Iran Nuclear Agreement

[columbus]

Alright then.
I'll ask you.
What "alternatives" are worse than giving Iran a 150 billion dollars; letting Iran make and use whatever weapons and power it wants to attempt to destroy the United States and Israel; and to encourage Iran be the leading murderer in the Middle East, spreading its own brand of hegemonic terror throughout the world?
You appear to believe that there are worse things than this.
Fine.
What?

Supporting Israel and the oil companies, at any cost.
If we got rid of them we wouldn't care what Iran did about anything. And they wouldn't care about anything we did.
Get rid of Israel and stop importing oil. The problem would be gone by Christmas.
Tom

 

[Moishe3rd]

Yes.

Did I say that?
No, so the question is a non sequitur.

Do you know about the 1953 coup (overthrowing a democratically elected government)?
How about the US supplying WMDs (bio & chem) to Iraq to use against Iran, killing a million of them?
These are the highlights of how we radicalized the country.

By that logic, the US is responsible for "radicalizing" Mexico; Columbia; Panama; China; Russia; Greece; and of course all countries we invaded at one time or another.

You postulated "there might never have even been an extreme Islamic government to fight with..."
This implies that without US involvement, there would not be an extreme Islamist government.
There are extreme Islamist governments from Pakistan to Algeria and everywhere in between. Extreme Islamist governments seem to be very adept at inventing and sustaining themselves with or without US help.

 

[Moishe3rd]

Supporting Israel and the oil companies, at any cost.
If we got rid of them we wouldn't care what Iran did about anything. And they wouldn't care about anything we did.
Get rid of Israel and stop importing oil. The problem would be gone by Christmas.
Tom

Get rid of Israel and stop importing oil....
Okay...
How's that cabin in Lincoln, Montana workin' out for ya there Tom. All comfy and everything?
You just keep on keepin' on now and, have a great year!

 

[Revoltingest]

By that logic, the US is responsible for "radicalizing" Mexico; Columbia; Panama; China; Russia; Greece; and of course all countries we invaded at one time or another.

Did we do those things in all those countries?
No, we didn't. Your analogy fails.

You postulated "there might never have even been an extreme Islamic government to fight with..."
This implies that without US involvement, there would not be an extreme Islamist government.
There are extreme Islamist governments from Pakistan to Algeria and everywhere in between. Extreme Islamist governments seem to be very adept at inventing and sustaining themselves with or without US help.

But not all of them are treated as the enemy, with us & Israel both threatening attack.
Again, your analogies are failing.
As dust1n recently pointed out, analogies are useful to help understand a concept, but they don't prove anything.
The latter is particularly true when the analogies don't share relevant traits.

 

[Revoltingest]

Supporting Israel and the oil companies, at any cost.
If we got rid of them we wouldn't care what Iran did about anything. And they wouldn't care about anything we did.
Get rid of Israel and stop importing oil. The problem would be gone by Christmas.
Tom

We don't even import much oil from the mid-east, & we could easily stop entirely if we so chose.
(There's plenty of excess capacity here, in Canuckistan & in Mexicostan.)

 

[columbus]

Get rid of Israel and stop importing oil....
Okay...
How's that cabin in Lincoln, Montana workin' out for ya there Tom. All comfy and everything?
You just keep on keepin' on now and, have a great year!

Get rid of Israel would work to start with. Why are US taxpayers funding the IDF in 2015 anyway?
We spend more supplying Bibi's military than fighting AIDS and malaria put together. Why is that?
Tom

 

[columbus]

We don't even import much oil from the mid-east, & we could easily stop entirely if we so chose.
(There's plenty of excess capacity here, in Canuckistan & in Mexicostan.)

I liked this post because it caused me to hit 100 alerts.
That was my goal from the like orgy a few days ago. Triple digits of ignored alerts. It doesn't seem all that important now.
I wonder if any of them were from mods yelling at me about something. Statistically speaking, probably.

