Most people in the United States and other Western nations seem to consider it “normal”, or anyway unremarkable, that the U.S. should, on its own, have the authority to control and police the nuclear-enrichment projects of another country far away.
It is not.
There are a number of high-level UN bodies, with the Security Council at their apex, that have that authority. In 2015, the United States, the other four veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council, and Germany jointly negotiated an arrangement with Iran that sought to address concerns that some countries had had about Iran’s nuclear-enrichment program. The agreement they reached, the “JCPOA”, was immediately endorsed by the Security Council.
In 2018, Pres. Donald Trump unilaterally pulled out of the JCPOA and restored many of the unilateral U.S. economic sanctions on Iran that had earlier been lifted under its terms. The JCPOA’s other (non-Iran) signatories expressed mild concern at Trump’s move, but took no other action. (When Joe Biden became president he took some inconsequential steps to rejoin the agreement, then abandoned the project.)
Continue reading “No to war on Iran! No to U.S. hegemony!”