We’re very fond of the westernized youth of Tehran, but I don’t know if the speak for their generation - let alone their country. Youth movements also tend to be fairly radical.
I think snap back sanctions are unlikely because those in favor of this deal will not want to invoke them. What are odds someone says Iran has badly violated deal that I endorsed. Therefore I have changed my mind and want sanctions.
Agreed.
Reading over the deal, is certainly not the worst deal possible. My only reservation is that the Iranians don’t need to allow inspection of any of their military facilities, which seems like a gaping hole in facilitating effective inspections.
I think that a strong Iranian economy, where everyone is busy working and building a better life, is probably the most effective deterrent against any behavior that may lead to new sanctions. If this deal gets the Iranian economy going again and gives the moderates a real boost over the fundamentalists, I think it is a big step in the right direction.
Absolutely. Countries do the crazy shit when they are desperate after their economy crashes. A stable Iran is a safer Iran for everyone.
I think Iranians have more valid reasons to distrust the US than the US has to mistrust the Iranians.
The US organised a coup d’etat against a democratically elected Iranian government.
The US supported and funded a repressive undemocratic Iranian monarchy that used a brutal secret police (SAVAK) to quell dissent.
The US supported Iraq in its aggressive war against Iran, including while Iraq used chemical weapons.
The US has had economic sanctions on Iran since 1979.
The US has invaded two of Iran’s bordering countries, and induced the invasion of one of them on a prior occasion (Afghanistan, 1979, see Brzezinski’s comments).
The US supports Pakistan and Saudi Arabia both financially and militarily, despite both being the primary wellsprings of terrorism in the 21st century.
The US didn’t even acknowledge a 2003 offer of talks that included things such as Iranian acceptance of Israel, cessation of funding for Palestinian militants and co-operation on a civilian only nuclear program.
Why exactly are we talking about whether we can trust Iran or not? Clearly the question is, can Iran trust the US? - with the answer being, it has tried before and is trying again.
You seem to be overlooking the fact that Iran is run by a brutal theocratic regime, who has crazy secret police who oppress their own people and imprison them without cause… And stone women for things like adultery… And any other of a litany of basically barbaric practices on a daily basis.
There were also IAEA inspectors in Iraq in the late 80s who missed virtually the entire Iraq nuclear weapons program. It wasn’t until after 1st Gulf war when the IAEA operated with an inspection regime that was part of the peace treaty and backed by the constant threat and the fairly common use of military force that the IAEA really was successful in uncovering and stopping the development of a nuclear program. In general the IAEA hasn’t been very effective organization for preventing determined countries to get nuclear weapons.
It reminds me of Clinton and North Korea in 1994 and I think it ends the same way, in that they get a bomb in less than 10 years. I think Iran having nukes is worse than NK having nukes though.
And the US by any demographic is mistreating, abusing and oppressing it’s black population, is the only western country to carry out capital punishment, legally spies on every single citizen and is responsible (whether directly or indirectly) for the deaths of 1,000,000 people in Iraq. I’m not sure what your point is? Nothing in your post has anything to do with why anyone should mistrust Iran, just idiotic mudslinging, given the US’s history and context.
Iran has no reason to trust the US yet is showing itself willing, and has shown itself willing before. The US has no reason to distrust Iran and yet is screaming about trust.
Do go on about Iranian secret police imprisoning people without cause, ignoring america’s own history of doing exactly that - only to people from other countries.
You were asked upthread what made you so positive that Iran is going to use this as a smokescreen to develop nuclear weapons.
You had no response, which is understandable given that economic sanctions aren’t an impediment to Iran developing nuclear weapons as stands.
You then made a post about how Iran can’t be trusted, without explaining why and when I posted about the reasons Iran shouldn’t trust the US but is willing to anyway, you reply with bluster about women being stoned to death. Why women? There has been a moratorium on stoning since 2002 (and even before then it was incredibly rare), only broken twice and in both cases, men. Yet you leap for the disingenuous emotive argument.
You know two countries where women ARE stoned to death? Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
The problem is that there are no good options outside of a deal. The Republicans are all slamming it, but ask them what they’d do instead and they clam up real quick.
Sanctions aren’t going to hold forever. It’s a minor miracle that Russia and China bought in, but they want to sell shit to Iran, and they will if they feel Iran is trying to be reasonable and we’re not. And, hell, the rest of the civilized world outside of the US and Israel have normal relations with Iran and lots of business ties; they’d love to get back to that.
