Subject: Re: US Congress prepares new,trade sanctions against Iran
Did you ever notice that God anoints the guy with the biggest bomb?
First of all, who declared the United States the world's Enforcer?
Secondly, as Peace keepers, the US is doing about as good a job as they are doing at home with their War on Drugs, or War on Poverty.
Thirdly, isn't it a fact that the ones most hurt by sanctions are the very poor, the elderly, the children and the disabled?
Good going US, at least you are consistent, doing to others exactly what you do to your own.
Carl Jarvis
----- Original Message -----From: Roger Loran BaileySent: Sunday, March 10, 2013 5:28 PMSubject: US Congress prepares new,trade sanctions against Iranhttp://www.themilitant.com/2013/7710/771054.html
The Militant - March 18, 2013 -- US Congress prepares new trade
sanctions against Iran
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 77/No. 10 March 18, 2013
US Congress prepares new
trade sanctions against Iran
BY LOUIS MARTIN
In a display of bipartisan unity, Congress is preparing to further
expand U.S. sanctions against Iran to what would amount to "a commercial
trade embargo
if fully carried out," according to the New York Times.
For years, Washington has waged a campaign to force Tehran to abandon
its program of nuclear research, which the U.S. government and its
allies say is
geared toward making nuclear weapons. The Iranian government maintains
its program is for power generation and medical purposes.
Republican Rep. Ed Royce from California, who is chairman of the House
Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. Eliot Engel from New York, the
committee's ranking
Democrat, jointly introduced legislation Feb. 27 "intended to prevent
Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons ability," the Times reported.
The measure would expand the list of blacklisted Iranian companies to
all those under government management and potentially freeze Iran's
foreign bank
assets held in euros, one of its few remaining ways to repatriate
profits from foreign trade.
Two days later, Senators Lindsey Graham, a Republican, and Democrat
Roberto Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
introduced a
resolution stating, "The United States government should stand with
Israel and provide diplomatic, military and economic support" in the
event Tel Aviv
takes military action against Iran. President Barack Obama is expected
to visit Israel for the first time as president later this month.
At the same time, talks on Iran's nuclear program resumed Feb. 26-27
between Tehran and representatives of the U.N. Security Council—China,
France, Russia,
the U.K. and the U.S.—and Germany. Held in Almaty, Kazakhstan, Central
Asia, these were the first such talks since June last year.
"Threatening Iran is not going to work," Mohammad Khazaee, Iran's
ambassador to the U.N., told CNN March 3. "As soon as you say, 'We are
ready to talk
to you and work with you, but at the same time, we punish you and put
pressure on you and your people'—Iran cannot accept that."
Meanwhile, another set of sanctions adopted in July by Congress kicked
in Feb. 6, blocking Iran from direct access to revenue from oil sales to
nine countries.
Instead, it can only receive credit to purchase goods from those
countries, which include Iran's biggest oil customers, among them China,
India and Turkey.
The measures add to earlier sanctions that have increasingly forced Iran
into oil-for-goods barter deals with its trading partners.
According to a New York Times Feb. 26 report, the six government
representatives at the Almaty talks were planning to offer Iran an
easing of sanctions
on trade in precious metals in exchange for Tehran's agreement to stop
enrichment of uranium to 20 percent purity, shut down its Fordo
underground enrichment
facility, and ship abroad its stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium
for conversion to nuclear fuel.
Sanctions on Iran's trade in gold and other precious metals were signed
into law by President Barack Obama at the beginning of January, aimed at
preventing
countries from trading these metals for Iranian oil and gas.
Tehran has insisted that before any agreement could be reached, all
sanctions be lifted and Iran's "right to enrich uranium" be recognized
as a signatory
of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Workers resist economic squeeze
Years of imperialist sanctions appear to have their intended effects,
which include not only damaging Iran's economy, but imposing hardship on
working
people there and feeding factional tensions among the country's rulers.
According to a Feb. 24 Financial Times article, Iran's national
currency, the rial, fell by about 60 percent last year under the
combined impact of U.S.
and European Union sanctions.
Inflation is officially at 28.7 percent and youth unemployment at 28.6
percent. In the last two weeks of January, prices of chicken, eggs and
rice have
increased 23 percent, 30 percent and 37 percent respectively.
Bosses in Iran are taking aim at working people, who in some cases are
fighting back.
For example, the Free Labor Union of Iran website and other dispatches
reported that the 1,200 workers at the Safa Pipe Rolling factory in
Saveh ended
a five-day strike Feb. 7 after the employer finally paid their September
wages. This was the second strike by these workers in two months over
outstanding
wages.
The Iranian parliament approved a plan Feb. 24 to subsidize basic food
staples like rice, vegetable oil and meat, the Financial Times reported.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's supporters in parliament voted against
the food subsidy plan, the Times said, claiming "there was no economic
crisis in
Iran." Politicians backing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who pressed for the
subsidies, have been blaming Iran's economic problems on Ahmadinejad's
policies.
Ahmadinejad's second and final term will end with elections in June.
Related articles:
Oppose imperialist squeeze on Iran!
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