Smh_23 is on my ignore list, so I would not have seen it and I will give you a pass on not knowing that as it’s not your business. And while it has paragraph around it, it’s not full context and most importantly it’s not relevant, to what we were discussing.
How do you just completely change gears and totally revert to a topic from long ago that has nothing to do with what we were actually discussing?
It’s like we’re having a conversation and suddenly…SQUIRREL!
Makes no sense.
Again, I have never even mildly entertained the notion to dig into an archive from months or possibly years ago and put it front and center in the middle of a different conversation. If you need it, I click the little thumbs up thingy for you…
I realize it’s the same thread, but it’s an old thread.
Somebody brought it back to add new information and that is where we are now. Discussing new developments related to this deal.
NOW…
Do, you have anything to say about the $400 ‘sort-of-ransom’ or not? Was it the right move for Obama to scratch up $400 M cash to release our hostages?
Do we? Just so we’re clear: the claim that per the JCPOA Iran will “have the ability to legally pursue [nuclear weapons]” in fifteen years, as if the JCPOA mechanically absolves Iran from its obligations under the NPT, is simply nonsense, and it cannot be made unless from within a cocoon of impenetrable know-nothing obliviousness.
What if Iran absolves itself from it’s obligations under the NPT? What do we say then? The JCPOA was a good idea while it lasted? A smoke screen to make us feel good about ourselves?
What happened to North Korea when they tested a nuke? What happened to India? What happened to Pakistan? What will happen to Iran? Why is that any different? Because we trust them somehow to honor a treaty? Should we pat ourselves on the back because we got them to sign a piece of paper?
[quote=“Gkhan, post:466, topic:210298, full:true”]
What if Iran absolves itself from it’s obligations under the NPT? What do we say then? [/quote]
A bunch of things, but that is a constant and unrelated possibility…and an utter non sequitur…and a mere hypothetical (note that it wasn’t remotely presented as such). It has nothing to do with the terms of the JCPOA, which will not in fact allow Iran to legally develop a nuclear weapon in fifteen years. The only scenario in which someone could possibly claim as much is one in which that someone does not understand the agreement and does not understand, as in does not know about, the NPT. And that’s exactly what happened.
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The JCPOA was a good idea while it lasted? A smoke screen to make us feel good about ourselves? [/quote]
What? What the hell are you talking about? What about 25,000 lbs of uranium and a heavy-water reactor flooded with concrete (and much more that I could list [and that you would undoubtedly be hearing about for the first time]) sounds to you like “a smoke screen to make us feel good about ourselves”? Jesus.
The deal was designed to, at worst, lengthen Iran’s breakout window to a period more accommodating of the optimal response times of our intelligence and military institutions. It already did that. Sorry if that conflicts with the feels you feel in your chosen unreality.
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What happened to North Korea when they tested a nuke? What happened to India? What happened to Pakistan? What will happen to Iran? Why is that any different? [/quote]
Uh, well for one, it’s different because It hasn’t happened, and unlike with all those other countries, we stacked the deck against its happening before it happened. More importantly, it’s unclear what you think whining about past conditions has to do with the (different) present conditions.
Holy shit. What about what you learned today struck you as falling under the phrase “trust them somehow to honor a treaty”? Is that what you think is happening when we load a ship with nuclear material before implementation of any sanctions relief? When a mother takes a plastic bag away from her toddler, do you consider her irresponsible for trusting her toddler with the plastic bag, or are you capable of understanding that the opposite has happened?
You really just don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about, do you? Reading this post of yours, one gets the impression that you haven’t even casually followed any of this at all, from beginning to end. I suggest you change that before you continue here.
The North Koreans blew up a nuclear reactor. Said “we’ve given up our nuclear ambitions.” Didn’t stop them from developing a bomb, did it?
Were the release of hostages also tied to sanctions relief or did they just release them because of the kindness of their hearts?
And what exactly is the deal with the 15 year period? Since you’ve obviously read the treaty from cover to cover why not extend the period indefinitely? I mean if you’re gonna go through the trouble of pouring concrete into about 25,000 lbs of uranium and a heavy-water why waste time with a cut off date?
