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Iran Has Signed a Nuclear Accord
New submitter divide overflow writes: According to the New York Times, 'Iran and a group of six nations led by the United States have agreed to a historic accord to significantly limit Tehran's nuclear ability for more than a decade in return for lifting international oil and financial sanctions against Iran, a senior Western diplomat involved in the negotiations said on Tuesday. The deal, which President Obama had long sought as the biggest diplomatic achievement of his presidency, culminates 20 months of negotiations.' Not everyone approves.
I literally feel nauseous about this Iran deal. I feel nauseous because my daughter’s future is being seriously jeopardized by a deal that lifts sanctions that have been well designed to stop a state sponsor of terrorism from obtaining nuclear weapons, in return for virtually nothing. Somehow, President Obama has convinced his fellow Democrats that infusing Iran with billions of dollars will make the world a safer place. But all it will do is exacerbate Iran’s aggression in the Middle East, and perversely enable western civilization to fund terrorism activities aimed at it.
We have given concessions to a country that has repeatedly lied, hidden, deceived, and repeatedly and boldly declared its intention to wipe out both Israel and the United States. Any member of Congress who votes for this deal must have a death wish. But of course Congress, in typical fashion, gave away its constitutional power to ratify this as a treaty (with 2/3 of Senate support) when it passed the Corker legislation. Assuming the Republican-controlled Congress votes down the Iran deal and the President vetoes it, I cannot imagine that there are enough Democrats (13 Democrats in the Senate and 43 in the House) to join the Republicans in overriding Obama’s inevitable veto.
There’s enough political cover and ambiguity in the agreement that the real risks to U.S. and Israel will become known only incrementally, after the passage of years, and most likely only after President Obama leaves office. By the time the western world realizes what a mistake the Obama Administration has made, it will be too late. I guess that, once again, we have to pass it to reallyfind out what’s in it.
History will be the judge, unfortunately it will probably be written in Nasta'liq script.
Want to really fight ISIS? We'll need Iran and Syria as allies if you actually want to win.
Fuck Netanyahu. If you listen to him, he'll take you right into WWIII. Let him go to Masada by himself if he's so determined to commit suicide.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Most western-friendly population in the middle-east!
Humm, shall we discuss the half life of Plutonium? More interesting
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
When you said "Not everyone approves" for a second I worried that it was talking about someone who is, oh I dunno, an American and not a foreign politician with a decades-long bias toward keeping the US hostile toward Iran.
And Iran can delay inspectors for 25 days without any consequences as per the rules of the treaty. Deny access for so many days, the go before an arbitration panel that add another so many days, the delay for so many days if the panel rules against them, ... all total 25 days. Only after that can other even consider sanctions.
Plus in ten years they are free to research nukes? This deal is just a publicity stunt for the US. It's a fraud, just like the Clinton administration's deal with North Korea.
This agreement that took years to reach, is all carrot and no stick. Once the other nations release their sanctions (current sticks), they won't put them back on and if Iran continues to make nukes, they still won't reinstate them after the US gives the Iranians 100 Billion+ $ (which they will likely promptly buy arms and weapons systems from China and Russia with)... It is very important to note that 24/7 access does NOT = "unfettered" access... this deal has notice being given to Iran for the when and where they will inspect... (probably days to weeks in advance) UNFETTERED means any time anywhere no notice... HUGE difference. This was a total cave in and we were better off before any deal. Giving up everything to the opponent is not a metric by which you can claim it is a "good deal". Love him or hate him, Bibi was right, this is a very bad deal...
Let's look at the great list of broken promises and bullshit by which America exists today as we know it?
None the least of which, the 1953 coup that overthrew Iran's government to install a western puppet and which precipitated the Iranian Islamic Revolution directly,
or the 1990 visit to Saddam Hussein by US Diplomat April Glaspie, who informed him that "The US isn't interested" were he to invade Kuwait, among others.
Considering the sheer volume of lies that the US is built upon, self contradictions with its own Constitution to say nothing of agreements like the Geneva Conventions that it makes pretense of being in accord with but only in semantics, to the UN's failure to reign in "acceptable" war criminals like Israel via US veto?
