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Iran Complies With Nuclear Deal; Sanctions Lifted (nytimes.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Iran has shipped most of its nuclear fuel out of the country, destroyed the innards of a plutonium-producing reactor and mothballed more than 12,000 centrifuges. This compliance with the nuclear accord struck in July has caused the U.S. and Europe to lift financial sanctions on Iran, releasing ~$100 billion in assets. "Under the new rules put in place, the United States will no longer sanction foreign individuals or firms for buying oil and gas from Iran. The American trade embargo remains in place, but the government will permit certain limited business activities with Iran, such as selling or purchasing Iranian food and carpets and American commercial aircraft and parts. It is an opening to Iran that represents a huge roll of the dice, one that will be debated long after Mr. Obama he has built his presidential library. It is unclear what will happen after the passing of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has protected and often fueled the hardliners — but permitted these talks to go ahead."
Are naieve. Iran continues to enrich bomb-grade nuclear fuel in underground/concealed sites.
It's insane that a tiny client state, that's not even in the G20, can have this sort of influence. Not that you can blame them for trying. How do so called 'constitutionalists' square this with their ideals? The 'one-dollar-one-vote' system in the US makes its democracy a running joke. If it were any other nation, it would be referred to as wide-scale, systemic corruption. Except the corruption has been legalized, and is by definition no longer corruption.
Surely Iran won't secretly develop nukes anyway with all the billions they get from the sanctions being lifted. This totally won't lead to bad consequences for anyone because giving nuclear weapons to people who are literally insane religious fanatics is a great idea and Iran would therefore never do that.
Surely Israel won't catch on to this and go after them. Again, no one is sure to overreact when this happens. The middle east is well known for a millenia long history of high quality rational discourse. Combined with pacifism.
Surely the next US president will be just as dickless and gullible as Obama. Because if they aren't, wow is Iran suddenly going to be fucked.
It won't matter if a Republican president takes this step. It will just mean more business for the EU, Russia, etc. No one outside the US takes this buffoon seriously, and Iran's demographics make the theocracy's grip on power increasingly tenuous. Wouldn't a future with good relations between US-Israel-Iran be so much better than one with the disgusting Saudi regime?
You know what is insane? People that believe the crap that you do! The US system is "one person, one vote." Corporations can't buy votes, Israel can't and doesn't buy votes. There isn't any Constitutional problem here. Israel gets US backing because that is what the US voters want. Why do you have a problem with that? Doesn't it make sense to you that the only liberal democracy in the region with strong cultural ties to the US and Europe would be an ally? It is the hatred for Israel that is insane. Get a load of this, is that how you roll?
Too bad you're posting as an AC
People like you who forget what the moderation system is for only make me want to post anonymously even more.
Too bad you're posting as an AC.
Huh?
Too bad you're a douchebag and don't mod posts according to their merits.
The US system is "one person, one vote."
The voters do not select the president, so while what you say is technically true, all you're doing with that vote is stating your preference. Consequently, it is not really a vote.
It is the hatred for Israel that is insane.
It's not really that crazy. The Jews' own holy books explain why everyone hates them. They were a racial minority that invaded a region which had already been hotly contested basically for all recorded history, put the men and mothers to the sword, and took the virgins as wives. They got kicked out of that region eventually by force, and then the UK came up with a snazzy plan to keep the muzzies down by reinstalling the jews in a place they'd already been driven out of. The UK was clever enough to distance itself from the plan by the time it was implemented, but the US went for it, and now we are funding another Yahweh-related genocide in the region, which is why all the people who hate the Jews hate us too. Which part of this is unclear?
I'm not saying that "THE JEWS" are evil or don't have a right to exist, but I am saying that the nation-state of Israel is a deliberate evil that is being perpetrated not just upon the "Palestinians" but also against the world. Israel is a military theocracy, one of the most dangerous types of institution that our world has ever created, and people cheer it on in the name of religious freedom and respect of other cultures, as if anything could be more ironic. There's nothing anti-Semitic about being anti-Zionist. The idea that people have a right to a particular place because of religious beliefs is poppycock, and the Jews were a racial minority that came late to the region and there's no particular reason to believe that they're more entitled to it than anyone else.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If you think that doesn't work you have to accept that is because the majority doesn't agree with you. It is that simple.
You're seriously making the argument that because a government acts in a certain way, its subjects agree with it? It's too easy to even make a current list of countries that don't fit that pattern, much less spend pages on historical counter-examples.
The simple calculus is that in that situation the citizens only dislike their governments' behavior less than they dislike their odds of dying in a revolution. Eventually that changes. cf. Nero's Rome
The fatal flaw in the cycle is that once the governments get abusive enough, and they either finally collapse of their own weight or the citizens revolt, then the people make the mistake of instituting another government (because that worked out so well last time...). There have been a few notable exceptions (e.g. China c. 100AD, Iceland c. 800AD) which have led to centuries of peaceful and productive societies.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Uhm, it is a 'democracy' where eligibility is limited by a religious council, ultimate power is held by a not-popular-elected (not even indirectly) individual with potentially dictatorial authority, suspicion of massive voting fraud exists, where independent polling organisations are closed down to hide this, and where the press is severely limited ("one of the world’s most repressive in 2014" ; Last but 7 in 2015).
Please remember: "Voting not a democracy make."