Why Tehran Doesn’t Talk to Washington?

Despite Washington’s continuous denials, the CIA has a long history of meddling in Iran’s internal affairs.

For instance, it supported the recent violent protests in Iran. Back in 1953, it helped to orchestrate the coup against democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. In the 1950s, the US and Britain opposed the nationalization of Iran’s oil industry as well. They passed a resolution at the UN Security Council and imposed economic sanctions on Iran. They adopted a similar policy against the nationalization of Iran’s nuclear industry and imposed similar sanctions. Perhaps, this is why even President Trump once famously said, “Iran has total disregard for the United States.”

The New York billionaire, who during his presidential campaign more or less promised a non-interventionist foreign policy, continues to repeat the anti-Iran rhetoric, promoted by war capital Washington and his cabinet members, accusing Tehran of supporting terrorism and destabilising the Middle East. He binned the nuclear deal and has backed away from his insistence that he doesn’t want war with an already heavily sanctioned Iran, saying now of the war, “It could go either way, and I’m OK either way it goes.”

The new saga to support the recent violent protests in Iran, however, signals a marked escalation of tensions. This is not total nonsense. In response, if Iran continues to have “total disregard” for the United States, it's because the US has once again earned it. If the Trump administration does not like Iran’s disregard it should redeem itself. After signing the nuclear deal in 2015, Iran showed a new road to the US towards conflict resolution. Quite the contrary, it was the US that began throwing stones at Iran by refusing to fully commit itself to the historic deal.

Trump is desperate to convince the world that Iran is a threat and undemocratic. His talking point is filled with unutterable loathing, as in factual reality Iran is at the forefront of the reason why there is security in the Persian Gulf. Those who disregard this reality have made huge spending to buy arms and security, but later came to realize that they have been fooled. 

Trump has to stop upping the ante with economic terrorism, spying networks, military threats, and support for violent protesters. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lies has come to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him. If Trump is serious about fighting terrorism and ensuring security in the Persian Gulf, he should withdraw all US troops. It’s the real obvious. Iran has never attacked any neighbour and the terrorist groups of ISIL, Al-Qaeda, and their off-shoots are all enemies of Iran.

Things are going south in the US and it takes a lot of effort for the Trumpsters to claim otherwise. If the past mistakes are any indication, if the recent news about US trying to sow discord and violence in Iran are true, and if you think about it, Trump is doomed to a foreign policy failure that will repeat itself again and again, as did all previous presidents, for US foreign policy delusions are static things, colonial readings of already written papers. You can surely see by now that by doing the exact same thing his predecessors did, Trump’s anti-Iran presidency is doomed to this same humiliation and error.

It is wishful thinking, therefore, to expect the New York billionaire to analyse and correct America’s past mistakes regarding Iran before they paralyze his own future and legacy. He won’t kick out the past errors of the establishment foreign policy and whatever turns out to follow the populist right on an increasingly destabilised planet. As previously, the past Iran policy mistakes, including CIA’s clandestine operations and regime-change fantasies, will repeat themselves and there’s so much more to come. 

In the coming decades, count on one thing: Iran will continue to uphold that America cannot be trusted at all, and that there is no change in its hostility toward Iran. The bottom line is that there is no advantage for Tehran to resume ties with war capital Washington.