US politicians critical of JCPOA want new Mideast war: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed Richard Becker, with the ANSWER Coalition from San Francisco, on American presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton’s persistence on imposing new sanctions on the Islamic Republic despite the implementation of the nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: What do you think about this animosity coming from some US officials and obviously Israel, which was against this nuclear deal from the very off-start?

Becker: It’s clear and has been clear all along that the choices were either to have a negotiated settlement or turn in the direction of a new war against Iran.

And I think that’s the context in which we have to see the comments from people like Hillary Clinton and Richard Blumenthal as well as the whole range that’s about all the leading Republican candidates, have all taken this position as you said along with Netanyahu and the Israeli government.

And is that really anything that people in this country in Iran and the entire Middle East and the entire world want, is yet another war in the Middle East after seeing the havoc and the destruction that we’ve witnessed in Iraq and in Libya and in Yemen and of course in Syria? But that’s the position. Those who are criticizing this agreement are really warmongers, they’re really for new war, another war, yet another war in the Middle East.

Press TV: How is this going to benefit any country including all these countries or who were against this nuclear deal, including Saudi Arabia here as well?

Becker: They are opposed to any normalization of relations between the United States and Iran, because they believe that that will also lead to a larger shift in relations in the region.

Saudi Arabia has been a special project of the United States. The United States has protected Saudi Arabia and the Saudi royal family, this extremely corrupt band, for many many decades. The United States of course has special strategic relationship with Israel.

And those may be coming into a different period, and that the agreement between the United States and Iran, and the P5+1 and Iran, can be seen as shifting,  and of course Iran is a country that is a very large country, a larger population with great natural resources and large territory and so forth.

And so, you can see why even from their own narrow point of view that some of the governments in the West want to change the relationship, and particularly in regard to the United States’ government, any change that it would have, this is regarded by the leaders in Israel and Saudi Arabia as potentially dangerous to their interests.

Press TV: Now focusing on the US political scene right now, we have Republican front-runner Donald Trump saying that he wants to ban Muslims. We have Hillary Clinton, the democratic front-runner, saying that if elected as president, she will impose more sanctions on Iran, is that the rhetoric that we’re supposed to be getting from a Democrat?

Becker: It’s very interesting; the presidential election in the United States is the most grotesque in history. And of course the Republican candidates have led the way in that, but I don’t think that we can’t forget for a moment that Hillary Clinton voted for the war in Iraq, that Hillary Clinton was the single individual in the Obama administration, who was the most aggressive for military action that led to the destruction of Libya and the same thing goes with the intervention in Syria.

So, I think it’s just an illusion to believe that Hillary would not be as a war-like president as those who have come before her.

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