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Trump Withdraws US From Iran Nuclear Deal (nytimes.com)
President Trump on Tuesday announced he is withdrawing the United States from the Iran nuclear deal, a historic accord signed in 2015 that aims to limit Tehran's nuclear ability for more than a decade in return for lifting international oil and financial sanctions against the country. "This was a horrible one-sided deal that should never, ever been made," Mr. Trump said at the White House in announcing his decision. "It didn't bring calm, it didn't bring peace, and it never will." The New York Times reports: Mr. Trump's announcement, while long anticipated and widely telegraphed, plunges America's relations with European allies into deep uncertainty. They have committed to staying in the deal, raising the prospect of a diplomatic and economic clash as the United States reimposes stringent sanctions on Iran. It also raises the prospect of increasing tensions with Russia and China, which also are parties to the agreement.
One person familiar with negotiations to keep the accord in place said the talks collapsed over Mr. Trump's insistence that sharp limits be kept on Iran's nuclear fuel production after 2030. The deal currently lifts those limits. As a result, the United States is now preparing to reinstate all sanctions it had waived as part of the nuclear accord -- and impose additional economic penalties as well, according to another person briefed on Mr. Trump's decision. Despite Trump's decision, President Hassan Rouhani said that Iran would remain committed to a multinational nuclear deal. "If we achieve the deal's goals in cooperation with other members of the deal, it will remain in place. [...] By exiting the deal, America has officially undermined its commitment to an international treaty," Rouhani said in a televised speech. "I have ordered the foreign ministry to negotiate with the European countries, China and Russia in coming weeks. If at the end of this short period we conclude that we can fully benefit from the JCPOA with the cooperation of all countries, the deal would remain," he added.
One person familiar with negotiations to keep the accord in place said the talks collapsed over Mr. Trump's insistence that sharp limits be kept on Iran's nuclear fuel production after 2030. The deal currently lifts those limits. As a result, the United States is now preparing to reinstate all sanctions it had waived as part of the nuclear accord -- and impose additional economic penalties as well, according to another person briefed on Mr. Trump's decision. Despite Trump's decision, President Hassan Rouhani said that Iran would remain committed to a multinational nuclear deal. "If we achieve the deal's goals in cooperation with other members of the deal, it will remain in place. [...] By exiting the deal, America has officially undermined its commitment to an international treaty," Rouhani said in a televised speech. "I have ordered the foreign ministry to negotiate with the European countries, China and Russia in coming weeks. If at the end of this short period we conclude that we can fully benefit from the JCPOA with the cooperation of all countries, the deal would remain," he added.
I have a feeling that a lot of Trump's nonsense will be corrected once Trump is gone.
I think there is a potential for Trump to be like the Mule in the Foundation Trilogy; in the same way that he's extremely disruptive in the moment, but may ultimately have little effect on the course of history.
The Paris Accord, the Iran deal, the Wall, ... if the rest of the planet just holds shit together until Trump is gone, the next president is reasonably likely to just put a lot of the pieces pretty much back where they were.
Not that I really expect trump to resign or anything, and we may have several more years of his chaotic nonsense, but he will ultimately have to go and unless America decides to double down and elect Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho for president... or maybe Ted Nugent, things will probably return to normal pretty quickly.
Did you see the intel from Israel about WMDs in 2003?
The "intel from Israel" consisted of a PowerPoint presentation with a slide that said, "Iran is Cheating". You could change the word "Iran" to "Iraq" in everything that's been presented by Israel and you'd get an exact copy of the run-up to the Iraq War. Coincidentally, the people who are most keen to believe the "intel from Israel" are the exact same people who insisted that Saddam was hours away from being able to send a nuke to New York. It's been 15 years since Bush invaded Iraq and the Likudniks assume we've forgotten by now.
You've been played. No, you played yourself.
You are welcome on my lawn.
We tried doing that with Syria, letting them just sort their own shit out. The resulting civil war led to a refugee crisis and the rapid growth of ISIS, and then let Russia expand its military reach into the Mediterranean.
