As Trump administration tightens screws on Iran, top UN official cries foul

Fox News reports a top U.N. expert is taking aim at the Trump administration’s tightening the screws on Iran’s theocratic regime, claiming U.S. sanctions are “illegitimate” and are driving Iranians into poverty.

Trump’s administration has been criticized by members of both the U.N. and E.U. leaders for the decision reimpose sanctions on the Islamic regime. The sanctions target Iran’s financial, automotive and precious metals industries, and will also target its oil and banking system in November.

A senior administration official told Fox News this month that the restored sanctions are designed to constrict the revenue Iran uses to fund “terrorists, dictators, proxy militias, and the regime’s own cronies.”
But Idriss Jazairy, a former Algerian ambassador who was appointed by the controversial U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) as the special rapporteur remarked “on the negative impact of the unilateral coercive measures on enjoyment of human rights,” and chose to direct his criticism at the U.S.

“The reimposition of sanctions against Iran after the unilateral withdrawal of the United States from the Iran nuclear deal, which had been unanimously adopted by the Security Council with the support of the U.S. itself, lays bare the illegitimacy of this action,” he said in the statement published Wednesday.

“International sanctions must have a lawful purpose, must be proportional, and must not harm the human rights of ordinary citizens, and none of these criteria is met in this case.”

The U.S. withdrew from the Human Rights Council this year, describing it as a “cesspool of political bias.” John Bolton said in an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday that the U.S. will pull funding for the Council and the office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR.)

Jazairy went onto claim that sanctions are driving millions into poverty.

“These unjust and harmful sanctions are destroying the economy and currency of Iran, driving millions of people into poverty and making imported goods unaffordable,” he said.

Cry me a river. Iran is in financial extremis because of the policies of the regime’s state sponsored terror, and institutionalized corruption.

Iran supports Shia militias and militant groups, including the Iraqi Shia in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, and to a lesser extent, Hamas in Gaza and the Houthis in Yemen, not to mention backing Assad in Syria. Iran is running out of money and the Iranian people are demonstrating in the streets.

This time a feckless SCoaMF is not in the Oval Office to ignore the people’s unrest.

Category: Iran