Richard Nephew sanctions Iran Biden
Biden Iran envoy boasted of depriving civilians of food, driving up Iranian
inequality in sadistic sanctions manual
The Grayzone
MAX BLUMENTHAL
·MARCH 8, 2021
Richard Nephew has taken personal credit for depriving Iranians of food and
driving up their unemployment rates, celebrating the economic destruction he
caused as a tremendous success. Under Biden, he will help direct policy on
Iran.
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The Joseph Biden administration has named
Richard Nephew
as its deputy Iran envoy. As the former principal deputy coordinator of
sanctions policy for Barack Obamas State Department, Nephew took personal
credit
for depriving Iranians of food, sabotaging their automobile industry, and
driving up unemployment rates.
Nephew has described the destruction of Irans economy as a tremendous
success, and lamented during a visit to Russia that food was still
plentiful in
the countrys capital despite mounting US sanctions.
Nephews appointment to a senior diplomatic post suggests that rather than
immediately returning to the JCPOA nuclear deal, the Biden administration
will
finesse sanctions illegally imposed by Trump to pressure Iran into an
onerous, reworked agreement that Tehran is unlikely to join.
After coordinating Obamas sanctions regime against Iran, Nephew left the
administration for a position at the
energy industry-funded Center on Global Energy Policy
at Columbia University. There, he published a book outlining in blunt terms
how he honed the craft of economic warfare and applied it against Iran.
Entitled The Art of Sanctions: A View From The Field, the books cover
image features two Caucasian hands drawing a rope for a noose, presumably to
strangle
some insufficiently pliant Global South government. Its contents read like a
list of criminal confessions, detailing in chillingly clinical terms how the
sanctions Nephew conceived from inside an air-conditioned office in
Washington immiserated average Iranians.
With his candor, Nephew has shattered the official US rhetoric about
targeted sanctions that exclusively punish bad actors and their business
cronies
while leaving civilian populations unharmed.
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Max Blumenthal
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I just read
@RichardMNephew
's "The Art of Sanctions."
Nephew, ex-Obama State Dept sanctions coordinator, clinically & chillingly
details how pain is the essence of the US global sanctions regime.
Unfortunately, he hasn't been honest about the contents of his own book.
Thread:
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The application of pain to a countrys civilian population is central to
Nephews sanctions strategy. As he explains in The Art of Sanctions, for
the
unilateral coercive measures to succeed, they must impose significant pain
to a states most vulnerable sectors, shatter the states political and
social
resolve, and ultimately force the state to cry uncle in the face of
Washingtons demands.
An excerpt from Richard Nephews book The Art of Sanctions figure
Richard Nephew The Art of Sanctions
An excerpt from Richard Nephews book The Art of Sanctions figure end
Nephew detailed how, as JCPOA negotiations got underway in January 2012, he
led a process to reduce Irans oil revenue and starve its economy.
After the Obama administration successfully pushed for a wholesale reduction
in oil exports and other unilateral coercive measures, Irans economy went
from a period of growth to a sudden and staggering contraction, while the
value of its currency tumbled.
Nephew pronounced the economic assault he engineered to be a tremendous
success.
An excerpt from Richard Nephews book The Art of Sanctions figure
Richard Nephew The Art of Sanctions
An excerpt from Richard Nephews book The Art of Sanctions figure end
Nephew also patted himself on the the back for tripling the price of chicken
during important Iranian holiday periods, thereby contribut[ing] to more
popular frustration in one bank shot than years of financial restrictions.
Next, he boasted of more sanctions targeting civilians to prevent Iranians
from obtaining the assistance they needed to repair their cars. Irans
manufacturing
jobs and export revenue were the targets of this sanction, Nephew wrote.
There were some goods that Nephew wanted Iran to import, however. In hopes
of fomenting social unrest, he said Washington expanded the ability of US
and
foreign companies to sell Iranians technology used for personal
communications so they could learn more about the dire straits of their
countrys economy
During a December 6, 2017
panel discussion
about his book at Columbia Universitys Center on Global Energy Policy,
Nephew detailed with a chilling smile how he not only sabotaged Irans
automotive
industry, but targeted things like unemployment, to try to drive that up
and make things a little more sticky.
