IRAN

ANDRE VLTCHEK—France, the U.K., Germany and other EU countries are not necessarily happy with Washington’s foreign policy towards Iran, but their outrage is far from being [just] moral indignation. Iran is big and it is far from being poor. European companies are losing billions of euros in trade, because of the sanctions. For instance, in the recent past, two Iranian airlines were ready to purchase large numbers of brand-new Airbus aircraft, in order to compete with Qatar Airways and the Emirates. Such plans collapsed, because of the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA, and the almost immediate imposition of new, senseless but brutal sanctions against Teheran. Now even Mahan Air, a civilian airline, is facing sanctions, allegedly because of its flights to Venezuela, and to several Middle Eastern destinations.

MoA—The U.S. is no longer a participant in the ‘Joint Commission’ and can thereby not trigger the process. There will also be no majority which would then have to refer a dispute to the UN Security Council. In its Resolution 2231 the UN Security Council also set out that only JCPOA participants can trigger a snapback process.

RAMIN MAZAHERI—Iran is returning to work slowly: many are working from home, women with young children are given priority to decide who works remotely, the government is asking everyone to use common sense, but the resumption of normal activity comes after many in the government openly displayed common sense by saying that an economic crisis simply should not be added to a heath crisis.

YASHA LEVINE—On the empire front: Using the chaos of the pandemic, we’ve been ramping up attacks on the usual list of official enemies — and Iran and Venezuela in particular. Trump’s bloodthirsty hairless walrus Mike Pompeo has been going around telling anyone who’ll listen that he and his people want to make sure COVID-19 kills as many people as possible over there. He wants to use the pandemic to finally push these countries over the edge — and so they’re squeezing them more than ever.

MoA—On Sunday March 15 at 1:50 am Netanyahoo announced that the courts would be closed for public health reasons. His trial has been moved to late May. He also ordered the internal security service to secretly track the cellphone data of those suspected of possible infections. His Health Ministry prohibited any gathering of more than 10 people and instructed the parliament to also follow that rule.