On Monday night, EU officials unveiled a planned clearing house that would allow international companies, including all of Europe, Russia, and China, to continue trading with Iran while circumventing US banking sanctions.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said it was “deeply disappointing” to hear that the plan existed, and that he considers it an attempt to bolster Iran’s “ranking as the number one state sponsor of terror,” and counterproductive to US goals.

Not complying with US goals is very much the point. The US withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, and has been trying to impose trading sanctions since then. All other nations remain in the nuclear deal, and are trying to save the deal by letting trade continue to flow.

In a major snub to the United States, the European Union has decided to set up a new mechanism to enable legal trade with Iran without encountering US sanctions.

The EU will create new payment channels to preserve oil and other business deals with Iran, Federica Mogherini, the bloc's foreign policy chief said late on Monday, in a bid to evade US punitive measures.

US President Donald Trump withdrew from a 2015 nuclear deal in May and re-imposed sanctions on the country.

President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani on Saturday said that U.S. sanctions on Iran are leading to economic pain that could lead to a “successful revolution,” contrasting with administration comments that government change in Tehran is not U.S. policy.

“I don’t know when we’re going to overthrow them,” said Giuliani, who spoke in his own capacity though he is a Trump ally, at an Iran Uprising Summit held by the Organization of Iranian-American Communities, which opposes Tehran’s government.

“It could be in a few days, months, a couple of years. But it’s going to happen,” Giuliani told a crowd at a hotel in Times Square.

US President Donald Trump’s plan to bully European countries into choosing between doing business with either the US or Iran has been working – and US Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell seems eager to take credit for it.

Grenell, according to the US Embassy in Berlin, has been pressuring German companies “daily” to cease business operations in Iran. He has taken to tweeting triumphantly any time a firm caves to pressure from Washington – adding the hashtag #sanctionsareworking to drive home the point.

Logic and reason seem to have been abandoned long ago in Washington’s decision-making, even more so given that Trump has completely renounced all his electoral promises regarding foreign policy. The rapprochement with Moscow is now a distant mirage; the special relationship between Xi Jinping and Trump is just the latter’s propaganda, anxious as he is to reach an agreement with the DPRK and show some example of success to his base.

The logic of imposing more than $200 billion in tariffs on Chinese products, and then asking for strong support from Beijing in mediation with Pyongyang, seems more like the moves of a desperate person rather than those of an amateur.

An Iranian media outlet close to the hard-line Revolutionary Guard published a video Tuesday threatening missile attacks on the capitals of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, further raising tensions after a weekend militant attack on an Iranian military parade.

The video, in a tweet by the semi-official Fars news agency that was later deleted, comes as Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei blamed Riyadh and Abu Dhabi for the attack in the city of Ahvaz on Saturday, which killed at least 24 people and wounded over 60.

The threat amplifies the unease felt across the Persian Gulf, as Iran’s economy reels in the wake of America’s withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal and Saudi and Emirati forces are bogged down in their war against Iran-aligned rebels in Yemen.

The failure of the US and British governments to now wholly condemn the recent Ahvaz attack as an act of terrorism carried out by what is undeniably a terrorist organization, alone raises suspicions. However, US policy papers have revealed a long-term open conspiracy to back armed militancy in Iran, just as the US, UK, and their allies have been exposed currently doing in nearby Syria as well as Libya in 2011.

As Iran grieved in the wake of the Ahvaz attack, US politicians hosted MEK terrorists in New York, vowing to overthrow the Iranian government.

Reuters in their article, “Trump lawyer Giuliani says Iran’s government will be overthrown,” would report:

President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani on Saturday said that U.S. sanctions on Iran are leading to economic pain that could lead to a “successful revolution” contrasting with administration comments that government change in Tehran is not U.S. policy.

But there is another dimension to the story that the international media has largely chosen to ignore. And that is that Israel is now carrying out almost daily air attacks on Syria, over 200 in the past 18 months, a country with which it is not at war and which has not attacked it or threatened it in any way. It justifies the attacks by claiming that they are directed against Iran or Hezbollah, not at Syria itself. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that any peace settlement in Syria include the complete removal of Iranians, a demand that has also been repeated by the United States, which is also calling for the end to the Bashar al-Assad government and its replacement by something more “democratic.”

White House National Security Adviser John Bolton told the media Monday that the US will continue to have a presence in Syria until Iran no longer does. Later in the day, Defense Secretary James Mattis contradicted Bolton’s stated mission - although he claimed otherwise - when talking to reporters at the Pentagon.

"We're not going to leave [Syria] as long as Iranian troops are outside Iranian borders, and that includes Iranian proxies and militias," Bolton told the Associated Press at the United Nations General Assembly, presumably referring to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps presence in Syria and Hezbollah.

Following the deadly attack in the Iranian city of Ahvaz on Saturday morning, which killed 25 and wounded 53 during a parade commemorating the 38th anniversary of the beginning of the Iran-Iraq War, terrorist group al-Ahvaziya, which is registered in the Netherlands but has ties to Saudi Arabia, claimed responsibility for the attack.

