We all hated the images from the Washington Capitol a few days ago, and we heard words like ‘sedition,’ ‘terrorism,’ and ‘coup.’ Democrats were quick to point fingers at Republicans, rightly so. However, like Republicans, Democrats have also supported this kind of unrest, for decades, in foreign countries. It’s overdue for us to reflect on our hypocrisy. If we hate something for ourselves, we shouldn’t like it for others. It’s an easy principle, and as most Americans are Christians, they can read about it in the Bible. If we don’t like what unfolded in our capital, we should not produce these scenes in foreign capitals.

Let’s take John F. Kennedy, one of the Democrats’ most beloved presidents. When in 1959 Fidel Castro assumed power in Cuba, there is good evidence that he sought an amenable relationship with the U.S. However, he also pursued economic independence, and Washington saw this as an affront against U.S. businesses in Cuba and across Latin America. Kennedy insisted, “We can’t go on living with this Castro cancer for ten years more.” Clandestine operations were launched to kill Castro. With them failing, Kennedy authorized the Bay of Pigs invasion, leading to several hundred deaths and imprisonments. Not only was this an absolute moral fiasco, it was also a tremendous strategic failure as Castro was squarely played into Moscow’s orbit.

Let’s take Dwight D. Eisenhower, one of the Republicans’ most beloved presidents. A few years before the Bay of Pigs, Eisenhower presided over another coup, this time in Iran. In 1950, Mohammed Mosaddegh became the prime minister of a democratically oriented government. Washington leaders feared that Mossadegh would restrict U.S. and British control of the Middle Eastern oil industry. In early 1953, $1 million was transmitted to the CIA station in Tehran to be used “in any way that would bring about the fall of Mosaddeq.” American operatives then orchestrated the mob-driven and violent fall of Mossadegh, which led to rule of the Shah who was previously described as “unscrupulous.” Yet, he fell in line with perceived U.S. interests.

Eisenhower wrote later in his diary, “Another recent development that we helped bring about was … the elimination of Mossadegh. The things we did were ‘covert.’… I listened to [our agent’s] detailed report and it seemed more like a dime novel than an historical fact.” Yet, it was an historical fact, and it brought ongoing authoritarian rule over the Iranian people. Again, not only was this an absolute moral failure, but this episode was also the catalyst for the conflictual relations between the U.S. and Iran that remain today.

Unfortunately, these are only two of so many examples. Some years ago, the New York Times acknowledged, “Since the end of World War II, the United States … has installed or toppled leaders on every continent, secretly supported political parties of close allies …, fomented coups, spread false rumors, bribed political figures and spent countless billions of dollars to sway public opinion.” These inclinations continue in America’s interventionist foreign policy establishment. All too often, the consequences are injustice to people in foreign countries and a tarnished image of the U.S. with all the consequences that this brings.

A few days ago, in regards to the assault on the Washington Capitol, the Venezuelan government stated, “With this unfortunate episode, the United States is suffering the same thing that it has generated in other countries with its policies of aggression.” There’s some truth to this statement, but the full truth is that the attack on the Capitol is nothing in comparison to what U.S. operations have caused in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Many Americans won’t like to hear this as they prefer a virtuous image of their country in world affairs. Then, however, they have no moral right to complain about the state of our own republic.

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Bonus Video added by Informed Comment:

PBS NewsHour: “Insurrection at Capitol draws condemnation across the globe”

U.S. foreign policy must not be subject to the whims of partisan politics. Instead, President Biden must follow three interrelated directives that will prove beneficial to the country and its people.

First, President Biden must disavow post-cold war foreign policy ideologies, be it neoliberalism or neoconservatism. These ideologies see America as an exceptional and indispensable nation, with a global mission. The proclaimed mission is to promote the spread of democracy (notwithstanding our own failures here). More often than not, however, what actually happened was that the U.S. supported authoritarian leaders. These, in turn, provided “stability,” and therewith ensured perceived American interests in far-away places, to the detriment of the people there.

Biden is susceptible to such an ideologically driven foreign policy. This would be the “American century,” he proclaimed after his election. “America is back,” he said further. It’s a troubling rhetoric. Is America to continue committing the same follies it has since the end of the cold war? Follies such as expanding NATO, attempting to remake the Middle East, fighting an ill-fated war against terrorism as well as reckless wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and so on? To be sure, not all aspects of American foreign policy in the last decades were bad, but too much of it was, and it could have been avoided if the country’s leaders wouldn’t have fallen for the arrogance of power.

Second, President Biden must reign in U.S. defense spending. American leaders tend to believe in the omnipotence of American military power. Thus, in the last decades, the country has regularly outspent anywhere from the next 10 to 20 most powerful countries combined. As the U.S. was strengthening its arsenal of primacy, it also came to hold about 800 military bases around the world. Russia, by comparison, has about nine.

How much power is enough? Can there ever be too much? Such questions were often deemed as unpatriotic to ask. Largely, the American people followed their leaders in defining the country’s strength in terms of military power. It was wrongheaded. Being powerful is important; being too powerful is a problem. It leads to the country’s global overcommitment, along with a neglect of urgent domestic needs.

Third, President Biden must engage in a careful analysis of what America’s vital interests actually are, and then bring the country’s commitments into alignment with these values. This task has become difficult because neoliberals and neoconservatives alike have blurred an understanding of what is in the U.S. national interest and what isn’t.