[quote=“Gkhan, post:468, topic:210298, full:true”]
The North Koreans blew up a nuclear reactor. Said “we’ve given up our nuclear ambitions.” Didn’t stop them from developing a bomb, did it?[/quote]
The North Koreans blew up the plant that had years earlier produced the material for its first nuclear weapons test, so it’s unclear how or why you appear to be insinuating that it would be logically possible for such to “stop them from developing a bomb.” It’s almost as if you’re actively looking for new ways to completely fuck up the most basic facts of whatever topic you’re currently babbling about. Is this some kind of deviant psychological compulsion?
Anyway, and much more importantly, they are two very different situations. Iran has given up on a very good deal more than a symbolic cooling tower – not that you appear to be even casually curious about what this good deal more entails. Nonidentical situations are, well, not identical. And, logic 101: from the fact that [a past attempt at goal A1 under past conditions Z failed] it does not follow that [we ought not to make a new attempt at goal A2 under present conditions Y].
[quote]
Were the release of hostages also tied to sanctions relief or did they just release them because of the kindness of their hearts?[/quote]
It’s painfully clear you don’t understand some important things about this ^ either (like the fact that it was a fuckin’ prisoner swap, which is to say that “the kindness of their hearts” as one half of a binary choice is a meaningless bit of nonsense with no connection to reality)…but it’s immaterial to what we’re discussing, and it would be a grave mistake to introduce another line of discussion over which for you to trip and fall. That is to say that I don’t have any interest in finding out what misconceptions you’re nursing about anything more than the bite we’ve already taken, and I certainly don’t have any desire to help you to understand new stuff on top of this old stuff you haven’t, it seems, found the energy to investigate.
The concrete wasn’t poured into the uranium. Jesus. This is clearly a waste of my time; you’re just twirling around lobbing nonsense willynilly for the fuck of it. You really haven’t even followed this thing casually. I mean shit, I was half-exaggerating when I made the accusation before, but now I can clearly see that it’s true. You simply haven’t even tried to figure out what the hell you’re talking about. You haven’t been paying even basic levels of attention, not even just a little. And now you want me to start explaining what we’re debating to you? Nah, I think not. Until I make the mistake of engaging again – adios.
The concrete wasn’t poured into the uranium? Maybe they should have put THAT in their agreement. Excuse me if I read it wrong.
So basically what you are saying is Iran is going to make a bomb. There’s nothing we can do to stop them and we don’t have the political will to do what could be done, but if we can make them dance around and run through hoops for a couple of years we might be able to figure a way to deal with them in the mean time.
But if it makes you sleep better at night knowing that this agreement will stop Iran from ever making a nuclear weapon, now or fifteen years or forever, here’s to you.
[quote=“Gkhan, post:470, topic:210298, full:true”]
The concrete wasn’t poured into the uranium? Maybe they should have put THAT in their agreement. Excuse me if I read it wrong.[/quote]
Don’t ask to be excused – learn the basic facts of an issue before you impose your utterly useless opinion of that issue on other people, for Christ’s sake. No one is under the impression that you had even heard about any of this stuff before our exchange here. You made it painfully clear you hadn’t. This makes you a babbling fool. Don’t be a babbling fool. (Or at the very least be less of a babbling fool.)
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So basically what you are saying is Iran is going to make a bomb. There’s nothing we can do to stop them …[/quote]
This isn’t how it works. You don’t get absolutely fucking thumped on each and every point in an argument, while also being taught all of the basic shit you were supposed to have investigated beforehand, and then turn around and say “so what you’re saying is [a bunch of shit you aren’t saying].”
Although I’ll tell you this: I do not consider it out of the question that your grasp of this thread’s recent activity has been so backward and tenuous that you really do believe the above to be a legitimate summary of it. In which case I rescind the implicit “fuck you” for being shamelessly dishonest and wish you a happy confusion instead.
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But if it makes you sleep better at night knowing that this agreement will stop Iran from ever making a nuclear weapon, now or fifteen years or forever, here’s to you.[/quote]
Another couple of words, another stupid faceplant. Nobody ever said anything about practically stopping Iran “from ever making a nuclear weapon,” because that isn’t how things work in the adult world. Treaties and promises and agreements notwithstanding, there is no country on the planet about which we know that it will not “ever” make a nuclear weapon, and nobody who thinks about these things uses that kind of childish language vis-a-vis actual outcomes, because, uh, no we don’t have a fucking clue what Iran or the world will look like in 300 or 500 years. Your default in this thread has been to know nothing about the deal and then use the nothing you know to evaluate reality against the adolescent, reductive fantasy-world in your head. Not good, but not my problem.
