The pointlessness of patty-cake today's edition

Again, I invite you to consider the length of the process, the multiple extensions of deadlines, the insults and expressions of contempt for the West from military commanders, political leaders and Khameini himself, the dire warnings from those such as Netanyahu who had their heads on straight.

Then came the grand announcement.

Three-plus months later, the question becomes: announcement of exactly what?

On one side is post-America with its "leaders," the Most Equal Comrade, Secretary Global-Test et al, preening in the certainty that they have acted on a grand and noble vision. On the other are some very nasty characters, including Iran, Russia, China, the Assad regime in Syria, North Korea and Hizbollah, as well as various corporations and banks in countries ranging from Germany to Austria to India to the United Arab Emirates that are licking their chops to do some post-sanctions business with the Islamic Republic. There is Iraq, which, after having been rescued from Saddam Hussein's grisly rule by much Western blood and treasure, has taken stock of the current dynamic and cast its lot with the Iran-Russia-Syria axis.

Post-America is the irrelevant fool in the scenario.

. . . as things now stand, Obama may end up being the only person in the world to sign his much-wanted deal, in effect making a treaty with himself.

The Iranians have signed nothing and have no plans for doing so. The so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) has not even been discussed at the Islamic Republic’s Council of Ministers. Nor has the Tehran government bothered to even provide an official Persian translation of the 159-page text.

The Islamic Majlis, the ersatz parliament, is examining an unofficial text and is due to express its views at an unspecified date in a document “running into more than 1,000 pages,” according to Mohsen Zakani, who heads the “examining committee.”

“The changes we seek would require substantial rewriting of the text,” he adds enigmatically.

Nor have Britain, China, Germany, France and Russia, who were involved in the so-called P5+1 talks that produced the JCPOA, deemed it necessary to provide the Obama “deal” with any legal basis of their own. Obama’s partners have simply decided that the deal he is promoting is really about lifting sanctions against Iran and nothing else.

So they have started doing just that without bothering about JCPOA’s other provisions. Britain has lifted the ban on 22 Iranian banks and companies blacklisted because of alleged involvement in deals linked to the nuclear issue.

 German trade with Iran has risen by 33 percent, making it the Islamic Republic’s third-largest partner after China.

China has signed preliminary accords to help Iran build five more nuclear reactors. Russia has started delivering S300 anti-aircraft missile systems and is engaged in talks to sell Sukhoi planes to the Islamic Republic.
France has sent its foreign minister and a 100-man delegation to negotiate big business deals, including projects to double Iran’s crude oil exports.
Other nations have also interpreted JCPOA as a green light for dropping sanctions. Indian trade with Iran has risen by 17 percent, and New Delhi is negotiating massive investment in a rail-and-sea hub in the Iranian port of Chah-Bahar on the Gulf of Oman. With help from Austrian, Turkish and United Arab Emirates banks, the many banking restrictions imposed on Iran because of its nuclear program have been pushed aside.
“The structures of sanctions built over decades is crumbling,” boasts Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.
Meanwhile, the nuclear project is and shall remain “fully intact,” says the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Agency, Ali Akbar Salehi.

 Along with being open for business, Iran is also ratcheting up its expansionist activities in the Middle East. Bahrain, Palestine and Lebanon are all seeing heightened levels of Iran-supported mischief.

And, once again, post-America's outstretched hand is met with a big "Nah":

Obama’s hopes of engaging Iran on other issues were dashed last week when Khamenei declared “any dialogue with the American Great Satan” to be” forbidden.”

“We have no need of America” his adviser Ali-Akbar Velayati added later. “Iran is the region’s big power in its own right.”

Obama had hoped that by sucking up to the mullahs he would at least persuade them to moderate their “hate-America campaign.” Not a bit of that.

“Death to America” slogans, adoring official buildings in Tehran have been painted afresh along with US flags, painted at the entrance of offices so that they could be trampled underfoot. None of the US citizens still held hostages in Iran has been released, and one, Washington Post stringer Jason Rezai, is branded as “head of a spy ring “in Tehran. Paralyzed by his fear of undermining the non-existent deal, Obama doesn’t even call for their release.

Government-sponsored anti-American nationwide events are announced for November, anniversary of the seizure of the US Embassy in Tehran. The annual “End of America” week-long conference is planned for February and is to focus on “African-American victims of US police” and the possibility of “self-determination for blacks.”

According to official sources “families of Black American victims” and a number of “black American revolutionaries” have been invited.

Inside Iran, Obama’s “moderate partners” have doubled the number of executions and political prisoners. Last week they crushed marches by teachers calling for release of their leaders. 

The Freedom-Haters' planned decline agenda is historic indeed - in an unprecedentedly dark way.