The attack was carried out by an unknown number of assailants on Saturday morning during a parade of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Iran's elite paramilitary formation, 12 of whom were killed by the terrorists. The parade went through Ahvaz, capital of Iran's southwesternmost province of Khuzestan, where much of the Iran-Iraq War was fought.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, National Security Adviser John Bolton slammed Russia for the announced sale of S-300 air defense systems to the Syrian government, demanding that they “reconsider” and warning that the US would view this as a “significant escalation” of the Syrian war.

Russia announced the move after a recent attack on the Syrian coast by Israel, during which a Russian Il-20 was shot down. Russia says the more advanced S-300s will be safer. Israel had insisted Syria deliberately attacked the Russian plane, while Russia says the Israeli jets were under fire from Syria and “hid” behind the larger Russian plane, getting it caught in the fire.

Bolton dismissed both of those explanations, however, saying that “really the party responsible for the shooting down of the Russian plane is Iran,” even though Iran had no involvement in the incident whatsoever.

A terrorist attack on a military parade targeting civilians and military personnel alike left at least 29 dead and up to 70 more wounded in Iran’s southwest region of Ahvaz.

At the same time, in New York City, US political figures including US President Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudolph Giuliani attended and expressed open support for “revolution” in Iran at the 2018 Iran Uprising Summit organized by Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK).

MEK is a terrorist organization that has previously killed US service members and civilian contractors, but was removed from the US State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organizations list in order for the US to more openly and directly support the terrorist front’s efforts to destabilize and overthrow the Iranian government.

Tensions between the US and Iran have been on the rise in the past several days, with Iran blaming US-backed groups for a Saturday terrorist attack, and Trump aide Rudolph Giuliani vowing an impending US-imposed regime change against Iran the same day.

With talk of Iran doing something in retaliation for the terror attack, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is now leading US comments threatening war against Iran, if the Iranians target any sort of “American interests.”

“We will not let Iran get away with using a proxy force to attack an American interest,” Pompeo insisted, adding when asked about military options that “they’re going to be held accountable.” The S has been threatening to attack Iran for decades now.

Terrorists in Iran launched an attack on a parade on Saturday killing 25 — including a four-year-old girl. Unsurprisingly, the group claiming responsibility for the massacre has links to foreign entities in Saudi Arabia and their allies.

Also on Saturday, Donald Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, spoke at an “Iran Uprising Summit” in New York City’s Time Square supporting efforts to overthrow Iran’s revolutionary government. The summit included supporters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and other groups that share Washington’s goal of overthrowing Tehran.

“The people of Iran obviously have now had enough,” Giuliani said on Saturday. “The sanctions are working. The currency is going to nothing … these are the kinds of conditions that lead to successful revolution.”

The US National Security Advisor said Tehran should be held responsible for last week’s downing of a Russian military plane over Syria, and warned Monday that Russian plans to transfer advanced anti-aircraft missile systems to Syria represented a major escalation in an already tense region.

Hawkish journalists who loudly backed the invasion of Iraq continue to dominate US mainstream media and are calling for war again. One is even regarded as a credible chemical weapons expert for Fox News.
Back in 2003, former New York Times journalist Judith Miller wrote a series of articles prior to the Iraq invasion backing Pentagon claims that Saddam Hussein was pursuing weapons of mass destruction.

While those claims later turned out to be a big fabrication, Miller’s career hasn’t suffered and she continues to promote her hawkish views as a contributor for Fox. She’s also gone on to become a member of the Council on Foreign Relations in 2016.

The Russian Minister of Defense today announced some of the measures to be taken in Syria in response to last weeks destruction of its electronic warfare plane with 15 airmen on board. Yesterday the Russian MoD held Israel responsible for the incident.

Shortly after the event happened we noted:

On Netanyahu's personal request Russia had stopped the delivery of original Russian S-300 long range air-defense missiles to the Syrian military. These would have been less likely to veer off towards the wrong target. In consequence an Iranian 747 was damaged and 15 Russian soldiers were killed. Netanyahu can forget about any further such 'favors' from Moscow.
Yesterday we added:

The incident will have consequences on several levels. For one - the airspace along the Syrian coast will now be off limits for Israeli flights
...

Military and economic tensions are increasing due to the ramped up warlike stance of the US establishment. The impossibility of halting the shifting world order in favour of prolonging the unipolar moment has left the US deep state reaching for any available weapon at hand, taking no heed of the dangers and consequences of such a reckless foreign policy.

When President Donald Trump chairs his first United Nations Security Council meeting on Wednesday, the broad theme of his address will ostensibly be the worldwide prevention of nuclear proliferation and weapons of mass destruction.

But Iran, which Trump’s national security team considers to be a top geopolitical threat, is almost certain to receive the lion’s share of the president’s attention.

“Talking about Iran, talking about their proxies and the other things they are doing to destabilize the Middle East will certainly be a topic,” U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley said Thursday in a preview of the administration’s approach in New York.

Wednesday’s gathering will be “the most watched Security Council meeting ever,” she predicted.

Iranian Armed Forces spokesman, Brig. Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi, told IRNA that the militants who had committed a terrorist attack on a military parade in the Iranian city of Ahvaz on Saturday were linked to the United States and Israel.

"These terrorists are not members of the Daesh* [terrorist group, banned in Russia] and do not belong to groups fighting the Islamic system. These people are linked to the United States and [Israeli intelligence service] Mossad. These militants were organized and trained by two countries of the Persian Gulf," Shekarchi said in an interview with a local agency.

