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Why the Framework Nuclear Agreement With Iran Is Good For Both Sides
Lasrick writes: Ariane Tabatabai breaks down the details of the framework agreement between Iran and the P5+1 that was announced Thursday. It appears to be better than most analysts expected, with positive outcomes for both sides. It truly seems historic: "A number of these steps will, in effect, be irreversible. They will not just limit Iran's nuclear capability for 10 to 15 years, but will reshape it entirely and indefinitely. ... [B]oth sides stand to gain from the framework agreement, which should also be considered a victory for the global nonproliferation regime. Ahead of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference that begins in late April, where no major achievements in nonproliferation are likely to be announced, the framework agreement is a very important success."
President for Life Cruz will repudiate any stupid godless Obama treaties and rules and will instead bring Jesus's love to the oppressed people of Persia, and soon the world.
Global humanity fucked up when we let Isreal have nuclear weapons and shit all over the NPT. This just kicks the can down the road. T2-style Judgement Day will be a few years later than expected is all.
Iran will mothball all its NES and Playstation-level cetrifuges, while keeping all its Xbone and PS4 centrifuges running full tilt. Wouldn't you, in the same situation?
nuclear weapons ARE tech. nerds of the geopolitical bent have interest in what's going on here, too. and if anything else, this is literally "stuff that matters".
but here's your refund for a free article, if you still don't like it.
"You can keep your doctor if you like him."
Now you are trusting the same man to not allow a nuclear war to happen.
Were you busy on Wednesday or something?
"I'd just like to emphasise that taking a million years isn't a metaphor here..." -Rich Bradshaw
Neville Chamberlain's hands were tied by the unwillingness of his people to go to war for Czechoslovakia. Condemn the man all you want; as the leader of a democracy his policy choices were constrained by public opinion, just as BHO's are. Do you think you could have done better in Chamberlain's hands? British and French policymakers couldn't sell their peoples on a war in 1936, when Hitler first telegraphed his intentions, despite the fact that Germany had no army worthy of the name and would have been curb stomped by the Franco-British Alliance.
This may turn out to be a bad deal, I'm skeptical that Iran can be trusted, but the political reality of the situation is there's no appetite in the United States (let alone the rest of the West) to go to war over what the Iranians might do. Check back in 20 years to find out if BHO managed to thread the needle better than Chamberlain.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
From the second the GW Bush made his crazy ill-advised "Axis of Evil" speech and then proceeded to invade one of those Axis members, it was pretty much guaranteed that Iran and North Korea would pursue nukes (and NK has already succeeded). They're not stupid. They know nukes are the only way to assure you won't be invaded or overthrown by the U.S.
So if you don't suck up to Iran and give them a deal that says "We're not going to invade you if you'll just play ball," then it's really only a matter of time. Mossad can car-bomb all the scientists it wants. The U.S. can release a hundred Stuxnets. But eventually it WILL happen.
So if you don't give them a deal, you're really only assuring it. Now, maybe they'll still do it anyway. But at least this way there is a CHANCE they won't.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
It's click/trollbait.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
While such an agreement is not perfect, I have not seen a decent alternative put forward. If their facilities are clobbered by air, they can build them deeper under ground and/or disperse the processing to multiple locations, and perhaps in populated areas, using them as human shields.
And you'd further inflame them by dropping things on them, getting nationalism galore.
The only way to stop it after that stage would probably require genocide. They may be jerks, but they have NOT done anything even close to deserving genocide.
(Compared to the rest of the region, one could argue that county is relatively tame, or at least average.)
Some argue that taking out Ireq's* nuke program from the air had proved fruitful. However, it appears that Mr. H. simply decided to focus more on chemicals instead. Thus, he traded in one W-M-D for another W-M-D.
* Intentional misspelling
Table-ized A.I.
No matter how much that is being disliked, Iran is a sovereign nation and no other nation has a right to tell them what to do. Even if they wear funny dresses, hang criminals, and stone women suspected of adultery.
Yet, it seems, they have received an offer that they cannot refuse.
With the global powers playing reverse stick and carrot... Ukraine voluntarily gave nukes for guarantees and has been given a cold shoulder after 20% of the country was first raped then annexed. Israel has nukes and nobody dares to attack them, because they know that the response will be swift.
Speaking of Ukraine, Poland had guarantees in 1939 and back then Western Powers followed through and did declare war to Germany, when they invaded Poland. Ukraine had guarantees from 4 countries, yet were royally shafted.
Lesson learned by the governments: you never give up any rights.
They're going to get nuclear weapons if there ISN'T a deal. Rejecting the deal will only assure it. At lease this deal gives us a chance to stall it, or maybe make some headway on becoming finally more friendly. You know "friendly," as in they're one of only two allies who can help to really fight Isis (the other being the Assad regime in Syria). "Friendly" as in WE FUCKING NEED THEM.
The only other option is to go to war with them and overthrow the government. And we saw how wonderfully that turned out in Iraq, didn't we?
So, are you going to add another state to the caliphate or deal?
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Yes, I keep hearing the comparison of Germany in 1938 to Iran today
That leads me to ask a few questions
How is it that Iran is comparable to a country that had been a economic leader in Europe for the prior several hundred years?
Germany had been a colonial empire, with militarily help colonies across the globe, is there any comparison to Iran's status?
Germany had just waged a global war a couple of decades prior, and had waged wars against other global superpowers over the prior few hundred years going back to the Ottoman Empire, is there any comparison to the capabilities of Iran?
Finally, Netanyahu has been saying that it 1938 for about a decade, at what point do we say... gee I guess that he may not have a valid point?
Wherever You Go, There You Are
All we had to do, was simply not lift the sanctions.
That was it. All we had to do was LITERALLY NOTHING, and they still fucked it eight ways from sideways.
The new agreement guarantees Iran will have plenty of money to finish up work on shine new nuclear weapons and improve the ICBMs they already have (oh, you thought any kind of nuclear agreement would be linked to getting rid of ICBMs with no other purpose than nuclear weapon delivery? HA HA HA HA HA).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Which won't change the underlying fact that there's no appetite in the United States for sustained military conflict.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
sounds good to me.
This draws my attention back to the Cold War, when the 'imminent threat' of Mutual Assured Destruction was used by the leaders of the USSR and USA to justify the election of hawkish leaders and the spending of significant portions of the GDP of each country on military build ups
It was great for hawkish leaders and the people who sell weapons, but not so good for everybody else, with the USSR even being driven to financial bankruptcy
At what point do we say, "hey this isn't good for anybody but Likkud, the Mullahs and whoever is selling them weapons, maybe we should try a different approach?"
Wherever You Go, There You Are
Cowardice. And groundless, too. There's no reason to believe that Iran would invite destruction by doing a first strike. That's completely delusional.
Disclaimer: IANAL. This post is, however, legal advice, and creates an attorney-client relationship.
Thats pretty retarded. You seem to forgotten everyone else with nuclear weapons. What Iran could do with nuclear weapons is act in a way that would otherwise get them invaded. The weapon itself can't by used due to MAD.
... I'm skeptical that Iran can be trusted, but the political reality of the situation is there's no appetite in the United States (let alone the rest of the West) to go to war over what the Iranians might do.
Iran's current political state is pretty much the US' fault. And add in the US' hypocritical and schizophrenic geo-polical policy in the area (it's not when you realize that it's all about securing the supply of oil), the only party that's not to be trusted is the USA; I'm afraid to say. It's not necessarily that we're lying, but with a change in administration or Congress' actions, Iran could find itself back to 2005.
Of course, without this agreement, they'll be going ahead with their nuclear program anyway. There is China, Russia, North Korea and probably another government that would be more than happy to undermine the US. Talking is always better than not talking. What is it? Keep your friends close but your enemies closer?
If McCain and whatever her name was, had been elected then then song would have been, 'bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran'
Thankfully the American voters did not see it that way, it is a real bummer that most do not vote on off-year electins and we got stuck with a bunch of regressive war-mongering gopers this last election
Wherever You Go, There You Are
Kendall,
Sure, and will they use magical powers to prevent the retaliation from the hundred-odd nukes that Israel has?
