Why is the USA attacking Iran and Venezuela?

This is the English version of an interview I made for Kayhan news of Iran, on April 15, 2019. The interview was published in Persian.

My interview was made prior to the USA announcement of April 22, 2019, that it would enforce zero-export of Iranian oil with heavy penalties against any non-compliant nation.

My interview explains why the aggressive warring sanctions should be expected, from the consistent USA campaign for world dominance, and why the USA wants war in both Iran and Venezuela.

<< Overall, the USA will continue its vile wars of sanctions against the peoples of all independent nations that have energy resources — Iran, Syria, Russia, and Venezuela — in a bid to reserve profit from oil and gas for itself and the allies it controls. The USA will also do everything it can to limit the development of China. China is responding with Eurasian trade development, by developing its massive coal reserves, and by energy security agreements with free nations. >>

I explain that the drive to war follows a clear longstanding pattern, anchored in preventing development of independent countries and regions, by imposition of the US dollar as the world currency, rather than being primarily the result of partizan politics or the interests of allies (see interview with Iran's Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif).

Here is the full unedited interview:


K:  What is the aim of America by designating IRGC as a terrorist group? What is Trump looking for by doing such an irrational international act?

DR:  The USA wants to control the Middle East because it wants to control both a high price of oil and who can benefit from selling oil; and gas, by extension.

Let us start at the beginning. The USA has been negotiating a dilemma since 1971 when it unilaterally cancelled the Bretton Woods trade agreement with its post-World-War-II allies and its controlled jurisdictions. The allies were developing too much. I explained this in my recent report entitled “Geo-Economics and Geo-Politics Drive Successive Eras of Predatory Globalization and Social Engineering”.

The dilemma, since 1971, is that on the one hand the USA must have high oil prices and force oil contracts to be signed in US dollars in order to secure the US dollar as the de facto world currency, its main financial instrument of global exploitation, whereas on the other hand, nations not under USA control can produce oil and gas and greatly benefit from the high price, thus driving their independence and development.

Development of sovereign nations outside of USA control inescapably leads to a multipolar world with balanced competing regional interests, rather than a world dominated by the USA and largely held in underdevelopment. The USA is desperate to delay the inevitable natural emergence of economic and military multipolarity. The USA is insecure, rationally fearful of revenge, and addicted to its power. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov states this in his characteristically pithy and diplomatic words as: “The United States has a fear of fair competition”.

High-price commodities other than oil and gas also serve to artificially maintain the US dollar as the world currency. These include the payments on forced loans made in US dollars, US military hardware sales imposed on its subservient allies, and opium (Afghanistan) and USA-patented pharmaceuticals. 

In this context, Iran threatens USA domination in two ways. First, Iran is the anchor of an axis of resistance against USA-Israeli domination in the region. Iran is a rare entirely sovereign and strong nation. Second, Iran produces oil, which can be used to fund its own sovereign security, its own popular development, and its defensive influence and ties with neighbouring countries Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. As such, Iran has been identified by the USA regime as the main threat against USA-Israeli domination of the Middle East. Iran is a focal point of opposition against USA hegemony, so USA aggression against Iran will not end until the USA experiences sufficient backlash, producing a more balanced world.

That is the aim of putting the IRGC on the USA list of terrorist organizations. The unprecedented move is part of a USA declared war of sanctions, aimed at destabilizing and weakening Iran, in order to create opportunities for political interference, terrorist attacks, and military strikes, to provoke a collapse. The targeting of Iran is a long-term goal of Republican administrations. This goal was rejected by the Democratic Obama administration as too risky. Democrats wanted “containment”, although Hilary Clinton is an extreme war hawk. Republicans want war.

In terms of partisan factions, war in the Middle East (or Venezuela) helps the Republican energy (shale oil and gas) and arms sectors. Whereas contained stability with USA domination helps the Democrat base of financiers (Wall Street). War in the Middle East also props up Israel by giving it an expanded role within the USA regime.

Overall, the USA will continue its vile wars of sanctions against the peoples of all independent nations that have energy resources — Iran, Syria, Russia, and Venezuela — in a bid to reserve profit from oil and gas for itself and the allies it controls. The USA will also do everything it can to limit the development of China. China is responding with Eurasian trade development, by developing its massive coal reserves, and by energy security agreements with free nations.


K:  What would be the security and intelligence consequences of America’s decision for the region?