The deal was designed for purposes that have already been outlined for you in detail and have nothing to do with “trust.” Just the fuckin opposite, as has already been explained to you: Undo the progress made by Iran’s nuclear program up to now and stack the deck against its being able to return to this point anytime soon by confiscating nearly all of Iran’s enriched uranium, destroying reactors, locking up centrifuges under CM, and so on. Lengthen breakout window so as to allow for better and more prepared Western intelligence/military responses in case of an Iranian end-run. And, long term, convince the leadership/people that it is better to breathe unarmed than choke with a knife in your pocket.
The first two purposes have been achieved. Past tense. Already done. Again, sorry that this doesn’t gel with what your gall bladder tells you about world affairs.
As for door number 3, we could talk about the long-term goal and wide-scope scenarios for Iran in the region/world, but, given how this exchange went, why the hell would I want to do that?
That’s exactly what I wrote if you stop ranting and read for a second. Exactly. You are the one acting like an idiot here, not me.
I just don’t trust the Iranian government. That’s the difference between you and me.
I think this deal was a bad one and here’s why:
To bring up North Korea and the destruction of the cooling tower once again…
It was a symbolic step towards dismantling its atomic arsenal in exchange for concessions including steps to remove Pyongyang from its list of states that sponsor terrorism and it was the first step in denuclearization of the peninsula.
You said North Korea already had stockpiled Plutonium
and these talks ultimately went no where.
They are different than the Iranian agreement which has seen the removal of uranium, locking up of centrifuges & destruction of reactors.
But how do you know Iran doesn’t have a secret stockpile of nuclear material hidden somewhere from inspectors. Can you absolutely be sure of this without a doubt?
The Israelis are doubting it. So I must be an ignoramus, right? Just like every member of the Israeli government?
Speaking of bad deals, the Obama administration had already released top Taliban Commanders & leaders for the release of Bowe Bergdahl, yet this Iranian agreement is even a worse.
“Within six months to a year, Iran will have access to $100 billion to $150 billion in unfrozen assets due to the unwinding of sanctions, a total that doesn’t include the economic windfall to come once international firms begin doing business in Iran. As a leading sponsor of terrorism according to the State Department, Iran would thus have more money available to distribute to terrorist groups such as Hezbollah.”
Or do you TRUST the Iranian government to be suddenly peaceful to the West?
The Obama administration had a chance to stop the Iranian government with the Green Revolution, but chose to back every other country in the Arab Spring with disastrous effects but Iran.
The Administrations meddling in Libya lead to the rise of ISIS. Yet you won’t even admit there were any problems with what the administration & NATO did there.
Ultimately, you are right. No one can foresee what the future holds for Iran. But awarding a nuclear ambitious nation holding decades of hostility towards the west with 100 billion dollars to grow their economy, buy weapons and fund terrorists seems like a rather stupid thing to do.
But you’re too busy ranting and hugging the Obama administration’s nuts you can’t see this.
That article came from something called the “American THINKER???”
This is what always gets me about these types of rants and half-assed arguments…
What EXACTLY were we supposed to “do” to Iran?
By 2009 we are already 6 years into 2 protracted Wars costing us trillions of dollars and thousands dead and wounded. The military was already stretched to it’s limit with prolonged, often multiple deployments…and “reserve” and National Guard Units fighting just as hard and long as “active” military.
Then what…we are going to throw ourselves headfirst into another War with one of the strongest, largest and most well-trained Armies in the Middle East?
I’m glad the President gave it a lot more thought than the “American Thinker”.
I don’t know if we should fight them or not. I’m not advocating this, all I am saying is givinig 100 billion dollars to a country which wants to destroy us is pretty ridiculous, don’t you agree?
Or are they lying when they say Death to Great Satan, Death to America?
Remember the words of the late Elie Wiesel: “When someone says they want to kill you, you should believe them.”
That’s exactly what I wrote if you stop ranting and read for a second. Exactly. You are the one acting like an idiot here, not me.