Considering all that, we're the ones wagging fingers at IRAN, who is at war with nobody but the terrorists that US regime change in Iraq left for the region to absorb?
Wake me from this sea of rhetorical bullshit and Israeli war drums. This deal is better than ANYTHING Israel ever agreed to.
Part of the agreement is that they hand over their spent fuel. My question... what do we do with it?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Hans, Hans, you're breaking my balls!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Part of the agreement is that they hand over their spent fuel. My question... what do we do with it?
Dirty bomb! This one's for you, Putin!
What could possibly go wrong...
The Senate must do its job and reject this moronic capitulation. Let the fanatics in Tehran steep in sanction until there are in a more agreeable mood.
... boldly declared its intention to wipe out both Israel and the United States.
Please.
That's just political posturing and propaganda. Even IF Iran gets nukes, they would be no threat to the US. And as far as Israel is concerned, they have plenty for retaliation. And it will never get that far. Israel will violate international law like they always do and just bomb the shit out of Iran's nuke labs and stir up a shit load of trouble and then come crying to the US to bail them out of their dickishness.
We have given concessions to a country that has repeatedly lied, hidden, deceived,...
That statement can be applied to Israel. I cannot count how many times she has double crossed and screwed over the US.
As an American, I am sick and tired of my government aligning our interests with a rogue state that has no interest in peace in the Middle East - or at least peace by Israel's terms which from her actions means Israel has total domination over the Middle East.
Frankly, with "allies" like Israel, who the fuck needs enemies.
Only if you want to move Kim Jong Un to Seoul.
Damn, and I was waiting for their electrical model. Honda is moving forward!
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Seems weird that this is only 10 years.
It makes sense that it should be about monitoring (in spite of what neo-cons/tea* scream), but, what does not make sense is why 10 years only? Seems like 20 or more would be better.
I suspect that Saudi Arabia will now start THEIR program with Russia's help.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Why? Did either Cuba OR Iran get 'resolved'?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
What everyone needs to understand about this deal is that it is NOT about the geopolitics. It is about limiting the ability of Iran to rapidly produce the fuel for a nuclear weapon. Even with the ability to delay an inspector for a short amount of time it still meets the goals (and yes, 25 days is short when compared to the time needed to design, build, test, and implement an uranium processing facility). Iran has long been able to move money on the black and gray markets, though not as easily as if they were part of the open economy, so anything that monitors and limits their nuclear ambitions is better than where the world is now. Once the domestic economy starts to pick up, the economic incentives should be a strong endorsement to maintain the status quo, and not go back to the sanctions regime. A very large part of the Iranian population has spent their whole life under sanctions and restrictions, and I don't imagine that they will through the modernization of their nation away to push for nuclear weapons, and the Supreme leader and company would do well to remember what happens when you have a large, young, dissatisfied population seeing their world tossed to the gutter. Ask the Shah...
The geo-political and economic results from this were not the main goal. Both Israel and the Gulf States are going to have to quickly adapt to Iran becoming a more potent regional political force. They will have the resources to push their agenda in the area, putting them on the same playing field as the Arab League and Israel. Iran is also likely to become a very rapidly growing economy, after years of pent-up demand. Their technical capabilities make them a rival to Israel economically as well as militarily, but there is a real opportunity for those two nations to partner if they can ever get over the animosity.
In the worst case, the U.S. and Israel return to the sanctions regime and punish anyone who violates it. The dollar is the oil of the world economy, and will remain so for a few decades more at least, so the U.S. has tremendous economic power, and the U.N. is not going to step in to help Iran if they are violating the treaty.
If inspectors have concerns about undeclared sites, they must submit to Iran a request in writing that explains their concerns. Iran may counter with a proposal for “alternative means” of resolving the issue without actually allowing inspectors to inspect anything. If the inspectors and the regime can’t agree to a solution within two weeks, the dispute gets kicked up to a higher level. In other words, Iran has a license to stall for two full weeks whenever it does something suspicious.