Hardliners in Iran and Israel both use this issue to stay in power, the longer the status quo, the worse the jerks that get into office
Wherever You Go, There You Are
If "third world" Pakistan can control itself while wielding nuclear weapons, I'm sure Iran can as well. The inescapable fact of the matter is this: The United States does not "militarily" mess with nation possessing nuclear weapons. This fact alone makes the weapons highly desirable.
Some things need to be said...
Iran has been 6 months away from a bomb for the past 20 years.
http://rudepundit.blogspot.com...
Just what did you think Iran was going to do with all the money that floods into the country after sanctions are lifted? A fleet of Ice-Cream trucks? Infrastructure for the people that constantly demonstrate against the ruling regime?
No, that money is going to go into full scale nuclear weapon development. You'll see in a year or so.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Not sure that jab works here. It was an honest mistake.
There's nothing about The Affordable Care Act that mandated the insurance companies "reorganizing to meet federal standards" in a fashion that would deny you access to your favourite physician. Obamacare set new, higher standards for the minimum coverage, and the ensuing chaos of getting the most money out of the customer as possible was often achieved by reducing the "available doctors" to the smallest cheapest subset they could get away with.
It might be a fair jab, if you read through this agreement and found subtle holes that due to market forces and greed would allow a nuke to slip into existence, but now that "unannounced inspections" by the IAEA guaranteed by the plan, it's not just Obama that they need to trick.
Personally, I think it's great. I think starving out those people is part of what keeps them dangerous. My Iranian friends in the states are cultured, happy, fun people. So I see the potential for their country becoming a stabilizing element in the region when the previously-quite-appropriate sanctions can be safely lifted.
"no other nation has a right to tell them what to do."
Nobody is telling Iran what to do. Iran has violated multiple agreements, agreements that it signed. That said, I'm not sure why the Obama administration believes they will honor this agreement. Fifth time is a charm?
Anyone for a one-way ticket to Mars, now?
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
If it can help to break the stranglehold that Israel has on us and set us free, that agreement was worth all the years of Obama.
No, you are just uninformed
Fear is the mind-killer, if you let it lead you then you are just an animal, barely human
Wherever You Go, There You Are
If you like your uranium enrichment program, you can keep your uranium enrichment program.
Attack with an Iranian weapon in 1.5 years.
Attack with an Iranian weapon Iran will admit to responsibility for, in four years (they want time to stockpile more than a few nukes before going on a full offensive).
Read it and weep. A thousand centrifuges in an un-killable under-mountain facility. Once sanctions are lifted they would take a long time to restart, so even IF you catch Iran cheating you can do nothing now to stop the inevitable.
If I lived in a coastal community I would move out immediately.
I hope Iron Dome can be switched to "reflect".
Nothing like some irrational fearmongering to brighten your day.
What on earth does your mental model of Iranians look like?! A nation of genocidal suicide bombers??
You know how many wars Iran has launched since 1979? Zero.
You know who does the suicide bombings? Not Shias, the dominant religion in Iran.
Yes their human rights record sucks, yes the probably want a Nuke or at least some practical Nuclear expertise to deter attacks from Israel or the US. But they're not cartoonish supervillians and I have no idea what evidence you're basing your predictions on. Healthy relations between the US and Iran is a good thing for everybody.
I stole this Sig
Sorry, but anybody using images from Newsmax has pretty much admitted to being flamebait
Wherever You Go, There You Are
People act as if doing what other countries tell you to do is always in your best interest. Nukes aren't weapons, they are a prerequisite for actual sovereignty. Without them, one of the big 3 can roll in as soon as the weather and mood suits them. And no one will lift a finger.
What's more, once you get that nuke, not only will you not be invaded - but other nations will still trade with you: Lest you grow desperate enough to sell a nuke.
(AC to preserve mod points)
Yes, I keep hearing the comparison of Germany in 1938 to Iran today
That leads me to ask a few questions
I might be able to help. Mind you, the comparisons aren't exact, but IMO close enough...
How is it that Iran is comparable to a country that had been a economic leader in Europe for the prior several hundred years?
Iran is and was an economic leader in its own region since 1979 at the very least.
Germany had been a colonial empire, with militarily help colonies across the globe, is there any comparison to Iran's status?
Yes. Iran sponsors and funds numerous terror organizations and activities across the globe at this time.
Germany had just waged a global war a couple of decades prior, and had waged wars against other global superpowers over the prior few hundred years going back to the Ottoman Empire, is there any comparison to the capabilities of Iran?
Globally/superpower-like? No. However, it did endure an 8-year-long war with what was then Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Google for 'Shatt-Al-Arab' (I believe that's the proper spelling). It was pretty big from the POV of the butcher's bill.
That said, consider that once in possession of nuclear weapons, Iran will essentially be a superpower, and has stated numerous times over (even as recently as last week) that their policy is to annihilate a certain other country in the region, and do so by any means possible.
Furthermore, consider that while North Korea is kept in check by China (without whom NoKo would essentially collapse from within economically), Iran has no tempering authority over its planning and actions. Further still, consider that Iran can essentially control the Straits of Hormuz, through which the vast majority of Mideast oil is transported.
So - we have a hysteric pack of nutcases running the country who wants the ultimate weapon in order to achieve their goals of domination and the eradication of the country that Mr. Netanyahu happens to represent.
This can get very ugly, very fast... and this time, we get to add the potential for nuclear weapons to the aggressor's side of the balance sheet, perched atop missiles that they're desperately trying to make capable of reaching any point on the globe... including your home city.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
The people of Iran are innocent, and basically do not like the rulers of Iran. Why would Iron care if Israel nukes them back?
Besides, to start with at least it would be Hamas firing some Iranian nuclear weapons from Palestine. Do you know nothing about the middle east? So why would Israel have cause to attack Iran directly... and it's not like they can attack Palestine with a nuclear weapon.
It's sad how many have a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
They're going to get nuclear weapons if there ISN'T a deal.
If Obama would stop warning the Israelis off of bombing the shit out Iranian enrichment plants (and actively denying them airspace travel through Iraq to do it), this whole question would have been settled long ago.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
You really out-do yourself Kendall.
So, Iran is going to get from a device the size of semi truck (assuming that they ever do, that is now decades away) to a suitcase bomb in a year
Wow, oh wow
Set fear-mongering to overload, eh?
Wherever You Go, There You Are
When Iran lights up their first nuke in anger and/or conquest, life will probably not go well for Obama.
MAD only worked because both sides of the conflict were rational and relatively sane. Iran has no such encumbrance.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
47 minutes after Iran announces that they have a nuclear weapon a large mushroom cloud over Tehran will announce the cancelation of said nuclear program.
Send that message.
anything past that is a waste of time.
This administration is following the play book of every previous administration, which is to try and 'fix' whatever is going on in middle East in the last couple of years of the president's second term.
I have low expectations.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
So...
Iran gets to keep its full ICBM program, now defacto sanctioned OK because nothing in the "deal" mentioned it, period.
Iran gets to keep its nuclear reactors intact and also now sanctioned to operate.
Iran gets to keep ALL known and unknown weapons manufacturing and nuclear weapons facilities.
Iran get to keep upgrading its uranium to "weapons grade".
Iran does not have to move outside of the country into third-party hands existing weapons grade nuclear materials...
Iran does not have to have any snap weapons inspections (the existing "deal" requires prior notice well in advance of any inspections)
Iran gets off the US/international Terrorist List (despite still funding terrorism worldwide)
Iran does not have to admit that the United States and Israel are not its enemies and they do not have to agree to any consequences for attacking either country.
Iran gets it seized billions of dollars returned to it internationally.
Iran gets all banking and trade embargoes (including arms dealing) lifted.
Iran gets to sell its crude oil on the world market (then expect oil to quickly drop into the $20/barrel range as they flood the market with their 2 million bpd)
Iran has zero requirement to abide by any deal as there are no precisely defined consequences to when they break whatever the Obama Admin claims the "deal" is...
Iran can abruptly cancel and reverse anything it allegedly agreed to with the Obama Admin and it will STILL have all sanctions removed and the Obama Admin cannot put them back even if it wanted to do so.
Iran gets to legitimize all of its weapons programs and keep all of its WMD programs it had before plus get its economy back fully operational.
