#brian hook

Mehdi Hasan for The Guardian on Donald Trump's deceitful lie that he is "anti-war" (11.13.2024).

US Navy Veteran Michael White Released from Iran Prison

US Navy veteran Michael White, 48, who originally went to Iran in 2018, was released into the custody of the Swiss embassy. He is on his way home on a Swiss Government flight, and will be transferred to the US at Zurich.

“I am incredibly grateful to the Administration, especially the team at the State Department for their work on Michael’s case.” White’s mother

The Swiss government is the…

For his second term, the president-elect has assembled a team of loyalists comprising far-right Christian nationalists and neocon-style militarists – leading us to potential disaster. Read more at Middle East Eye.

“The good news is, we can win these types of fights,” said one campaigner. “We helped drive out three Cabinet secretaries from office last time, and we can do that kind of thing again.” U.S. Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) applauds as former Republican President Donald Trump prepares to speak at a January 19, 2024 campaign event in Concord, New Hampshire. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty…

Thirteen of 15-member UN Security Council oppose US push for Iran sanctions

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NEW YORK: The United States was further isolated on Friday over its bid to reimpose international sanctions on Iran with 13 countries on the 15-member UN Security Council expressing their opposition, arguing that Washington’s move is void given it is using a process agreed under a nuclear deal that it quit two years ago. In the 24 hours since US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he…

The New York Times reports on the resignation of Brian Hook, who will be replaced by none other than Elliott Abrams...

As the administration's special envoy, Hook had no success in gaining support from other governments for the "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran. His brief stint as a negotiator with our European allies yielded nothing, and when he was trying to negotiate with them Trump famously had no idea who he was. He mostly served as one of the administration's leading propagandists. He was responsible for lies about Yemen, cringe-inducing video messages, promoting the administration's weird fixation with Cyrus the Great, and embarrassing historical revisionism about the 1953 coup. When he wasn't trying to bribe ships' captains to steal Iranian cargo, he was insulting our intelligence with phony claims of wanting to normalize relations with Tehran.... Hook is described in the Times' report as a "survivor," but they neglect to mention that the reason he has survived so long in the Trump administration is his cowardice.

Perhaps the most bizarre thing about the coverage of Hook's resignation is that it is framed as somehow undermining the chances of diplomacy with Iran...

Having Abrams come on as a replacement signals that the Trump administration isn't even pretending to care about a negotiated solution... Diplomacy with Iran was already dead and buried once Trump started an economic war against Iran and Pompeo issued his dozen preposterous demands. The mistake in the report on Hook is the same mistake that many other journalists have made in writing about Trump's Iran policy: it takes empty talk about negotiations at face value and assumes that Iran hawks are operating and arguing in good faith when they typically do just the opposite...