After two weeks, the problem gets handed over to the Joint Commission, a new body whose membership and responsibility is defined in Annex IV to the agreement. Basically, the commission has eight members, one for each of the countries who are party to the agreement, plus the EU. A majority of five commission members may “advise” Iran on how to resolve the inspectors’ concerns. The commission has seven days to address the inspectors’ concerns, after which Iran has three days to implement any recommended measures. So, at minimum, Iran will have 24 days to clean up any suspicious sites before inspectors get a first look.
But what if Iran doesn’t comply with the commission’s requests within three days? Alas, that is a mystery. Section Q ends with the pronouncement that Iran will implement such measures. However, there is a “Dispute Resolution Mechanism” described in paragraphs 36 and 37 of the main body of the deal. This process requires another 50 days — the precise length is difficult to discern from the text, since it involves three separate levels of evaluation. So in practice, Iran may be looking at a minimum of two and a half months before they have to do anything.
And what if the inspectors are still left out in the cold? Then the only option left for the U.S. (or the U.K. or France) is to go to the UN Security Council and try to blow up the entire deal, in accordance with the “snapback” provisions of the deal.
http://www.nationalreview.com/...> Read more
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
No, really.
+1
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
I'm sure that this will work out at least as well as it did the last time a Dem US president made a deal to "stop the development of nuclear weapons".
I'm sure Japan, South Korea, and others in the region still remember that agreement with pride and joy.
-Styopa
So, what does the agreement say about verification?
Is this another "national technical means" (read: spying) situation? Or does this have some other verification measure(s) that aren't mentioned in TFA?
And on an unrelated note - no, Iran did not "sign" the agreement. Anymore than the US did. They "initialed" it (read: the negotiators on all sides agreed to hand this back to their respective governments for ratification/whatever)....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
He and his within 5 second +5 'insightful' posse.
I'm curious about what you said.
Is this something you've noticed anecdotally, or do you have a screen scraping program that loads and interprets slashdot conversations? (Or something else?)
I'd be very interested in statistics about this sort of thing. Anything that throws light on how certain subjects get modded up, correlations of moderator accounts that don't post, and so on.
There's a lot of activity here that seems anecdotally suspicious. It'd be nice to know whether this is due to random clustering or some type of organized push.
Do you have any statistical support?
Yes, there is a Third option - get the fuck out.
There will NEVER be peace in the Middle East - ever. Those people have been at each others throats for a couple of millennia.
I say - FUCK'EM! If they want to keep these ancient tribal animosities going and act like primitives, then who are we to interfere.
It's nice to see peaceful resolutions to problems instead of war.
Although little Bibi is fuming mad - and spewing more fear-mongering rhetoric than ever - whilst suggesting that Israel attack Iran anyway.
At least most of the world is still interested in peace.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
What possible use are nukes for Iran anyway? Their ability to manufacture a large number of them or deliver a lot of them at once over any distance (especially intercontinental) makes them less than useful.
Any actual use of them against the US or Israel would result in a retaliation that would seriously threaten the existence of Iranian civilization as its now known. Any US president in office when an American city was targeted by an Iranian nuke who did not turn Iran into the world's largest open air supply of Trinitite might seriously be deposed if not lynched in the streets like Mussolini.
I've read that the Israelis have a standing threat that if Israel is targeted by a nuke, they are retaliating against all major Arab capitals and Mecca, regardless of who's at fault. Ironically or not, the Israelis do collective punishment like nobody since Imperial Rome.
They might get some short-term mileage out of stunts with the Straits of Hormuz, but it only works if they are willing to risk a catastrophic retaliation from which recovery is all but unlikely except on geological timelines. And the more serious their threat, the more likely they might face a preemptive strike. Even a conventional preemptive strike would force them to either capitulate or go nuclear. If they capitulate, they lose and future threats will go nowhere. If they go nuclear? Game over. All your base are glassed over.
It was a Captain who hung the banner, not Bush. Just saying ... that you're lying out your ass.
Oh fuck off. Even North Korea, a genuinely nutty state, represents at best a regional threat. The Great Powers remain essentially untouchable, and for fuck's sake, Iran has several nearby nuclear states (China, Pakistan, India, Israel and Russia) who possess arsenals of one form or another. The whole point of the plan is that the signatory powers (all of which are nuclear states themselves) will have probably a year or more from Iran going into technical breach to mount a response.