Iran does not have to remove from its charter the destruction of the United States and Isreal.
So, the US basically gets nothing it wanted, and Iran gets all it wanted and more... and the media will spin doctor the Obama Admin into the greatest diplomatic team with the highest achievable pinnacle in US diplomacy history.... Its almost as if the Obama Admin had an Iranian Adviser guiding the decisions of the president... (Valerie Jarrett)
Bibi was exactly right, this is an awful, terrible, horrendous deal. Changing nothing and canceling any and all deals on the table would be the best possible deal for US National Security... (Sometimes "the only willing move is not to play")
An Iran with nuclear weapons means that the other moslem counties (who can afford them) will all want their own nuclear weapons... and this is deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize how exactly? Welcome to M.A.D. middle-east style...
British and French policymakers couldn't sell their peoples on a war in 1936
It's hard to convince people to go back to war when many of them are still healing from the last one.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
The audience of this site are "Nerds". "Stuff that matters" is measured in the amount of comments a story gets. So whether this is a relevant story, we're soon to find out. Maybe try to get a sport score story in here at some time, it might matter...
So... you're saying that the Iranian general didn't say that, or...? If the NewsMax site offends your eyes, here is another article. I don't have any particular affinity for Newsmax, but I have a particular disaffinity for liberals who would apparently rather die than discuss an issue rationally, and try to shut down discussions by ad hominem, including calling their opponents racists, ignorant, etc. That really gets my goat.
If Obama would stop warning the Israelis off of bombing the shit out Iranian enrichment plants (and actively denying them airspace travel through Iraq to do it), this whole question would have been settled long ago.
Only if the question is "How do we even further destabilize the middle east, and possibly start WWIII?"
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
I didn't say suitcase nuke - you did. I said small.
All it needs to be able to do is fit on a boat, all that needs to do is enter any major harbor... even semi-truck size is fine for that purpose.
If you think Iran is decades away from developing any nuclear weapon, please fight it out with the people claiming they should have had nuclear weapons shortly if no agreement was made. If you can convince them I'll buy it.
I don't care to argue over a point no-one else seems to be making.
It's hardly fear-mongering to point out obvious consequences, even if those consequences are bad. Isn't ignoring a highly probable a very bad possibility a much worse idea?
I'll stop posting for now so you can put your head back... in the sand.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Obama can't make treaties with other nations, the Constitution says so.
The president is authorized to negotiate treaties, they're just not binding until ratified by the Senate. A variety of presidents, both Republican and Democrat, have negotiated treaties that failed to be ratified by the Senate. What we have so far isn't even an unratified treaty, it's just a framework agreement of things that might go in a treaty that is still to be negotiated.
Existing sanctions weren't really keeping them from developing a bomb, so that really left us four choices:
1) Ignore the situation until they get around to having a bomb.
2) Attempt to increase sanctions, even though many international partners probably won't play ball, in the hope that they'll suffer an internal revolt.
3) Military action, either bombing or an invasion. The goal being to either destroy their facilities or overthrow their regime.
4) Negotiation, in order to delay their efforts, re-integrate them into the international community and influence their regime using soft power to change the attitudes of their citizens and leadership over time.
One is stupid, two probably won't work since everyone wants Iran's oil and several countries will ignore the sanctions while many more will refuse to increase them. Nearly 74% of Americans favor stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons however only 29% support direct military action in order to prevent it, at the same time 56% support easing of some sanctions in return for restrictions & inspections of Iran's nuclear program even if that doesn't end it completely. It seems to me that the president is following the will of the people quite accurately.
I'm pro-military and I served in Marines. I have no problem with military intervention if that becomes necessary but it's stupid to go that route without at least trying to negotiate our way out of the problem first. Sure, we could flatten them if we were willing to pay the price but that sort of action isn't free in dollars or lives.
Note that in 1938, Germany hadn't been an economic leader for about a generation. The Treaty of Versailles made sure of that.
Likewise, Germany hadn't had a colonial empire for a generation. Treaty of Versailles again.
Which made Germany in 1938 strictly a regional power (and not even much of one - France was still there, and the Polish Army was larger than the Wehrmacht). Which Iran is now. Different region, but a regional power nonetheless....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Whoosh!
The parent's point was that MAD didn't work well, unless you were someone who profits from the arms build up. So I don't see how your prejudice makes a useful point even if I accepted it as valid. As prejudices go it's complete horseshit. One crazy president does not make a country insane. Take for example, my country...
That's right. It doesn't matter where I'm from.
You know how I know you don't know any Iranians?
Know how I know that you cannot respond with facts but instead respond with angry little hysteria?
This is how... and then there's this... ...this... ...and of course this (you may need Google Translate for that last one.)
Mind you, the people quoted are, I suspect, quite Iranian.
But you know, maybe you just forgot to check "Post Anonymously"? ;)
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
has stated numerous times over (even as recently as last week) that their policy is to annihilate a certain other country in the region
Check the translation. It's redrawing the map, which means the two-state solution.
its funny, for as long as I have been alive, those on the left have wanted us, and every other country to run away from nukes at all costs.
but those same people now think its ok for Iran to have a nuke??
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Umm, no.
reason #1
reason #2
reason #3
reason #4 (which obviously wasn't a translation error)
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Thank you for your service. I think I basically agree with what you wrote, however I also agree with what I wrote. Basically, the summary at the top is comically one sided, and even though we hope that wonderful things happen, there are many flies in this ointment.
...that both sides adhere to it without cheating?
For example, I'd offer the 'historic' agreements with N Korea as an example of moronic pollyannas making agreements that actually allowed one partner to basically continue unhindered in any meaningful way, while the other got to 'claim' a successful negotiation.
Yeah, that's probably a good example.
-Styopa
No kidding. BTW it's not just President Obama who has stopped war with Iran. During the Bush administration the US military prevented the Bush administration from doing it.
http://thinkprogress.org/secur...
"Admiral William Fallon, then President George W. Bush’s nominee to head the Central Command (CENTCOM), expressed strong opposition in February to an administration plan to increase the number of carrier strike groups in the Persian Gulf from two to three and vowed privately there would be no war against Iran as long as he was chief of CENTCOM.
Fallon’s resistance to the proposed deployment of a third aircraft carrier was followed by a shift in the Bush administration’s Iran policy in February and March away from increased military threats and toward diplomatic engagement with Iran. That shift, for which no credible explanation has been offered by administration officials, suggests that Fallon’s resistance to a crucial deployment was a major factor in the intra-administration struggle over policy toward Iran."
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a difficult battle. - Plato
No, it is ok to negotiate Iran onto a path that delays them from getting a nuke for the next 15 years, as opposed to the current path where, according to Netanyahu, they will have a nuke in the next year or two
This also opens the doors to interaction with other countries, reduces the influence of their hardliners and makes way for a less antagonistic Iran
Wherever You Go, There You Are
Possibly, but compare the two options from Israel's POV: destroy their nuke capability and risk a conventional war with that country, or let it continue unabated and get wiped out by the same country - incidentally the same country which has officially and loudly vowed to destroy you multiple times.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
They changed their unit to Dog Years.
Table-ized A.I.
MAD only worked because both sides of the conflict were rational and relatively sane. Iran has no such encumbrance.
There are no signs the Iranian leadership is irrational or insane; far from it. Considering the snake pit of the middle east, I would say that they have played the game about as well as they possibly could. That doesn't make them nice people, but being nice doesn't get you points in this game.
So yes, they know about MAD, and they are motivated by it. It is more their opponents I'm worried about.
Never read Dune, eh?
It was all part of the scene when they tested Paul to see if he was human or one of those animals like the Harkonnen
Wherever You Go, There You Are
It was an honest mistake.
No it wasn't. BHO isn't that stupid. He said what he needed (or thought he needed) to say to get his bill passed. Anybody who followed the issue at even a casual level immediately knew that he made a promise that he couldn't keep.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Those references don't qualify as meaning "Iran said" last week or when ever, and yes, translation is the game.
Following your logic "the US" said the same kind of things a lot more times.
MAD only worked because both sides of the conflict were rational and relatively sane. Iran has no such encumbrance.
