“… after the JCPOA was signed in July 2015, China and Iran agreed to expand trade relations to $600 billion in ten years from January 2016, on the occasion when Chinese leaderXi Jinping paid Hassan Rouhani a state visit.[18] This constitutes an increase of over 1,000%.[19] The agreement was concordant with One Belt, One Road framework. A total of 17 agreements were signed, including one which relates to the Iranian nuclear program. The Chinese will help connect Tehran with Mashhad via their high-speed rail technology.” wiki
Comment: Let’s keep it real folks. Keep it real. pl
I had heard a quote decades ago regarding American animus against Iran to the effect that Iran’s greatest sin against America was they were “a runaway slave”. Be that as it may, the international situation seems to reflect a desire on our part to forestall the “turning and turning in the widening Gyre” of history, combined with nostalgia for the halcyon days of US ascendancy in the 20th. century.
Obviously a country like China which has awakened from centuries of sleep will continue pursuing mutually beneficial commercial relations with countries like Iran, as will Russia. And why shouldn’t they?
We should stop tilting against windmills and adjust to changing geopolitical realities. Mackinder’s world island is forming up and what we’ve been doing in the last 25-30 years is contributing to that process as opposed to hindering it.
Exactly- american/Iranian animus aside- Iran is a country of 80+million people, with plenty of natural resources and a highly skilled/educated people. They have managed that under a constant war threat.. When China signed the recent cooperation agreement the Chinese foreign minster claimed “Iran decides independently on its relations with other countries and is not like some countries that change their position with one phone call.” That obviously is of real value to China – that needs to secure energy from sources less amenable to American designs.
The Israelis are doing their best to make an US/Iran war reality. Their cyber attack on Natanz was done while the US SecDef was visiting Izzie Defense Minister Benny Ganz. Trying to imply to the Ayatollahs that the US was in on the attack? They have a history of doing that.
Tight negotiations going on in Vienna. But not face to face as Iran has refused to meet with Americans until after sanctions are lifted. The UK, GE, and FR are standing in for Biden’s negotiation team led by Bob Malley.
Foreign Policy magazine suggests that Malley wants to put forth a Goldilocks type deal where ‘just enough’ sanctions are listed so that both sides can save face; and yet not piss off hardliners in both DC and Tehran. He’ll probably give sanctions relief on many of the 700 or so sanctions imposed by Trump at the end of his term. “However, sanctions that are justified and not inconsistent with the JCPOA, like those that targeted human rights violators in Iran or those that penalized Iranians involved in cyberattacks against the U.S., will stay in place.”
Off topic, Sir. Apologies. Moved by the recent plague of mass killings in America.
Jimmy Martin:
When the Saviour Reached Down his His Hands.
https://youtu.be/8wNZxkFioyk
What has happened to this once great country? Jimmy Martin would be ridiculed today.
No one understands where the sentiments of this song come from (and I am not a “religious” person. It seems as though we are forbidden not only from understanding ourselves, but from remembering we’ve all been here before and already come to grips with it.
Once my soul was astray from the heavenly way
I was wretched and blind as could be
But my Savior in love gave me peace from above
When he reached down his hand for me
When the Savior reached down for me
When he reached way down for me
I was lost and undone without God or his Son
When he reached down his hand for me.
How my heart does rejoice when I hear his sweet voice
In the tempest to him I can cling
There to lean on his arm safe secure from all harm
When he reached down his hand for me.
I don’t know whether to call China Joe, China Joe or Mr. Woops-e.
Elder abuse using poor bought-n-paid-for China Joe as a store-front-cigar-statue, Biden’s handlers use and abuse him at their will.
This time the wind-up store-front figure can’t get his P’s and his K’s straight. Instead of calling Vladimirovich – Putin, China-Joe gaffes and calls him ‘Klutin’. Embarrassing for our nation wouldn’t you say?
https://sputniknews.com/viral/202104161082644696-watch-biden-confuse-russian-presidents-surname-when-giving-remarks-on-bilateral-relations/
Yes. They will have to pull him out, and that right soon. The DNC will need to avoid pulling him due to obvious dementia. Better to pull him for some illness than have him shit the bed on camera. I doubt he will complete his first year, if this is any indication of the state of his faculties.
