Ron Paul Says Iran Sanctions Will Backfire

Wednesday, in the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas explained to his colleagues the reasons for his opposition to the Iranian sanctions legislation and wondered why Congress would try to undermine the president when he’s in the middle of trying to reach a deal with them (Via DailyPaul.com):

Author: Scott Horton

Scott Horton is editorial director of Antiwar.com, director of the Libertarian Institute, host of Antiwar Radio on Pacifica, 90.7 FM KPFK in Los Angeles, California and podcasts the Scott Horton Show from ScottHorton.org. He’s the author of the 2017 book, Fool’s Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan and editor of The Great Ron Paul: The Scott Horton Show Interviews 2004–2019. He’s conducted more than 5,000 interviews since 2003. Scott lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, investigative reporter Larisa Alexandrovna Horton. He is a fan of, but no relation to the lawyer from Harper’s. Scott’s Twitter, YouTube, Patreon.

28 thoughts on “Ron Paul Says Iran Sanctions Will Backfire”

  1. 16 US Intelligence Agencies stated again on September 16 that Iran isn´t developing nuclear weapons. The UN inspectors in Iran say the same. How can Peace Prize Winner Obama then say, "Iran is developing nuclear weapons" ? Is President Obama crazy ?

      1. I feel the need for a quick-look page of all the relevant links ("IRAN STATUS" or something). In the meantime: http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Focus/IaeaIran/ind

        http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/

        "26. The Agency continues to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran. Iran has cooperated with the Agency in improving safeguards measures at FEP and in providing the Agency with access to the IR-40 reactor for purposes of design information verification. Iran has not, however, implemented the modified text of its Subsidiary Arrangements General Part, Code 3.1, on the early provision of design information.

        27. Iran has not suspended its enrichment related activities or its work on heavy water related
        projects as required by the Security Council.

        28. Contrary to the requests of the Board of Governors and the Security Council, Iran has neither implemented the Additional Protocol nor cooperated with the Agency in connection with the remaining issues of concern which need to be clarified to exclude the possibility of military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme. Regrettably, the Agency has not been able to engage Iran in any substantive discussions about these outstanding issues for over a year. The Agency believes that it has provided Iran with sufficient access to documentation in its possession to enable Iran to respond substantively to the questions raised by the Agency. However, the Director General urges Member States which have provided documentation to the Agency to work out new modalities with the Agency so that it could share further documentation with Iran, as appropriate, since the Agency’s inability to do so is rendering it difficult for the Agency to progress further in its verification process.

        29. It is critical for Iran to implement the Additional Protocol and clarify the outstanding issues in
        order for the Agency to be in a position to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran.

        30. The Director General will continue to report as appropriate."

        1. Much of the above relates to the "Additional Protocol" which Iran voluntarily implemented several years ago as a "confidence-building" measure in hopes the the US and EU would then negotiate in good faith. They also voluntarily suspended enrichment as part of these "confidence-building" measures. Unfortunately, the US and EU did not negotiate in good faith. Instead, they dragged out the negotiations with the expectation that they could delay forever and Iran would continue to comply with the supposedly temporary "confidence-building" measures.

          Naturally, after years of this, Iran put a stop to it by resuming its enrichment and added their own "stick" of withdrawing from compliance with the Additional Protocols, which by the way are NOT required by the NPT or international law.

          As far as the Board of Governors of the IAEA and the Security Council are concerned, they both overstepped their legal authority granted by the NPT.

    1. Is President Obama crazy ?

      No, he's just a pawn, a marionette owned and controlled by Amerika's Shadow Government that is itching for war with Iran.

  2. All of the hostility towards Iran comes from one source : Israel and its wealthy, disloyal lobby. Ron Paul said that if the U.S. goes to war in Iran, it will destroy the U.S. dollar. He says that Iran is no threat to the U.S. and we should be dialoguing and trading with them, not threatening them.We cannot allow Israel to drag us into a disastrous war in Iran the same way that they did in Iraq.

    1. i assume the British were controlled by aipac when they occupied iran ? how about the russians/ soviets.
      just because it is in one parties overwhelming interest doe not mean that it is the sole or even primary reason

  3. Of course, Obama is acting out his part as a member of the military-industrial complex. Iran is the last obstacle to US hegemony in the Middle East. Economic sanctions do not hurt the status quo, but deliberately impoverish the average citizen in Iran. Iran is, and has never been a threat to the United States in any manner. Imagine the US being surrounded by countries with nuclear weapons? Would you not feel threatened? Of course, you would. Wasn't that what the Cuban Missile Crisis was about? Ron Paul is correct when he says, "We should be talking and trading with the Iranians"; not threatening then with economic sanctions, and the possibility of invasion. As John F. Kennedy once said, "And we call ourselvers members of the human race," during a discusssion with the Joint Chiefs of Staff to use nuclear weapons to neutralize Cuba and the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

  4. I don't think the Congress is trying to undermine Obama's diplomacy. I think they're on the same page. The diplomacy is modeled after Bush's pre-war, fig-leaf diplomacy with Iraq. The sanctions are a prelude to war meant to undermine Iran's economy. However, it takes a lot of time for sanctions to have their desired effect. The United States' economy has already been so badly undermined by the Wall Street pirates that we soon won't have the wherewithal to start a war against Iran or to continue supporting our special "ally" Israel.

