Complex topic with a simple question I want to pose to PWI:
What are the implications of re-instating the sanctions?
Iran will certainly sacrifice it’s people before it’s military and it’s ME ambitions.
What about Iran’s Nuclear ambitions?
(@loppar…what are some of the overall Geopolitical Implications for the Middle East and the US as a whole)?
What say 'ye?
I bet that almost everyone who is happy about this has never even read what the whole deal was. They assume Obama was bad, Iran is bad, so the deal must be bad. The you had Trump, who you know didn’t read what is was at the time (and probably hasn’t read it to this day) saying it was the worst deal ever.
Iran doesn’t need the US. The rest of the signers can do business with Iran. It does give the chickenhawks an Iraq-like pretext to go to war. Just as we were supposedly enforcing the UN sanctions in Iraq, in spite of the UN disagreeing, we will enforce the Iran deal without being a party to it. All they need is a memo.
Goddamn fossils.
Terrible idea. Going back on the deal just bolsters Iranian hardliners who get their power by positioning themselves as “plucky underdogs” to the evil West.
Rouhani was trying to strengthen the moderate factions and open up the country to Westernising trade (however mildly he had to tread). Now Trump has pulled the plug, every Iranian hawk is saying “of course the Great Satan was never going to let us join in their club”. He’s made Rouhani look like a tit among his people for trusting the US in the first place and it’ll be a long while before any Iranian leader feels he has the political capital to treat with the US again. Trump has undone a seriously promising piece of diplomacy just because he doesn’t like Obama.
It’s incredible how he seems to think engaging with NK is the only way to reduce their threat, yet demonising and isolating Iran is appropriate. However, consistency is not his strong point, so I can’t say I’m too surprised.
That was the deal with the Saudis - the counteroffensive against the Shiite territorial gains in the last 10 years, only with US lives.
Anyone notice how the Saudis are emboldened again after hammering out deals with Pompeo and Bolton?
State department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said on Tuesday that the US has raised the activists’ arrests with the Saudi government – but she declined to explicitly condemn the detentions.
Nauert also refused to wade into the escalating row between its two allies.
“It’s up for the government of Saudi Arabia and the Canadians to work this out,” she said. “Both sides need to diplomatically resolve this together. We can’t do it for them.”
With Trump in the White House, the kingdom knows that it has free rein to handle its domestic affairs – and its foreign policy – as it pleases, with no public challenge from Washington.
Saudi’s diplomatic quagmire in Qatar and its ongoing war in impoverished Yemen have been brushed aside by Trump and even encouraged by his son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner.
Over the past two years, Kushner and Bin Salman have spent much time in each others company. Together they have pledged to overcome some of the Middle East’s most sensitive issues including the Israeli/Palestinian peace process and the growing reach of Iran.
Terrible idea. I was against the deal for some time–and I’ll thank Loppar’s excellent posts for helping me come around to it. After that I was generally for the aims of the agreement and against the deal solely on the grounds that the negotiating tactics were 100% absent from the US (Obama did not understand how to do this worth a damn) and we were not doing our due diligence to make an airtight agreement.
However, watching Rouhani and the moderates try to take hold was very enlightening and I understood how this might help long term stability and also our own national interests.
Going back on this is a hyuge mistake.
Isn’t the deal multinational? Why would Obama be the one to blame for any shortcomings?
You must be new here.
Psssh, both of you are noobs. 8 years ago everything was Bush’s fault.
Sanctions on Iran result in less oil, and higher prices.
At the new price level, it’s worth while to get more from US sources. Domestic production increases, and there is a little Boom for US oil producers.
But higher gas prices give us more inflations.
Another thing - there are tens of millions of Iranians who are living fairly normal lives - as normal as one can lead under a theocratic dictatorship - they’re going to work, redecorating their apartments, fretting about picking a good school for their kids (schoolkids in urban centers have classes in English from age seven) and going on vacations.
So Bolton supposedly wants to help them, something he regularly emphasizes in his speeches to Iranian exiles. And how does he plan to do that?
Well, by causing a complete and utter collapse of the Iranian economy. Many pro-Western Iranians are absolutely delighted about this (sarcasm)
So Bolton believes, despite the US experience from Iraq, that in the ensuing societal collapse/military intervention the urban middle class will come out on top?
Inflation doesn’t include energy luckily.
And all those shale states get more jobs and investments just in time for midterms. 4d chess (by his advisers, not him obviously) or happy coincidence?
Just a few photos of parts for the new natural gas cracking plant in my county. Biggest thing to happen for jobs in this county since the steel plants closed in the early 80’s. 6,000 construction jobs for 7 years and 600+ permanent jobs after that. EPA was slow walking the permits and shell was considering scrapping the project. Then 2017…
Do I think Trump could stoop to raising oil prices to boost domestic employment for political gain? Yes. That’s basically what he’s doing with tarrifs.
To me…Bolton is another in a long-line of Chicken Hawks who think that “they” have the answer to cleaning up centuries-long issues, because they are so much smarter than all those before them who tried…whether it be in South East Asia or the Middle East…
Regrettably…all they end up doing is costing America enormous Blood and Treasure…
And the problems remain…
“Inflation doesn’t include energy luckily.”
so in the short term, there are no losers.
Sanctions or no, its cool to see tug boats and barges on a big river. Like an old timey song.
I really, really dislike Bolton right now.
I’ve never been able to get past his Yosemite Sam mustache.
I don’t believe the negotiations by us were optimally executed. I am far from the only one, and many moderates feel like Obama’s foreign policy was weak. These are not diehard GoPers. However as I tried to make clear that is different from disagreement with the aims of the deal, or a belief that no deal at all is better than some deal.
It takes like 5 years of low pay and apprenticeship through the Stiker pilot program to get your full inland waterways license to stand watch on your own. As a result there’s a shortage of pilots and they command $500->$750 a day.
Not a bad gig.
