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Speaking from Charlottesville, US celebrity billionaire and presidential hopeful Donald Trump lamented that US President Barack Obama «dealt from desperation» while drafting a final nuclear agreement with Iran in Vienna. Trump had it partially right, but he also had it partially wrong too. It was not that the Obama Administration was desperate per se as Trump lambasted. It is that the United States of America is in decline as the foremost power of the world, which is what forced the US government to sit at the negotiating table with the Iranian government. Geopolitical, economic, and tactical conditions obliged the US to sit down with Iran. Washington was compelled to seek a deal with Iran by geostrategic circumstances. It is the same story with the Cubans. The decline of the United States and its increasing isolation in Latin America forced the Obama Administration to start talks with Havana and to reverse the decades-long hostile US policies on Cuba. The Pathology of the Sanctions System against Iran The sanctions system against Iran was not designed to bring Tehran to the negotiating table, as the Obama Administration misleadingly claims. This is US government revisionism and a political myth constructed to hide the pathology of the US-designed international sanctions system. The international sanctions system was designed to force Tehran to surrender and to submit to Washington’s edicts. |