MAD worked against the likes of Joesph Stalin and Mao Zedong, the latter of whom actually believed that he could fight and win a nuclear war. The Iranians have nothing on that level of crazy paranoia. Nor do they possess the Soviet Union's technological skill or the Chinese demographic advantage. In the hierarchy of current and historical threats to Western Civilization they fall somewhere between "annoyance" and "existential". We can't casually dismiss them but we don't need to be kept awake all night worrying about them either.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
"from Israel's POV: destroy their nuke capability and risk a conventional war with that country"
Do you mean commit a war crime to not risk but taunt Iran into a war?
"or let it continue unabated and get wiped out by the same country"
Why would Iran commit suicide
"incidentally the same country which has officially and loudly vowed to destroy you multiple times"
Saying over and over does not make it true
It really is too bad, this discussion will be "archived" in 12 months and so it will be impossible to reply to you then ask you to eat a crow. If Iran does not have a nuke in 12-24 months, it would not be for lack of trying.
Do you honestly believe, Iranians haven't learned the lesson taught collectively by Bill Clinton and North Koreans? In 1994 the previous Democrat President went through the same motions Obama is doing now. NY Times wrote in 1994:
Had you and I met back then, you would've called me a war-mongering hater over my doubts, North Koreans can be trusted. But I woud've been right for they have been caught lying a number of times since. Its most recent test of a nuclear weapon was in February 2013.
The lesson of dealing with the West is perfectly clear: you agree to whatever and still work on your nukes as hard as you can. Once you have them, nobody can do anything other than keep asking critics to stop hating.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
In all the years, this is probably the most ridiculous article I've read on /. What does this have to do with anything tech related?
We do discuss a wide variety of topics here and whilst I agree this isn't particularly technical, nuclear weapons, the risks of proliferation and the behaviour of state-level actors seeking to arm themselves thus are very much topics of interest to myself and many of my fellow nerds here on the 'dot.
I empathise with your frustration, however I would point out that there are often days when there's absolutely nothing on the front page that I find interesting enough to click. Best to just sigh and move on. :)
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Even if Iran does not use weapons directly, they can provide small nuclear devices to terrorist groups.
They can but they won't. Fissile material has an isotopic signature that's as unique as your DNA. Any nuclear weapon detonated by a non-state actor would immediately be traced back to its source by the global community.
So lets say Iran fires a nuclear missile as Israel, or the US (they have ICBMs that can reach the easter coast)
Citation needed.
But why WOULD the U.S. send a nuclear strike back, against cities full of innocent people.
The United States maintains the capability to launch a counterforce attack in response to any nuclear aggression. That's quite probably what would happen; in WW2 when we firebombed enemy cities we were ostensibly aiming at targets of military value. Civilians would die, just as they do in conventional conflicts, but they would not be the direct targets of our response. All those allegedly "bomb proof" bunkers that the Iranians have? They're not proof against precision nuclear strikes, nothing is, and that's exactly the type of attack the United States would be most apt to launch in response to a nuclear attack.
But that (over the long term) is exactly what Iran (and a number of other Islamic forces like ISIS)
You betray your ignorance by lumping ISIS in with the Iranians; they're actually mortal enemies. I don't trust the Iranians one damned bit but I've followed this issue long enough to know that their policymakers are not driven by the same armageddon mentality as ISIS. Persia has been a historical great power since the days of Ancient Greece. They seek to regain that glory. A nuclear war with the West will not achieve that objective.
The Cold War saying "trust, but verify" applies here.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
It most likely suffice when the EU states, China and Russia accept the treaty. If the US is not interested in that market, so be it.
What on earth does your mental model of Iranians look like?! A nation of genocidal suicide bombers??
I have a friend who comes from Iran. The people of Iran in general, are pretty friendly and like the U.S.
I know a lot of Iranians and have a similar experience, note that you're looking at an a-typical sample, if anyone is going to be particularly against the regime it's likely to be people leaving the country.
However they are not the ones building the nuclear weapons. They are not the ones deciding when to use the weapons; who to use them against. That is up to the leaders of Iran, who in fact are not far off from your description. They consider the people of Iran as pawns and shields...
The people of Iran in fact are the very reason I think Iran will use nuclear weapons; because how could we retaliate?
If Iran destroys NYC, I would not support nuking any Iranian cities for exactly that reason. Nor would the rest of the U.S. So Iran is safe to attack many targets with impunity, knowing that for a while at least no major western U.S. country is willing to respond with nuclear weapons.
Even assuming the laughable assertion that they're a bunch of sociopaths who would happily sacrifice their own population, and they didn't give a crap for even their own survival, what possible motive would they have for doing Nuking the US?
You're describing a cartoon supervillian.
Btw, the very fact they accepted this deal demonstrates you're wrong and that they do care about their people, because otherwise they would have simply kept stalling until they had a bomb, the civilians were the ones bearing the brunt of the sanctions.
You know how many wars Iran has launched since 1979? Zero.
When you consider just Iran's backing of Hamas that statement is laughably naive.
So supporting an organization to some degree means you're responsible for all of their actions?
I can't even imagine how many wars would be added to the US tally using that standard.
And even if you JUST think about Iran attacking countries directly there's this little thing called the Iran-Iraq war., lasting from 1980-1989... yes Iraq started it but after regaining lost land Iran was on the offensive for several years after.
So it's pretty obvious you are more than clueless when it comes to knowing anything about Iran.
Did you really read that article? You make it sounds as if it was almost entirely Iran running unopposed through Iraq. Yes they started reversing the Iraqi gains in 1982 but in reality Iraq had a lot of Western support leading to lot better equipped military. As well they used chemical weapons, were the first ones to attack cities directly, and right up until the end in 1989 their ceasefire proposals involved Iraq making territorial gains.
Basically your evidence for the claim that Iran is an irrationally aggressive nation is the fact they didn't concede territory after being invaded. Come to think of it by your Hamas standard I could claim that the US is responsible for the Iran-Iraq war!
I stole this Sig
Maybe Britain, Germany, Japan, Italy, Russia, Vietnam, etc... should be very concerned about the US attacking them at any moment, because you know... we said some pretty mean things back in the day
Wherever You Go, There You Are
http://972mag.com/the-hater-in...
The reasons why he couldn't convince his people are irrelevant. I was simply stating a fact, not analyzing the underlying reasons for it. Democracies have a built in disadvantage in the game of geopolitics, because it's very difficult to convince the people to accept pain in the short term in order to forestall theoretically greater pain in the long term. This problem isn't limited to the geopolitical/diplomatic/military realm, see "anthropological climate change" for a current example.
The smart thing to do would have been to engage Germany in 1936, it would have saved millions of lives, but the political will simply wasn't there. It's a leap to equate 2015 Iran to 1936 Germany (the latter was a scientific and economic force to be reckoned with, the former not so much), but even if you believe them to be an existential threat you've still got to acknowledge the political reality of the situation. Two years ago the American Congress and British House of Commons soundly rejected military intervention in Syria, a tiny and divided country with a fraction of Iran's population and military capability. The people who are railing against this deal should start by explaining how they propose to change that political reality.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
AC,
Yes, from the stand point of the Zionist Union, economics are of primary concern. In fact they almost won the election based on it
However, Netanyahu's grandstanding in front of the US Senate, claims that Arabs were being bussed to polls by the Zionist Union and declarations that there would never be a two state solution were appeals to the basest fears of the far right of the political spectrum.
I do not insinuate that Israel is some dictatorship, it is clearly a Parliamentary Democracy, but your claims that the Zionist Union ignored the economy and resorted to smear campaigns, when in fact they did focus on the economy and Likud/Netanyahu did resort to smears and FUD reeks of an attempt to re-write history
fwiw, if you want to address me by name, then please have to temerity to post under your own UID
Wherever You Go, There You Are
So the least qualified man in pretty much any room he enters is negotiating with the mad mullahs. What could go wrong?
When a potato is soooo hot, it's nuclear baby!!!
Life is not for the lazy.
Neville Chamberlain's hands were tied by the unwillingness of his people to go to war for Czechoslovakia. Condemn the man all you want; as the leader of a democracy his policy choices were constrained by public opinion, just as BHO's are.
