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Ghost Dog

(16,881 posts)
2. Here's context the BBC fails to report:
Thu Sep 5, 2019, 06:21 AM
Sep 2019

(But see BBC report at DU thread: https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142363830 )

Iran to develop nuclear centrifuges as US dismisses French plan to ease tension

The US state department has shrugged off a French initiative aimed at defusing tensions with Iran, and stepped up economic pressure once more, offering a reward for information that helps disrupt Iranian oil smuggling. A few hours later, Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, said that the country would expand its development work on new centrifuges for enriching uranium, in a third phased step away from compliance with a 2015 multilateral nuclear deal, likely to escalate the standoff with the US even further.

France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, had sought to mediate in the standoff, and tried at last month’s G7 in Biarritz to persuade Donald Trump to accept a confidence-building proposal, by which Iran would return to compliance with the 2015 deal in return for partial relief from US oil sanctions, and a $15bn credit line to finance oil sales. Trump responded positively in Biarritz, suggesting he would accept the scheme if the US did not have to contribute to the credit line.

However, on Wednesday, the state department’s special representative for Iran, Brian Hook, called into question the very existence of the French proposal. Asked about the initiative on Wednesday, Hook said: “There is no concrete proposal. We have no idea if there will be one. So we’re not going to comment on something that doesn’t exist.” Hook announced a ratcheting up of the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran, offering a $15m reward for anyone offering information that led to the disruption of oil smuggling the US says is being carried out by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The state department also imposed sanctions on 16 entities and 10 individuals it accused of being part of an IRGC network smuggling oil to the Assad regime in Syria and Hezbullah in Lebanon, “and other terrorist actors”.

As he was making the announcement, the Financial Times reported that Hook had personally emailed the captain of a tanker carrying Iranian oil, and offered him millions of dollars if he would steer the ship, the Grace 1, to a country where it could be impounded. According to the account, which was confirmed by the state department, the first email was sent 11 days after the ship (now renamed the Adrian Darya 1) was released by Gibraltar, where it was temporarily held on suspicion of shipping oil to Syria. “With this money you can have any life you wish and be well-off in old age,” Hook, the head of the state department’s Iran Action Group, emailed the ship’s captain, . It warned him: “If you choose not to take this easy path, life will be much harder for you.” After the captain did not respond, he was placed under US treasury sanctions. Hook emailed or texted “roughly a dozen” captains in recent months to cajole or scare them out of helping Iran evade oil sanctions...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/04/us-iran-french-initiative-economic-pressure-brian-hook



Hook, Line and Sinker: The State Department's Iran Hand Steps Up the Pressure on Tehran
September 4, by Matthew Petti
NEW: Brian Hook is taking a swipe at the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Does he want to bring Iran to the table or overthrow its government?

As President Donald Trump inches towards a meeting with Iran’s leaders, his own secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, is sprinting towards de-recognizing the country’s government. Brian Hook, the State Department’s Special Representative on Iran, announced unprecedented diplomatic moves against the Iranian government today, putting the Iranian military on par with renegade militias in the Middle East. Meanwhile, he attempted to walk back Trump’s earlier statements, discounting the possibility of a high-level meeting in the near future...

... The move may suggest that the State Department no longer considers the Islamic Republic the legitimate government of Iran. “Today’s announcement is historic. It’s the first time that the United States has offered a reward for information that disrupts a government entity's financial operations,” Hook explained. “We’ve taken this step because the IRGC operates more like a terrorist organization than it does a government.” ...

... “You want to see continued depreciation of the rial relative to the dollar on the unofficial market. You want to see sustained stagflation of the Iranian economy. You want to make sure GDP continues to go down,” Taleblu said, explaining the goals of maximum pressure, which he believes will force Iran to negotiate. “You want to see sustained macroeconomic contraction.” ...

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/hook-line-and-sinker-state-departments-iran-hand-steps-pressure-tehran-78031
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