Christ all fucking mighty, grow up. Iran does not represent a meaningful threat to the US, and any future existential threat it may represent to Israel is countered by the fact that if it ever mounted a nuclear attack on Israel or Saudi Arabia, the Iranian state, and probably millions of Iranians, would be killed in turn.
MAD works best when the parties don't view a nuclear apocalypse as an event ushering in God's judgment upon men and the rewarding of the holy.
Perhaps you have missed the increasing capability, payload and range, of the missiles in the possession of minor powers. Intercontinental is no longer, or soon will no longer be, a Great Powers exclusive.
A small regional limited nuclear exchange will be a greater environmental catastrophe than all the SUVs, disposable water bottles, and cow farts combined.
Your list of nuclear power is short, a regional nuclear arms race is about to begin.
In 1914 Serbia was considered only a regional threat.
Those who think we need to choose between ISIS and Iran, just as those who say the only alternative to the current deal with Iran is war -- are being dangerously simplistic. Sort of reminds me of the whole Democrat-Republican dynamic here in the USA of late. It's one line of BS or another -- both of which turn out to be politically motivated; that is, in the self-interest of the politician. I'm tired of hearing how: "This is Bush's fault" and "No, it's Obama's fault" At some point it's our fault. For listening to overly simplistic arguments, believing them, then picking a side. ...often followed by calling each other names.
Sad is what it is.
Sad and dangerous.
Netanyahu is a warmongering idiot. All he ever seems to do is passive-agressively invent reasons/excuses to stir up more shit and more reasons to use military force against muslims and steal more land.
I'm not suggesting the muslims are white as snow either but it boggles my mind why the US keeps sending money/arms to Israel and automatically backs them up no matter how blatantly they make trouble.
Israel is like the irritating little kid in the school playground that makes everyones lives hell, and only avoids getting a well-deserved pasting because he has a giant brother and knows to never go anywhere alone.
"Iran has never invaded anyone" - false, on a couple occasions - they invaded America and Iraq. Our embassy was American Territory when they took the hostages way back in the 70's, and they certainly tried to invade Iraq during the Iran/Iraq war. Human waves of invasion, in fact. Quibble all you want about their intentions, but keep the facts straight.
Second point - for all of you who are so very thrilled at this latest example of how very skilled our current administration is in overseas diplomacy, just wait. Remember what you wrote here today in 10 years when "all of a sudden" Iran becomes a nuclear power in the region. Of course, you'll conveniently forget doing so just like every other time you've employed cognitive dissonance to avoid facing reality, but the internet will remember...
Iran has stopped executing gays, apostates, critical bloggers and insubmissive women. They will no longer threaten to annihilate Israel or support suicide bombers. Finally Iran can rejoin the league of civilized nations. It has to be true, because how else could the sanctions against Iran be lifted?
I think the original intent was more along the lines of 'what have we been trying to do in each region?' and Obama doing them.
Cuba - a lot of people have wanted the sanctions removed for a loooong time(they made sense when Cuba was tight buddies with the USSR, but it makes no sense any more, and the sanctions are just as responsible for the destitute populace as the dictatorial regime).
Iran - a lot of people have wanted more amicable relations between Iran and the west. Iran is one of the main powers against the US/West, and any improvement in our relations - if they're lasting - is a step in the right direction. There's obviously no panacea, and it won't happen overnight, but both sides get to walk away from this deal with something they want. Iran gets to play a bigger role in regional economics, and the West reduces the nuclear capabilities of the biggest rogue-element in the world today.
DPRK/South Korea - a lot of people have wanted an end to the Korean War(or, 'resolved'). For so many different reasons. Human rights issues in the DPRK, eliminating civilian casualties, relaxing the DMZ, reunification of the peninsula, removal of a brutal dictator, avoiding massive loss of life should fighting resume...the list goes on. If Obama 'resolved' the Korean War like he has the other areas, that'd be pretty sweet. My point being: the thing 'to do' for the Korean War is to 'resolve' it.
That's how I read the GP comment, anyways. It is ambiguous though...