The spokesman added that the servicemen had killed all four militants who committed the attack.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Friday accused the administration of US President Donald Trump of being a threat to the Middle East and to the international community.

“It is true that there is a real threat to our region and to international peace and security: That threat is the Trump Administration’s sense of entitlement to destabilize the world along with rogue accomplices in our region,” Zarif wrote on Twitter.

Following a deadly attack on a military parade in southern Iran, the country’s foreign minister said that regional sponsors of terrorism and their “US masters” are to be held accountable for such assaults.

Top Iranian diplomat Mohammad Javad Zarif vowed to respond “swiftly and decisively” after gunmen opened fire in Ahvaz on Saturday leading to multiple casualties. The minister claimed that the terrorists were sponsored and trained by “a foreign regime.”

Is the US-Israel backed MEK terrorist group responsible for this act?

At a public event in Washington, DC, CodePink's Medea Benjamin confronted Brian Hook, the head of Trump's Iran Action Group, over the US withdrawal from the JCPOA and re-imposing crippling sanctions on the Iranian people. Benjamin joins us to discuss her action, which went viral online.

At least 25 people are dead and 53 wounded after an army parade in the southwestern Iranian city of Ahvaz came under attack by militants on Saturday, according to state media.

Nearly half of the dead are members of the Revolutionary Guards, according to state news agencies, making this one of the worst attacks ever on the elite force.

While the Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack, there are conflicting reports over who is behind it. A spokesman for Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Ramezan Sharif, said the attackers were funded by Sunni arch rival Saudi Arabia.

"Those who opened fire on civilians and the armed forces have links to the Ahvazi movement," Guards spokesman Ramezan Sharif told ISNA.

"They are funded by Saudi Arabia and attempted to cast a shadow over the Iranian armed forces."

Zarif vowed Iran would "respond swiftly and decisively in defence of Iranian lives". -France24

Russia yesterday asked Iran to provide access to the military base Noyeh (Noyeh Military Air Base) in northwestern Iran.

It is assumed that the air base will be used as a transit airfield on the way to Syria, where Russian military and military transport planes will be refueled. Syrian sources say that we are talking about several fighters and 4 air tankers IL-78.

According to the Iranian terror group’s former head of security, Saudi intelligence helped fund the group by smuggling valuables like gold and Rolex watches into Iraq and Jordan for sale on the black market.

The Trump administration persuaded Volkswagen AG to comply with sanctions on Iran and end almost all of its business in the country, according to a U.S. official, a symbolically charged step in undercutting European Union efforts to keep the 2015 nuclear deal alive.

The U.S. and Volkswagen hammered out the final details on Tuesday after weeks of talks, according to U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, who led discussions with the Wolfsburg-based company. Volkswagen will still be allowed to do some business in Iran under a humanitarian exception, Grenell added.

A prominent anti-war activist was dragged out of a meeting attended by the US special envoy to Iran, but not before she stepped onto the stage and took aim at the official’s hawkish anti-Iranian speech.

CODEPINK Co-Founder Medea Benjamin stormed the stage of Wednesday’s event hosted by the Hudson Institute, a right-wing think tank, following a speech given by US Special Envoy Brain Hook. During the speech Hook took aim at the 2015 Iran nuclear deal while praising the ratcheting up of sanctions against Tehran.

“That is the most ridiculous thing I have seen.The world community wants to keep the Iran nuclear deal,” Benjamin said as she took to the stage with a security guard following closely behind.

Responding to Hook’s demand that Iran should act “like a normal country,” Benjamin continued: “Let’s talk about normal countries. Let’s talk about Saudi Arabia. Is that who our allies are? They are the biggest threat to the world community.”

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Updated Sept 20, 2018 @ 18: 35 – We Previously had this articled titled “TRUE? Unconfirmed report ”Russian Navy has Closed the Eastern Mediterranean” (MAP)” We then wrote in the first line: “FRN is still looking for further confirmation of the following story.”

We have now confirmed the accuracy of the report.

Published on: Sep 19, 2018 @ 20:42

RevContent InArticle SOLO
In response to the what Putin has called a ‘tragic incident’ that caused the death of the crew of the radio reconnaissance aircraft and the IL-20 VKS RF warhead, Rusvesna reports that the Russian military has made a major move.

Effective September 19th, the Russian Federation has announced the closure of a large area of ??the eastern Mediterranean for the movement of military aircraft and ships until the 26th of September.

According to the official version, this step is justified by the beginning of unscheduled maneuvers of the navy and aviation off the coast of Syria.

Painful sanctions on Iran have demonstrated the long reach of the U.S. Treasury, forcing much of the globe to fall in line and cut oil imports from Iran despite widespread disagreement over the policy. Yet, we are only in the first few chapters of what may ultimately be a long story that ends with the erosion of the power of the U.S. dollar.

The role of the greenback in the international financial system is the reason why the U.S. can prevent much of the world from buying oil from Iran. Oil is traded in dollars, and so much of international commerce is based in dollars. In fact, as much as 88 percent of all foreign exchange trades involve the greenback.

