Biden's Double Standard: Sanctions For India, But Not Against Israel?

Right, so Joe Biden hasn’t had the best of weeks. The US is being thrown out of Niger, for not eliminating terrorists there in exchange for US troops being allowed to stay in the country, whilst also telling the Nigerien government not to do deals with Russia or Iran or they’ll walk away. Well, you’re being told to get out, so good going.
Then there is the news that Biden is considering lifting sanctions on an Israeli businessman, who’s business model seems to basically consist of exploiting the Congolese over the last 3 decades for their mineral wealth, because Biden wants access to that mineral wealth too. Both these stories I’ve covered in recent videos.
But now, where sanctions are possibly getting lifted on a wealthy Israeli rotter, Biden wants to impose sanctions again, though not on this Israeli chap, nor sadly on Israel itself, which needs a good sanctioning in my view and the view of many others. No, the sanctions are set to be place on India and just like Niger, it comes down to business dealings with Iran yet again.
Right, so Joe Biden is now threatening sanctions on India, a big economy, powerful country, because they’ve done an investment deal with Iran and the US doesn’t like it and as always throws it’s weight around to get it’s own way, because still it believes that what it says on this planet should go and everyone should listen to them. It is petulant, weak and erodes diplomatic relations, it doesn’t strengthen them, but frankly this isn’t Biden’s part of the world, it has nothing to do with the US, it has everything to do with India and it’s issues with Pakistan and much like Israel and Palestine, the British Empire caused most of the problems.
I’m not going to go into the history of Partition, but where people were divided based on ethno religious grounds, to form what is now the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, hostility has ensued over the years between them and India, not necessarily to the same extent as with Israel and Palestine, as in their case there is disputed territory between them, whereas Israel are intent on ethnic cleansing and seizing Occupied Palestinian Territories for Israel, that is if you listen to the hard right factions of Netanyahu’s government and certainly have been paying close attention to the goings on in Gaza.
India and Pakistan have gone to war with each other on numerous occasions over the likes of Kashmir, peace treaties have been signed in between, but it’s always been a case of it’s a matter of time before things flare up.
Now India and it’s decade long ruling Prime Minister Narendra Modi aren’t above reproach in and of themselves either. Modi is an authoritarian, many ethnic minorities in the country feel persecuted by him, he is ardently right wing, so you’d imagine he’d get on well with US administrations, and largely has. However India is also a founding member of BRICS, so has never sought US approval for it’s actions and doesn’t ask for any now. The original BRICs lineup after all, forming the initials, Brazil, Russia, India and China. Despite strong Russian links, the US have maintained a relationship with India, but now they are investing in Iran too, that’s the last straw? Iran is also a member of BRICs now. Where it began with 4 countries in 2006, it is now 9 members strong, with South Africa joining in 2010, changing the name at that point from BRIC to BRICS, and then at the start of this year, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates joined too, so that BRICS now encompasses some 30% of the planet and 45% of the global population. It is a very significant if still recent trade bloc and it doesn’t need the US. More and more it seems these countries are shunning them.
Therefore with Iran now being part of the bloc, an opportunity to bypass Pakistan for trade opportunities has presented itself to India, which is where we get to the crux of matters.
Right, now, in order to have trade negotiations with landlocked Asian countries, the ‘Stans as they are often colloquially referred to, India has to use Pakistani ports. The road to Afghanistan for example, leads through Pakistan, to the north of India lies the disputed territories of Jammu and Kashmir, which obviously therefore can’t be used, so it is either through Pakistan or massive detours through China and other ‘Stan countries to get to Afghanistan and I single Afghanistan out, because they are cited as one of the trade partners India want better access to in a recent Al-Jazeera article.
Iran lies to the west of Pakistan, shares a border with them, but also does so with Afghanistan, therefore a new trade route via Iran would benefit India hugely.
As such, India have just signed a 10 year deal to do up Iran’s Chabahar Port, to boost those trade ties with Afghanistan and other land locked countries beyond, Iran also has a border with Turkmenistan for example, with Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan beyond. Lots of opportunity.
You’d imagine India wanting to trade with Afghanistan, the Taliban then as that would be, would be more of an issue for the US frankly than India doing a deal with one of their BRICs trade partners, but no, Iran is the issue and frankly at this point and at this time with the US again moaning about anyone having diplomatic or economic ties to Iran, you automatically question why that is and at what point this actually becomes all about Israel again.
Well the US haven’t overtly come out and said this, they do have enough beef with Iran as it is, but frankly why should their problem be anybody elses, its that old Mandela adage again, why should your enemies be our enemies ands clearly having been admitted to BRICs, Irana re not seen as the enemy of any of those countries, but sanctions from the US for any other nation dealing with Iran, would give them an excuse to and of course the US will be labelled massive hypocrites if they push ahead with sanctions against India over a trade deal with a trade partner, when they still won’t sanction Israel whilst committing genocide.
More and more Biden’s administration are looking weak as a result of their support for Israel on the global stage. India risk sanctions if they do, bleat the US administration, stamping their tiny feet over it, spitting their dummies, throwing their toys out of the pram. India for their part have basically said grow up, though the actual wording was that the US should not take such a narrow view of this deal and would communicate the benefits of it to the US.
The benefits don’t matter to them, it’s a but Iran moment again for them. This has been a plan for a long time, US sanctions on Iran prevented India going ahead with this back in 2003 apparently, but now they are in the same trade bloc, a new trade bloc that back then didn’t exist, things are very different now.
For one thing, the US will want to continue dealing with India as they are a massively fast growing economy, but if they choose to impose sanctions, they’ll be cutting their own noses off to spite their faces, since India can probably shrug off the fallout and the new deals set to open up to them in inland Asia would probably be seen as a price worth paying if the US can’t get over itself.
So what is Biden going to do then? If he imposes sanction on India over Iran, he will lose out more, the US will lose out more. India’s economy is booming right now, they’ll shrug it off and Biden will look even weaker than he already does trying and failing to throw his weight around as the US global influence continues to diminish. If after all of this rhetoric, the US doesn’t impose sanctions, why should anyone fear doing business with nations the US don’t like? The trouble is if you make threats and you don’t follow through, you just look weak. If you follow through and damage your own country more, then you just look stupid. It’s way past time the US stopped thinking it is the Big I Am, because, especially in light of everything that is happening with regards to Israel and Gaza since October 7th and the refusal to place sanctions on them, refusing to allow the UN to take measures via the Security Council, with the US using it’s veto, the nation seen more and more as the problem, is the US itsels, so why should anyone take any notice of their hypocrisy, when the biggest elephant in the room right now, is their inability or unwillingness, to do the right thing by Gaza and by Palestine and its people? If India flip them the bird at the end of the day, well they’ve brought that on themselves as well.
Sanctions should be being placed on Israel, yet undermining Biden hugely is the thought of lifting them as is being mooted in regards to an exploitative Israeli billionaire’s interests in the mineral wealth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, wealth the US needs which also underlines their vulnerability by burning bridges with big economies like India’s. Find out all about that story in this video recommendation here and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.