Sure, "not everyone agrees", and in particular conservative Republicans are foaming at the mouth, but... The thing is, for all their talk about how this agreement is going to be a disaster for America, I have yet to hear those on the right propose anything that sounds remotely like a workable alternative to the current deal. Say we end up with the deal stopped cold by congress, which could well happen, what then? Sanctions continue, and Iran no longer feels any reason not to go ahead with work on a bomb. Why wouldn't they? How would we stop them? Military force?? Don't make me laugh, that ain't gonna happen. So what's left, increasing the severity of the economic sanctions? We're pretty much doing all we can in that area now, and indeed it has brought Iran to the bargaining table. You want to just toss away the one chance we have to make a deal? It seems to me that if you're going to just say "well, screw that!" in regard to the current agreement, you have to have a better alternative in mind, and I mean something that stands a chance of working. We've got a deal, it's better than what we've had with sanctions in place, why not go with it? If Iran decides to cheat, well, that's the time to start talking tough. All I see now is people wanting to throw away this deal because, well, it might make Obama look good. And it might, but what else is there? I'm waiting to hear of any other plan of action that sounds remotely feasible.
Now the warmongers in both governments can block the deal, so the heads of state can say "Well, we tried" and things continue on as "normal."
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
that the U.S. is the biggest shit-head bully on the globe.
Don't fight them, ignore them. Even if we squashed them, a new group of radicals will form to replace it. Trying to fix the M.E. is playing unwinnable Whack-A-Mole.
If we ignore them, they'll eventually ignore us. It may take a generation or two for them to forget about us, but it will happen if we just have the patience.
The M.E. will be a mess with us or without us (cue U2 tune). Let's stop pretending we can fix it. After we've failed 25 times what makes you think #26 is the trick?
Table-ized A.I.
Continued sanctions would slow the Iranians more than this deal. Now they will have a better funded program and several weeks of notice to prep a site before allowing the inspectors in, such delays are built into the terms of the treaty and there seems to be no cost to playing such games. They will play the military site / national security card as they have already done, and it will be even more effective to do so under this treaty.
We have this treaty for one reason only. The current administration wanted a "win" on their record. When crap hits the fan in the future they will blame it on the other guy. Its just like the corporate CEO who manages the company for this quarter's financial statement. Five or ten years down the road will be some other CEOs problem. I guess the President is learning some management skills with his on-the-job executive training.
I just want to say it's about damn time. I remember seeing videos from the 50's where they had jet-powered Buicks. Impractical because of the high exhaust temperatures, but a well-executed Nuclear Accord would be perfect.
Nuclear weapons don't kill people, people kill people! We just need more nuclear weapons!
There are several possible outcomes from this deal, none of which is worse than not doing a deal at all.
That said, if Iran is serious in its claim that it doesn't want nuclear weapons and only wants peaceful nuclear technology, it should sign and ratify the various nuclear test ban treaties.
It's easy to see how many slashdotters have no clue about international relationships or history, and how many are simply naive.
I don't know why adults even hang around here anymore.
If N.Korea has nukes, why do you think that Iran does not? It has 4-5x the size (pop, GDP) and by comparison with NK would already have them if it wanted. Pakistan is another comparable.
This is at best an agreement not-to-test, slowing? development of fission-fusion warheads. Just what do you think heavy water reactors are for? Canada sells CANDU tritium for US warhead refreshing.
Seriously, it's as if he wants to destroy the country intentionally. Everything he does seems so self destructive. Look at where we were before and after him, both from our 18 trillion dollar debt and our world standing. Shortsighted and lies....Maybe if we just hug all the bad guys, they will leave us alone. I'm sure if you plug in his strategy to and game theory model, it's a lose lose.
you sure are gullible
Broken by the Americans as is their modus operandi.
So they had to give up valid scientific research and a desire to protect themselves (MAD), because we fucked their economy so hard they eventually cried 'mercy'?
Yeah sounds like the good old west is helping people out again! Well done everyone!
Israel has been known to have nukes for decades. Israel has never used them on anybody, nor has it publicly threatened to do so. Israel has a decades-long track record of not threatening any nation that has not previously attacked it.