At this point, BHO is legally barred from running again. Public opinion cannot influence his fate over the next 2 years. He has nothing tying his hands other than trying to work with the Senate in getting his foreign policy agenda pushed through. The difference between BHO at this point and Chamberlain in 1938 is night and day...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Yes, we're to trust the regime of Iran that for decades claimed they were not seeking nuclear weapons. And now they come out and say "yeah, we're looking for them" - so we negotiate to slow down their progress. What makes you think they're being honest about their progress, or that a 2/3rds reduction in the number of centrifuges will slow them down at all? We'll just ignore the past - and hope they tell the truth this time!
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Iran has been at war with Israel for a long time now through well-funded and very closely monitored proxies. I'm not sure how you can possibly deny this. Israel recently bombed a Hezbollah convoy and accidentally killed an Iranian general they didn't realize was present. Iran didn't make any attempt at all to deny it. Israel actually had to shrug their shoulders and insist it was an accident so as to avoid needlessly pissing off Iran.
That said, any deal at all to slow down their nuke acquisition is of course much preferable to no deal (I have no idea what the pro-sanction people are babbling about, and I suspect they don't either.) And the younger generations of Iranians seem to be much more reasonable than those currently in power. And of course, Iran and the other Shias aren't as bad as ISIS (do I need to point out what a ridiculously low bar this is to clear?)
But you cannot gloss over the Israel thing. It is already a war. It doesn't matter what your feelings are on Israel and/or Palestine; Iran does not recognize the two-state solution and it is even conceivable they would attempt to deniably nuke an Israeli target through one of their proxies.
Or, if they are feeling especially clever, nuke a Sunni target and frame Israel for it. Given the depressingly widespread beliefs of absurd Israel/Jewish conspiracy theories in the Middle East, this would be very easy to pull off.
Public opinion cannot influence his fate over the next 2 years.
You might want to familiarize yourself with the United States Constitution, specifically the revenue and war powers portions of Article I.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Waiting until war was inevitable also gave the west the moral high ground rather then now a days where bombing people on the other side of the world seems ordinary and preemptive war is looked on favourably. We are fast becoming the bad guys, at least morally and we're also harvesting the results in the middle east and perhaps soon at home. Good for the fascists who are salivating at the increasing police state.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Even if Iran does not use weapons directly, they can provide small nuclear devices to terrorist groups. We'll be seeing those within a few years. Iran has backed a number of terrorist groups (like Hamas) for many, many years.
But even for direct attacks from Iran - remember that Iran is full of many, many people who are basically innocents, rules by leaders that are almost wholly insane and do not care if their own people die.
If Iran were actually ruled by leaders who thought that the 12th Iman would return and kiss their own crispy foreheads as well as the crispy heads of their grandchildren, they could have simply rained down conventional missiles on Israel and gotten that response. Why not go to heaven sooner, rather than later?
You do not get the full benefits of membership in the nuclear club by acting crazy. The crazy talk is not actually helping North Korea, it is only causing China to see the day to whip North Korea into better behavior is coming sooner than they expected.
Held onto as a last resort, nuclear weapons are a positive asset. Employed recklessly, nuclear weapons are a liability -- because once you have been proven to be completely reckless, the entire nuclear club with see the reasonableness of scraping your sorry nation off the face of the earth with nuclear fire. Where is the fun in that?
Furthermore, letting nuclear weapons out of your fortified safe places is dangerous. Crazy terrorist groups do crazy things. In the case of Iran, the ME is filled with enemies. Can you be sure it will not be captured and used on YOU? Absolutely sure? Is this a risk that is so worthwhile? Mossad is likely to figure out where the bomb came from -- there are only a few possible sources. So your plausible deniability game does not guarantee anything.
So, Iran is going to get from a device the size of semi truck (assuming that they ever do, that is now decades away) to a suitcase bomb in a year
Nah, just build a semi-truck sized weapon, put it into a 40 foot container, stick it on an ocean freighter, and when it arrives in the port of LA/NY/Houston/Seattle, have it detonate. Prior to screening at the port. Yeah, won't maximize the number of people killed, but would pretty much destroy the port, wipe out massive amounts of infrastructure (water and sewage treatment plants tend to be near the coastline) and still kill a sizable number.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Even if Iran does not use weapons directly, they can provide small nuclear devices to terrorist groups.
They can but they won't. Fissile material has an isotopic signature that's as unique as your DNA. Any nuclear weapon detonated by a non-state actor would immediately be traced back to its source by the global community.
Question: how do we know the signature of the Iranian fissile material, since we don't have access to their fissile material in the first place?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
What I think is really happening is that the Pentagon realizes that the situation in the Middle East is degenerating into a civil war between Shiite and Sunni. Because except for the occasional special-ops crowdpleaser the US does not want to get involved in a religious war, we are handing the conflict off to the most powerful Shiite country, Iran. A nuclear Iran will then be a counterweight to the most powerful Sunni nation, Pakistan. Fire up the popcorn!
While I don't see the US government getting involved directly, Christians acting privately are another matter. What if our evangelicals realize that in their boundless political butthurt over the existence of homosexuality they are ignoring the fact that Christians are being slaughtered overseas expressly because of their religion. As the survivors' tales from Garissa spread, will the megachurches take on a Last Crusade as a project?
I worry more about Israel launching a nuclear war than Iran. The Israelis are such loud-mouthed warmongers it isn't even remotely funny. Sure, Nutter'n'Yahoo has to pander to the conservative voting base, but that means that there is a huge segment of the Israeli population that supports that warmongering.
Despite Israel's claims that Iran is threatening to wipe them off the map, those statements never seem to make the news in any of the websites I read -- not even the Iranian one.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
MAD only worked because both sides of the conflict were rational and relatively sane. Iran has no such encumbrance ...
Know how I know that you cannot respond with facts but instead respond with angry little hysteria? This is how... [slate.com] and then there's this... [memri.org]
Both of those are articles to the same thing, which sounds a bit scary until you actually read it through. What is the proper way to eliminate Israel's regime? (note that he's talking about the government) It is for all Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the area to hold a public referendum. Oh my God, that FUCKING CRAZY! Absolutely insane. The details don't sound very fair (the referendum is for all 'original people of Palestine' to take part, however they're supposed to be able to figure that out), but this is hardly madness of the Islamic State or other terrorist organizations.
The tactics he explicitly rules out: murder of the Jews, warfare on the part of Muslim countries, involvement of the UN (probably due to the Security Council).
You know in 1939 we went to war to stop countries from bombing the shit out of other countries due to paranoia and wanting to expand their countries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Actually only one side was rational and relatively sane, the other side figured that God was on their side, that they could put nukes on the oppositions borders with no blow back and when the blow back happened (tit for tat, they put nukes close to the opposition as well) the crazies came very close to starting Armageddon.
The same crazies seem to think that they can bomb anyone they feel like it and no one else better even think about it unless their religious believes might lead to the rapture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Citation needed.
You know, "news for nerds, stuff that matters". Sure, this matters, but why the hell is it here? I've always liked ./ as a site where we can discuss technical issues, not politics. Yet sadly, poltics seems to be the appearing here a lot more than I think it should. It's a dumb business move too.
Agreed. Even if they had passed no law at all, "You can keep your doctor," is total bullshit. Our insurance system was and is in a constant state of churn. My wife had to change doctors three times in five years even before the ACA. Even if the ACA had been perfect and had zero impact on the status quo, people would have lost their doctors. That promise was obvious bullshit at the time.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Which ironically will be listed as one of his big successes.
Insurance companies have been evil lying bastards since the first day they crawled out of the primordial swamp. I'm amazed any politician from any party would support them. But no, they felt that had position Obama's plan as the worst thing ever in American history but claiming things were just great under the old system. In reality Obamacare is not very good at all but it's a helluva lot better than what we had before it.
Risk a conventional war with *everyone* you mean. No one in the region is just going to sit back after Israel does a first strike act of war. The US isn't going to be backing up Israel either, the public support for their shennanigans is drying up.
Wait, I thought the US is the one that's broken most treaties since the day it was formed? Anyone who trusts it hasn't read their history books.
So ya, we claim that Iran has said they want to destroy us. However Iranians remember us singing that stupid song, they've heard the politicians asking to destroy Iran, and they've read all the boneheaded articles on Slashdot wanting to destroy Iran. So at the same time back in Iran they're trying to fan the flames of the hotheads there by saying "See, the US has said they want to eliminate us as a country!"
