by Chris Hedges, Lew Rockwell:
Israel is sabotaging the negotiations with Iran and alienating its last important ally by refusing to halt its attacks on Lebanon and withdraw from its occupation of the south. It is determined to reignite a regional conflagration that could see Iran perpetually close the Strait of Hormuz and plunge the global economy into a global depression. And it continues its genocide in Gaza.
Israel is contaminated by racism and genocidal violence. It is blinded by a repugnant moral superiority. It is corrupted by a class of Zionist billionaires in the U.S. who use their wealth to bend foreign policy to serve Israeli interests. It is equipped with a nuclear arsenal Israeli officials have repeatedly threatened to use.
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It is a menace to the region. It is a menace to itself. And it is a menace to us.
The first round of a quadrilateral meeting between the United States, Iran and Pakistani and Qatari mediators in Switzerland on Sunday — where the Iranian delegation refused to take part in a planned handshake and joint photo with its U.S. counterparts — focused on the U.S. implementing commitments set in the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for a preliminary 60-day period.
But the closure of the Strait of Hormuz — following Israeli attacks on Lebanon — disrupted the talks. The closure sent Trump into another one of his habitual tantrums, when he reportedly told “Fox News” correspondent Trey Yingst he had informed Iranian negotiators if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, “[Y]ou won’t even make it back to your fucking country.”
When told that Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian continues to assert Iran’s right to enrich uranium — a right guaranteed by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons which the U.S. co-founded — Trump reportedly said “[President Pezeshkian] better watch his mouth. He better shape up or we’ll take over the rest of the country.”
“Iran must immediately stop their highly paid PROXIES in Lebanon from causing trouble,” Trump added in a post on Truth Social, referring to Hezbollah. “If they don’t, we’ll hit Iran very hard again, just like we did last week, only harder!!!”
Trump’s threats prompted the Iranian delegation to depart the Swiss venue, while Ghalibaf dismissed Trump’s tirades in a post on X. “Don’t they ever stop to think that if their threats had worked, they wouldn’t have reached today’s desperation? We give the Americans’ threats no weight whatsoever,” he said.
The meeting concluded with “agreeing on a 60-day roadmap toward a final agreement and establishing mechanisms to advance technical negotiations” under the MoU, according to IRNA News Agency.
Israel’s vision of a “Greater Israel,” designed to ensure Israel’s military dominance throughout the Middle East, depends on harnessing the wealth and military power of the U.S.
Over two-thirds of the major arms and munitions Israel imports — without which it could not carry out its genocide of the Palestinians, turn southern Lebanon into a moonscape and bomb Iran, Syria and Qatar — are manufactured and provided by the U.S. And because the Israel lobby, for decades, has owned Congress, because its Zionists allies police and control the media, because it is able to siphon tens of billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to sustain its military adventurism, Israel is blind to its own limitations. It is willing to inflict harm on its allies, including the U.S., in service to itself.
