By Hanif Ghaffari

The true face of American Democrats

July 4, 2018 - 10:1

Donald Trump's withdrawal from the nuclear deal with Iran and the re-enforcement of U.S. secondary sanctions against our country have raised the opposition of the Democratic politicians and members of the U.S. Senate.

During recent weeks, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, John Kerry, Susan Rice and Richard Nephew have become supporters of the nuclear deal with Iran, and condemned Trump's approach in their speeches! The Democrats, who are aware of the 66% support of the American citizens of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) (according to the latest polls conducted in the United States), decided to raise their voices against the White House, so that they can use the mummified body of the JCPOA and turn it to bridge for their own victory in the Congress midterm elections.

The Democrats are well aware that "Trump's withdrawal from the JCPOA" can serve as a catalyst for strengthening the artificial bipolar of "Democrats vs Republicans" in the minds of American citizens. In general, American politicians are really skillful creating "target-full bipolar" systems, and these bipolar systems has been of great help to American officials from both parties. This is exactly what facilitates their job in reaching their goals. However, we should regretfully say that some of the Iranian officials, despite the 40-year experience that the Islamic Revolution had in dealing with both the major parties in the United States, are still to be tricked by such bipolar systems. An overview of the anti-Iranian policies of the three American Democratic governments, namely the governments of Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, clearly reflect the "deep opposition" of U.S. Democrats to the Iranian nation and political system. It should be noted here that the intensity of the Democrats' opposition to Iran stands at a much higher level than that of the Republicans, and the "seemingly peaceful doves", through their actions, laws, decrees and decisions over the past four decades, have provided room for subsequent Republicans' maneuvers against Iran. Although Democrats prefer not to point out their fundamental and destructive role in setting lots of restricting economic and legal mechanisms against our country, the history of U.S.-Iranian relations during the post-Islamic revolution, uncovers the true face of Trump's rivals in this conflict! An overview of the sanctions imposed by Obama's administration during his presidency will help to figure this face out:

Although Barack Obama's victory in 2008 presidential elections boosted the hope and motivation for the proponents of reviving Iran-U.S. relations in our country, but in 2009, Obama and Hillary Clinton (former U.S. Secretary of State) ordered various packages of sanctions to be prepared for pressuring our country.

Financial exchanges," "insurance," "transportation," the sale of oil and "energy" were among those sanctions! A cutoff of investments to our country’s oil-and-gas industry and restrictions on many more Iranian banks than those already blacklisted, had a quite destructive effect on Iran's economy.  It is obvious that the scope of the sanctions imposed during Obama's presidency against our country was much wider compared to other U.S. presidents from both the Democratic and Republican Parties. Obama ordered American officials such as Richard Nephew and Susan Rice to prepare new sanction packages for Iran and send it to European and international allies of the United States. In November 2009, Susan Rice, then the U.S. Ambassador to the UN Security Council, along with Hillary Clinton, began their joint efforts to conclude United Nations Security Council Resolution 1929. The resolution put the toughest pressure on Iran regarding energy, lack of access to financial resources to develop nuclear and missile programs, etc. Obama went even further, and in June 2013, he ratcheted up his efforts to isolate Iran, targeting Tehran with currency and auto-sector sanctions. Obama imposed sanctions on foreign financial institutions that conduct or facilitate significant transactions in the Iranian rial, meant to further weaken our country's currency. As reported by Reuters, a senior official in Obama's administration said the low level of the rial was to be a key vulnerability for the Iranian government.

“The objective is to take aim at the rial and to make it as unusable a currency as possible, which is all part and parcel of our efforts to apply significant financial pressure on the government of Iran.”

A brief overview on what has happened during the presidency of Carter, Clinton and, most importantly, Obama and in opposition to the Islamic Republic of Iran, well uncovers the true face of the U.S. Democrats! These Democrats who are now raising their voices in support of the JCPOA, and blame Trump for pulling out of the nuclear deal with Iran, had imposed the toughest sanctions on our country and on our people when they were in power, and those were the most terrible sanctions against our country. The list of sanctions imposed during the Obama presidency (which we merely referred to its main parts in this article) is so long that it can't be fully reviewed here. Indeed, how can one be optimistic about the support of the Democrats under such circumstances? The time has now come for some of our officials and authorities to reject their unjustified optimism about the presence of Democrats in power, and put an end to their indirect play on the Trump's rivals' ground.