A deal with Iran
Yesterday we were treated to endless commercials from the media for the deal that John Kerry made with the Iranians in an attempt to keep them from becoming a nuclear power. The negotiations broke several deadlines and were about pass another deadline when the announcement was made yesterday morning. The Iranians seemed very pleased with the deal, which makes me wonder about it. From the Washington Times;
After 18 days of intense and often fractious talks, negotiators in Vienna announced that they had reached an agreement designed to avert the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran and another U.S. military intervention in the Muslim world. The pact included late concessions by the Obama administration granting Tehran the right to object to international inspections of Iranian military sites and left unanswered questions about Iran’s past nuclear weapons activities.
Mr. Obama hailed the deal as a step toward a “more hopeful world,” and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said it marked “a new chapter” in his nation’s relations with the world. British Prime Minister David Cameron said it “will help to make our world a safer place.”
Israel said it would try to stop what it called a “historic surrender.”
My concerns about the deal are myriad. Aside from the fact that Iran can block verification procedures, I wonder why there’s no mention of Americans who re being held for trumped up crimes in Iran.
I also wonder what the Iranians know that we don’t – they were dancing in the streets yesterday and the Iranian negotiators were real proud of themselves.
I remember a vote in the Iranian legislature a few weeks ago in which delegates voted to not allow inspections of their facilities. The vote ended with chants of “Death to America”! So I wonder what the reaction would be if US legislators ended a vote on this agreement with chants of “Death to Iran”?
But we can trust the Iranians, right? I mean, after all it’s not like they supported the anti-American Iraqi al-Sadr with roadside bombs which killed hundreds of Americans during the war in Iraq.
But Hillary Clinton likes the deal;
“It can help us prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon,” she said. “With vigorous enforcement, unyielding verification and swift consequences for any violations, this agreement can make the United States, Israel and our Arab partners safer.”
Yeah, with patriots like Kerry, Biden and Clinton supporting it, how could it be bad for America?
Category: Terror War
Just like the deal with North Korea prevented them from developing nuclear weapons.
I can’t help but wonder if the Russians fed Iran some Snowden information that caused Iran to work towards the deal that was reached.
Why wouldn’t iran be happy, that ketchup dealing a.h. ferry kerry gave the bas-ards everything they wanted plus BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars….kerry and obama need to share the same limb when hung imho!!
1. It won’t prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. Iran has consistently broken every agreement that it has made, it allows the Iranians to block inspections at certain military sites, and won’t prevent more secret enrichment and production sites from being established.
2. The sudden rush of income into Iran will immediately go to fighters in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, and a host of other countries. You know, the guys that we are also engaged with.
3. Saudi Arabia and other GCC countries will see this as increasing Iran’s ability to do them harm, and will begin to increase conventional arms purchases and look toward the development of their own nuclear weapons.
Nothing says stable global environment more than a bunch of radicals with oppositional views, who are willing to commit suicide, in a region that is the basis for a huge part of the global economy. I’m still trying to find the win in this one.
I wouldn’t be too surprised to see the Israelis and Saudis give the White House a big middle finger, and launch a joint attack against Iran’s nuclear sites in the next few months.
I don’t give a shit who says what about any deal with Iran. It’s worth as much as yesterday’s ass wipe. They are dishonest, murdering ass holes, bent of annihilating Israel and America. The only deal I would have given them is…you do what we say and we let you live. Period.
Word.
I couldn’t of said it better
I like how people here want to go to war with every country in the middle east. A war with Iran would make Iraq look like The Falkland Islands War; it would be catastrophic.
I guess war in 10? countries in the middle east isn’t enough, we gotta attack them all.