I just don’t trust the Iranian government. That’s the difference between you and me. [/quote]
No, and you continue to return to these confusions of yours even after I hold your hand and lead you to the safety of basic foreign-policy literacy.
I don’t trust the Iranian government. At all. That’s why I supported the deal – it decimated the nuclear weapons program of a country I don’t trust. It did this under monitoring and by way of verifiable processes. Read slowly now: is Smh saying he supports the JCPOA because the Iranians have promised to, for example, give up 25000 lbs of enriched uranium and destroy their heavy-water reactor and mothball all of their advanced centrifuges under IAEA continuous monitoring? No. He is saying he supports the JCPOA because the Iranians have already done all of these things.
[Quote]
I think this deal was a bad one and here’s why:
To bring up North Korea and the destruction of the cooling tower once again…[/quote]
No. The symbolic destruction of a cooling tower in the DPRK two years after they tested their first nuclear weapon can’t tell us anything useful about whether or not the JCPOA has been/will continue to be effective. The conditions that obtained then are not remotely close to those that obtain now: different countries, different Western responses. This is how idiots think: well this complex legal instrument that I don’t understand won’t work because years ago a very different state actor was involved in something that was absolutely nothing like this, and that didn’t work out. No one takes this kind of horseshit seriously.
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But how do you know Iran doesn’t have a secret stockpile of nuclear material hidden somewhere from inspectors. Can you absolutely be sure of this without a doubt? [/quote]
I can’t be “absolutely sure of” anything “without a doubt.” But that’s OK because that ain’t how this works, it never has been and it never will be outside of “I dont really know what I’m talking about” fantasyland. The fact that you are using this kind of reductive language – absolutely sure, never ever – serves only to further emphasize the extent to which you really don’t know anything about this in even a vague or general sense. Understand this: nothing important is certain. National security in 2016 is a matter of probability at best.
However, note that we spend a great deal of money on our intelligence services, and our fundamental position going into the talks was based on those services’ assessments – assessments which, once techs were on the ground, proved to be accurate to the extent that we were able to test them (which is really no surprise, given that we had operatives so entrenched in the process or so keyed into the lives of those entrenched in the process that they were able to introduce computer viruses into Iranian nuclear facilities via physical USB drives). Note further that nuclear activity is relatively difficult to hide (how do you think we knew about any of this in the first place?), and, if the CIA is going to miss the mark on a nuclear program, recent history suggests that it’s going to overestimate the threat.
But much more importantly, you don’t have the slightest hint of evidence that Iran has some kind of super-secret hidden nuclear program, and until you do, this entire bit of speculation is quite literally the meaningless product of some guy’s amorphous and utterly fact-free feels. The world is a collection of uncertainties, and you play the odds how you can. In this case you have no reason to believe that people much smarter and better-informed on Iran than you missed an entire nested nuclear program.
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The Israelis are doubting it. So I must be an ignoramus, right? Just like every member of the Israeli government?[/quote]
The Israelis are worried that relations between the US and Iran will warm – literally, that the deal will work well enough to jeopardize their relationship with us. Given what they’re getting from us in the next few years, they don’t have much to worry about.
Speaking of bad deals, the Obama administration had already released top Taliban Commanders & leaders for the release of Bowe Bergdahl, yet this Iranian agreement is even a worse…[/quote]
Not interested in following you through babbled labyrinthine free-association. I’m not your therapist.
Except thay it isn’t a fucking “award,” it’s an exchange…because, I hope you’re sitting down, that’s how deals work. Unfortunately for you, you have eaten your own legs here, because if the Iranians are dangerous and untrustworthy with 100 billion dollars in frozen assets, they are infinitely more dangerous and untrustworthy with 25000 lbs of enriched uranium. We figured out what it was we really didn’t want Iran to achieve in the medium term, and we chose to decimate its ability to achieve that thing. We chose correctly.
I could get into a whole long thing about how we infinitely prefer that the Iranians make back some money than that they keep inching closer to becoming a nuclear state and upending the balance of power in the world’s most volatile region, but you didn’t even know what was in the JCPOA until I explained it to you over the course of the last few days, so why would I subject myself to any more of this?
They are already afraid of this because of how the Obama administration deals with Muslims in general.
