(AhlulBayt News Agency) - The American activist emphasized that she regrets that White House has not fully complied with its commitments under JCPOA.
Following is the full text interview with ‘Medea Benjamin’:
Q. What is your opinion about US foreign policy in the Middle East?
A. I think the invasion of Iraq opened up the floodgates for sectarian hatred to vacuum of leadership that then led to all kind of malicious.
The US never learnt its lesson. It continues to support repressive regimes from Israel to Saudi Arabia making billions of dollars in selling weapons to the region.
US have tremendous responsibility for all of the bloodshed going on.
Q. Why is the US supporting the Saudi regime whilst everybody knows that it is committing war crimes in Yemen?
A. There is the inertia that comes from decades of alliance with the Saudis and this spans different administrations democratic and republican, the oil that comes from Saudi Arabia, the weapon sales that make US companies very wealthy, the Saudi investment in the US economy that ties our economy together, the lobby firms that Saudi pay that employ former senators from republican party; There are all kind of ways that the Saudis have bought complicity from US both government institutions as well as private institutions.
Q. Could Saudi leaders and its supporters be held to account for the war crimes in Yemen?
A. We have for the first time ever the possibility of suing Saudi government for involvement in the 9/11 attack.
It took 15 years for the congress to approve that and we don’t know if those lawsuits are going to go forward and what information might come out about that, what chances there are to hold the Saudi government liable financially for that, but, it is a very good step that happened and that gives us some hope that there might be some accountability.
Then there is the issue of the increased opposition to the weapons sale to Saudi Arabia that is happening at the European level as well as the US and Canada.
Because of the atrocities being committed in Yemen, there is now more attention to the fact that these western weapons are being used to kill innocent civilians and bomb schools and hospitals, market places, weddings and funerals.
So, I think the moment now, the time is turning, more people are awakening to the fact that our governments are propping up the very repressive regime. They question that.
Q. So you believe that the people are waking up to the fact that their government is complicit to the failures in the Middle East?
It has two dimension. On the one hand we have the presidential election going on which there is always the militarism the creeps into that and different candidates fight to who would be the strongest commander-in-chief and calls to get even more involved in the middle east during the campaign.
On the other hand, there is the American public that is really tired of the wars and understands our economy is suffering and how we can afford to continue to supply billions of dollars by continuing these unwinnable wars.
I think the US government and the media manipulates the American people through fear, every time there is an attack in the US and this continues to feed into the fear and trying to justify the tremendous expenditure resources and the support for repressive regimes overseas but I think after the election period is over we are going to see a different atmosphere in which the anti-war movement can rebuild itself and put hopefully more effective pressure on whoever is in the White House.
Q. What is your opinion about US foreign policy on Iran?
I think it is important that the US should have a more balanced relationship in the Middle East which include a friendlier relationship with Iran and the nuclear deal an important step in that direction.
Although some US politicians like Donald Trump are saying ‘this is a terrible deal, let’s ripped it up’ and some people in Iran saying similar things; but we have to be supporting the moderates on both sides saying nuclear deal is actually a good for us.
What I regret is that the US is not continued its side of the bargain by not lifting the sanctions fully to allow the Iranian people to see more benefit from this deal and I hope that happens in the near future.
Q. Why is the US not committing to its side of bargain?
A. The strongest lobby in the US is AIPAC which is the lobby that works in favour of Israel and that Tel Aviv sees Iran as its worst enemy.
So that lobby group put a lot of its resources in continuing to demonize Iran and that include imposing new sanctions.
So we have to fight this very powerful lobby group.
Q. What can you make of the new president and JCPOA?
A. I think it is quite certain that Hillary Clinton will be the next president of the US. Although she is better than Trump in many ways however Hillary Clinton is very problematic, specially when it comes to foreign policy.
She is now trying to take credit having a major role in negotiations on Iran nuclear deal, but actually her policy was one of all sticks and no carrots.
She was trying to impose greater sanctions on Iran and the deal did not go through until she left the secretary of state and John Kerry came in.
She has always been in favor of military intervention, so we do not have any illusion about her and we think it would be very important to put a lot of pressure on her administration to deliver its commitment under JCPOA.
CODEPINK is a women-initiated grassroots peace and social justice movement working to end U.S. funded wars and occupations, to challenge militarism globally, and to redirect our resources into health-care, education, green jobs and other life-affirming activities.
/106