They can but they won't. Fissile material has an isotopic signature that's as unique as your DNA.
Which doesn't matter, because the world dithers for a few years accusing Iran of providing the material, Iran denying this, right up until Iran has what they feel like are enough nuclear weapons.
Citation needed.
Ok, not quite ready but basically ready by the time Iran wants to use them. I should have said "under development", and the agreement reached does nothing to alter the development of ICBMs (which historically were included in other nuclear treaties since a big part of what makes nuclear weapons imposing is where they can reach).
They're not proof against precision nuclear strikes, nothing is, and that's exactly the type of attack the United States would be most apt to launch in response to a nuclear attack.
I'm highly dubious we'd actually do so. Crossing that nuclear line is too high a bar now, even in response to a nuclear attack.
How many of the sites does Iran purposefully locate next to major population centers...
You betray your ignorance by lumping ISIS in with the Iranians; they're actually mortal enemies.
You betray a lack of reading comprehension. I didn't say they were together; I said they wanted the same thing. That is very different...
They seek to regain that glory.
Lots of glory to be had in death.
The Cold War saying "trust, but verify" applies here.
Only problem is we know they cannot be trusted, and we will not be able to verify.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Wait, what?
Article 1 speaks of the executive?
And to think, when I was in school, we still effectively taught civics; yet I have no idea what you're talking about.
What exactly in the US Constitution makes you think what you think?
Thanks for that stirring report from Iranian counter-intelligence. Knowing that an AC is pals with some physicists who share top details of a highly secret nuclear program makes me totally believe you.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Further still, consider that Iran can essentially control the Straits of Hormuz
LOL. I suppose they could drop one of their scuds with a half-dud tactical nuke on the straits in an effort to wipe out the Earth's largest and most advanced collection of water-borne military gear... short of that, past engagements have not been in their favor. The longer they wait, even less wild cards they'll have to throw in the mix for 1 symbolic sinking of a ship before they're obliterated... Come on. Let's be realistic. I know they talk tough, but their actions signify just how rightfully scared they are of war with the US.
You are being somewhat disingenuous...
They have repeatedly call for the eradication of the Zionist regime, not the whole-sale slaughter of every Israeli citizen. Frankly, I have a lot of trouble disagreeing with the assessment that the little apartheid Napoleon-complex shit-stain of a rabid bull terrier "certain other country" is in very dire need of a regime change.
Well, you're certainly correct, but at the same time... The isolationist pre-war US was by no means a scary world power, either. But the potential was there. Sleeping dragon, and all that.
Just because Germany had been kicked in the nuts and constantly urinated on after the Great War, didn't mean it suddenly didn't have the terrifyingly powerful economic and brain power on tap, ready to be focused with a little bit of hatred over what had been done to them. Germany didn't deserve the Treaty of Versailles, at least not for the first World War. An evil man didn't lead them to war, and they're guilty of nothing that everyone else wasn't guilty of.
Islam? Your tiny brain is still stuck in some bizarre Constantine era us-vs-them Abrahamic bastard religion inter-fighting? Come on, dude. Not even the politicians pushing for war are stupid enough to believe that bullshit. Just the idiots they get to vote for them. Religion makes people easy to control, it's a whole barrel full of ready-to-tap prejudice, bigotry, and ancient animosity. It can be used to fire cannon fodder at enemy you want. If you want war, whether for profit, or tiny-dick syndrome, you want people who think $Religion_X is the enemy. Fuck you.
It was a stupidly worded promise. He should have said, "The passage of this law will not force you to give up your current insurance. Your health providers may still ditch your insurance plan, as they do every 2 years to half of the country, but this law does not mandate it."
It's a good jab, but the way you throw the punch is intellectually dishonest, and for that, you're a fuckwit.
The ACA is a stinking pile of shit, only outshined by the putrid wasteland the preceded it. The President made a stupid promise without listing the caveats, like Your insurance company will probably still do really dickish shit that they did before that this law does not prevent, like forcing you to change your insurance plan and allowed doctors every year or two. But I hardly think it was an outright attempt at deception. I think he was trying to respond to Republican claims that it was a nationalist takeover of healthcare, by poorly wording the statement: "This law doesn't force any changes upon what doctors you can see, or what insurance plans you have"
Neville Chamberlain's hands were tied by the unwillingness of his people to go to war for Czechoslovakia.
Actually, his hands were tied by the failure of the British government in the years since the first world war to maintain their armed forces at a strength equal to the needs of enforcing the Versailles treaty. Churchill's history of the second world war identifies many different occasions (not the least of which was the Nazi re-occupation of the Rhineland) when the whole disaster could have been nipped in the bud.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Which doesn't matter, because the world dithers for a few years accusing Iran of providing the material, Iran denying this, right up until Iran has what they feel like are enough nuclear weapons.
With very few (Saddam's Iraq) exceptions nearly every nation-state lined up behind the United States after 9/11, an event that claimed a paltry (in the historical sense) 3,000 lives. The notion that the World would "dither" for years after a nuclear attack on any country (never mind one of the Big Five) is laughable on the surface. Such an occurrence would bring global condemnation and unite the civilized world against whomever was responsible.
Ok, not quite ready but basically ready by the time Iran wants to use them.
You'll forgive me if I take your "source" with a healthy dose of skepticism. Which is it though? Is Iran going to attack us like a conventional nation-state or sell the bomb to terrorists? Here's a thought exercise for you: Fire up Google Earth and use the line tool to see which large nuclear armed power an Iranian missile would have to overfly to reach CONUS. Spoiler alert: It's Russia. Iran is going to wage nuclear war against both the United States and Russia? Good luck with that.
I'm highly dubious we'd actually do so. Crossing that nuclear line is too high a bar now, even in response to a nuclear attack.
You can't have it both ways, simultaneously worrying about Iranian nukes raining down on us while claiming that the nuclear line is "too high a bar." Iran is not immune to geopolitical forces.
I said they wanted the same thing
You're misinformed. ISIS has an end times ideology and mindset. Iran is driven by an entirely different ideology and set of motivations. They're a radical regime, nobody disputes that, but neither their actions nor their rhetoric suggest that they're ready to commit mass suicide. If a glorious death for Allah was the driving force behind Iranian policy why did they end the Iran-Iraq War? Why limit their actions against Israel to proxy warfare? You don't understand the Persian mindset nearly as well as you think you do.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
But why WOULD the U.S. send a nuclear strike back, against cities full of innocent people.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki each had plenty of innocent people, why do you think the US would be too scrupulous to respond in kind to an Iranian first strike? After 9/11, many ordinarily rational people were ready to support the nuclear annihilation of millions in response to the murder of thousands.
Personally I am not concerned; I don't think that Iran will commit a first strike. (They will get nuclear weapons, eventually.) I reject the idea that the Iranian leaders are not rational enough to be deterred by the threat of a nuclear response.
It's quite simple really. Congress controls the purse-strings, has the sole power to declare war, and is beholden to public opinion regardless of whether or not the President is running for re-election.
Maybe you can suggest a path to an AUMF against Iran in the current political climate? Where are your 218/51 yea votes coming from? Recall that two years ago BHO withdrew his request for Congressional approval to intervene in Syria rather than see it defeated, as it was destined to be.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I love Churchill but his history of the second world war was tainted by domestic politics. The French alone could have whipped Germany in 1936. Hitler didn't get away with seizing the Rhineland because the West lacked the military means to resist, he got away with it because the West lacked the political will to resist. Military capability is irrelevant if you don't have the stomach to use it. The West refused to march even after the shooting started.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
until we intervened in their politics to stage a Coup d'état and put an (at the time) friendly bunch of ultra right wing fascists in power. You can find pictures of girls in short skirts and pants from before than. America turned Iran into the right wing religious hell hole it is today, so you'll forgive them if they're a little testy towards us.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
There's no reason to believe that Iran would invite destruction by doing a first strike.
I tend to consider the statement by Iran's minister of defense that the destruction of Israel is a non-negotiable point as a reason. Reasonable people can argue on how good a reason, but holding to the theory that no reason exists is, in fact, delusional, when national leadership of the country has openly declared its intent to annihilate another country.