yeah……. uh, no. More than any other situation, this one has been festering since the loonies seized power from the Shah. Granted, the Shah wasn’t any Boy Scout, but he was a rational actor. Not so with the folks who took over. The Iranian government intends to develop, deploy and use nuclear weapons. They have been working on that project for more than 20 years, partnering with Syria and North Korea, and, for a time, even with their rivals in Iraq. The Israelis managed to shut down the Iraqi and Syrian facilities, but North Korea’s and Irans were out of reach. North Korea got a more strict treaty with these United States (and others) to NOT develop a nuclear weapon. Bill Clinton triumphantly announced the deal, just like Obama today, and Neville Chamberlain back in ’39. Within 10 years, North Korea not only violated the nuclear power plant issues, but had a functioning bomb. The Iranian government has publicly stated that they intend to develop a nuclear weapon, and they intend to “consume Israel with fire”, and “wipe it from the map”. They must be taken at their word. To not do so is the very height of folly. As we debate this here, tens of thousands of Iranian centrifuges are operating, all to refine uranium in order to produce nuclear weapons. In addition, the Iranian government is at work developing more accurate, longer-ranged missiles. Already, they have missiles with sufficient range to hit central Europe. Like it or not, These United States, and Israel, are the only two countries with the capability of hitting Iran, of penetrating their air defenses with both aircraft and cruise missiles, and likely severely damaging if not outright destroying their nuclear facilities with conventional weapons. If the Iranian government develops it’s own (or their version of North Korea’s) nuclear weapon(s) they will use them. They have said they will, they have never toned down their rhetoric regarding Israel, these United States, or anyone and anything NOT named Iran. The world cannot afford to take that chance. Our own government has failed to stop those… Read more »
While I understand your feelings, it’s important to draw a distinction between the Iranian people -who are often, but not always, quite lovely- and the undeniably crazy leaders, fanatics and parts of the military.
And, more importantly, we don’t have the ability to enforce a ‘do what we say and we let you live’ mentality. Do you really think we can afford to be in another war, one far worse than our current conflicts? Where will the capital to do that come from? How will that effect our already pressed military? How do we enforce the threat? Suggesting we nuke them? Sorry, not a valid option as China and Russia routinely work with Iran and unleashing the nuclear genie basically lets them do the same. So again, how do we make this threat work? Surgical strike on the program will be of questionable success, and simply delays the inevitable.
Long story short, I don’t have an answer here, but I don’t think ‘bomb them!’ is a valid one either. As for the deal itself, I just saw this, and it’s an interesting article regardless of what you feel about the deal personally: http://www.vox.com/2015/7/15/8967147/iran-nuclear-deal-jeffrey-lewis
You will note that I refer to the Iranian Government, and NOT the Iranian people.
We don’t have to “bomb them”. What WE have to do, and by that I mean the civilized world, the western world, is to destroy their enrichment facilities and assembly areas. The means of producing nuclear weapons that they have built up.
The Iranian people are, by every understanding, good and decent people. BUT… they have been misled by the ruling class, the mullahs and other government types. It is they who are to blame for Iran’s misfortunes, and not anyone else.
Bomb the facilities. Deny Iran the opportunity, the means, to produce nuclear weapons. We must NOT permit them to attain a seat at the nuclear table. never.
Stop wringing your hands over this or that moral issue. Stop worrying about what future generations might say. START worrying about whether there will BE and future generations, because if the mad mullahs have their way, Armageddon will be upon us. They don’t give a rat’s ass about OUR future, or anyone else’s future. All they care about is bringing the world to an end so their 12th imam will return.
Hitler and his maniacal views pale in comparison to those in charge in Iran. WE are one of a handful of nations capable of stopping them now and forever. If we do nothing, and they unleash nuclear war upon the world, how will we then be judged?
I’d rather we acted and tried to prevent this coming holocaust, then sit idly by, chanting “peace in our time” and watch the world end because we did nothing.
With respect to the Iranian people vs. the Iranian government, I was mostly just pointing out the difference to Sparks. If you’ve never met Iranians or been to the country you can get a false sense of the people, but we’re in agreement that the ‘government’ (in broad terms) is dangerous. There is a split between the elected government and the religious leaders, but now we’re needlessly splitting hairs when we’re talking about nuclear deals.
That said, my personal perspective on this is admittedly lacking in certainty for the moment, but I am most certainly focused not on the moral issues but on whether there will be future generations. Except to me, the issue isn’t nuclear weapons – it’s a broader view of weapons of mass destruction, and the inevitability of bad actors obtaining them. In fifteen to twenty years, maldjusted individuals will probably be able to create bioweapons in their home without requiring expensive government facilities — and our current method of preventing such things (surgical strikes on facilities we know about) no longer works because we won’t know about them. So I’d rather we start finding alternative solutions and working to resolve our issues with state-actors so we can tackling the bigger problem of WMD (via bioweapons) proliferation through scientific availability.
