TEHRAN - Mark Dankof, a former U.S. Senate candidate, says Washington’s policies towards Iran must be understood in terms of the Israeli lobby stranglehold on American presidential administrations.

On Thursday, the Trump administration formally demanded the UN Security Council to reinstate all UN sanctions against Iran, sparking an immediate confrontation with Russia and other members of the Security Council, who called the U.S. move illegal.

The United States claims that under the Security Council resolution approving the agreement, it retains the right, as an initial party, to invoke the provision to “reinstate” the sanctions.

But Russia, China, Britain, France, Germany and virtually everyone country on the council say the Trump administration has no right since it is no longer a party to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA.

U.S. action sets the stage for a confrontation that could lead to a credibility crisis for the Security Council.

In this regard Dankof, a broadcaster for The Ugly Truth Podcast, tells the Tehran Times that there is no logical rationale for U.S. counterproductive lunacy. 

“It must be understood in terms of the Israeli lobby stranglehold on American presidential administrations,” Dankof adds.

Following is the full text of the interview:

Q: The UN Security Council has rejected the U.S. proposal to extend the Iran arms embargo. In this regard, Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) said, "It wasn't a defeat. It was a rout." What is your opinion?

A: It was a deserved rout and an absolute embarrassment and foreign policy catastrophe for the United States. I am among those on the American Right who supported and still support JCPOA. Pat Buchanan and David Stockman are two other examples, Stockman having written an outstanding defense of the treaty in several places. He has also rightly attacked Trump for the Soleimani assassination.

In the end, the UN Security Council members know that the treaty is solid, undermined by the Israeli lobby's control of the United States' foreign policy regardless of which political party takes power.

 The illegitimate unilateral withdrawal of the Trump administration from the deal broke the American word of honor not only to Iran but also to the other signatories.

 The notion that the United States insists it can continue to dictate policies on Iran and the JCPOA terms having withdrawn as a party to the deal is especially outlandish, and an insistence no one else outside of Mr. Trump's Zionist entourage is buying.

Q: How do you assess Trump's "maximum pressure" policy on Iran? Was it successful?

A: It is an obvious failure. The Europeans are increasingly disenchanted with Washington's Zionist war drum beating, and the "maximum pressure" approach is simple and understandably strengthening the Russian and Chinese political and economic relationship with Iran at American expense.

Q: Do you think that the rest of the world, including the European countries, will cooperate with Trump's administration to ruin the nuclear deal by triggering "snapback" sanctions on Iran?

A: With the exception of the UK, I believe the other European powers will balk at this idea. The German resistance to illegitimate American interference with the Nord Stream 2 deal with Russia is both an example of a reassessment of post-war American dictation of policy to Europe, a situation that will exacerbate resentment of American dictation on Iran policy and JCPOA, and eventually force a reassessment of NATO and neo-conservative militarism toward Russia in the post-Cold War world where the Reagan-Bush I pledges to Gorbachev have been systematically broken in the same way that the American promises on JCPOA have been. 

It is beginning to dawn on Europeans that the Zionist neo-conservative foreign policy on both Iran and Putin's Russia makes them more vulnerable and far less secure. It is my hope that a comatose American electorate eventually figures this out in terms of their own self-interest and national security.

“John Bolton is an Apostle of World Zionism….It is not illegitimate to tag him as a war criminal with a psychopathic psychological profile.”

Q: On May 8, 2018, the United States withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the nuclear deal) unilaterally while Iran was committed to its obligations. Now Trump tries to use the deal to unite the other signatories against Iran? What kind of logic is this?

A: There is no logical rationale whatsoever for this counterproductive lunacy. It must be understood in terms of the Israeli lobby stranglehold on American presidential administrations, Congress, and mainstream media (MSM) in the United States. Trump is perhaps the worst example of this yet, in terms of an absolute blank check being issued to Israel on Gaza, Lebanon, the Occupied Territories, and East Jerusalem. This is not changed by the 2020 election year fraud of the American-brokered "deal" between Israel and the UAE, which does nothing for the Palestinians at all. Netanyahu admitted that his annexation policies are "still on the table." You can be assured they will reappear after the first Tuesday in November in the United States.

Q: Do you expect that America will recognize the reality of a multi-polar world?

A: I do not believe that this reality has yet dawned on an American National Security and foreign policy establishment drenched in false notions of Empire, and false doctrines of American and Israeli Exceptionalism. A $26 trillion dollar national debt, the rise of competing economies and military establishments around the world, and an American domestic scene mired in the more political and cultural division than I've ever witnessed in my lifetime suggest the obvious end of the post-WW II American Empire for reasons similar to the end of the old British Empire and the dissolution of the USSR. But the American political oligarchy seems presently oblivious to this obvious reality.

Q: What about former Trump’s national security advisor John Bolton, and his advocacy of a "maximum pressure" policy on Iran, as he expressed this in his recent interview with the BBC?

A: "John Bolton is an Apostle of World Zionism, the Israeli government, and the Israeli lobby solely interested in a war for Netanyahu and neo-conservative regime change in Iran. He approves of the Soleimani assassination and Marxist MEK terror operations in Iran and from the latter's Troll Farm in Albania. His ideas, if implemented, would likely ignite World War III. Innocent Americans would die alongside innocent Iranians and others. It is not illegitimate to tag him as a war criminal with a psychopathic psychological profile. He is, simply put, a dangerous man."