By Lindsay Potter

President Putin announced in his national address on February 20 that he is suspending Russian participation in the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. The treaty was signed in 2010 and given a five year extension in 2021. It binds Russia and the U.S., who together boast over 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons, to limit their arsenals and permit up to 18 inspections a year to verify compliance. New START allows up to 1,550 nuclear warheads and 700 deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and nuclear-equipped bombers – an arsenal large enough to cause massive human suffering and environmental apocalypse which begs the usefulness of any treaty that does not require elimination of all nuclear weapons. Set to expire in 2026, with no new negotiations underway, both the U.S. and Russia argue the other is not in compliance. The Kremlin points to U.S. provocation as cause for its decision to withdraw from the Treaty – accusing the U.S. of perpetrating a war against Russia by escalating the conflict in Ukraine in order to weaken Russia in a strategic defeat. In the eyes of Moscow, this changes the posture of the two nations and is tantamount to a U.S. treaty violation, as it attempts to undermine Russian national security. Furthermore, Putin accused the West of efforts to attack Russian strategic air bases and asserted the U.S. is skirting limitations on the number of deployed nuclear warheads capped by the Treaty. Russia refused an attempt to restart inspections in November and has since been out of compliance.

The U.S. has its own deep history of abandoning arms agreements, because it finds the other party to be offensive to national security interests. After the U.S. armed Ukraine with billions of dollars in ammunition, rockets, tanks, and now possibly fighter jets, and as evidence mounts proving the U.S. orchestrated terrorist attack on the Nordstream pipeline, it would be reasonable for the Kremlin to consider the U.S. antagonistic. Putin said his decision was based partly on indication the U.S. may begin testing nuclear weapons once more, which violates New START, and Putin clearly asserted Russia would do the same only if the U.S. does so first.

Though the move is escalatory, Russian officials hedged the decision, reminding pundits that Putin merely suspended the treaty rather than withdrawing altogether. Russia says it will observe limitations on nuclear warheads and nuclear missile carriers as well as continuing to notify the U.S. of nuclear deployments to “prevent false alarms,” and maintain “strategic stability,” according to remarks by defense ministry official Major-General Yevgeny Ilyin. Risks to global security include the likelihood of less transparency on arsenals on both sides. However, Russian leaders and Biden asserted the decision does not signal an increased risk of a nuclear war.

Russia clearly outlined olive branches the U.S. could extend to bring Russia back to New START – such as earnest efforts at de-escalation in Ukraine and inclusion of British and French nuclear weapons in the Treaty. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “Everything will depend on the position of the West. … When there’s a willingness to take into account our concerns, then the situation will change.” The U.S. must show restraint in no longer being held accountable by the Treaty and remember that, in 2021, Biden, Putin, and other leaders of nuclear-armed nations signed onto a reiteration of Gorbachev and Reagan’s 1985 observation that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”

Headlines of nuclear threat flow constantly from U.S. media coupled with no demand the U.S. and NATO ratchet down their nuclear posture, alone in maintaining a first-use policy. As the faint peeping of reluctance to continue funding and arming Ukraine has pierced the media wall lately, this New START development may be used to rally the war cry and whip up renewed public enthusiasm, to foreshadow deepening U.S. and NATO involvement in Ukraine, perhaps beyond the veil of proxy.

— Reuters, The Independent, and Aljazeera, Feb. 22, 2023

Editorial

By Naveen Borojerdi

Over the last six years, Washington’s attitude and policy toward Iran have changed for the worse. The exit of the Obama Administration heralded the end of the Democrats’ soft, liberal imperialism and ushered in a new, more hawkish foreign policy under the Trump Administration. The U.S. Ruling Class picks and chooses which of its enemies to sabre rattle with depending on whether their elected official in the oval office is a Democrat or a Republican. Under the Trump Administration, we saw the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, colloquially known as the “Iran Deal,” ripped up and sanctions placed back on the country. The agreement, which Tehran followed thoroughly, was the first attempt at peace between both nations despite being based on a lie that Iran is working towards obtaining a nuclear weapon.

At the time of the deal’s inception, I supported the Obama Administration, just like many Iranians among the diaspora, as it felt like a step towards a better future for all of us. But the deal was not built to last and the U.S. moved from peace towards escalation. Shortly after destroying the deal, the Trump Administration placed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on the terrorist list and ended its term with the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, leader of the Quds Forces and one of the most powerful figures in Iran, while he was on a peace mission between Iran and Saudi Arabia [the IRGC and Quds Force are branches of the Iranian Armed Forces]. During the presidential debates leading up to the 2020 Election, most candidates for the presidency said they would return to the 2015 Deal, but make adjustments to it such as incorporating Iran’s Ballistic Missile program — incongruous policy promises, considering most of them did not stop the Trump Administration from placing sanctions back on Iran in 2017, thus ending the path towards diplomacy. Even the most progressive lawmakers among the candidates, such as Bernie Sanders, claimed they “Could not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon,” a false, provocative smokescreen for hidden U.S. agendas considering Ayatollah Khamenei issued a Fatwa, or a religious order, against obtaining nuclear weapons back in 2003.

Leading up to the election, the Liberal members of the Iranian diaspora urged us to vote for current President Joe Biden because he would return to the deal, which I had predicted would be dead on arrival following four years under the Trump Administration. Fast forward three years later: still no return to the deal and the Biden Administration is making more demands for Iran to follow despite the U.S. having originally pulled out. Biden’s cheerleaders among the Iranian Liberal analyst class are painting both Iran and U.S. officials as being unreasonable, which we know is clearly not the case. Regardless of how you feel about the Islamic Republic, you cannot deny the fact they played by all the rules set out by Washington as part of the original deal. However, due to the decline in U.S. power with the rise of China on the world stage, the U.S. is losing bargaining power as the world moves towards an alternative to U.S. Hegemony. Washington is still trying to keep Iran under its thumb, but it can’t, simply because of the strengthening of relations between Tehran, Moscow, and Beijing. This is why the talks in Vienna have been unsuccessful.

In January, Israel’s new administration under Netanyahu carried out a drone strike on a military facility in Isfahan. This is a continuation of the previous administration’s policy, in the wake of a full-on assault on Iran’s sovereignty by sinister forces such as Trump Administration official John Bolton. Bolton, a long-time supporter of Maryam Rajavi and the Mojahedin-e-Khalq, boasted on BBC Persian that Washington arms separatist groups along the Iraq/Iran border in Kurdistan. The January attack comes in the midst of protests across Iran in the wake of the death of Mahsa Zhina Amini, a Kurdish woman. We’ve also seen, in the last few months, the Daesh carry out a successful terrorist attack in Shiraz, Iran, killing children, the elderly, and those in between. Iran’s enemies have been ramping up aggression, using the civil unrest as cover to carry out attacks, as Iran strengthens ties with its allies in the East, resulting in the weakening of the dollar. As we move closer to a multi-polar world, Washington and its satellites in Tel Aviv and Riyadh, are lashing out and doing anything they can to prevent the strengthening of the Iranian economy while continuing the same maximum pressure policy of the Trump Administration in administering more sanctions on Iran. This is the very reason why, the proof, that peace between both nations was nothing more than a pipe dream we all bought into. President Biden is clearly not interested in peace but rather escalation and we must oppose the continuation of these policies at all costs.

— Naveen Borojerdi is an Iranian-American peace activist living in Minneapolis, Minnesota.