Moreover, multinational companies inevitably have some commercial ties to the U.S., so when faced with the choice of business with Iran or losing access to the U.S. financial system and the American market, the choice is an easy one.

Iran has built a new launch site for an S-300PMU-2 strategic surface-to-air missile (SAM) system at Mashhad airport in the northeast of the country, satellite imagery has revealed.

Constructed between May and July, the site is almost identical to the S-300PMU-2 base at Tehran’s Mehrabad International Airport, but has pads for only two launchers instead of the usual four.

This fits the recent deployment of a partial S-300PMU-2 battery to Mashhad airport three times since 2017, all of which coincided with visits to the city by Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. For all those deployments the system was set up at the end of the taxiway and had two launchers, not four.

Iraq’s desire not to alienate the US and avoid a superfluous confrontation with Israel would not be the decisive factor.

Satellite images emerged on Wednesday showing the results of Israel's strike in Syria carried out on Monday and, in the words of Vladimir Putin, led to the downing of a Russian jet in a "chain of tragic circumstances."

IDF Spokesman Brig.-Gen. Ronen Manelis said Tuesday that the IDF had struck a Syrian military facility from which systems to manufacture accurate and lethal weapons were about to be transferred from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

WASHINGTON - The United States is seeking to negotiate a treaty with Iran to include Tehran's ballistic missile program and its regional behavior, the US special envoy for Iran said on Wednesday ahead of UN meetings in New York next week.

Iran has rejected US attempts to hold high-level talks since President Donald Trump tore up a nuclear deal between Tehran and six world powers earlier this year.

Israeli Air Force Commander Amikan Norkin will head to Moscow to hand over the information on the Ilyushin Il-20 warplane crash in Syria, Israel’s Defense Forces said on Wednesday.

"On Thursday morning, a delegation of Israel’s Defense Forces headed by Major General Amikan Norkin, the Air Force Commander, will head to Moscow after the downing of a Russian plane by a Syrian missile on Monday night," says the communique circulated by the military.

"The Air Force commander and the delegation will present data on the incident in all aspects, including preliminary information and main conclusions of the investigation," it says.

The Israeli delegation will inform Russia "of Iran’s ongoing attempts to supply Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement with strategic weapons and to gain a military foothold in Syria," the press service said.

In June 2009, the Saban Center for Middle East Policy published “Which Path to Persia?—Options for a New American Strategy toward Iran.” Writing in a tone strikingly reminiscent of the Project for a New American Century’s infamous pre-9/11 paper “Rebuilding America’s Defenses,” the six co-authors noted that, “It seems highly unlikely that the United States would mount an invasion without any provocation or other buildup.” For a think tank specifically established by media mogul Haim Saban to protect Israel, this could prove to be a formidable obstacle impeding their desired march—of U.S. troops—to Tehran.

“In fact, if the United States were to decide that to garner greater international support, galvanize U.S. domestic support, and/or provide a legal justification for an invasion, it would be best to wait for an Iranian provocation, then the time frame for an invasion might stretch out indefinitely,” Saban’s think-tankers ruefully observed.

No doubt, anti-Iran propaganda out of Washington abounds. There are numerous Zionist-run think-tanks (sic) that make US Foreign Policy – and are ratcheting up anti-Iran anger in the US, but targeting especially the Iranian population at home, in Iran. The notorious chief-villain of these agencies, by the way, highly subsidized by the US State Department, and perhaps even more important, by the powerful US military-security complex, is the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy (FDD).

More than fifty years ago, then President Dwight Eisenhower already warned the world about the invasive, abusive and greed-driven powers of this ever-growing war industry.

Israel has ineluctably allied itself with Saudi Arabia and Sunni Islam. So too, the US has taken Israel’s and Saudi’s partisan position against Iran. Both have their shoulders behind the Saudi king’s back – pushing him into leading a hybrid war against his powerful neighbor.

It’s starting to look like the Iran regime-change industry is getting a little worried that its efforts to kill the nuclear deal and squeeze Iran’s leaders out of existence isn’t quite working as planned. For instance, Donald Trump’s scheme to pressure Iran by re-imposing oil sanctions will likely produce political blowback at home in the form of higher gas prices.

But the latest example of concern comes in the form of a juicy scoop last week by Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin. Administration officials leaked to Rogin that Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin is quietly preventing Trump from signing the paperwork necessary to impose sanctions meant to prevent Iran from accessing an international banking transaction system. The move would severely restrict Iran’s ability to do business abroad and add another nail to the coffin of the nuclear deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA).

In a rare admission, Israel has broken its “no-comment” policy on air strikes to confirm that it has carried out over 200 attacks against Iranian targets in Syria over the last two years. In addition to those attacks, a new report claims that Israel has secretly armed and funded at least 12 Syrian rebel groups in southern Syria since 2013. Israel reportedly stopped its transfer of weapons and money in July, after the Bashar al-Assad regime regained control of the Syrian side of the Golan Heights.

The major purpose of Israel’s “Operation Good Neighbor,” which reportedly included humanitarian aid to Syrian rebels, was to prevent Iran-affiliated forces from entrenching their position near Israeli borders. More important, however, is the fact that Israel has intensified and broadened its air campaign inside Syria in recent months to target Iranian positions.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., has asked the Department of Justice to investigate whether former Secretary of State John Kerry broke the law by meeting with the Iranian foreign minister after President Trump took office.