The Israelis can’t stop it. There are too many targets. They are too hardened. And they are waaaaay out of the range of the IAF, even with tanker support. They might get in one surprise sortie, but they’d need successive sorties for days, if not weeks, and Iran would have everything ready for them on Day 2 onwards. Their big dream is getting us to do their dirty work for them (again).
You’d need the USAF/USN in a gigantic air campaign to hammer the program, and in all likelihood, all we’d do is just delay it, which is what the deal does, anyway. Only, once we start dropping bombs, it officially becomes a war and Iran isn’t going to forgive and forget. All you do is manage to unite everyone in there against us by stoking nationalistic pride. Figure they go asymmetric pretty fast, too, and they’ll be in no mood to ever negotiate with us again.
It’s pretty much impossible to stop it unless we invade and take over, and Iran makes Iraq look easy peasy. Almost 4x the land size, 2.5x the population, and as rugged as the fucking Rocky Mountains, which makes it an absolute nightmare for the kind of maneuver warfare that the Army enjoyed in the deserts of Iraq. And then you have to occupy the place, which we’re absolutely terrible doing.
The deal kicks the can further down the road, which is about the best we can hope for, and what we’ve been doing. But it seems like Iran has been on the verge of a bomb since at least Clinton. Sanctions or not, if a country with the resources of Iran is hellbent on getting a bomb, it will likely get a bomb. But they have been taking their own sweet time about it.
And the US by any demographic is mistreating, abusing and oppressing it’s black population,
This is certainly the case, and inexcusable, although I would still tend to put it above the actions of Iran’s government, which essentially orchestrates a terror campaign against its citizens (and visitors) for simple acts of expression.
is the only western country to carry out capital punishmen
While you may oppose capital punishment (which Iran carries out as well, by MUCH more barbaric means), this is not really a relevant point to this discussion. Capital punishment is not inherently unjust, or inherently disproportionate to the crimes which for which it is applied as a punishment in the US.
To be clear here, you are attempting to draw equivalence between capital punishment in the US, which is essentially only applied in cases where the criminal has actually taken the life of another person (and in reality, to actually get the death penalty in the US, merely committing murder is not enough. It’s generally reserved for especially heinous crimes), and stoning a woman for committing adultery. Not only an absurdly disproportionate punishment for the crime, but also carried out in an INTENTIONALLY cruel manner.
I’m thinking your attempt at equivalence here is weak, at best.
legally spies on every single citizen
And here you are trying to draw equivalence between powers granted to the US government by its citizens, to powers employed by the Iranian government which have essentially no legitimacy as they are not from a fairly elected government. While you could argue that it’s certainly UNWISE for the American PEOPLE to give its government such powers, the Iranian people don’t really have the same say in the theocratic police state.
and is responsible (whether directly or indirectly) for the deaths of 1,000,000 people in Iraq.
This statement as as absurd as ever, especially in the present context, given that Iran actually DIRECTLY funded terrorist groups operating in Iraq. So you’re blaming the US for deaths caused by Iranian forces DIRECTLY. At some level, when you start considering “indirectly causing deaths” you are just manufacturing facts to justify your own preconceptions.
I’m not sure what your point is?
The point is, clearly, that the reason why people wouldn’t trust Iran is that their government is a barbaric theocracy, who engages in activities which are so monstrous that it’s only when we pretend they don’t exist that we can even entertain the laughable notion that they are a responsible actor on the international stage.
Iran has no reason to trust the US yet is showing itself willing, and has shown itself willing before.
What trust is Iran showing?
Iran is making concessions in order to have economic sanctions lifted. They aren’t really trusting that the US is going to act one way or the other, right? All of the trust here is basically coming from the west, in believing that Iran will choose to abandon its nuclear weapons program (which, by the way, is illegal under the NPT, of which Iran is still a signatory).
The US has no reason to distrust Iran and yet is screaming about trust.
The reason why people would distrust Iran was that they were effectively violating the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, and attempting to develop nuclear weapons. Well, that and the fact that their leader, as recently as TODAY I believe, was chanting “Death to America, Death to Israel”.
I mean, how does that fact fit into the worldview you are espousing here?
Do go on about Iranian secret police imprisoning people without cause, ignoring america’s own history of doing exactly that - only to people from other countries.
