[quote=“pat, post:661, topic:210298”]
…He does not care about the support of the people, he wants the fear of the people. Support is fleeting, fear lasts much longer…[/quote]
Great point about the mind of a psychopath.
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You keep trotting out $1.7B like it’s a large number. Iran’s GDP is somewhere north of $400B and expected to grow over %5 this year because sanctions have been lifted.
Or,12x more than the $1.7B of their money we returned.
It is a large number and it apparently means a lot to them… It’s 1.7B free and clear. Even with the U.S.'s GDP, I will take a 1.7 B dollar donation. It would by a B2 bomber we didn’t previously have.
This is mind-numbing. This guy and Gkhan really won’t suffer being outdone by each other.
It is appalling to me that someone can fail so totally to understand and correctly interpret reality.
The Iranian nuclear program as a sham (a ludicrous proposition and maybe the nutjobbery most sympathetic to Iran in PWI history) moneymaking scheme designed to “fleece” us for fucking $1.7 billion (nevermind that it cost them more than $1 billion to build the facilities themselves, and God knows how many more billions in sanctions-related lost revenue and FDI, you unbelievable nitwit).
It’s like an Austin Powers movie. One BILLION dollars.
Seriously, this post is a masterpiece of plain old “I don’t know what the fuck is going on and I literally never will.”
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Is it? The clerical regime lost far, far more than it stands to “gain” (a word which must be put into proper analytical and historical context).
First, Iran invested over $100 billion in its nuclear program, which was intended to produce the bomb (or the knowledge and infrastructure to produce one quickly; i.e., breakout) and establish deterence vis-a-vis the United States.
"Even before oil prices fell, punishing sanctions put Iran’s economy in a very deep hole. President Rouhani was elected on a platform of economic revitalization, and Iranians are demanding proof that engagement with the international community will produce tangible economic benefits. The scale of Iran’s domestic investment needs is estimated to be at least half a trillion dollars, which far outstrips the benefit of sanctions relief. As a result, Iran is expected to use new revenues chiefly to address those needs, including by shoring up its budget, building infrastructure, maintaining the stability of the rial, and attracting imports.
Our sanctions have cost Iran over $160 billion in oil revenues since 2012 – revenues Iran can never recoup. And even if Iran were able to quickly double its current oil exports — a big if given how low oil prices are today and how much improvement Iran’s infrastructure needs to produce at this level — it would take more than three years for Iran to earn that much money, and that would not come close to regaining lost economic activity.
Iran’s GDP shrank by 9 percent in the two years ending in March 2014, and it is today 15 to 20 percent smaller than it would have been had it remained on its pre-2012 growth trajectory. It will take years for Iran to build back up the level of economic activity it would be at now had sanctions never been put in place."
[Ergo,] Iran will be under enormous pressure to use previously blocked resources to improve its domestic economy."
https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/jl0040.aspx
The IAEA is an independent international agency that is responsible, among other things, for implementing safeguards to verify that states’ ostensibly peaceful nuclear programs are not military in nature. It is not an international organization constituted by member states like NATO or the UN. Iran is party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the keystone of the non-proliferation regime and the foundation of the JCPOA. The clear distinctions between the IAEA and the NPT are not semantical, insignificant, or tangential minutia.
Even if we accept the premise as true (it isn’t), it’s clear to any informed, objective observer that both the efficacy and international legitimacy of military force vis-a-vis Iran’s nuclear program is significantly increased because of the JCPOA. As the security studies analyst Austin Long writes, even Iran Hawks should be for the deal.
How does Long account for the growing number of trade partnerships between Iran and other nations? I have a hard time believing China, Russia, and even the EU is going to support military action against Iran once they beginning reaping the full economic benefits of such a partnership.
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I’m sure that there is a lot that I’m missing on this, so please pardon the ignorance- But, if Irans aims for a nuclear technology are solely for the purpose of producing energy and not in any way intended to develop weaponry, why do they insist on having a purely home grown program when the science and tech to produce nuclear power already exist?
It seems to me that it would be much easier and cost effective at this point to contract the construction and management of a nuclear power facility to a company or entity that already exists, but that could be naiveté on my part.
According to Mufasa, the sanctions were falling apart.
If you were paying attention, that’s what I was addressing. I didn’t say the sanctions didn’t cost them anything. He said the sanctions were falling apart. To which I then replied, 'what threat is it to ‘snap-back’ the sanctions if they were not going to work.
Further, in addition to the $1.7 B, the sanctions relief is a complete win, win for Iran and for us we get a promise. A breakable one. You think that piece of paper has the power to stop a determined enemy, you’re deluded. It can merely by them time to get their affairs in order so then they can unceremoniously break the agreement and snub their nose and the ‘snap-back’ sanctions.