Rubio said in a Tuesday letter to the department that the “American people deserve to know what U.S. laws are enforced regardless of any individual’s past position.”

The Florida senator said the Justice Department should decide whether the former Obama official violated the Logan Act, a more than 200-year-old law that prohibits private citizens from acting on behalf of the U.S. in negotiations with foreign governments without authorization, or the Foreign Agents Registration Act, a law requiring people or companies acting on behalf of a foreign entity to disclose their work to the U.S. government.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says Twitter has blocked the accounts of "real Iranians" but overlooks the "regime change" propaganda spewing out of Washington.

Zarif made the remarks in a post on his official Twitter page on Sunday addressing Jack Patrick Dorsey, the co-founder and CEO of Twitter.

He said the accounts of real Iranians, including TV presenters and students, have been shuttered for allegedly being part of an "influence operation."

US President Donald Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal under pressure from the Zionists like Sheldon Adelson and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, an American scholar says.

Adelson, a billionaire Zionist casino owner and Republican party funder, and Netanyahu pressured Trump into pulling out of the of the Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), James Fetzer, a prominent American political philosopher, told Press TV in a telephone interview on Saturday.

“What is outrageous is that Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal for no good reason,” Fetzer said.

US intelligence services -- on several occasions -- including Israeli Mossad had confirmed that the Iranian government was not in pursuit of developing nuclear weapons, the scholar said.

Chairman of the Iranian parliament's Nuclear Committee Mojtaba Zonnour underlined that the European states should take practical steps to protect the 2015 nuclear deal or face Tehran's tough and unprecedented reaction.
"Now, we are facing a shaky and unstable nuclear deal," Zonnour said on Sunday.

"If the Europeans fail to meet Iran's interests after the US withdrawal, the Islamic Republic of Iran's reaction will be different from the past," he added.

In relevant remarks earlier this month, Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani warned the European states that the time demanded by them to persuade Tehran to remain committed to the 2015 nuclear deal after the US withdrawal is ending.

New speaker of #Iraq’s parliament, Mohammed Rikan Hadeed al-Halbousi, praised Iran’s role in the #Arab country’s liberation from terrorist groups and said in the era of “unfair” sanctions against #Iran, the #Iraqi nation will side with the Islamic Republic

Former Secretary of State John Kerry ripped President Donald Trump during an interview Friday night with "Real Time" host Bill Maher.

While promoting his memoir, "Every Day Is Extra," Kerry responded to a tweet from Trump that suggested he had "illegal meetings" with the Iranian regime.

In the months leading up to the 25th anniversary of the Oslo Accords, the U.S. has colluded with Israel in a string of policies and decisions that completely undermine the legitimacy of the agreement, not to mention Palestinian claims to justice, freedom and ultimately peace. As these policies unfold, one cannot help recalling the words of the great Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani, who said that talking with the Israelis is “a conversation between the sword and the neck.”

The Iranian foreign minister once again called on the European Union to act to compensate Iran for its economic losses at the hands of US sanctions.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif warned that Tehran could move to increase uranium enrichment if the EU does not take action in regard to Washington's unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

Known as Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the administration of US President Donald Trump in May ditched the treaty signed by the US, China, Iran, Russia and other EU nations and began to re-impose economic sanctions lifted earlier by the Obama administration.

The big stumbling block with EU companies continuing to trade with Iran is financing. US threats to punish companies involved in such trade have scared away a lot of banks, despite EU assurances that they will protect companies.

This clearing house would aim to avoid banks, and money changing hands across borders, entirely. One European company could pay the clearing house for imported Iranian oil, and the clearing house would give that money to another EU company providing goods or services to Iran.

While the US theoretically wants to sanction all trade with Iran, particularly oil imports, they have limited options to punish a European company whose business is to buy Iranian oil, or European industrial firms with projects inside Iran.

The United States is hostile to Iran because it is against all sovereign, independent countries which are standing in its way to global domination, says Stephen Lendman, a journalist and political analyst based in Chicago.

The Iranian ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said that Tehran expects the international community to force the US to put an end to its practice of violating international rights.

“It is expected that the international community does not allow the US to continue with its illegal and unilateral measures and to stop the country’s practice of violating international rights,” Kazem Gharibabadi said.

He made the remarks while speaking at the September meeting of the IAEA Board of Governors on Wednesday.

With Israel and Iran exchanging direct fire, Trump pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal and John Bolton promoting regime change in Tehran, Inder Comar offers four reasons why the US may be close to attacking the Islamic Republic.

Russia says it is concerned about the attempts being made by the United States to prepare the global public opinion for new military aggression against Syria.

“Regarding the international political point of view, the most serious concern is using of a very serious range of opportunities by Washington: from statements by officials to comments by biased media, the goal seems to be the preparation of public opinion for … new aggression against Syria,” said Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova in a press conference in the capital Moscow on Thursday.

She added that tensions were particularly on the rise in Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib due to a high concentration of militants there.

“Despite the uncovering of plans by militants and representatives of White Helmets to stage the use of chemical weapons by government troops, preparation of the above-mentioned staged action continues inside the Idlib zone,” Zakharova said.