Israel does not regularly lead its people in chants of "Death to {anybody}", does not hang homosexuals in public, does not regularly promise to remove other nations from the surface of the Earth, etc (all things that Iran DOES). Iran, unlike Israel, is the world's leading sponsor of terrorism having sponsored attacks on every continent but Antarctica, and has sponsored entire terror armies in places like Yemen, Iraq, and Syria and sponsored the Palestinian terrorist groups that regularly fire rockets at civilians (a war crime) from launch points shielded by civilians (another war crime).
Iran has regularly promised to remove both Israel and the US from the Earth (only achievable with nukes) while claiming it does not want nukes (like Hitler kept claiming not to want war...) and building a nuclear program that is only useful for nukes and an ICBM program that will be of no use with conventional warheads.
Go and tell your Mullah bosses that your attempt to masquerade as a civilized Westerner and slime the Jews and "The Zionist Entity" have failed.
Today marks the start of the world's first nuclear war. The war is now inevitable, the only question now will be: when is the first detonation?
With this "deal", Mr Obama has put the nail in the coffin of nuclear arms control - the US and NATO clearly have no will to enforce any non-proliferation or arms limitation treaties. Now the enemies of Iran, who have for decades depended upon their American allies to defend them have been kicked in the teeth and signaled that the US is no longer a reliable security partner - they will all have to rush to get their own nukes. Within the next few years Eqypt, Saudi Arabia and others will have nuclear weapons. The Chinese and Russians are probably similarly re-calibrating all their previous estimates of what they can get away with, so it should be no surprise if Mr Putin and China up their sabre rattling and territory grabbing. This is far worse than the worst of Jimmy Carter's insane incompetence.
The Iranian Mullahs NEED a nuclear war to bring about their vision of their religion, and THAT is something deterrence cannot deal with. Deterrence depends on all parties NOT wanting war.
Remember this day. In a few years when you witness mushroom clouds rising over major western cities, be sure to thank Mr Kerry and Mr Obama just as those British supporters of Neville Chamberlain were forced to witness the bombing of London and recall their gullible former leader and his promise of a diplomatic breakthrough that he claimed would deliver "peace in our time".
Jew hatred went out with your hero Mr Hitler. And no, the standard cowardly post-WWII Jew-hater tactic of claiming to only hate Israel, while not being a Jew hater, is no more valid than it ever was (you guys would not hate Israel if it was not run by Jews).
The only "occupation" that needs to end is the Palestinian/Muslim occupation of Israel. Israel existed thousands of years before Islam existed (Islam is about 7 centuries younger than Christianity which is thousands of years younger that Judaism and Israel). There is simply no logical or rational way that any Palestinian (a nationality Yasser Arafat himself on "60 Minutes" admitted was invented in the 1970s) claim on the land, or any Muslim claim on that land can preempt the Jewish claim. The Muslim claims on Jerusalem and Israel are as fantastically absurd as any claim some crazy Mormon might try to make on Mecca (AFAIK no Mormon would make such a claim, but its an equivalent absurdity)
Apparently in your mind, an actual nuclear war with millions of dead people is better than keeping sanctions in place and working towards the day when the Iranian people might return to sanity and re-join the civilized nations????
You must be a crazy fanatic posting from Tehran and dreaming of the paradise that will be ushered in by global bloodshed.
The best option for those of us in the West would have been for Obama to have embraced the green revolution in Iran and to have encouraged the youth of Iran to throw-off the tyranny of the Iranian revolutionary Muslim fanatics (who have murdered and oppressed far worse than the Shah who they arose in opposition to) with at least as much enthusiasm as he (Obama) embraced the "Arab Spring" in the rest of the Middle East (at least during the time when that helped his friends in the Muslim Brotherhood).
Given that Obama turned his back on the civilized youths of Iran who wanted to be free, the next best option was to ratchet UP sanctions to simultaneously weaken the religious fanatics running that regime and to buy time.
Given that Mr Obama failed on this too, the next best option was to keep sanction in place as-is.