A Saudi-Iran war would result in a refugee crisis bigger than any since WW2, an oil crisis bigger than any since ever, and if it went nuclear (Israel is a known-but-undeclared nuclear power, Iran and Saudi Arabia are just a serious political push and a year away from building their own nukes), a radioactive crisis when the winds carry it either eastward towards China, or southwestward into Africa.
Peace, if possible, is a vastly preferable alternative.
The US absolutely can not produce all the oil it needs domestically, even with fracking.
Not only can it (see sibling comments) but it doesn't need to, either. We have more than enough unused land (crappy land, too, not the good stuff) to produce 100% of our transportation fuel from algae feedstocks with current technology. That accounts for 71 percent of our oil consumption...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
According to everyone including Netanyahu, they were not building nuclear weapons. I guess you must be smarter than all of Mossad and the CIA put together.
I have no opinion on this issue specifically, but it is indeed possible that the person you are talking to could indeed be smarter than all of Mossad and the CIA put together. And you probably are, too. Any organisation which actively rejects public scrutiny can very easily be far stupider than any single person who works for them.
In the lead up to the Iraq war, our intelligence services were convinced that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. The "evidence" that they presented in public was laughably stupid, but many (including me) figured that they had better information but couldn't tell us because that would give away stuff like exactly how they got it.
What nobody (including me) seemed to question was the premise that our spies knew what they were doing and had some understanding of how the world worked. It turns out that they knew shit. They did not have any information that the rest of us didn't have. That laughably stupid "evidence" was literally all they had, and they convinced themselves anyway.
I've seen a lot of films and TV shows presenting a fictionalised account of MI5, the British agency responsible (amongst other things) for finding foreign spies. Do you know how many foreign spies they have actually discovered since it was created a century ago?
You probably know the answer already by my tone of voice: The number is exactly zero. Even the ones who worked for MI5. Everyone MI5 "caught" by their own devices was not a spy, and every one who was an actual spy was caught by someone else or they turned themselves in.
The assumption that our intelligence services know more than you do, or understand the world better than you do, is a fatal one. This is, if you like, the anti-conspiracy theory. "They" are not suppressing information, "they" are not arranging atrocities, "they" do not possess secret knowledge that you do not, "they" are not secretly running the show. In reality, "they", more than likely not, are incompetent weirdos who live in a fantasy world.
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You think that allowing Iran to build a nuclear weapon, become more isolated and have the hardliners get back in power is going to lead to disengagement?
It's the same story as 2003, 2006, 2010 and 2014. We're going to bring peace to a Middle Eastern country by doing everything we can to fuck it up.
You don't get it. It doesn't matter who's in office here. It only matters who's in office in Israel. The intelligence and military apparatus of Israel wanted to keep the Iran deal in place. Netanyahu wants it destroyed to help him because like Trump he's facing all sorts of legal problems for himself, and his family. It's the tail wagging the hintele.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Several. Yeah. You know very few, and very little.
I was raised by them - so I know a lot more than you know about them, my friend.
But I certainly will provide some evidence not of my upbringing. Let us start with the little list of the apocalypse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Howard Camping, who's Family Radio group publicized his prediction that the World would end on May 21, 2011 was enraptured with the Rapture. They even made happy songs about it. They are mentioned in this article about the hopeful. https://www.theguardian.com/wo....
Michelle Bachmann, one of the Republican Presidential candidates called specifically by gawd to run - had this to say:
[the U.S.'s funding of al Qaeda in Syria] happened and as of today the United States is willingly, knowingly, intentionally sending arms to terrorists, now what this says to me, I’m a believer in Jesus Christ, as I look at the End Times scripture, this says to me that the leaf is on the fig tree and we are to understand the signs of the times, which is your ministry, we are to understand where we are in God’s end times history. Rather than seeing this as a negative, we need to rejoice, Maranatha Come Lord Jesus, His day is at hand. (emphasis mine) When we see up is down and right is called wrong, when this is happening, we were told this; these days would be as the days of Noah.”
Praying for the Rapture: https://gracethrufaith.com/ask...
Not just pray for it - desire it! http://christinprophecy.org/ar...
Any questions? Like I said, I was raised by these folks, and I can find plenty more of them if need be.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.