Now there are rumors circulating that Mattis will step down in the months ahead. If this happens, who will replace him?

Arkansas senator Cotton (or Graham), Bolton, and Sec. State Pompeo would be an almost ideal triad for Israel and the neocons who faithfully do the apartheid state’s bidding in Congress.

For Cotton, it’s all about Israel and the Likudniks. He received $700,000 for his Senate campaign from the Emergency Committee for Israel.

“During the 2014 Israeli invasion of Gaza, when over 500 Palestinian were killed, Cotton called the Israeli defense force ‘the most moral, humanitarian fighting force in the world.’ In December he said Congress should consider supplying Israel with B-52s and so-called ‘bunker-buster’ bombs for a possible strike against Iran,” Medea Benjamin and Nalini Ramachandran wrote back in March, 2015.

The advisory also warns military activities linked to the bloody conflict in Syria have been ramped across Iran's airspace.

Tensions between Tehran and Washington are running high following Donald Trump’s controversial decision to pull out of the landmark Iran nuclear deal re-introduce economic sanctions last month.

Flight Service Bureau, which provides safety information on airspace to airlines, said "without seeming alarmist", the deteriorating relationship between the US and Iran must be taken into account when planning flights in Iran's airspace.

Iraq may once again, for the first time in nearly a decade, become a theater of US-Iran confrontation according to a White House statement published Tuesday evening.

“The United States will hold the regime in Tehran accountable for any attack that results in injury to our personnel or damage to United States government facilities,” press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a written statement posted to WhiteHouse.gov. “America will respond swiftly and decisively in defense of American lives.”

Though he previously denied it when allegations first surfaced last Spring, former Secretary of State John Kerry has now disclosed he's personally had semi-frequent face to face contact with top Iranian officials to discuss US-Iran relations since Trump entered office.

Kerry confirmed and explained in detail his recent meetings with Iranian Former Minister Javad Zarif in an interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt to promote his new memoir, Every Day Is Extra.

During the interview Kerry disclosed that he met with Zarif "three or four times" and discussed political issues and challenges between the United States and Iran in what could constitute a significant and clear violation of the Logan Act.

An American battleship, the USS Bulkeley destroyer, has reportedly entered the Mediterranean and is headed for Syria, equipped with over 50 Tomahawk missiles. This deployment comes after previous reports of the attack submarine USS Newport News (SSN-750) arriving in the Mediterranean, and after the arrival Tuesday of A U.S. Marine Corps small attack carrier full of F-35B stealth jets, the USS Essex, in the Middle East region as detailed by the military website, Task and Purpose.

The Russian news agency Interfax now reports that American forces in the region possess up to 200 Tomahawk cruise missiles available to strike targets in Syria if ordered to do so.

The United States has threatened Iran with a response over the unrest in the Iraqi city of Basra, saying Tehran will be held accountable for any possible harm to the American citizens stationed there.

The White House issued the warning on Tuesday, days after protests over alleged corruption and government neglect escalated into deadly violence in the oil-rich port city.

At least 12 protesters were killed in Basra and many of its institutions and buildings.

Meanwhile, three mortar shells struck the ultra-secure green zone in Baghdad, which houses Iraqi authorities and the US Embassy, on Friday and unknown assailants fired Katyusha rockets at the airport in Basra, which also houses the US consulate, on Saturday.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders blamed Iran. “Over the past few days, we have seen life-threatening attacks in Iraq, including on the United States consulate in Basra and against the American embassy compound in Baghdad.”

Let’s cut right to the chase: The “protests” raging in Iraq’s oil-rich southern province of Basra ain’t protests. They ain’t “demonstrations” for “rights” or “hope” or “anti-corruption” or any of the other happy-go-lucky slogans rolled out across the news bulletins in the Zionist media. They’re riots. They’re acts of sabotage. They’re chaos. They’re destabilization. Whatever organic sentiments existed — and of course still somewhat exist — due to the massively corrupt Iraqi government’s failure to deliver electricity, sanitation, clean water and other basic human necessities to one of Iraq’s poorest regions now cease to matter because a nefarious third party has staged a hijacking. Iraqi anger has now been transformed into a gun and the bullets are being mistakenly shot at… the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The United States warned Iran not to launch attacks on US government facilities in Iraq and pledged to hold Tehran responsible for any such incidents, the White House said in a press release Tuesday afternoon.

"[W]e have seen life-threatening attacks in Iraq, including on the United States consulate in Basra and against the American embassy compound in Baghdad," the release said. "The United States will hold the regime in Tehran accountable for any attack that results in injury to our personnel or damage to United States government facilities."

The US-led propaganda campaign against the Syrian-Iranian-Russian alliance has reached a new level as the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) is openly preparing to kick of a ground assault on terrorist groups in northwestern Syria.

During a September 7 UN Security Council briefing, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley stated that

“when Russia and the Assad regime say they want to counter terrorism, they actually mean they want to bomb schools, hospitals, and homes. They want to punish the civilians who had the courage to rise up against Assad.” She further stated that “the Assad regime” must halt an offensive in Idlib because it will undermine “peace talks”.

“We consider any assault on Idlib to be a dangerous escalation of the conflict in Syria. If Assad, Russia, and Iran continue, the consequences will be dire,” Haley said.