Somehow, when it comes to the Middle East, American national interest very often seems to be identical to the Israeli interest. Somehow, it seems to be in the U.S interest to support, financially and militarily, authoritarian leaders like Egypt’s Sisi or Saudi Arabia’s Bin Salman. What is happening, in fact, is that these countries, and others, want the U.S. to underwrite theirinterests, which gets the U.S. entangled in their business. With Israeli leaders having built an apartheid state in Palestinian territories, and Arab leaders having built among the most repressive regimes in the world, American support for them can be aligned neither with our interest nor with our purported morals.

The arguments advanced here do not add up to U.S. isolationism. Instead, they add up to a position of measured restraint. It is imperative for the U.S. to jettison some bedrocks of American foreign policy. All too often have they been a peril to the country’s troops, a drain on its treasury, and a serious injury to America’s global reputation and standing.

Will President Biden follow these simple directives? It’ll depend on the American people. If the people engage in genuine citizenship, then Republicans and Democrats alike will stand in critical juxtaposition to the new Administration and demand a foreign policy that safeguards the country’s security, but also allows it to work towards a track of prosperity that its people deserve.

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Bonus video added by Informed Comment:

from a month ago: Biden Introduces Foreign Policy And National Security Nominees | NBC News

It would be rational for Iran to pursue a nuclear bomb. Ironically, the U.S. has long been compelling it in this direction. The U.S. also bears the blame for the newest escalation, as it does for the enemy relationship generally.

U.S. leaders will be quick to discard these statements as blatant nonsense. Such a reaction, however, is based on their very selective memory of the actual history between the U.S. and Iran, on rationalizing the U.S.’s hostility toward Iran, and on not understanding Iran’s legitimate security needs.

It just so happens that this current escalation is playing out during the fortieth anniversary of the Iran Hostage Crisis. In November 1979, a group of young Iranians stormed the American embassy, took over fifty U.S. citizens hostage, and began an ordeal that would last well over a year. Americans found the happenings inexplicable; to them it was an episode of unfounded Iranian hostility. Forty years later, people feel more or less the same.

At the time when the hostages had been held for about a year, the chief diplomat shouted at one of the hostage takers, “You have no right to do this.” This is certainly correct– Iran violated international law. The hostage taker, however, responded, “You have no right to complain, because you took our whole country hostage in 1953.” Even today, Americans tend not to know about the 1953 U.S. coup to overthrow Iran’s democratic government and to halt the country’s move to take control of its own petroleum. It remains largely an unknown history in the U.S. and certainly was an even more egregious violation of international law, affecting millions for decades.

The U.S. started the enmity with Iran. In the meantime, to be sure, the regime in Tehran has engaged in its share of hostilities and when U.S. allegations of an Iranian pursuit of nuclear weapons became louder in the 1990s, these ambitions were always interpreted as being driven by offensive motivations.

To prevent Iran from becoming dangerous, the Obama administration, together with the other members of the UN Security Council plus Germany, concluded the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Iran was to subject its nuclear program to rigorous international inspections. In return, it would have international sanctions lifted. Iran’s economy would be able to recover and many Western companies would stand to benefit from the Iranian market. It was a win-win outcome, and Iran scrupulously abided by its terms.

With the ascent of the Trump administration, things turned, however. Half a year into his presidency, President Trump alleged that Iranians “are not in compliance with the agreement,” and subsequently he withdrew the U.S. from the agreement. Trump was lying, as evidenced by more than a dozen International Atomic Energy Agency reports as well as by the U.S.s’ own intelligence. The escalation we’re seeing now, wouldn’t have happened if the Trump Administration would not have withdrawn from this productive agreement.

The more fundamental point is this, however: Even if Iran were secretly pursuing a nuclear weapon (for which there is no evidence), it would be only rational. Iran would do so for reasons of deterrence, and not for offensive reasons. As illustrated from 1953 onwards, Iranians have good reason to fear the U.S. and thus be equipped to dissuade it from a military attack. Moreover, given that Iran is surrounded by the nuclear powers of Israel, Pakistan and India, it would be perfectly logical for Iran to be pursuing nuclear weapons to establish a regional balance of power. Every rational U.S. leader would do the same in such a geostrategic situation.

Having said this, it is, however, not a given at all that Iran is pursuing a nuclear bomb. In fact, there is a good argument to be made that it would have done so already, if it really wished to. Arguably, what Iran does want is what is referred to as ‘latency’ or the “Japan option,” that is the ability to produce nuclear weapons in short order so as to effect a viable deterrent. The JCPOA was a compromise here; Iran would retain the expertise for developing a nuclear capability, but its time-line to achieve this would be significantly lengthened.

What Iran also wants, understandably, is economic progress. If the goal of the U.S and the European Union is to avoid a nuclear-armed Iran, there are two options. The U.S. must engage in immediate talks with Iran and move toward the reactivation of the 2015 nuclear deal. Alternatively, the EU must stop acquiescing in the Trump Administration’s counterproductive maximum sanctioning strategy toward Iran and provide economic opportunities instead.

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Bonus video added by Informed Comment:

SABC: “Professor Seyed Marandi on Iran Nuclear crisis escalations”