And sure we believe they were trying to build a bomb, but we also believed Iraq had WMD’s. We don’t know if Iran was just playing us or not. Either way, they came out smelling like a rose.
Which countries can quit, just as N. Korea did. And if they quit, then what?
Pakistan supposedly said We will eat grass to get nuclear bomb, N Korea effectively has eaten grass to get them.
Iran probably looked at these 2 and realized that no one is going to nuke anyone unless leader is psychopathic and can force generals to let them fly, in retaliation OR in existential survival mode.
Therefore play along, keep your head down, and in future you will have some. And no one will say shit at that point because of the above.
And before someone brings up Japan, those were tinkertoys in comparison to today.
I don’t really want to bomb Iran. I want nothing to do with Iran.
And we don’t need any kind of deal to bomb Iran. All they need to do is pose a grave enough threat and we would bomb Iran, deal or no deal.
Pakistanis may eat grass, or rat, or dog or whatever the hell they eat, but they already have nuclear weapons and have for a long time.
Which alone is a scary prospect. I don’t consider them any better than Iran. We consider them an ‘ally’. I think they stretch that definition pretty thin.
There’s a reason we didn’t tell the Pakistanis we were coming for OBL. There are some in that government who may have known and been complicit.
I am aware and my point is that if you do not care what happens to the majority of your population, no one is going to stop you from acquiring nukes except by force.
However my opinion is that Iran is going to get them in the future by being more subtle than the other two.
The point is that you demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of the IAEA and the NPT, an agency and a treaty that underpin the JCPOA. An understanding of both is necessary to begin to tackle the JCPOA.
If they quit, Iran understands that it now faces full spectrum containment and the very real specter of an air campaign conducted by US forces. Given the intelligence windfall of the inspections regime currently in place, Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and supply chain would be utterly decimated. The nuclear deal significantly increases the costs of war for Iran.
Pat, you proposed that Iran’s nuclear program was a ruse to “fleece the U.S. out $1.7 billion”, which apparently was a huge sum to you. Now you are backtracking and deflecting after your argument was knocked down by evidence that the program itself and the sanctions levied in response to its nature have cost Iran over $260 billion and have hamstrung the Iranian economy. You aren’t fooling anyone.
Nothing to do with Iran? The U.S. should have an isolationist policy vis-a-vis its greatest regional adversary?
Again, I stated that the deal significantly increases the EFFICACY and INTERNATIONAL LEGITMACY of a concerted military campaign against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. Iran stands to lose significantly more because the JCPOA is an intelligence windfall for western securities agencies in general and the U.S. intelligence community in particular. Iran surely understands this. Deterence is based upon capability, commitment, and credibility: all have been bolstered by the deal. We had a big fucking stick. Now we know exactly where to hit to ensure Iran’s nuclear program is utterly decimated.
That’s correct. I can personally attest to this.
The thing is, it is stupid to believe that Iran was building a bomb with a purpose to immediately drop it on someone.
Many countries embarked on nuclear programs for a variety of reasons - Israel, apartheid South Africa, Pakistan come to mind.
Even Yugoslavia embarked on such a program in late 60ies until the Nixon administration paid a hefty bribe in the form of a generous financial aid package and the project was quietly shelved.
Iranian leadership decided to gamble on major scale, feeling hemmed in by sunnis from all sides - to cross the finish line before the sanctions come into effect and before any international consensus against them could be formed. The bomb would have provided them with many advantages - the biggest of all is virtual immunity to their home territory from conventional attacks. This would have enables them to strike at the House of Saud and their Gulf allies with their shia allies in Yemen and Saudi Arabia proper.
There’s nothing better that running a proxy war on enemy’s territory while you’re not formally part of the conflict (ahem Putin).
They gambled and lost. Now they have to get the economy going to prevent social and economic unrest. Interestingly, there has been some relaxation of public morality laws (women can now wear tights under an increasingly short coat!) to buy time before the economic benefits of integration into the world’s economy become apparent to the general population.
Ultimately, it’s all about the economy - the average Iranian, when not fantasizing about life in California, is worried about expensive mortgages, lack of better paying jobs for university graduates and intermittent access to consumer goods. If you buy a foreign car you have to pay an import duty of 300% for example.
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It seems I was correct, according to WSJ - the US was caught off guard by the Turkish “offensive”, and Biden consequently disastrously improvised.
Erdogan wanted the most extreme islamist militia to spearhead the “attack”.
The reason for the latter was to absorb ISIS footsoldiers into their ranks, thus saving them for fighting another day.