Trump 'pulled out of Iran nuclear deal to spite Obama': Kim Darroch in new leaked memo // Iran in Crosshairs Again: It is Always – Always – about the Oil

By Dilip -
Donald Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal to spite his predecessor Barack Obama, the UK’s former ambassador reportedly suggested in a new leaked diplomatic memo. Sir Kim Darroch claimed the US president’s actions amounted to “diplomatic vandalism” and were fuelled by “personality” reasons, according to a document seen by The Mail on Sunday.

The ambassador’s comments are said to have been made in May 2018 after Boris Johnson, who was foreign secretary at the time, made a failed trip to the White House in a bid to change Mr Trump’s mind on leaving the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The latest revelation came as police identified a suspect behind the leak, according to The Sunday Times. Just hours earlier, Mr Johnson and Tory leadership rival Jeremy Hunt criticised Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner Neil Basu for warning journalists they could face prosecution for publishing the memos... read more:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/kim-darroch-leak-memo-trump-iran-nuclear-deal-obama-latest-met-police-a9003951.html

Iran in Crosshairs Again: It is Always – Always – about the Oil By Michael T. Klare Tomdispatch.com: It’s always the oil. While President Trump was hobnobbing with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the G-20 summit in Japan, brushing off a recent U.N. report about the prince’s role in the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in Asia and the Middle East, pleading with foreign leaders to support “Sentinel.” The aim of that administration plan: to protect shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf. Both Trump and Pompeo insisted that their efforts were driven by concern over Iranian misbehavior in the region and the need to ensure the safety of maritime commerce. Neither, however, mentioned one inconvenient three-letter word — O-I-L — that lay behind their Iranian maneuvering (as it has impelled every other American incursion in the Middle East since World War II).


Now, it’s true that the United States no longer relies on imported petroleum for a large share of its energy needs. Thanks to the fracking revolution, the country now gets the bulk of its oil — approximately 75% — from domestic sources. (In 2008, that share had been closer to 35%.) Key allies in NATO and rivals like China, however, continue to depend on Middle Eastern oil for a significant proportion of their energy needs. As it happens, the world economy — of which the U.S. is the leading beneficiary (despite President Trump’s self-destructive trade wars) — relies on an uninterrupted flow of oil from the Persian Gulf to keep energy prices low. By continuing to serve as the principal overseer of that flow, Washington enjoys striking geopolitical advantages that its foreign policy elites would no more abandon than they would their country’s nuclear supremacy.. read more:
https://www.juancole.com/2019/07/crosshairs-again-always.html

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