US to benefit greatly if Iran sanctions lifted: Analyst

Mike Harris, the finance editor of Veterans Today in Oregon, was interviewed by Press TV on the remarks made US officials about Iran’s access to the US dollar.

A rough transcription of the interview follows.

Press TV: What do you make of the remarks made by - not the House Speaker because that stance and position was to be expected but Obama’s own administration - the under secretary of state about no intentions being there for letting Iran access the US financial system. Does this not contradict or contravene the earlier positions adopted by the US administration when it came to the JCPOA?

Harris: The bottom line here is: is the US interested in commerce, in trade with Iran, in which case if they are, then allowing access to the US dollar and to the financial system would benefit the US, it would propel jobs, job growth in this country in a very good positive way.

There are political interests out there. The Israel lobby is still very, very burned over the fact that they lost. They tried to exclude Iran. They wanted to keep the sanctions in place. This is a very, very long-term old grudge that’s been going on, and it is time to call for what it is. It is time that American politicians and the American administration act in the best interests of Americans and not in the best interests of Israel. There is no benefit to the US to keep sanctions on Iran. It would benefit the US greatly if the sanctions were lifted and put away forever, and we could have a robust, viable commercial relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Press TV: If you were supposedly an advisor to the administration given the fact that they have signed at the bottom of that bill along with six other nations, five other Western states that is the JCPOA, what would you be telling them?

Harris: I would be telling them, ‘If you back out of this deal, if you try to short-cut it, if you try to modify it anyway, you are not honoring your word and you will be looked at as someone who cannot be trusted.’

And that is a major problem that the US has with the foreign policy right now, no one trusts the United States.

This neo-con group that has been in the State Department now since the Bush, even the Clinton administration, prior to Bush administration, has been running the show for way too long. They have misguided this country, our foreign policy has been a disaster, we turned on our friends, we stabbed them in the back, we attacked people with impunity out there. We destroyed countries.

The US does not have a good reputation right now in the foreign policy world. No nation on this planet should trust the US for anything right now and till we get a new administration, new people within the Department of State who are thinking in fresh ways as to how to grow the American economy and use diplomacy as a tool to benefit the American people not as somebody who go out and loot and plunder the rest of the world.

Press TV: Do you think that the Obama administration should adopt to do just that, to impose or re-impose sanctions on Iran, in contravention of the JCPOA that would be fully cognizant of deepness and the gravity of the situation they are going to be plunging into?

Harris: It will be a tragic mistake and what it tells you is just the desperation. The US government is not a monolith. There is different competing factions that want different outcomes for every situation and this neo-con group, which is really an Israeli-controlled group, you look at who the neo-cons are, they are all Zionist and they are the ones who want to keep this friction, they want to keep Iran isolated.

There is others of us out there who support relationship with Iran because it will be good for the American people, it will be good for American commerce, it will be good for American business and we need that right now and the US has to begin to rebuild its credibility with the other nations of the world.

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