide form, but Iran can easily convert this material back into hexafluoride once it begins to produce nuclear weapons,” he added. “This fact is well known to U.S. technical experts, but their input was apparently either not sought or heeded.”
“For the sake of our national security, we must give diplomacy a chance to succeed,” Obama said, getting not as much applause as he may have hoped from the joint session.
The morning before he took the dais, though, a congressional panel heard that Iran has fully retained its ability to build a nuclear bomb that could be cranked out in as little as two months under the terms of the much-touted P5+1 agreement.
Gregory Jones, senior researcher of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, told a joint hearing of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittees on the Middle East and North Africa and Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade that the Obama administration has engaged in “mischaracterization of the deal’s benefits and the denial of the deal’s great flaw.”
Republicans mocked the debate and vote as a pointless distraction from difficult questions before the US Congress, such as the feuding over Obama’s push to remake US health care and worries over the war in Afghanistan
Here is the vote tally: 240-to 179. Here is the link for individual votes.
This didn’t take long now did it? Europe huffs and puffs.The media are so sure that Trump is wrecking our important relationships with our allies across the pond.
BUNKERVILLE | God, Guns and Guts Comrades! 