    1. I doubt it. There are many neocons who'd like to have a permanent presence in Iran. Selfish neo-colonialist goals and the same is true for the very large military industrial oil complex.
      Its all a matter about how to get it all started.

    2. You mean if the US didn't have diplomatic and , trade ties with Israel and if the US didn't vote at the UN in ways that make Iran angry the US would have peace with Iran.

      Yes lets do what Iran wants.

        1. Why is that a reason to do what Iran wants? Besides Israel wouldn't care about Iran if Iran wasn't out to get them.Israel used to have good relations with Iran.

          The US ought not give money to Israel but the US ought not give into Iran either.

          Anyway why give into iran , cause they blow stuff up if they don't get their way?

  5. paulBass,
    One of the time honored tactics of the pro Zionist side is to state “Look how small Israel is and the fact that Jews are only a few percentage of Americans, how can you say they control anything?” My answer is to ask” How small is Sicily and how few Americans had both Sicilian ancestry and criminal inclination and yet how powerful was the Mafia in the big cities of the NorthEast during the 20th Century?”

    1. I too have often wondered how he's managed to survive, at least politically, as long as he has. I have to believe that the answer is that no matter how popular he becomes among noticeable segments of the public, and no matter how much traction his ideas gain in certain prominent circles, in the end he's only one man, and with a relatively small sphere of influence in Congress at that.

      On the other hand, if other candidates for Congress who hold Ron's ideals gain prominence in the future, and if these people manage to get elected to Congress in significant number (or even in a minority number that cannot be ignored), then the Shadow Government might just start to seriously panic.

  6. “Look for “the war on terrorism” to spread there…”

    It aleardy had!The US has military advisors in many African nations such as Algeria,Morrocco.Egypt.Libya,Tunisia,etc.

    1. You're right. But I expect at a much larger scale. Or maybe not. Maybe Obama is not as mad as the neocons.

  7. Please write congress against the Iranian Sanctions. These are S. 1065, Iran Sanctions Enabling Act of 2009; Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act H. R. 2194 & H. RES. 460 (house) & S. 908 (senate). The intent of H. RES. 460 is to expedite H. R. 2194 by pulling it out of committee. Last year a more severe version of these bills complete with a naval blockade was proposed (H.CON.RES 362 & S.RES.580). This shelved partly because of letter writing, but mostly because even congress knows not to start a new war in the middle of a financial crisis.

  8. Severe Iranian sanctions before any diplomacy is counter productive & put us on track to war with Iran. These sanctions are more inflammatory because they target Iran’s weakness in oil refining. With U.S. support Saddam Hussein destroyed much of Iran’s refinery capability during the Iraq Iran war when he tried to take over Iranian oil rich Khuzestan Province [2].

    A failed “diplomacy” will just be used to sell another war to the misinformed American public like Iraq. Iraq was disarmed of WMD in the Clinton Administration (not Bush) & at least a100,000 Iraqi children died because of sanctions before the war not for WMD but for regime change [3].

    What Obama said at the G-20 meeting about Iranian Qom refinery are both misleading & fear mongering. The Qom site was not secret, it was declared by the Iranians. It’s still under construction & won’t be operational for over a year. Scott Ritter the former U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq calls it “politically motivated hype”. Before this incident Mohamed ElBaradei, the current Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said “I think the (Iranian) threat has been hyped," & “dismayed by the allegations of some member states … fed to the media … that information has been withheld from the board … politically motivated and totally baseless … undermine its independence”. Like Scott Ritter in Iraq, ElBaradei is undermined in Iran [4].

    [2a] Khuzestan – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kh%C5%ABzest%C4%81n_
    [2b]U. S. support for Iraq –
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_suppor
    [2c] Rumsfeld Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein –http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/
    [2d] Lawsuit: U.S. firms sold poison gas ingredients to Iraq –
    http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld

    [3a] Iraq sanctions – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_sanctions
    [3b] Scott Ritter former U.N. weapons inspector & Marine Intelligence officer http://www.thenationmart.com/ircounstfori.html

    [4a] Obama at G-20 http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Statem
    [4b] IAEA Qom – http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Transcripts/2009/t
    [4c] ElBaradei Iran hyped –http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE581
    [4d] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJM_p2GYOiw

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