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Max Blumenthal
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While discussing his book, "The Art of Sanctions,"
@richardmnephew
boasted with a wide grin that the economic warfare tactics he devised drove
up unemployment rates in Iran.
Nephew was just appointed as Biden's deputy Iran envoy.
My full story here:
thegrayzone.com/2021/03/08/bid
Play Video. 23 seconds long. 41.6K views
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In response to online criticism, Nephew has claimed that the main target
of the sanctions regime he designed was the oligarchs. But his book on
The
Art of Sanctions tells another story.
Nephew fondly recalls how he structured sanctions to sabotage Iranian
economic reforms that would have improved the purchasing power of average
people.
The Obama administration destroyed the economic prospects of Irans
working-class majority while ensuring that only the wealthy or those in
positions
of power could take advantage of Irans continued connectedness, he wrote.
As stories began to emerge from Iran of intensified income inequality and
inflation, Nephew pronounced another success.
As he made clear, the rising inequality was a choice that Washington made
on the basis of helping to drive up the pressure on the Iranian economy from
internal sources. Nephew went on to claim credit for October 2012 protests
brought on by the devaluation of Irans currency.
In a fairly stunning admission, Nephew admits at one point that despite
providing Iran with supposed humanitarian exceptions on US sanctions, the
economic
war he helped design caused a catastrophic shortage of medicine and medical
devices, largely because average Iranians could not afford them.
Despite acknowledging the heavy toll of human suffering brought on by the
sanctions he personally conceived, suggesting they could have prompted high
numbers
of excess deaths, Nephew appears to be devoid of contrition.
During a December 2016 trip to Moscow, he complained that despite the
sanctions imposed on Russia by the US, food was still widely available at
local restaurants
hardly a level of pain that was necessary to bring the Kremlin to heel.
He
called
to develop a strategy to carefully, methodically, and efficiently increase
pain on those areas [of the Russian economy] that are vulnerabilities and
avoid those that are not.
So who is Richard Nephew? Does he lurk in the shadow world of intelligence
intrigues and spook wars, keeping a low profile while he waits to strike the
enemy? Or is he a fire-breathing hardliner bellowing threats against
Americas adversaries from Beltway think tank panels? The reality is much
more banal.
When he is not snatching chicken from Iranian kids during their winter
holiday, Nephew is spending quality time with his own, amusing them with his
tattered
dad rock t-shirts and flashing arms adorned with tribal tattoos.
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Richard Nephew
@RichardMNephew
Mar 18, 2020
View on Twitter
Replying to @wc_quinn
Ive got a soft as down, more holes than shirt Led Zep t shirt Im breaking
out of hiding this morning.
article end
Richard Nephew
@RichardMNephew
Boom!
Immediate reaction
Wife: Oh lord.
Son: you look like a pirate!
Daughter 1: how old is that shirt? Told answer. Oh that makes sense.
Daughter 2: softly, oh my god.
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In an administration filled with fun-loving, ethnically diverse characters
who
moonlight as rock guitarists,
decorate the walls
of their homes with Haitian art,
bob their heads to Tupac,
and even
enjoy an occasional toke,
all while keeping the gears of a ferociously violent empire grinding along,
the tattooed sanctions artist seems like a perfect fit.
Meanwhile, in Iran, where a leading daily recently portrayed Nephew as Keanu
Reeves in the horror film The Devils Advocate, his elevation to a senior
diplomatic role is viewed as a sign of more pain to come.
article
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Omer Carmi
@CarmiOmer
View on Twitter
Vatan-e Emrooz highlights Richard Nephews appointment as deputy special
envoy for Iran.
The outlet highlights the fact that he was one of the designers of the Iran
sanctions regime
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2:25 PM · Mar 2, 2021
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