You place too much weight on rhetorical statements. While Israel neither confirms nor denies that it has nuclear weapons, it is widely believed to possess a substantial arsenal. It is highly doubtful that Iran could eliminate Israel's ability to counterattack.
You know the really wonderful thing about Iran getting nuclear weapons is that their plan is to launch an EMP attack over the US. According to the US Government studies this will result in zero deaths right away, and a 95% death rate within a year. The indoctrinated loons of the political Left will all be dead, and the only people left will be those that prepared for natural and man-made disasters - including this idiocy with Iran, which has stated daily for 36 years that it wants to destroy you, but somehow you Lefties are so retarded you can't ever get the message (because you are implicit racists who think everyone only acts in reaction to what you did or did not do, and all non-Europeans are 'noble savages' of one sort or another). Goodbye lefty loons. You won't be missed by the rest of the World.
"[Iran] did endure an 8-year-long war with what was then Saddam Hussein's Iraq"
That America backed by providing military intelligence and allowing Iraq to fly the Stars and Stripes on its oil tankers (thus making any attempt by Iran to blockade Iraq an act of war against America). At the same time, America blew an Iranian civilian aircraft out of the sky, lied about it not broadcasting on civilian frequencies and awarded medals to all sailors when the ship got back to port. Meanwhile, our erstwhile buddy, Saddam, was using chemical weapons that we failed to condemn as he was fighting a country whose democratic government we had toppled in 1953 and who were "inexplicably" pissed with us. So, yeah, can't trust those Iranians.
"Iran sponsors and funds numerous terror organizations and activities"
And America doesn't?
"Iran ... has stated numerous times ... that their policy is to annihilate a certain other country in the region, and do so by any means possible."
Aside from John McCain "joking" with his notorious "bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" song, everybody knows the "wipe Israel off the map" quote was a mistranslation that has been covered many times (see here for a reputable source). But don't take my word for it. If you still don't believe it, ask a Farsi speaker. There is not even an idiom in Farsi for "wipe off the map".
And before you call them biased and say that "they would say that", consider the political leanings of my Farsi speaking friends (and countless other Iranians who came to the West). Clue: they all left Iran in 1979.
--- "We've always been at war with Eastasia."
The Neville Chamberlain theme is turning in some sort of Godwin of its own. If you're not prepared to send the overstretched US army in another war and go for a political solution someone will throw Chamberlain at you. An equally valuable contribution.
This one even at first post. Sigh
---
In reality Obamacare is not very good at all but it's a helluva lot better than what we had before it.
Three obvious rebuttals here. It is unconstitutional in several ways and these choices were made so to pass costs on to individuals, businesses, and the states. It made Medicare even more unhealthy by dumping more people on it. And there's still no move towards long term affordable health care or universal coverage, the two alleged goals of Obamacare.
Yeah we will remember how dumb Americans made the #1 country go from prosperous to average in two Republican mandates. First the war if Afgha Iraq who made it so you were to weak to counter Putin and created the Islamic State and now you will go in Iran to make sure you are no more credibility or any power. Even the banana republic of South America will laugh at your empty threats soon.
Don't you know it is now both immoral and criminal to think beyond the next quarterly report?
dancing in the streets. (be careful of painting with too broad a brush) You might be dancing too in similar circumstances. The more progressive Iranians are celebrating the possibility that their country may finally be able to return to the world community. We should all celebrate that this very desirable outcome now may have a chance to occur.
The situation, in absence of this treaty, meant that work on their atomic bomb would continue, and that they would get the bomb eventually.
The Western and Iranian fanatics, who are hoping for (and working to make happen) the Armageddon that they think is prophesied in their holy books, are very upset that "the end times" may not happen in their lifetime (or maybe never will). They are, therefore, reflexively against any move toward peace and stability. We, the rational humans everywhere, dare not surrender to these nuts.
The USA is only 4X older than me...perspective
There are countless examples. Often, Islamic nations break their arrangements the next day.
Iran did not respect the embassy.
> The commander of the Basij militia of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said that “erasing Israel off the map” is “nonnegotiable,” according to an Israel Radio report Tuesday
http://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-militia-chief-destroying-israel-nonnegotiable/
Cynical, perhaps; realistic, unfortunately.
The only reason Iran is helping against ISIS is because of a decades-old Sunny vs Shi'a conflict. ISIS is Sunny and Iran is Shi'a. Iran is ISIS for Shi'a in every sense of the word: aspiration for world domination, use of torture and extreme violence both on its own people and its enemies, funding and carrying out of terrorism. The list goes on.
The only difference is that Iran has ICBMs capable of hitting half of the globe (hello Europe, soon hello US) and are now attempting to arm them with nuclear warheads. ISIS is 1/100th the threat by comparison.
This list seems very reasonable in summarizing the terms that the US administration would agree to.
I'll leave that one to the Supreme Court. So far, it hasn't really taken much of a thrashing.
I'm not sure I understand this. Is there some entity that could bear costs that doesn't fall under one of the categories you listed above? I mean, ultimately individuals and businesses bear all of the costs of everything that costs anything.
I think you mean Medicaid. And I'm not sure why you'd say that expanding Medicaid makes it unhealthier. The program is simply becoming larger and covering more people.
There's a very good argument to be made that offering standardized, easily evaluated insurance products on an open exchange is an important step in keeping costs in check. Any system that moved us a step away from our unholy employer-based system would do that. Enabling consumers to choose from more than one option in something that resembles a market is a major step in the right direction, even if we didn't also kill off the employer-based option in the process.
As for it not moving toward universal coverage, I don't know how a multiple percentage point drop in the uninsurance rate isn't a move "towards" universal coverage. If the criticism is that the end result will not be universal coverage, that's true. But at a glance, it looks like results in that direction a pretty positive.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Winston Churchill's comments at the conclusion of the Munich Agreement in 1938 are certainly apropos today, and include this: " . . . we have sustained a defeat without a war, the consequences of which will travel far with us along our road;"
The entire region really wants that country gone. It's one of the last powerful imperialistic colonies in the world. Not that turning it into a glass sheet will be helpful but Iran simply doesn't have that power, 1 nuclear weapon would be barely enough to level a city, not a country. They'd need to be on the level of India/US to achieve that.
The religious aspects in that region also utilize a lot of hyperbole in order to keep the populace pacified. The ones in charge (typically elected in vs theocratic selection) are more level headed and will most likely not submit to the outlandish requests. This would be similar to the rest of the world pointing towards Rick Perry/Boehner/Pelosi and saying that they are the ones they should be worried about when negotiating a deal.
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I'm not sure I understand this. Is there some entity that could bear costs that doesn't fall under one of the categories you listed above?
Federal government tax revenue. In particular, they could have made the individual mandate constitutional by making it a tax credit on participation rather than a tax/fine on not participating. But that would have meant more cost for the law.
I think you mean Medicaid. And I'm not sure why you'd say that expanding Medicaid makes it unhealthier. The program is simply becoming larger and covering more people.
I did mean Medicaid. The problem is that the program has increased by a third in membership the span of six years (almost 48 million in 2009 to 65 million last year) while the economic base that pays for Medicaid still grows slower than the rate of growth in the program (and of health care cost as a whole).
As for it not moving toward universal coverage, I don't know how a multiple percentage point drop in the uninsurance rate isn't a move "towards" universal coverage. If the criticism is that the end result will not be universal coverage, that's true. But at a glance, it looks like results in that direction a pretty positive.
Only if you count Medicaid as part of that. While I don't have a lot of experience with the program, it does appear to be going downhill to me, especially with below market rates for most medical care.
And if the quality of the medical care doesn't matter, then it's worth noting that the US has long had universal medical care. You just have to walk into an emergency room to get it.
That 1/3 increase in enrollment is not a problem so much as it's how the law was designed. More support for lower income people by expanding Medicaid and Medicaid receipts to support them. That initial growth is accounted for in the law's budgeting. As for the rate of growth, I'm wondering what data you have on that. In aggregate, the growth rate in per-capita healcare spending has declined over the past few years, averaging about 1.3% in real terms per year. Not great, but also not something that looks to be outstripping our ability to pay for it. That includes Medicare spending, so it's possible that the Medicaid data is drastically different and being averaged out, but I don't have a clean dataset in easy reach. Based on private market trends, I'd be surprised if Medicaid turned out to be growing at a uniquely high per-capita rate.
