NORTH CAROLINA - Remember the Sharpeville massacre in South Africa? Probably not because it was long ago, in 1960, when South Africa was suffering apartheid and a crowd of some 7000 protesters gathered in this town in what is now Gauteng.

The South African police opened fire on the crowd and 69 people died. Claims are that the police opened fire when the crowd started advancing towards a fence surrounding a police station. Sounds familiar, what with the massacre in Gaza when some 62 people died from Israeli gunfire near the border fence just this past week, and many hundreds of others wounded, many of them maimed for life. You can’t get any uglier than what happened in Gaza, though, because the shooting was premeditated, not spontaneous as a result of some real, immediate threat. South Africa anyway is no longer an apartheid monster, and one should remember that the US supported the apartheid regime in that country to the bitter end of it, when Nelson Mandela was released from prison and  then became president of the predominately Black country.

The US seems rarely ahead of the curve, almost without exception siding with particularly repressive, unprogressive, states like Saudi Arabia that applies a medieval internal rule of Islamic jurisprudence that outstrips, it seems, anything Iran’s clerics have instituted since 1979. (And turned holy Makkah into what looks like a kitsch Disneyland.) The US seems incapable of recognizing right from wrong, and especially while Trump’s administration like never before narrowed its entire foreign policy to fit the demands of the Likudniks in Israel, and as sage Paul Craig Roberts, former editor of the Wall Street Journal, has claimed, Israel is arguably the most “evil” nation since 1948. It is more than merely astonishing, and it smacks of a vile desperation, like a petulant, spoiled child determined to have its way exclusively and going whole hog now to get its way in one last (I think) huge attempt to maintain Anglo Zionist hegemony over much of the world. The US abrogation of the JCPOA reflects this, too, and it appears, at least on the surface, that its abrogation has been almost universally condemned.

And moreover, to paint Iran as a real threat to the US or the Israelis makes no sense. If there is any threat, it is ideological, not military. Relatively speaking, Iran’s GDP is comparatively minuscule at around $400 billion, and its military expenditures are similarly minute, while the US spends almost a trillion dollars on its grossly offensive “defense”. Meanwhile, I frankly think that the negotiations between the US and North Koreans will fail, if they occur at all. Why? Because the US, before it unwinds sanctions, is insisting that North Korea’s nuclear program be irrevocably dismantled first. The one thing that seems to be, for the moment, protecting Kim Jong Un’s government and forcing the Trump Administration to seem vaguely “friendly” and open minded is the existence of North Korean WMD. The US anyway is untrustworthy. The destruction of Libya is just one example. Another, of course, is the US action against the JCPOA, but there are many instances of betrayal.

The question, obviously, is what can Iran do if European signatories, China and Russia fail to preserve the JCPOA without the US and also ensure that US sanctions against Iran don’t further damage Iran’s already suffering economy and people going forward? Reflexibly, there is the possibility that Iran will ramp up its nuclear research and uranium enrichment activities once again. If North Korea appears to cow the US even marginally, one can imagine that some of Iran’s leaders may wish it had a nuclear deterrent, too. As heretical as this may be, one could almost wish another country, say Pakistan, would literally GIVE Iran a couple nuclear weapons, or say they would if Iran were about to be attacked militarily. You’d have to wonder that US and Israeli sabre rattling might be halted? But it’s hard to know. And here’s another idea: Trump had allegedly embraced talks with North Korea, face to face. If he had any sense he would at least suggest a summit between the US and Iran to calm tensions and institute a semblance of serious dialogue, and further suggest open talks between Iran and its regional rivals like Saudi Arabia, as Javad Zarif has suggested. However, the great barrier to anything like this is quite obvious: it is Israel primarily. As long as the US does Israel’s bidding, the threat of war will remain unless the EU fully splits from the US on foreign policy and aligns itself with the preservation of the JCPOA come what may. For example, if the US applies sanctions on European companies wanting to maintain and expand business and economic ties with Iran, why wouldn’t the EU similarly apply sanctions on the US in retaliation? Sanctions on the US have never been suggested or applied, to my knowledge. Europe’s choice ahead may be obvious: continued vassalage or sovereignty and national independence. O, so many questions and so few ready answers!

As tragic and destructive as the killing of innocent protesters in Gaza by IDF snipers has been this Spring, the world now has fully seen the depravity of Likud Israel, which is the world’s nemesis at this time, and increasingly seen as such. It’s about time, for the fundamental racism and cruelty of the Zionists has always existed. Hell, they invented terrorism! Had the Zionist been handed an unpopulated piece of land, okay, but they were not. Can Israel continue to exist as it is with so few friends and admirers? Secondly, can the US literally afford another war in the Mideast? Who will support war except a parasitical Israel? Answers will certainly appear over the course of 2018 to many questions, and in the meantime admirers of Iran’s principled and wholly, truly Islamic stand against injustices will remain, especially if the Islamic Republic also opens more to its citizens and becomes increasingly more democratic, more tolerant and more eager to address and eliminate any corruption within Iran. It’s a challenge, for sure, but one definitely worth consideration in these difficult times.