Is Trump ready to order U.S. action against Russian and Syrian forces if Assad gives his army the green light to take Idlib? For the bombing of Idlib has already begun.

What makes this more than an academic exercise is that Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, at a meeting in Tehran last Friday, told President Erdogan of Turkey that the reconquest of Idlib is going forward.

Erdogan fears that the Syrian army’s recapture of Idlib would send hundreds of thousands more refugees streaming to his border.

Turkey already hosts millions of refugees from Syria’s civil war.

Yet the massing of the Syrian army near Idlib and the Russian and Syrian bombing now begun suggest that the Assad-Putin-Rouhani coalition has decided to accept the risk of a clash with the Americans in order to bring an end to the rebellion. If so, this puts the ball in America’s court.

On September 10, the Fars News Agency reported that the US sent two convoys consisting of ten trucks loaded with logistics and military equipment to the country's al-Susah base in the eastern part of Deir ez-Zor province, controlled by Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The media platform said, citing local sources that Washington had also sent another convoy consisting of 100 trucks loaded with military equipment from Iraq to unspecified Syrian territories controlled by the SDF, via the Simalka border crossing.

Task & Purpose previously reported that the US had sent over 100 US Marines to reinforce the military base in al-Tanf, Syria. Newly deployed forces will take part in live ammunition military drills, which are being conducted to demonstrate the "capability to deploy rapidly, assault a target and conduct rapid exfiltration," according to US Central Command (CENTCOM).

As US sanctions dig into the Iranian economy, with more on the way, Iran is compensating in a variety of novel ways, including a foreign investment fund that will give it access to technology that is becoming hard to come by.

On August 7, the US reimposed the first round of economic sanctions against Iran since it withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in May, a multinational agreement hammered out in 2015 to remove previous sanctions on the country in exchange for very strict limits on its nuclear program, designed to block Iranian access to a nuclear weapon.

While the US, claiming Iran had violated the agreement, unilaterally withdrew in May 2018, and US President Donald Trump promised to hammer out a new agreement, the rest of the JCPOA signatories — the UK, France, Germany, Russia and China — remain unconvinced and have shown increasing reluctance to follow the United States' demands that they divest from Iran and cease buying Iranian exports.

In response to US sanctions, Russia, Turkey and Iran are negotiating the reduction of the US dollar's share in mutual trade, Tehran Times daily quotes the country's central bank governor as saying.

Eliminating the greenback in mutual trade was most recently discussed by the three countries last weekend in Tehran during the trilateral summit of the Syrian ceasefire, said Iranian Central Bank Governor Abdolnaser Hemmati as quoted by the media.

“We have decided to proceed with further work in light of the agreements reached at a meeting with the Russian Central Bank governor in Moscow,” Hemmati was quoted as saying. According to Hemmati, the topics discussed also included oil and gas prices, expansion of banking ties and strengthening of economic relations.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and their delegations visited Tehran last week for a trilateral summit on Syria and also to discuss expansion of ties.

Iraq indicated that it has officially removed the US dollar in trade with Iran by announcing a legal limit for passengers to carry along Euros - instead of the customary US Dollars - into the Islamic Republic.

Iran’s media quoted a statement by Iraq’s Customs Authority as saying that passengers would be allowed to carry along €10,000 or an equal value of any other foreign currency other than the greenback into Iran.

The Customs Authority in its previous announcements only cited US Dollar ceilings.

Reports emerged in early September that Iraq and Iran had abandoned the greenback in their mutual trade, giving way to the Euro and local currencies, as well as direct barter of goods.

The trilateral summit in Tehran between the presidents of Turkey, Iran and Russia was one of the most unusual parades of international diplomacy yet. It was televised live. Let’s remember the scenes: All who watched it saw how Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blundered and how Russian President Vladimir Putin ridiculed him. Then it was a rare — if not unique — case of international diplomacy where a trilateral partnership considered detrimental to the interests of the West displayed signs of failure on a burning international issue.

September 9, 2018

*

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

SUBJECT: Moscow Has Upped the Ante in Syria

Mr. President:

We are concerned that you may not have been adequately briefed on the upsurge of hostilities in northwestern Syria, where Syrian armed forces with Russian support have launched a full-out campaign to take back the al-Nusra/al-Qaeda/ISIS-infested province of Idlib. The Syrians will almost certainly succeed, as they did in late 2016 in Aleppo. As in Aleppo, it will mean unspeakable carnage, unless someone finally tells the insurgents theirs is a lost cause.

1. The US Iran policy aims at nothing but conflict-building followed by economic, political and military violence

From all the remarks made by President Donald Trump and his senior officials, it is clear that the United States is trying to manufacture another regime change in the Middle East, this time in Iran.

It does so by making use of the tried and tested tactic of demonising Iranian rulers and the Iranian people and by finding false pretences and pretexts for implementing their destructive goals.

We have already had an inkling of these tactics by Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal and his allegation that Iran has not been abiding by the terms of that deal, despite clear evidence of Iranian compliance provided by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is in charge of inspecting and certifying Iran’s compliance.