The single most insanely stupid thing to do is to cut a deal that actually legitimizes the Iranian nuke program, takes the sanctions off of the Iranian ICBM program, opens the money spigot to let BILLIONS of dollars flow into that country, removes sanctions from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards forces and the Iranian intelligence service that backs terrorist groups, and removes limits on Iranian access to international arms vendors for anti-aircraft defense systems, aircraft, and other military tech - but this is precisely the insanity President Obama has selected.
Remember that Iran hasn't shot down a civilian passenger airplane and gave everyone involved in the shootdown medals for their achievement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655
The Pro and anti Isreali lobbies will be strong.
Has re-appeared in the form of Kerry
Both countries are mostly our "enemy" because we've mutually decided to hate each other, rather than because we have any legitimate current grievance. I say mostly, because obviously neither has a terribly good human rights record, but, by way of an example, if I were a woman, I'd rather live in Iran than Saudi Arabia. Infinitely rather.
Iran is considerably closer to being a democracy than many of our allies in that region (if not most of them actually.) Unfortunately, constitutionally they still have an unelected religious body with real power, which needs to be resolved. In the past, our relationship with Iran has actually made that religious body stronger, as every political conflict we've had with them has increased popular support for the hardline anti-democratic elements.
Turning Iran into a friend will take decades. But that's no excuse not to try. It does us no good whatsoever to discourage a country that's more progressive than most of its peers to move forward and closer to our values. To get there, we have to overcome distrust - much of which is entirely legitimate - by both sides.
So while you're right that neither are resolved, Obama has actually taken positive steps towards resolving them which are entirely necessary and which, if we and Iran and Cuba don't fuck things up, are the start of a long journey towards peace.
I'm glad to see it. It's the Obama I supported in 2008, not the Obama we've had as President from 2009 onwards. Perhaps, politically, it would have been better if it were some 2015 equivalent of Nixon (President Buchanan?) who'd done it, but it's still very, very, positive.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
The world would have been far better and safer today if that was the case.
What a break through! Twenty months? Any other country could surrender in a lot less time.
Of course, what no media even talks about, is that Iran would have had *one*, and only one use for ->having- (not using) a nuke: MAD.
1. Iran would never nuke Jerusalem, which is holy to all Muslims, as well as Jews and Christians.
Would Westboro Badtaste Church want to nuke Jerusalem, if they allowed gays to worship
at the Wailing Wall?
2. The US state of New Jersey is bigger than Israel. At one point, Israel is 17 mi wide (go look it up).
Dropping a nuke *anywhere* in Israel means that Jerusalem would get fallout, at the least.
3. Dripping a nuke in Israel would also hit the Palestinians, who the Iranians consider friends.
4. Considering the jet stream, guess where the fallout would continue to (hint: a country ruled
by an Ayatollah).
5. Notice that there's a small border area with Israel, that's called Iraq, Syria, and Jordan. Sort of
keeps armies from coming through to invade Israel.
Therefore, MAD with Israel would have been the only reason. So, those who don't like the idea, and think we should force regime change in Iran (I mean, it worked *so* well in Iraq), I'd expect each and every one of you to line up to enlist in the US Army, as infantry, to be ground troops for the invasion and conquest of Iran.
Otherwise, shut up.
mark
do we get our drone back?
Iran immediately after the revolution would have been a threat if they had nukes. A bunch of young, uneducated religious fanatics with very little to their names other than a hate on (for in some cases legitimate reasons - see Operation Ajax) for the West. Now though, those guys are old men. They have wives, children, grandkids, positions of power, comfortable existences. They aren't going to throw that away for the brief satisfaction of seeing something go boom in the night, before the retaliatory strike turns it all into so much plasma.
If you want to know where nuclear terrorism is more likely to come from, look to Pakistan. Depending on how things go over the next decade or two, there's a non-zero chance of a hardline islamist revolution there. Then you're back to young, uneducated fanatics who've had shitty lives, blame a western-allied government for it, and are willing to die as long as they get to strike back. Even if not, their intelligence service has been in bed with the extremists for years. Pakistan already has nukes, and despite everyone's assurances, how much are you willing to wager that either their military or someone else's can destroy them before they fall into the wrong hands?