{"id":372298,"date":"2018-08-06T05:24:59","date_gmt":"2018-08-06T04:24:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/is-russia-facilitating-trumps-strangulation-of-iran\/"},"modified":"2018-08-06T05:24:59","modified_gmt":"2018-08-06T04:24:59","slug":"is-russia-facilitating-trumps-strangulation-of-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/is-russia-facilitating-trumps-strangulation-of-iran\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Russia Facilitating Trump\u2019s Strangulation of Iran?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div itemprop=\"articleBody\">\n<div id=\"attachment_102538\" style=\"width: 520px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-102538\" src=\"https:\/\/uziiw38pmyg1ai60732c4011-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com\/wp-content\/dropzone\/2018\/05\/27408604398_f955180419_z.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"510\" height=\"340\" srcset=\"https:\/\/uziiw38pmyg1ai60732c4011-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com\/wp-content\/dropzone\/2018\/05\/27408604398_f955180419_z.jpg 510w, https:\/\/uziiw38pmyg1ai60732c4011-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com\/wp-content\/dropzone\/2018\/05\/27408604398_f955180419_z-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 510px) 100vw, 510px\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo by Book Catalog | <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/2.0\/\">CC BY 2.0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Since the earliest days on the campaign trail, it has never been in doubt who Trump and his team have had in their sights. \u201cIran is the biggest destabilizing force in the Middle East and its policies are contrary to our interests,\u201d Defence Secretary Mattis told his Senate confirmation hearing, having previously claimed the country posed a bigger security threat than either ISIS or Al Qaeda.<\/p>\n<p>Mike Pence called Iran the<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>\u201cleading state sponsor of terrorism\u201d whilst new National Security Advisor John Bolton has for years<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/SB10001424052970203609204574316093622744808\">called for Iran to be bombed<\/a>. Trump himself, in his own little remix of Pence\u2019s phrase, has called Iran \u201cThe Number One State of Sponsored Terror\u201d, which presumably means something derogatory.<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>China, of course, was famously accused of \u201craping our country\u201d by Trump in 2016, whilst White House aide Peter Navarro claimed the country was waging \u201ceconomic aggression\u201d against the US. Former National Security Advisor Steve Bannon announced this week that \u201cwe are at war with China\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Iran and China, then, have been favoured rhetorical targets since day one \u2013 but this year that rhetoric has morphed into all-out economic warfare. This month alone, Trump has unleashed<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2018\/mar\/22\/china-us-sanctions-trade-war\">tariffs on $60 billion of Chinese goods<\/a>, threatened to do so on<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2018\/07\/19\/trump-says-hes-ready-to-put-tariffs-on-all-505-billion-of-chinese-.html\">$500 billion more<\/a>, and announced his intention to<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/af.reuters.com\/article\/energyOilNews\/idAFL1N1TY0VM\">cut Iranian oil exports to zero<\/a><span class=\"apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>by November. These weapons of financial destruction are openly aimed at crippling and&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2018\/08\/03\/is-russia-facilitating-trumps-strangulation-of-iran\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Photo by Book Catalog | CC BY 2.0 Since the earliest days on the campaign trail, it has never been in doubt who Trump and his team have had in their sights. \u201cIran is the biggest destabilizing force in the Middle East and its policies are contrary to our interests,\u201d Defence Secretary Mattis told his [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-372298","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372298\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}