It doesn't matter that we get our petroleum imports from Venezuela and Nigeria. That's just because the shipping is cheaper. We still import more oil than most 1st world countries use in total. And we'll fight wars to keep our gas cheap yet profitable.
Tom

 

[YmirGF]

Without US involvement, there might never have even been an extreme Islamic government to fight with.

So........ let me get this straight. Because the US supposedly precipitated the events in Iran, enabling a group of wacko's to take over the government and foment terrorism through the region, the US has the right to capitulate to the negotiators of the regime? Again, without the Obama administration's explicit endorsement of this "deal" it would never have seen the light of day.

 

[Revoltingest]

So........ let me get this straight.

Straight....you?
I'm sorry, but a buff rodent in a skin tight onsie sporting a cape just doesn't fit the word "straight"!

Because the US supposedly precipitated the events in Iran.....

Supposedly?
Yes, the public & even most politicians were kept in the dark during our perpetration of these acts.
But this is fairly accepted history after the release of gov documents.
While not in Conservapedia yet, Wikipedia covers them.

.....enabling a group of wacko's to take over the government and foment terrorism through the region, the US has the right to capitulate to the negotiators of the regime?

The US reserves the right to "capitulate" to anyone it wants, bub!
But I favor negotiation over threats, which we're all too ready to back up with another couple trillion dollar war.
Canuckistan is free to launch an attack against Iran if they want though.
You guys up for it?

Again, without the Obama administration's explicit endorsement of this "deal" it would never have seen the light of day.

And this is a rare occasion where I give Obama credit for good judgement.
(But don't think this means he & I will not be taking long warm showers together.)

 

[Revoltingest]

For reference.....

The coup:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'état
http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/19/politics/cia-iran-1953-coup/

The Iraq attack upon Iran:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Iraq_during_the_Iran–Iraq_war
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/01/26/w...id-to-iraq-early-in-its-war-against-iran.html

On February 9, 1994, Senator Riegle delivered a report -commonly known at the Riegle Report- in which it was stated that "pathogenic (meaning 'disease producing'), toxigenic (meaning 'poisonous'), and other biological research materials were exported to Iraq pursuant to application and licensing by the U.S. Department of Commerce." It added: "These exported biological materials were not attenuated or weakened and were capable of reproduction."[29]

The report then detailed 70 shipments (including Bacillus anthracis) from the United States to Iraqi government agencies over three years, concluding "It was later learned that these microorganisms exported by the United States were identical to those the UN inspectors found and recovered from the Iraqi biological warfare program."[30]k

The irony is that the left is so fond of saying that Iraq never had WMDs.
Not only did they, but we supplied them.
If Iraq's Chemical Ali was a war criminal, what does that make our government?

More not widely known fun:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655

Iran Air Flight 655 was an Iran Air civilian passenger flight from Tehran to Dubai. On 3 July 1988, the aircraft operating this route was shot down by the United States Navyguided missile cruiserUSS Vincennes under the command of William C. Rogers III. The incident took place in Iranian airspace, over Iran's territorial waters in the Persian Gulf, and on the flight's usual flight path.

At the time, we had technology to easily differentiate between airliners & fighters.
It was an accident, but one precipitated by a trigger happy attitude.
The perps received commendations, btw.
We paid the families of the dead token compensation.

Given the above, we can see that Iran has suffered far far more at the hands of Americastan,
than we have endured from them. Their very sovereignty has been lost or nearly lost at times.
We need to conduct our affairs such that they no longer see us & Israel as an imminent threat.
And we owe them.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Again, without the Obama administration's explicit endorsement of this "deal" it would never have seen the light of day.

In fact, the P5+1 would have never existed and, barring a major military intervention, Iran would most likely have the bomb.

 

[MARCELLO]

I keep my all rights to give iran a next chance. I just cannot imagine the billions of dollars of projects I would be involved in, in case USA makes peace with Iran . Money talks ....

