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The Commerce Department approved the sales of chemical and biological agents (including anthrax and the bubonic plague) to Saddam to use against Iran.

Saddam’s worst crime—the gassing of thousands of Kurds in Halabja on 16 March 1988—had no effect on his positive relationship with the U.S. government.

The U.S., responding to international pressure to condemn Saddam, tried to accuse Iran for the attack in Halabja.

The Halabja chemical attack came one year after the U.S. imposed a new embargo on Iranian goods and services, “as a result of Iran’s support for international terrorism and its aggressive actions.”

U.S. accusations that Iran supported “international terrorism” in 1988 came at an interesting time. 18 months prior, Reagan was condemned by the International Court of Justice for the “unlawful use of force” (meaning international terrorism) in Nicaragua.

By the end of the war, hundreds of thousands of Iranians were killed by chemical weapons and other crimes. In 1989, George H.W. Bush invited Iraqi nuclear engineers to come to the U.S. to study advanced weapons production.

The next major step taken against Iran, in concert with the 1987 embargo, was fresh sanctions in 1996, banning “virtually all trade and investment activities with Iran.”

These sanctions were put in place right in the middle of the genocidal sanctions in Iraq, which killed over 500,000 children under 5 and strengthened Saddam Hussein.

Alongside the sanctions, both George W. Bush and Obama have both issued regular threats of destruction to Iran, in direct violation of the UN Charter and global public opinion.

In 2010, the U.S. passed the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act, banning imports of food from Iran, violations of which are punishable by up to $1 million and 20 years in prison.

Between 2012 and 2014, Iranian families living in poverty rose from 22% to more than 44%. Food prices skyrocketed, and shortages in medical supplies are killing people.

The current pretext for ratcheting up sanctions is the possibility of Iran’s pursuit for nuclear weapons. Any serious analyst knows that this argument doesn’t have a leg to stand on.

Without reviewing the record, the U.S. has flatly rejected every diplomatic offer under the Non-Proliferation Treaty to promote disarmament in the Middle East (and throughout the world).

U.S. intelligence has concluded that “Iran’s...willingness to keep open the possibility of developing nuclear weapons is a central part of its deterrent strategy,” no doubt a response to U.S. aggression in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and elsewhere.

The Iran Nuclear Deal was reached in 2015, in which the P5+1 and the European Union threatened Iran with additional sanctions. Trump has since disavowed the Nuclear Deal, and will likely pull out of the agreement and increase sanctions.