Iran’s neighbor, Turkey, with a population almost as large as Iran’s is suffering some of the same economic problems that Iran is suffering: a currency that has fallen precipitously against the “almighty” U.S. dollar, much higher inflation, and in Turkey’s case debt rating downgrades by the likes of the debt rating agencies (those with the most clout based in the U.S.), calls for the Turkish authorities to bend over to Western financial authorities and institutions, to borrow money from the IMF and well, you know, lose gobs of their sovereignty.

Indeed, it’s quite obvious the U.S. expects Turkey to do only what the U.S. wants, and that includes no further mending of relations with Russia, not building a gas pipeline from Russia across Turkey, killing plans Turkey has to buy Russia’s S400 missile defense systems (far superior to anything the U.S. can cough up, and far less expensive). In addition, Turkey was supposed to get a bunch of U.S.-made F-35 warplanes. Frankly, one must hope they have not been paid for yet, and if they have been paid for, that the U.S. returns the funds. If Erdogan has any sense, he would not want the F-35 anyway.

 This overly complex aircraft is plagued with problems that some, even in the U.S. military, say are not fixable, and the machine is the most expensive warplane ever. Frankly, it is a POS (Piece of S***), if you understand the acronym, and I know a little about airplanes, having been a pilot, at least of small planes, for decades. The Russian inventory of warplanes is far more reliable, and far less costly, and even by some accounts more effective.

Moreover, there’s the matter of a failed coup attempt against President Recip Erdogan not long ago, and the possibility that an alleged “pastor” named Andrew Brunson, an American who has been in prison in Turkey for a while under suspicion that he may have been working for the CIA and that the U.S. may have been behind the coup attempt, is not going to be released from prison and returned to the U.S.

The refusal so far by Erdogan to release this sketchy “pastor” (and a handful of other Americans in Turkish prisons), who reportedly preached (or something) to a congregation of less than 30 followers and Allah alone know who they were and why any of them were in Turkey, has gotten Donald Trump all in a hissy fit of some sort whereby he’s pulling all the strings he can grab onto to drag Turkey down, as Iran has already been dragged down by Trump’s abrogation of the JCPOA and the reinstitution of harsh sanctions against Iranians and Iran’s economy. The JCPOA abrogation alone was entirely illegal, as is much the U.S. has been doing for decades outside the U.S., and lately, inside, too.

Iran may be the prime target of the Trump Administration currently along with his gaggle of insane Neocon advisers, but Iran is not alone under attack by the U.S. Trump has added to the various sanctions against Russia and Russians over the Skripal affair in the past month, infuriating Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s Foreign Minister, and no doubt Putin himself. Other countries are under sanction attack, too, and Trump has been threatening to apply sanctions against ANY country that buys Iranian oil after November.

It’s interesting that a former top editor of the Wall Street Journal, and a high up appointment in the U.S. Treasury Department when Ronald Reagan was President, Paul Craig Roberts, who is now an independent writer and pundit, has had some things to say about a host of stupid moves by the Trumpists.

 For example, Roberts, who is extremely wise, wonders why Putin is so damn nice towards the U.S. when, he claims, both Russia and China hold all the cards in the sanction wars. For one thing, Roberts says neoliberal economics is a hoax, but neither the Chinese nor the Russians get this yet.

Roberts believes all the lies and provocations against Russia would come to a halt if Putin said the U.S. would be destroyed if they continue with the provocations, and in fact Russia could wipe out the U.S. physically. A milder response would have Russia, among other things, stop selling rocket engines to the U.S., stem the flow of energy to Europe, ban overflights of U.S. aircraft and stop altogether the use of the U.S. dollar for oil trade.

 China could nationalize U.S. corporate operations inside China, such as Apple Computer, says Roberts, and dump its holdings of U.S. Treasury bonds. U.S. corporations would demand that the U.S. be subservient to China, not the other way around. Also, says Roberts, Turkey is a perfect opportunity for Russia and China to step forward and remove Turkey from NATO, and offer membership in the BRICs, trade deals and mutual security treaties.

But Iran is neither Russia nor China and has nothing of the military power, relatively, nor the economic power to challenge the U.S. as, for examples, Russia and China could, if only the two countries’ leaders had the balls to do so. However, what Iran CAN do is deepen its ties with both Russia and China and its Caspian Sea neighbors (as it has of late), and even more importantly, maintain a cool demeanor and internal accord and resistance to any pressures for “regime change” by both the U.S. and the Zionists.
 And perhaps Iran is trying this now, carefully. One can only hope. For, in fact, the U.S. is not making friends, it seems, anywhere outside Saudi Arabia and Israel, and increasingly is perceived as simply a bully. The road ahead to a truly multipolar world is long and hard, but that’s the task for all the rivals of the U.S. and it can be achieved for the betterment of the planet as a whole.
 And that includes Iranians of course. No country like the U.S. can maintain such vast power that the U.S. has enjoyed for decades, and for long misused with malice and cruelty, if it has few or no friends any longer. It’s time for the major powers like Russia and China to come to the aid of lesser powers like Iran and to begin to think about ways the U.S. can be sanctioned, too.