Again, I’m not really sure where you’re coming from in terms of manufacturing excuses for Iran imprisoning journalists for essentially no reason at all. I mean, literally no reason. Not even mistaken ones that could be rationally justified.
Iran’s imprisonment of journalists essentially seems to boil down to institutional paranoia on the part of their leadership, akin to Stalin’s regime in the Soviet Union. These aren’t people captured in a warzone, who have even the most remote possibility of being involved in any kind of terrorist activity. They’re just journalists. Jason Rezaian is currently undergoing secret trials for espionage… but do you believe that there is even the most tiny remote possibility that he is a spy? The bureau chief for the Washington Post?
You were asked upthread what made you so positive that Iran is going to use this as a smokescreen to develop nuclear weapons.
Because they were pursuing nuclear weapons, and this deal won’t actually prevent them from continuing to do so.
As another poster pointed out, in order for them to actually stop development, you really would need to actually change the part of the equation where they want to develop them. I’m not sure that this deal actually makes progress along those lines (although certainly, more social and economic engagement can make such progress). And at the same time, it doesn’t actually prevent continued secret development of those weapons.
Part of what makes me fearful that it will simply result in them developing nuclear weapons, is that it seems similar to what we did with North Korea.
You then made a post about how Iran can’t be trusted, without explaining why and when I posted about the reasons Iran shouldn’t trust the US but is willing to anyway, you reply with bluster about women being stoned to death. Why women? There has been a moratorium on stoning since 2002 (and even before then it was incredibly rare), only broken twice and in both cases, men. Yet you leap for the disingenuous emotive argument.
In 2002, there was a statement made by an Ayatollah to suspend stoning in Iran, but they didn’t actually change the penal code. They were going to stone a woman in 2011, but halted it after international outcries regarding how barbaric it is. (certainly, if you oppose capital punishment in general, you must oppose stoning even more given that it’s so brutal) The actual penal code didn’t change at all in Iran until 2013, where they changed it such that now, if they are unable to stone the adulterer for some reason, that the judge may prescribe some other form of execution instead.
Quite progressive, Kedaha, I must admit.
Also, I would point out the fact that simply because these punishments do not make national news on a regular basis, that does not actually mean that they do not take place. Given the extreme lack of freedom of expression in Iran, specifically with their persecution of people who try to film or otherwise capture events, it’s quite likely that such barbaric things occur and you simply never hear about it. One would think that if they didn’t intend on enacting such things, they would actually remove them from their legal system entirely, instead of actually making recent changes detailing continued barbarism.
As to the reason I mentioned stoning, it’s because it is a hillariously and obviously barbaric practice. And yet it is codified in their official legal system. I mean, I guess you can pick out any of the other crazy laws they have based on dark age religious ideas and consider them instead.
Do you believe that such laws are at all compatible with western ideals?
You know two countries where women ARE stoned to death? Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
Oh, well the fact that there are two other barbaric nations totally makes it ok then! Carry on!
One thing, just to be clear here. I am in no way blaming the Iranian PEOPLE for these things, and for that reason I am not against easing the economic sanctions which punish them all while not really enabling them to change their leadership anyway.
But I absolutely do not buy your idea that Iran’s LEADERSHIP is somehow just totally cool.
Iran is a rational actor for the most part. With an actual economy. North Korea is a wasteland of starving people run by an insane person that only exists because China has propped it up for half a century.
I’d rather Iran had them then NK, really. I’d rather neither had them, but that ship has sailed.
NK is a totally surreal state. I even struggle to make up my mind on whether the personality cult around Kim is a show to avoid being shot, or those starving people really think that Kim is their God-King.
I thought Obama’s Q&A was pretty good. http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/obama-plays-devils-advocate-himself?cid=sm_fb_maddow
Could you imagine Bush doing that?
I’m not going to compare Iran and the U.S. and kedaha did, since it agree with you they are incomparable. But Iran’s government, while deeply flawed (capital punishment and theocratic influence being my major objections, but also freedom of expression and others…) is far from being as brutal and undemocratic as you describe it. Yes, they do horrible stuff, but many other countries we consider valid actors do too (different horrible stuff).
It’s unfeasible to expect Iran to fully adapt to our ideals of how a society should be run, but they are not that far from being a deeply different, but viable modern state (just needs a little stepping back by the religious leaders, which would probably help on the other fundamental rights) we should be able to work with even with some big differences in what we think is right.
Describing Iran as barbaric or brutal is certainly a huge stretch. It’s a much more complicated country.
