Appeasement: The European Sickness

by Richard Kemp • August 24, 2020 at 5:00 am

Now, Britain and France seek to appease the three powers that most threaten the world today: Iran, China and Russia.
Both countries [Britain and France], as well as Germany and the EU itself, knew only too well that, rather than its stated purpose of denying Iran a route to nuclear weapons, the JCPOA in fact paved Iran's pathway — not just to acquiring nuclear capabilities, but doing so legitimately.
The re-imposed sanctions will then leave China, Russia and the European countries with tough choices about whether they observe them or take the damaging consequences to their own trade with the US.
And for what? Perhaps for the benefit of Russia and China, whose weapons sales to Iran will both bring financial benefit and extend their influence in the region at the expense of America and Europe.
If US snapback sanctions succeed, that can only hasten the end of the terrorist regime in Tehran. It will also boost confidence and security among the Arab countries, increasingly fearful of a nuclear-armed Iran.

Britain and France seek to appease the three powers that most threaten the world today: Iran, China and Russia. Pictured: Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, on June 14, 2019. (Photo by Vyacheslav Oseledko/AFP via Getty Images)

Europe is in the grip of a uniquely virulent and pernicious disease that threatens the wellbeing of its peoples and of the world: not Coronavirus, but appeasement. Anglo-French foreign policy in the 1930s was also dominated by appeasement -- of Nazi Germany -- a policy that failed to prevent one of the greatest catastrophes that ever engulfed civilisation and that led to the deaths of millions.

Now, Britain and France seek to appease the three powers that most threaten the world today: Iran, China and Russia. As permanent members of the UN Security Council, last week both Britain and France genuflected to their arch-enemies by refusing to support their greatest ally, the United States, in its resolution to extend the UN arms embargo on Iran. The US resolution was of course opposed by China and Russia, both of which intend to sell advanced conventional weapons to Iran as soon as the embargo runs out in October.

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The Islamic Republic of Iran: A Criminal Enterprise, Not a State

by Peter Huessy • August 24, 2020 at 4:00 am

Venezuela, Iran's ally, has also made clear its intention to buy Iranian missiles that can reach American cities.
It is not as if China's criminal track record is not well known. The CCP deliberately let the Covid-19 virus spread around the world. It has directed the theft of trillions worth of intellectual property from the United States and Europe. It has hollowed out some eight million US manufacturing jobs, and it is illegally sending tons of the opioid fentanyl across US borders in partnership with the Mexican drug cartels.
As for Iran, desperate for cash and weapons and pummeled by US-led sanctions, the mullahs are contemplating signing on as a partner of the Communist Party of China (CCP). In return for sending China cheap oil and giving the CCP military bases in the region, Iran will get billions in cash.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is a criminal enterprise. The button men for ayatollahs are the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, (IRGC), the Quds Force, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthi mountain bandits in Yemen. Venezuela, Iran's ally, has made clear its intention to buy Iranian missiles that can reach American cities. Pictured: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (left) greets Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in Tehran on January 10, 2015. (Photo by Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images)

"Iran has to take a decision whether it wants to be a nation or a cause," Henry Kissinger, former US National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, told The Washington Post in 2006. He was referring to the tension between Iran's national interests and the religious ideology that took over the country after Iran's 1979 revolution.

The Islamic Republic of Iran, however, is neither a nation nor a cause: it is a criminal enterprise. The button men for ayatollahs are the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, (IRGC), the Quds Force, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthi mountain bandits in Yemen.

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