US EXCEPTIONALISM

The confiscated assets include two buildings – the Iranian Cultural Center in Ottawa and Center for Iranian Studies in Toronto – as well as some $2.6 million seized from Iranian bank accounts and a couple of vehicles. The two properties have been sold for $26.5 and $1.85 million respectively, while the proceeding were transferred to several families in the US, who sought share of the assets as a compensation for various acts of terrorism they blamed on Iran. Court documents confirming that the funds have been distributed are dated August 7, yet only caught eye of local media on Friday.

THE SAKER—It will be interesting to see if the current G7 will ever agree to mutate into a new G10 which would make Russia, China and India the most powerful block (or voting group) of this new forum. I personally doubt it very much, but then they are becoming desperate and Macron’s words seem to be indicating that this option is at least being discussed behind closed doors. Frankly, considering how quickly the G7 is becoming utterly irrelevant, I expect it to be gradually phased out and replaced by the (objectively much more relevant) G20.

Moscow enjoyed fairly good relations with Paris at the time, so the deal seemed poised for success. The contract was supposed to be the biggest arms sale by any NATO country to Russia ever. The shipyard in Saint-Nazaire on the French Atlantic coast worked non-stop to have the first carrier delivered to Moscow in the fall of 2014. The second one was due to be handed over a year later. That all came crashing down in the wake of the 2014 coup in Ukraine, after Crimea voted to rejoin Russia and civil war broke out in the Donbass. The EU decided to slap Moscow with sanctions. France jumped on the bandwagon, with then-president Francois Hollande halting the delivery of the Mistrals indefinitely.

While Twitter is indicating that these accounts had violated provisions of their use agreement, and as a separate business it can decide to close accounts at anytime, this act of sabotage is clearly at the direction of the US State Department. Millions of dollars are now being directed through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) for projects in Cuba just like this one whose goal is thought control and the muzzling of Cuba’s voice in the battle of ideas where they have been winning.

PETER KOENIG—An Iranian parliamentary faction has come up with the idea of establishing a club of sanctioned countries for concerted action against the US economic terrorism.

The chairman of the Parliament’s faction on countering sanctions, Poormokhtar, gave a report on the formation of the faction and its activities, as well as the ongoing efforts to establish the club of sanctioned countries. Iran’s FM, Zaraf, said this would be enhancing the already existing alliance of Russia, China, Syria, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela against US economic terrorism.