Basically, I feel that WMD proliferation is inevitable, and trying to stop it is like liberals trying to ‘get rid of guns’. It’s a pipe dream and isn’t going to happen, and the sooner we understand that the sooner we can move on and tackle the real issues relating to a world with weapons in it.
This is why I will never trust Iran:
http://www.militarytimes.com/story/military/capitol-hill/2015/07/14/iran-linked-to-deaths-of-500-us-troops-in-iraq-afghanistan/30131097/
As someone who spent 2005-2006 (As well as 2003-2004 and 2008-2009) in that hellhole and lost friends while there, I can’t help but smfh.
What Lurch and president mom-jeans did was to prove, beyond any measure of doubt, that Israel is being abandoned by the leftists who are controlling our government.
That free up Israel to do whatever it feels if required to eliminate that threat, and provide for its own survival.
I fully expect that, before the end of this year, (if not much, much, sooner) that Israel will strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. As of last noght, Saudi Arabia had also entered into a tentative agreement with Israel for regional protection. If THAT isn’t a full-on example of how deadly the Saudis (and others) view Iran’s threats, then I don’t know what else is.
One interesting point that the morons we have running this country seem to have failed to miss is how Saudi Arabia views Iran. They refer to the Iranians as “Persians”. Not as Arabs. Not as muslims. Persians. Te age-old threat from that area to everyone around them.
At this point, I favor removing ALL of our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan as quickly as possible. bring out what we can carry and destroy everything we leave behind. It’s going to get damned ugly over there right quickly now, and there’s no way our guys will end up as anything but sacrifices at this point. Our leaders won’t give them anything but token support, and we don’t have enough there to be much more than a speed bump when that regional balloon goes up.
I’m with ya, Tim. This was, for the region, a massively destabilizing agreement. No one in the region wants a nuclear Iran. No one. Now, Saudi Arabia is going to get their own nukes and, when they do, everyone else in the region will want their own nukes, also. The US can’t deny anyone else nukes, since they are ok with Iran having them.
I was arguing with an idiot on another website who was claiming that “the only terrorists in the Middle East are Sunnis” and that the Shi’ite Persians should be our friends. I had to point out to him that, prior to 9/11, Hizballah had killed more Americans than any other terrorist group in the world. The Marine barracks bombing in Beirut, multiple bombings of U.S. Embassies throughout the region, TWA 847, the Khobar Towers bombing, etc., etc.: all the work of Hizballah.
Now, one guess which regional power Hizballah works for…
As for this current nuclear “deal” with Iran, I suppose it’s time for a little trip down memory lane:
http://patterico.com/files/2015/07/Clinton-Norks.jpg
I’m sure everything will work out much better this time. Because, Obama is awesome.
Considering Iran will gain so many additional resources as a result of this, would it be a safe assumption this country will become complicit in Iran’s objectionable foreign policy, and could even be implicated in providing financial support to a country that is well known for state sponsored terrorism?
…or am I too far out on a limb?
Every single weapon and rocket we captured in the Basra province in 2010-2011 was of brand new Iranian manufacture. In fact at a POO site that exploded while they were setting up the rockets to fire at my COB (we took multiple 107mm rockets or larger every single day I was there) we positively identified all of the bodies in the vicinity as active Iranian QUDS forces.
My battalion fought the Iranian backed JAM in 2007-2009 in and around Sadr City. Then we fought their remnants, Hezbollah and full on Iranians on 2010-2011. In and around Basra.
I’ll believe they will honor this deal in good faith about as far as a blind person can see.
Saddam Hussein, Part Deux is in our future.
And once again, civilization has to deal with the infection known as “Persia”. It hasn’t changed for more than 25 centuries.
Too many lefty “leaders” are interested in leaving some sort of historical legacy, hoping perhaps to be the next man to broker the deal that no one forgets.
I suspect no one will forget this deal, but not for the reasons President Obama has imagined.
Just the other day Hondo used the Santayana quote, it seems ever more apropos in this situation. Since when has there been a true and honest negotiation with a totalitarian regime.
This deal does nothing but remove sanctions from Iran thus providing them with much needed income to continue their secret work towards a nuke. Nukes mean you’ve joined the big boys club, every despot nation in the world wants some. Once that cat’s out of the bag it’s never going back in without violence inflicted on the cat and the handler.
They hate the US, this deal won’t change that.