I do think taking over Iran would be a fairly tough slog, but occupation would be less difficult, provided the US’s goals are just to set up a democratic Iranian regime (perhaps gerrymander it towards the cities) and get out (maybe slice off Iranian Kurdistan into its own autonomous area)- Iranians are more homogenous, less intra-country tension, and no ISIS/Al-Qaeda tearing things up.
If it becomes a national war of liberation, the US can’t win that, but I don’t think that would happen in this scenario (as unlikely as it is)
I think the US goal with Iran should be destabilizing their regime though prosperity, not sanctions.
I’m guessing they have crude untested nukes already. Fat man and the Russian layer cake are are out there. It’s all about building them small. I would guess they have some Iud’s that will erase our bases. The Iranian war is going to suck.
Because military/coup (not economic/social drive) regime change has such a history of working perfectly?
Can we just name a good example of a military/coup driven US regime change that worked long term (other than WW2)? I’m sure there are some, but I’m struggling…
Edit:
Wikipedia posits the following as overt regime change attempts by the US post WW2:
1950 Korean war, 1953 Iranian coup d’état, 1958 Lebanon crisis, 1961 Cuba Bay of Pigs Invasion, 1965 Dominican Republic, Vietnam War, 1989 Panama, 1991 Kuwait, 2003 Iraq, 2011 Libya.
And these as covert (note there’s some overlap):
Syria 1949, Iran 1953, Guatemala 1954, Tibet 1955–70s, Indonesia 1958, Cuba 1959, Iraq 1960–63, Democratic Republic of the, Congo 1960–65, Dominican Republic 1961, South Vietnam 1963, Brazil 1964, Chile 1970–73, Turkey 1980, Poland 1980–89, Nicaragua 1981–90, Iraq 1992–96, Venezuela 2002, Iran 2005–present
The above doesn’t seem a complete list, since at least 1967 Greece is missing from there.
So yeah, some successes (mostly in Europe and Latin America, though some huge failures in the later too), but in general, regime change doesn’t seem to work out too well, except for maybe making enemies in the world stage… Of course, it seems overthrowing a dictatorship by a democracy seems to work better, but we don’t have that many data points for this case.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that a deal might be a solution or not, but assuming military or covert intervention would lead to a safer, more stable region is a hell of an assumption, looking at past performance.
Well Iran is either somewhat rational, or they are lying about the purpose of their nuclear program. But they can’t possibly be both rational and truthful about their reasons behind their nuclear program for the development of energy and medical research.
Iran has the 4th largest oil reserves and the 2nd largest natural gas reserves (3x the US supply) . In world with $150 oil and expensive natural gas. It make sense for countries without energy resources like Japan to develop nuclear power. It also makes sense for a green country like Germany with only dirty source of energy (coal) to developing nuclear energy. But in fact Japan nuclear power is turned off (and just beginning to be turned on again), while Germany
is phasing out nuclear power in the next 5 years. There is almost no nuclear power plants being built in the US. So you have arguable the three most technological countries in the world all deciding that the risks (albeit mostly political) of nuclear power aren’t worth it.
Iran doesn’t have history of running nuclear power plants, or a particularly sophisticated and technical workforce. I read that Iran will gain almost $150 billion from lifting of sanctions and the unfreezing of assets. So how is it rational that country give up that kind of money and inflicted that suffering on its people when for a tens of billion they could be build modern natural gas powerplant with a practically free source of power?
The only rational reason for Iran to pursue a nuclear program is to develop an atomic bomb. Now if you are trying to prevent being attacked by the US or Israel then sure “being armed with nuclear weapons” works great on a Civ Diplomacy screen. But it makes no rational sense for a country to put up with the effects years of sanction get close to achieving the a nuclear bomb and then suddenly stop.
It seems that among the details of verification snap backs etc, the simple fact remains the only reason Iran has a nuclear program is to make a nuclear weapon, either to use it or intimidate its neighbors. If we truly believe that Iran is rational then they aren’t going to stop making a bomb. If they aren’t rational they we sure as hell must stop them from getting a bomb.
Sourcing. Wiki is dumb. Look at the list. Several of the regime change lists were in defense of a military invasion. How is Kuwait regime change for example? Because Iraq was expelled from its invasion? Bush made clear that war was not about change. And Poland in the 1980’s? I think that gives to little credit to th Solidarity movement.