“China Joe is not going to war with Iran – no way.”
I certainly hope not. It would take a war mongering neocon to want otherwise. If Teheran gets cozy with Beijing and maybe Moscow as well, good for them. Let the three of them have a go at keeping Israel and the rest of the region in line. We should stick to our own near abroad.
Speaking of agreements with Iran:
http://middleeastobserver.net/iran-russia-set-to-sign-comprehensive-strategic-agreement-tv-report/
The Dutch ruled the world through global trade in roughly the1500-1700’s. They protected the high seas continents away. Then no more. Hitler ravaged Holland and nearly starved the population to death in the 1940s. Allies bombed every strategic advantage left standing in the country. What war did not destroy, Mother Nature sent flooding seas to finish them off.
Yet by the 21st Century, the Netherlands itself is a vibrant place to live and where to conduct business, but this time for their own people; not the rest of the world. Their homeland borders are now secure from both foreign invasions and Mother Nature.
Empires come, go and always become too cumbersome to maintain. Trump was right – America First and keep it all home. Today, the Dutch just lose the World Cup, but not much else.
May America hand the nasty tasks over to someone else who wants to still play global domination games. May we secure our own borders and live peacefully and productively among just ourselves. Everyone pitches in, in their own way and stops tearing each other down from within.
I don’t mind if the “American Century” is over, as long as America remains a shining city on a hill on its own. But that is a mantle for another generation to preserve; my own time is soon to be over. What did the Dutch do between 1700 and 2000? Lessons from the past to be learned, as global roles shift.
Are current living standards in the U.S mantianable without the dollar as the world Reserve currency? That is an honest question since its “empire” mostly backing that now (not production or total size of the economy as it was 40-50 years ago)
Maybe only marginally on topic, but between this discussion and the preceding one about Russia (war over Ukraine, US ships deciding not to enter Black Sea), I recalled Obama’s statement about how Russia does not want to fight a war with us because our military is so much bigger than theirs.
Colonel,
I’m waiting for the Russians to pull out some of their compromising videos they have moth-balled of U.S. Senator Joe Biden during Joe’s many visits to Moscow.
Thanks, honored Colonel, and I hope you’re feeling much BETTER.
It’s interesting how the DOJ/FBI used the Chinese hack pretext to infiltrate hundreds of American computer systems so they could read the private e-mails of tens of millions of unsuspecting Americans.
FBI receives ‘search warrant’ to INFILTRATE & FIX hundreds of systems affected by ‘Chinese hack’ of Microsoft Exchange servers
https://www.rt.com/usa/520953-fbi-microsoft-hafnium-exploit/
J, that isn’t even close to what the FBI did, nor is it what the RT article described. The RT article is accurate. You’re either reading bogus information or making stuff up. The FBI obtained a warrant to log into malicious web shells installed on hundreds of Microsoft Exchange servers using the Chinese Hafnium group’s credentials, copy that web shell and issue a command to the server to close down that web shell. That’s it. No reading of emails. The FBI was not allowed to install patches or remove any other malware on those servers.
This is what the FBI, CYBERCOM and NSA should be doing, actually defending our networks. Those companies, groups and individuals who fail to maintain their networks ought to have their networks disconnected from the internet at the ISP until they fix their stuff. This is a true matter of national security. I’m all for these agencies to start a major push to do more of this stuff, including protecting the internet from lazy and/or clueless jackasses. Of course that means they can’t be hoarding vulnerabilities for their own use.
Colonel,
China Joe wants to avoid public flack regarding Afghanistan, so he pulls the old nut under the thimble trick, uniformed out, mercenaries in. The Afghan war goes on forever with hired mercs, paid for by American taxpayer dollars. The hog-trough keeps getting filled this way.
Biden Isn’t Ending The Afghan War, He’s Privatizing It
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/unclear-if-over-18000-contractors-will-ever-leave-afghanistan-pentagon