IRAN’S Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi could not have said it better when asked at a media forum how Iran would respond to the United States’ warning for Iran to make peace now or otherwise face future attacks much greater and far easier.
“How is Tehran responding to death threats from Washington?” asked the lady reporter.
In an answer that stunned everyone, the foreign minister declared, “I think it’s not for Iran to respond to that. The whole international community should respond to such a clear threat against the United Nations charter.”
The official went at length to explain Iran’s drive for the attainment of a peaceful nuclear capability and had signed the treaty with the United States and other members of the P5 Plus One (the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council: China, the United States, United Kingdom, France and Russia, plus Germany) guaranteeing peaceful pursuit of Iran’s nuclear program.
The foreign minister explained that Iran was in such peaceful endeavor, when the US broke from the deal “and reimposed sanctions and restarted threats.”
Araghchi recalled that Iran was in talks with the Trump administration precisely over the matter when it came under massive attacks, “first by the Israelis and then by themselves (the Americans).”
“So, it’s not up to Iran but to the international community to condemn this threat, to prevent this. Otherwise, nothing will be left... of international law... of the Security Council...”
In summation, what the Iran Foreign Minister was picturing is a world order where total chaos pervades.
Would the world allow that?
Mr. Araghchi did not have to word the question. It was evident in the manner he reached that juncture.
“Iran has done nothing wrong,” he lamented.
For it to be made to suffer the punishment the United States and Israel heaped upon the nation is the height of infamy seeking redress from the entire human community no less.
“The Security Council should play its responsibility to condemn these kinds of threats.”
While recognizing that it is the sworn duty of every Iranian to defend its territorial integrity and sovereignty, he nonetheless stressed that the US-Israel attacks were of such magnitude and ferocity that they transcended Iran’s national boundaries, endangering the entire world.
The foreign minister assured the gathering that every Iranian knows what to do in this regard. What he questioned was what the world will do.
Indications are that US President Trump is having mad tantrums. He keeps announcing that Iran is begging for negotiations. Araghchi has consistently denied it, even going to such sarcastic lengths as depicting Trump as negotiating with himself.
Bottom line, Trump is desperate for a deal, Iran does not want any, resolved as it is to push the fight on its own stated terms: assurance that America will never again attack Iran, dismantlement of all US military bases across the Gulf region, and payment by America of war damages.
Given existing realities, the only way to meet Iran’s conditions for ending the hostilities is for America to be totally defeated in the war.
That Iran stays unyielding in this resolve should be cause for world worry. Trump repeatedly threatens to unleash the full might of America’s power “as has never been seen before.”
Translate that to nuclear power yet unseen in actual operation but deemed in propaganda as a thousand times more devastating than the atomic bombs that America dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Those bombings are on record as having leveled the two cities to rubble and claiming an aggregate of 400,000 Japanese lives.
In terms of destruction, Iran must be aware of how much more is America’s capacity to do one more Hiroshima and Nagasaki this time around.
And yet, by Araghchi’s consistent composure, Iran stays unperturbed, rejecting Trump’s desperate near-pleas for settlement.
In fact, on every occasion that Trump’s threat sounds, Araghchi has a ready: “Bring it on.”
And then again, by Araghchi’s own verbiage, whenever asked what has happened to Iran’s perceived nuclear power, he very calmly, tongue-in-cheek comments, “They remain buried in the rubble (of the Feb. 28 attacks).”
If you know what subtext means.
Indeed, as I have grown used to term it, the sands of victory in the Gulf war are shifting.
Trump’s call for NATO allies to assist in snatching from Iran control of the Hormuz Strait has fallen on deaf ears.
None at all has responded.
Passage on the strait is now being paid for in Chinese yuan.
Thus is Trump’s already gasping from a creeping threat of collapse of the petro dollar, the lifeline of the US economy.
Of late, the US-installed regime in Iraq has declared oneness of cause with Iran, while at the start of hostilities it was openly for the United States.
And in the Philippines, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has expressed favorable sentiment to a “resetting” of China-Philippines relations, with China being amenable to opening talks once more on joint exploration by the two countries for oil in the South China Sea.
So to speak, wherever China is, can Iran be far behind?
With the restrengthening of China-Philippine understanding to pre-EDCA (Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement) levels, the stage could be set for the ultimate dismantling of US military bases in the Philippines.
Hey, that’s Iran’s own magnificent obsession across the Middle East!
In Europe, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has highlighted world rejection of America’s aggression by flatly refusing the use by US of its military bases in Spain for attacks against Iran.
That should accentuate the fact that defense treaties — which Spain has with the United States — are precisely for what they stipulate — defense. No way for America to force Spain to do otherwise.
In the case of Iran, America is the aggressor, needing no mutual defense with Spain.
Curiously enough, Spain has been largely drawn into the ambit of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, with heavy investments in green energy, agriculture and technology, reputedly fifth among the 27 members of the European Union.
China is Spain’s largest trading partner outside of the EU.
All told, the world is waking up.
It now sees the wisdom of choosing China’s vision of a universal community of shared future.
This is turning out to be the one single rejection of monster America First — now throwing in death spasms.