I have read many, many articles about how Israel fears Iran will quickly develop a bomb because "it would leave Iran with an industrial uranium enrichment capacity that would enable the regime to produce the fuel for many nuclear bombs in a very short time.”
It’s articles like these which contradicts everything you have written about this agreement in regards to Israel.
[quote=“smh_23, post:475, topic:210298”]
Not interested in following you through babbled labyrinthine free-association. I’m not your therapist.[/quote]
Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen…Doesn’t mean this is not true. It just means you have nothing to say about it since it is, in fact, true.
This is all happening with or without Iran possessing nukes. All one needs to do is take a look at their Russian and Hezbollah friends in regards to Syria and see that Iran is already upending the balance of power in the Middle East.
Iran’s proxy Hezbollah is armed with 150,000 missiles aimed at Israel. Hell, Iran even has supersonic anti-ship ballistic missiles. They are conducting warfare in Yemen and Syria. So with or without nukes, Iran is a force to be reckoned with. And with 100 billion dollars it can only become even more formidable.
Plus see these symbols: “…” ? These are what you would call quotation marks. They are “used either to mark the beginning and end of a title or quoted passage or to indicate that a word or phrase is regarded as slang or jargon or is being discussed rather than used within the sentence.” See? That’s how they work.
All of my information is not the figment of my imagination. I have read and quoted many many articles about the information I write about, while you attribute your information to no one.
So perhaps it is actually you who is wading [quote=“smh_23, post:475, topic:210298”] through babbled labyrinthine free-association [/quote]
The alternatives to the United States’ coercive diplomacy are war or containment, a daunting dilemma to say the least. Critics of the deal (the vast majority of whom hadn’t even bothered to read the text of the JCOPA before voicing their vehement opposition to it) have been unable to articulate cogent policy alternatives. The challenge in Iran policy (as is so often the case) lies not in picking an ideal course but in choosing among lesser evils. Diplomacy is preferable over containment, and containment over war.
As Robert Jervis writes, “The deal with Iran falls far short of what the United States and its European allies would like. Although the question of whether the West could have gotten a better deal is interesting, much more important is the question of whether the deal was better than the breakdown of the negotiations. It was, and by quite a large margin.” According to the senior RAND analyst Dalia Dassa Kaye, failure to reach a deal would likely have produced one or more of the following: an expanded Iranian nuclear program; an erosion of broad international sanctions without any benefit to regional or global security; heightened potential for military conflict; and the loss of opportunities to work on major areas of common concern to Iran and the United States.
P.S., My favorite intellectual exercise via-a-vis T-Nation has been this lately: who knows the least but blabbers the most incoherently on world politics: Gkhan, or Pat? I’m leaning toward the former.
Before I wade into another pool of your patented amorphous muck, what claim of fact have I made that you think I need to cite? Note that I don’t cite basic information. So for example if we’re talking about the JCPOA – which document, I repeat, nobody is under the impression you’ve read or even indirectly investigated – I don’t cite basic shit about its implementation, like what happened to the heavy-water reactor and the uranium. Because that is big public-record news, and you are already supposed to know it (though, again, you didn’t).
I’m not saying I haven’t made any claims that need attribution. I may have, in which case I will attribute. I’m simply asking you specifically which ones you’re referring to, and letting you know that most of them simply don’t get attributed in the same way that I wouldn’t feel the need to prove that Tom Brady is a quarterback for the New England Patriots if this were an NFL-related thread.
And then we can get into why your latest attempt missed the mark by a predictable mile. Incidentally, I probably won’t respond for 3-5 days.
I get it, I get what you are saying. It’s great we gave Iran back their 100 million dollars and put road blocks in place to prevent them from becoming a nuclear armed nation. I get it, I really do.
So now we are faced with a belligerent country which hates the USA and the West, who arms a terrorist proxy army in Lebanon which killed many Americans and people of other nationalities in the 80’s, beat Israel to a stand still and is fighting in Syria, who is now able to bolster their economy and buy advanced weaponry that could one day be used against us…and somehow this is a good thing?
So at the end of the day, Iran may not become a nuclear power in the foreseeable future and that’s great, but unfreezing their 100 million dollars has definitely tipped the balance of power in the Middle East to their favor.
Or is there another Middle Eastern nation I don’t know about which can easily defeat Iran, Israel included?