In my opinion this deal is viewed by Iran as reinforcement of their opinion that we are a giant paper tiger without the stomach for long painful conflicts or negotiations from a position of strength.
As AW1 Tim points out there are suddenly unlikely allies in the region, which is directly due to those on the ground in the region understanding their potential enemies and the threat they pose.
Once again we’ve got something, some kind of deal, some kind of agreement, some kind of publicity. I certainly hope to be proven wrong about the accurate nature of this deal, it would be quite refreshing to see 5 years from now an Iran that has no nuclear capability and a more stable middle east. I would be lying if I have any expectation of seeing that outcome, I believe another Obama failure to lead will be exposed with Iran’s first above ground nuclear test sometime in the next 5-10 years….at which point the liberals will no doubt find some way to blame someone in the Bush administration.
This is the Clinton-North Korea agreement 2.0, only worse.
Agreed, even if it’s not worse it’s certainly not better.
Yeah, we can all trust that great American hero, John Kerry. He was the guy who served so valiantly in Vietnam, then decided he liked being a hippie much more, so he burned his uniform, burned the flag, said America sucks, threw his medals in the Potomac … I may be exaggerating a little, but remember the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth? Those were the older guys who banded together in 2004 to basically tell America, DO NOT VOTE FOR THIS GUY. HE IS NOT QUALIFIED TO BE YOUR PRESIDENT. Interestingly, the media managed to convince Americans that that campaign of theirs was below the belt, and more or less dishonest. Really? I’m not even a veteran and I INSTANTLY recognized those guys in that TV ad as being soldiers/sailors/airmen of FLAWLESS integrity and SUPERB credentials vis a vis public service and general patriotism. So what was their point? Kerry is an a–hole, that was their point. And what has he really done in all these years of living the high life as a senator/spouse-of-a-super-rich older lady? NOTHING! When he came out on stage and saluted at his 2004 inaugural speech, I wanted to VOMIT. Those old guys knew something. There was NO WAY they would let their fellow citizens vote for the guy.
Joe, just want to point out that sKerry was a hippy, anti-war dipshit before he enlisted. He had no expectation of actually being sent anywhere, tried to avoid being sent to VietNam, but managed to maximize the opportunity once there.
He was just another garden variety socialist. He was likely one of many recruited specifically to “serve” to further the lefty agenda as “veterans.” Yeah, there as a lot of that going on back in the day.
Kerry made all kinds of threats about suing the SBV over their claims. Still waiting – -discovery can be a bitch. Still waiting for Lurch to sign the SF to release his military records is like waiting for hell to freeze over.
So THAT’S why we’re having “globull cooling”!
Hey; numbnuts had a chance to get in on the ground floor of the Iranian freedom uprising, back in 09/10, but he chose to side with the mullahs. He has been on his knees, fallating like a pro, to the Iranians since he took office on Jan. 20th, 2009.
Let’s not forget that he was all for getting involved in the “arab spring” on the side of the extremists in Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt, but would do nothing to help in an uprising in Iran.
Look up “swift boating” and you’ll see it is in the modern lexicon. It means you did something terribly unethical and slanderous to a political opponent. CAN YOU FREAKING BELIEVE THAT? THOSE GUYS WERE AMONG THE GREATEST AMERICANS WHO EVER LIVED!
“And we now have peace in our times.”
(/sarc out)
At least in those days the dems had some balls. Modern Iran is a pissant in comparison to nazi Germany, but they’re still dangerous enough. Add nukes to the equation…fuck.
How fucked would we be today if Barry, Lurch, and Hildebeast had been calling the shots in 1941? Death camps in Virginia, Imperial Army Comfort Stations in California, and wasteland in between, that’s how fucked we’d be!
We shouldn’t even be in this predicament. Iran is a slightly-bigger than average fish in a small pond that should have been long-since cowed into compliance–or bombed into a cloud of dust. But sadly, with the possible exception of Ronaldus Maximus, none of our leaders in the past 30 years have had the balls to deal with them appropriately.
If Neville Chamberlain had a son…
That made me raff out roud NBC…
Interwebz of the day!
‘But we can trust the Iranians, right?’
Of course we can trust them. As obnoxious as Iranian sailors at Great Lakes were toward Americans, when I was there in 1972, it was easy to figure out exactly where Americans stood with them, and that was LONG before Jimmy Carter’s F/U. In fact, if you really bone up on the history of that part of the world, going back several thousand years, you know exactly what they are like and what they will do. And you can trust them just about as far as you can throw a camel.