The reason given for the dramatic change in policy was the administration’s recent decision to “redefine” its goals in the Syrian conflict, resulting in the emergence of “the exit of all Iranian military and proxy forces from Syria” as the administration’s top priority, effectively overshadowing the U.S.’ long-stated goal of rooting out terror groups like Daesh (ISIS). The shift is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to target Iranian influence in the region while simultaneously attempting to provoke regime change in Iran through the use of aggressive sanctions and other covert means.

This month, the US Navy is conducting exercises it claims will guarantee freedom of movement through Persian Gulf and Red Sea waterways, as Iran threatens to obstruct shopping through key maritime positions.

US 5th Fleet Theater Counter Mine and Maritime Security Exercise Commander Scott A. Stearney recently told reporters in Manama that the exercises, which involve both regional and global allies, "illustrate that the US and our partners stand ready to ensure the freedom of navigation and free flow of commerce wherever international law allows," Bloomberg reported Sunday.

One of the US Navy exercises is occurring in Djibouti, a known choke point for global shipping at the southern end of the Red Sea.

In early July, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) held large-scale military drills in the Persian Gulf. The IRGC said at the time that they were ready to disrupt other countries' oil shipments through the strait if Iran's own exports were impeded.

At the request of Damascus, Russia assisted Syrian forces in launching several airstrikes across the territory in the northern Al-Ghab plain starting Saturday morning and continuing through Sunday afternoon.

The Syrian Army successfully destroyed an ammunition depot and armored vehicle belonging to the Al-Ezza brigades in the Kafr Zita countryside as they struck various hideouts and locations of Jabhat al-Nusra and their allies Sunday. According to Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), a state media news agency, the army unit also successfully destroyed shelling launching pads belonging to the brigade, where terrorists would launch shells towards residential areas.

This month, the US Navy is conducting exercises it claims will guarantee freedom of movement through Persian Gulf and Red Sea waterways, as Iran threatens to obstruct shopping through key maritime positions.

US 5th Fleet Theater Counter Mine and Maritime Security Exercise Commander Scott A. Stearney recently told reporters in Manama that the exercises, which involve both regional and global allies, "illustrate that the US and our partners stand ready to ensure the freedom of navigation and free flow of commerce wherever international law allows," Bloomberg reported Sunday.

According to Stearney, US allies need to be ready to "address anything that threatens our interest or our [US] ships," adding that Iran's activities in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea areas are "promoting instability."

Eleven people left dead after seven short-range missiles hit the headquarters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran

At this point there's not even so much as feigning surprise or suspense in the now sadly all-too-familiar Syria script out of Washington.

The Wall Street Journal has just published a bombshell on Sunday evening as Russian and Syrian warplanes continue bombing raids over al-Qaeda held Idlib, citing unnamed US officials who claim "President Bashar al-Assad of Syria has approved the use of chlorine gas in an offensive against the country’s last major rebel stronghold."

And perhaps more alarming is that the report details that Trump is undecided over whether new retaliatory strikes could entail expanding the attack to hit Assad allies Russia and Iran this time around.

Syria’s northwestern Idlib province is the last remaining stronghold of militant and terror groups in the country. President Bashar Assad sees the liberation of Idlib as a topmost priority.

The US is mulling air and missile strikes on Syrian government forces if they use chlorine gas in their operation to liberate Idlib.

The US strikes could also target Russia and Iranian positions in the area, the Wall Street Journal wrote on Sunday.

The US favorite candidate for the prime ministership Haidar Abadi lost his last chance to renew his mandate for a second term when riots caused arson around the southern city of Basra and burned down the walls of the Iranian consulate in the city. While the inhabitants demonstrated for their justified demands (fresh water, electricity, job opportunities, and infrastructure), sponsored groups with different agendas mixed with the crowds and managed to burn down offices, ambulances, a government building and school associated with al-Hashd al-Shaabi and other anti-US political groups. This mob behavior forced Sayyed Moqtada al-Sadr, leader of 54 MPs, to drop his political partner Abadi and to put an end to his political carrier. Moqtada sought to distance himself from the events in Basra in order to let the blame fall on Abadi alone. He has joined the side of the winning horse, that of Iran.

American warplanes reportedly drop phosphorous bombs on a village in the eastern Syria province of Dayr al-Zawr.

Vladimir Savchenko, the chief of the Russian Center for Reconciliation of the Opposing Parties in Syria, announced the development on Sunday, Russia’s ITAR-TASS news agency reported.

"On September 8, 2018, two F-15 warplanes of the US air force delivered airstrikes on the settlement of Hajin with the use of phosphorous bombs. The airstrikes caused heavy fires. Information about casualties and damages is being verified," he said.

“The Russian reconciliations center warned that the use of munitions containing yellow phosphorus is prohibited by an additional protocol to the Geneva Convention of 1949,” the agency added.

Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Yukiya Amano says Iran is living up to all its commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal.

"Iran is implementing its nuclear-related commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the nuclear agreement known as the JCPOA)," Amano said in his introductory statement to the IAEA's Board of Governors in Vienna on Monday, emphasizing that it was essential that Iran continued to fully implement those commitments.

President of the United States Donald Trump withdrew Washington in May from the landmark Iran nuclear agreement, reached between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries in 2015, and decided to re-impose unilateral sanctions against Tehran.

Under the deal, Iran undertook to put limits on its nuclear program in exchange for the removal of nuclear-related sanctions.