This one gets me every time. Of course you count Medicaid as part of that! A huge part of the law was getting more lower income people healthcare by providing it through Medicaid.
If they had implemented a 100% coverage single payer system, I bet there would be people who say that it didn't expand access to healthcare "unless you count that government plan." It's one thing if we accidentally made everybody too poor to afford anything but public assistance, but the Medicaid expansion was completely intentional. It was the answer to the question, "How you going to get health insurance to lower income people?"
I don't really know how to respond to feelings of vague unease with the quality of the program. Are you really asserting, as you imply below, that Medicaid is no better than just showing up at an emergency room? I don't think there's a lot of data to support that. The mainstream consensus is quite the opposite.
What amazes me is that the program is working more or less as designed, costs are running lower than expected, the economy has failed to collapse as predicted, and people are still saying everything was perfectly fine when stumbling into an emergency room to be stabilized and sent home was "healthcare." The idea that there have been no objectively measurable improvements to the situation baffles me.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Typically ACs are discounted as trolls who want to spread BS without affecting any long term standing on /., or have people hold them to their word. Asking you to stand by your words is less machismo than it is asking for an honest discussion
From this side of the pond it seems like Netanyahu was playing games and getting far right voters to change their votes to Likud in order to keep him in power. Your reply seems to agree to that, but also ask that we view Israel in its entirety instead of judging you for Netanyahu's actions
I have to say that from an American standpoint, Netanyahu is crossing some acceptable boundaries by putting down the President and exasperating the partisan divide for his own benefit. At this point an ever larger number of Americans are expressing an every greater FU (middle finger raised) to Israel as a whole for Netanyahu's actions. If you care about that, then get a grip on the jerks in your country before asking for benevolence from this one.
Wherever You Go, There You Are
"according to Netanyahu"
Whose own statements have been repeatedly undermined by leaked MOSSAD reports stating that Iran has neither the capabilities or wish to build nuclear weapons. - and those same reports pointed out that had Iran wished to build any, it could have many years ago as they've had more than enough highly enriched uranium onhand for a couple of decades.
Iran needs to be brought in from the cold. They have good reason for distrusting the west, even before a certain coup against a democratically elected government back in the 1950s
The prime use of them being out there has been as a bogeyman the West could point to to justify its military activities in the middle east - and as it turned out, the most destabilising influence in the Middle East since the end of the Cold War has been the West's military activities (Apart from the puppet govts such as Saddam Hussain, the Syrian clusterfuck is a direct result of french bureaucracy and a deliberate plan to keep the area weak by dividing tribes up into different countries, post WW1, against the advice of T.E.Lawrence - who drew up plans which would have kept things stable and secure)
And of course the fact that Iran's been out in the cold means the establishment there could use the West as a bogeyman to keep their own people subjugated. Noone won anything except the arms suppliers.
It's quite simple really.
Heh.
Congress controls the purse-strings, has the sole power to declare war, and is beholden to public opinion regardless of whether or not the President is running for re-election.
On points A and B, one cannot argue. On point C, I'd be very, very interested to see some evidence that the US Congress needs to give 2 squirts of piss about public opinion. Commercials and media coverage buy votes. It's legal for literally any source of money to give politicians infinite amounts of these things, ergo, they are in fact beholden to someone's opinion, but it isn't the public's- at least not until political advertising money loses its efficacy.
I look forward to a day when the US Congress has an approval rating suggesting someone in there would actually be reelected.
Maybe you can suggest a path to an AUMF against Iran in the current political climate?
Sure can't :(
Where are your 218/51 yea votes coming from? Recall that two years ago BHO withdrew his request for Congressional approval to intervene in Syria rather than see it defeated, as it was destined to be.
The 218/51 have already made up their mind, quite contrary to public opinion. Now begins the march to moving public opinion to align with their next major government bailout. The MIC is feeling the squeeze since the last 2 wars started winding down, dollar wise. It'll take some scare mongering, maybe a disaster, perhaps an almost-stopped terror attempt. Who knows, but if these chaps have shown anything, they can and will control the will of the electorate. It's even easier when their constituents are watered down fundamentalists, practically foaming at the mouth to wage a jihad of their own.
That 1/3 increase in enrollment is not a problem so much as it's how the law was designed. More support for lower income people by expanding Medicaid and Medicaid receipts to support them. That initial growth is accounted for in the law's budgeting.
[...]
What amazes me is that the program is working more or less as designed, costs are running lower than expected, the economy has failed to collapse as predicted, and people are still saying everything was perfectly fine when stumbling into an emergency room to be stabilized and sent home was "healthcare." The idea that there have been no objectively measurable improvements to the situation baffles me.
It's only 2015. There is a future after 2015. I think we'll already start seeing serious problems by 2020.
And I'm quite concerned about what the eventual "design" is here. For right now, that looks to me like creating a crisis so that the current system of insurance can be ended in favor of a national single payer system.
Other than the issue with the Article referenced (Article 1?), what does revenue and war powers have to do with negotiating treaties with another nation? What will stop the Obama Administration from negotiating a treaty with Iran, given that the President faces zero political repercussions for the future?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
With the Republicans in charge of Congress, maybe, just maybe they'll actually read stuff before voting on it? Lot to ask I know.
The point that I was trying to make is that BHO's hands are tied. The military option is not on the table, despite all public bluster to the contrary. BHO could not secure Congressional approval for military intervention against Assad, what makes you think he can secure it against Iran? There's no appetite in the American body politic for another sustained military adventure in the Middle East and by all accounts the Iranian nuclear infrastructure is too diversified to destroy with a short term aerial campaign.
If you've remove the military option you're left with two choices:
1. Get a deal all sides can live with at the negotiating table.
2. Failing #1, continue economic sanctions in the hopes of compelling a change in Iranian policy.
#2 is dependent on at making a good faith effort at negotiating, otherwise you'll lose the support of the global community, and unilateral American sanctions (or even American + EU) aren't likely to hurt Iran enough to influence their policy choices. It's not like we have a significant amount of trade with them. One need only look 90 miles off the coast of Florida to see how effective unilateral American sanctions are at compelling change.
I also dispute the notion that a second term President is removed from political pressure and/or repercussions for unpopular decisions. In the extreme example Congress can impeach his ass and remove him from office. That's not likely to occur of course, but there are all sorts of things that the body politic can do to make his life difficult if he steps too far outside the mainstream of public opinion.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
the West lacked the political will to resist.
That is exactly the point that Churchill made.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
MAD only worked because both sides of the conflict were rational and relatively sane. Iran has no such encumbrance.
Nope. They're sane enough. Turns out you can't stay on top of that game without being of a rational bent. Hell, even Mao Tse Tung of all people got really smart really fast as soon as he got nukes, and he was as inept and crazy as they come. His starving 40 million of his own people to death through sheer incompetence is still the world record, but even so he changed his tune when the realities of nuclear warfare sunk home.
Stefan Axelsson
Iran 1953, Guatemala 1954, Brazil 1964, Chile 1973, Argentina 1976, and that's just naming a few of the more egregious ones.
Or was your point that they used the own troops, instead of bribing/cajoling/threatening/funding/organising someone elses? Some people would say that doing your own dirty work is the stand up thing to do, but that's some people...
Stefan Axelsson
Can you cite a source where Iran says they are seeking nuclear weapons? We can wait, I'm sure...
Iran has no nuclear weapons programme. Not a single intelligence service in the developed world is claiming they are. The only people who say they are developing one are those on the campaign trail, or who have a book to sell. You repeating that nonsense only serves to make you look somewhat foolish.
That's all you have? Pathetic. The only thing you achieved is showing everyone you are quite happy to make up your own beliefs about the intentions of others, should it suite the mental narrative you are desperately trying to construct in your own head. At the same time as condemning people for being irrational - priceless!
Military options ARE on the table. The President can act unilaterally for up to 60 days without issue. Consider bombing in Libya, Syria, and other places. The reality is there isn't much he can't do...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!