DR:  The USA has become an unlawful rogue regime, and the illusion that it created in the United Nations now frustrates its intentions to intimidate and destabilize in order to delay the inevitable emergence of independent nations and regions.

The unlawful, vicious, and rogue USA behaviour is now clearly seen on many fronts: Economic and trade sanctions used as weapons of mass suffering, covert wars by supporting terrorists, such as in Syria, support for the genocidal war against Yemen, fomenting deadly instability in Ukraine, the recent cold-blooded murder of the nation of Libya, interference and direct war threats against Venezuela, deciding that it can use its courts to prosecute alleged crimes in foreign sovereign nations, in absentia, demanding arrests of citizens of foreign sovereign nations (Julian Assange, Meng Wanzhou), running torture camps (Guantanamo), declaring sovereignty over militarily occupied territories (Golan Heights), and so on.

The USA is the main global security threat at this time, without any close competitor. Naming the IRGC as a terrorist organization is the new norm in its outrageous behaviour. Imagine that: Unilaterally deciding that a national military organization, created to defend against the main rogue regime on the planet, is a “terrorist organization”.  The USA is asserting that those who defend themselves are terrorists.

This is an interesting development. It means that the USA is setting the precedent that a national military can be termed a terrorist organization. There is no basis in international law for such nonsense. But if such are the new rules, then surely the greatest terrorist organization at present, occupying entire continental regions, has to be the USA military and the CIA.

In other words, Trump’s irresponsible move puts USA occupiers and covert operatives at risk everywhere, of being detained and prosecuted as terrorists. That is why top USA intelligence and military officials, including General Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, opposed the designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organization.

The USA is in the throes of trying to slow the development of the free world. There will be more and more episodes of USA miscalculations. The designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organization may turn out to be such a miscalculation. If so, it will not be the last.


K:  American intelligent services are blamed for murdering innocent people and covertly supporting terrorist groups, still they point to IRGC for terrorist acts while the entity has devoted itself to fighting terrorism. How does this paradox get answered in West?

DR:  My definition of stupidity is a chronic inability to perceive objectively, due to class immunity and subservience. The paradox (reality) is not perceived because of self-image-based allegiance to the USA regime. Therefore, there is no paradox, no perceived reality that could cause cognitive dissonance.

This explains why ordinary citizens do not actually oppose the USA regime’s domestic and foreign violence. The regime does everything to indoctrinate by effective propaganda, rather than allow individual thought. When propaganda and institutionalized indoctrination are not enough, then the USA regime jails its own citizens, at the highest incarceration rate in the world (almost 7 incarcerated citizens per 1000 population).

On the other hand, USA elite planners should be concerned about the paradox that you describe, because such incongruities produce vulnerability for the empire. An empire can topple very quickly by a cascade of reactions if it produces fertile ground for such reactions.

The USA has lost its ability to produce and promote great statesmen and has become a cauldron of often pathological special interests. At the same time, it pursues an arms race, and is itching to use nuclear weapons. The world needs to limit USA adventures and ambitions. This is the most urgent problem of our era. Thankfully, Russia, China, Iran, and others are highly mature nations, with strong institutions and internal incubation of thoughtful leaders.


K:  It is reported that the Pentagon severely disagrees with the Trump decision. What is the reason?

DR:  Yes, as I mentioned earlier, the Pentagon seems to be the voice of reason in this matter. Military men have strong classical educations, at military academies, and this education includes the societal conditions for national stability and successful military campaigns.

Wars are not won solely by technology. Advanced technology can be defeated in unpredictable ways. Furthermore, coercive systems are by nature unstable. I think the Pentagon often does everything that it can to inject components of “reality on the ground”.

Unfortunately, the Israel model is too often followed by the USA, both domestically and in its foreign projects. The Israel model is one of brutal occupation by overwhelming force, combined with a massive system to recruit, bribe and blackmail collaborators. This may or may not, in the end, achieve the desired genocidal outcome in Palestine, but it is not a model that realistically can be applied on the global scale, without major diplomatic concessions, in my opinion.


K:  Could this decision relate to the Israel election?

DR:  Of course, yes. Netanyahu publicly thanked Trump on twitter for declaring the IRGC a terrorist organization: “Thank you for accepting another important request of mine.” This would have given Netanyahu a boost of credibility in time to influence the Israeli election.  This would explain why the designation was done in such a rush by the Trump administration, according to insider accounts.