 

[columbus]

We need to conduct our affairs such that they no longer see us & Israel as an imminent threat.

This is the point right here.
At the very least we could remove the nuclear threat of Israel to Iran.
Tom

 

[Revoltingest]

This is the point right here.
At the very least we could remove the nuclear threat of Israel to Iran.
Tom

I believe that even Israel understands that a nuclear attack upon Iran would put them in the world's doghouse.

 

[metis]

Excuse me. I've always found Inigo Montoya's quote to be funny when applied to any situation.
I will refrain from continuing in that vein.

President Obama has proclaimed that the Alternative to the Iran Deal is War.
This is untrue and it is flamboyant rhetoric for the purpose of scare mongering propaganda. It is deceitful. It is simply a turn of the phrase that our President enjoys using when he wants to proclaim that His opinion is the ONLY opinion that matters.
As you mentioned "alternatives," I am curious as to what you think are the other alternatives that are better than giving Iran, pledged to the destruction of the United States and Israel, 150 billion dollars.
Seriously.

First of all, let me make it clear that if we negated the agreement, that does not automatically mean war, although the chances are increased that this could happen. There is no way to tell at this point whether Iran would be willing to fulfill the agreement. Also, even if the U.S. were to negate our involvement, the other five signatories are not going along with us, and that's been made quite clear. Whether Iran would negate it if we did, there's no way of telling, but my guess is that they probably would go forth with it with the other five. If I were a betting man, I think the agreement would go forward even without U.S. involvement, which does create some problems for us.

Secondly, do not get caught up is the bellicose rhetoric of "We will destroy you!" as this is characteristic of talk by leaders there and is a reflection of the culture. Take it seriously though, we must. What you are mostly picking up is from the supreme leader, not the president, and there's a feeling that the leader will go along with the president when all is said and done. If not, then obviously all bets are off.

In 2005, Iran's activity in support of terrorism was stripped from the debate on Iran's nuclear capacity, so monies spent by Iran on that is a separate but important issue. Certainly that needs to be dealt with and should be, imo.

 

[metis]

My point is that without US involvement there would be no deal whatsoever.

Only in regards that this administration did a job that many experts didn't feel was likely, namely getting Russia and China to go along with the boycott to begin with. However, with that being said, the other signatories have more to gain with the agreement than we do, so it's quite possible something like this might have gone forth even without us.

 

[metis]

[QUOTE="Moishe3rd, post: 4440551, member: 46389"... letting Iran make and use whatever weapons and power it wants to attempt to destroy the United States and Israel... [/QUOTE]

But not nukes, and that was what the negotiations were for. W/O Iran going along, estimates have it that they could have maybe as much as 10 nukes within 2 years, and Israel bombing Iranian sites might extend that by maybe an additional year.

So, three years from now, would you rather see Iran having nukes or not?

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Bottom line ...

... I possess no special expertise about Iran, and I'm not privy to the intelligence assessments that world leaders get to see. All I have to go on is who's lining up for and against the deal, and the arguments they make. And this is what I see:

On the pro side, we have Brent Scowcroft, Fareed Zakaria, dozens of former Israeli military officials, dozens of retired American generals and admirals, a wide array of experts on nuclear non-proliferation, and the president of the United States.

On the anti side, we have Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (who has been warning ominously about an imminent Iranian nuclear breakout since — and no, I'm not joking — 1992), every Republican running for president and just about every Republican in Congress (though they're quite comfortable displaying their ignorance of the deal's details and the rudiments of Middle East policy and diplomacy), every single neoconservative pundit who was every bit as certain that we just had to go to war to take out Saddam Hussein, and now the vice president who orchestrated the invasion and occupation of Iraq, which by this point only fools and ideologues deny was a blunder of world-historical proportions.

I'm sorry, but was that supposed to be a tough choice?

- source

 

[Moishe3rd]

First of all, let me make it clear that if we negated the agreement, that does not automatically mean war, although the chances are increased that this could happen. There is no way to tell at this point whether Iran would be willing to fulfill the agreement. Also, even if the U.S. were to negate our involvement, the other five signatories are not going along with us, and that's been made quite clear. Whether Iran would negate it if we did, there's no way of telling, but my guess is that they probably would go forth with it with the other five. If I were a betting man, I think the agreement would go forward even without U.S. involvement, which does create some problems for us.

Secondly, do not get caught up is the bellicose rhetoric of "We will destroy you!" as this is characteristic of talk by leaders there and is a reflection of the culture. Take it seriously though, we must. What you are mostly picking up is from the supreme leader, not the president, and there's a feeling that the leader will go along with the president when all is said and done. If not, then obviously all bets are off.

In 2005, Iran's activity in support of terrorism was stripped from the debate on Iran's nuclear capacity, so monies spent by Iran on that is a separate but important issue. Certainly that needs to be dealt with and should be, imo.

I do not believe that you understand the nature; structure; or belief system of the Iranian government.
Vilayat al Fiqh or Rule of the Jurist, is a new Shia Cult invented by the late Ayatollah Khomeini. His contemporary and today's leading Shia cleric, the Grand Aytollah Sistani, has expressed doubts about the theological legitimacy of this cult. To be clear - Sistani has not condemned it nor even officially separated it from Shia Islam - to do so would be to incur the wrath and probable attack on him by the Iranians. This would further the sectarian splits in Islam, this time between Shia Iran and the rest of the Shia world.
However, Vilayat al Fiqh is a theocracy. Ayatollah Khameini and the Council of Clerics/ Guardian Council (Islamic Jurists) have Absolute "Guardianship" in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The President of Iran is empowered by the Guardian Council, not vice versa.
The religious purpose of this government is to Rule during the Occulation of the Hidden Imam. Their religious duty is to do whatever they can to "reveal" the Hidden Imam who will then rule the world with Islamic justice. According to their belief, one way to do this is through attacking all non believers - which basically is anyone who opposes Iranian Vilayat al Fiqh Shia Islam.
This is governmental and religious doctrine, not to be abjured by anyone!

In addition, there is a long history of NOT believing despotic regimes when they say that they want to destroy "you" and, subsequently, having those despotic regimes try and destroy you.
History is a valuable tool. History clearly demonstrates that the statements of "We will destroy you," is intentional regime policy, not bellicose rhetoric.

 

[YmirGF]

First of all, let me make it clear that if we negated the agreement, that does not automatically mean war, although the chances are increased that this could happen. There is no way to tell at this point whether Iran would be willing to fulfill the agreement. Also, even if the U.S. were to negate our involvement, the other five signatories are not going along with us, and that's been made quite clear. Whether Iran would negate it if we did, there's no way of telling, but my guess is that they probably would go forth with it with the other five. If I were a betting man, I think the agreement would go forward even without U.S. involvement, which does create some problems for us.

OK, with 2 of the five, Russia and China, I agree that they are unlikely to change their current support, however the other countries are democracies and there are strange political winds blowing in Europe right now and changes in their current administrations could have quite unpredictable outcomes.

Secondly, do not get caught up is the bellicose rhetoric of "We will destroy you!" as this is characteristic of talk by leaders there and is a reflection of the culture. Take it seriously though, we must. What you are mostly picking up is from the supreme leader, not the president, and there's a feeling that the leader will go along with the president when all is said and done. If not, then obviously all bets are off.

This sounds reassuring but the "President" answers directly to the Supreme Council and serves at their pleasure.

In 2005, Iran's activity in support of terrorism was stripped from the debate on Iran's nuclear capacity, so monies spent by Iran on that is a separate but important issue. Certainly that needs to be dealt with and should be, imo.

But what the heck, let's just give them a $100,000,000,000+ and see if they do something warm and fuzzy with it. What could go wrong?