Actually, I trust the Iranian/Persians far more than I do shrillary and sKerry. I know what to expect from the Persian side of the fence.
Frankly our negotiating position should have been: ” The B-52 strikes will stop when…”
First target, Mecca.
Second Target, Medina.
Subsequent targets in descending order of muzzie importance.
Mecca is in Saudi Arabia.
Each deal that they broker makes us less relevant in the world. It’s almost as if that was the plan all along…
Indeed, someone is “fundamentally transforming” America.
.Fox had. a pic of Kerry yesterday, grinning like an idiot and all I could think of was that scene in Animal House after they wreck Flounder’s car and they tell him, “Hey, you f**ked up – you trusted us!”
Mike
Iran and nuclear weapons.
What could possibly go wrong?
No shit
Please do not forget the fact that we are now paying the Muslim pirates not to attack American ships… I mean we are now paying the Muslim regime not to build nuclear weapons.
So ya got a problem with us funding our own demise? Yeah, me, too.
The lefties proved a very long time ago that they are raving loons. The problem now is that as they commit collective suicide they expect the rest of us to join them. They seem not to understand, or care, that a bunch of us still have the basic will to survive and the skills to do just that.
DaneGeld – even if you pay the Geld you never get rid of the Danes.
I am still reading the agreement. I think that it is long and tedious.
Kipling knew a thing or two about that,
There was a time in these United States when foreign nations acted against our own interests. The headlines then read “This government wants Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_Perdicaris
Nowadays, we a quisling press enabling a Vichy government and it’s past time we found the courage to form a Maquis to deliver us from them.
let us hope that the nest round of elections returns us to the rule of law, and a support for our Constitution. Otherwise, I fear we are closer to 1860 than 2016.
All I ever needed to know about the Iranian government I learned in 1979. Nothing I have seen since has caused me to reconsider that position. Carter had the Camp David Accords. Does the Left remember him in a positive light for that? Carter also had Desert 1. Does the Left blame Carter for that that failure? Clinton fired cruise missiles into Sudan and Afghanistan. Is he remembered well for that? Obama doesn’t care what his opponents think of him, he can’t fix that no matter what. What matters to him is what his supporters think. If he is going for permanent adulation from the Left maybe this deal makes sense to them and that would explain why he went for it. Is there any way to convince people who want to support this agreement that it is a bad deal? In my opinion, an alliance between Saudi Arabia and Israel should be important. It solves one problem for the Israelis – how to get to Iran and back home without refueling. It solves a problem for the Saudi’s – “we don’t want to fight muslims or be seen to fight against muslims, not even shia, so we let the Israelis do it for us. And by the way, our planes don’t get shot up or shot down.” Nukes in Saudi don’t matter without a delivery system. Can the Saudis deliver a nuke on Tehran? I think no. Can the Iranians export oil using pipelines? That is, can they close the Strait for everyone else without cutting their own throat? I think yes. Assume that the Iranians will cheat on the agreement. Will they do it while Obama is in office or wait until his successor is elected? I think that they will cheat now. In order to maintain his “legacy” Obama will conceal the cheating and he won’t do anything to Iran, so why wait? Will the Saudis make common cause with Kuwait, UAE, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey, Iraq, and Russia? That is, with the countries that border Iran. Will it matter? I keep thinking about a nuclear Egypt and… Read more »
“We” are turning our adversaries into allies and our allies into adversaries.
Word.
United States sponsored and funded terrorism.
There goes the moral high ground.
Obummer and his crew just opened Pandora’s Box.
I keep hearing the whistling of fifes in the back of my head, “The World Turned Upside Down” (Yankee Doodle).
I see this as Obama’s ultimate sell-out of Israel. By negotiating this agreement, he put us in the position wherein whatever Israel does, it “violates the spirit” of the agreement. If his unspoken goal was validating the image of Israel as an international pariah and outlaw whatever they do in regard to Iran – this does it.
Richard,
The Saudis have had Chinese IRBMsfor deçades. If – as is suspected – they have bought and paid for a couple of Pakistani warheads for said IRBMs, then they’ll have a deterrent online and in place long before the Iranians have their threat in place.
Mike
A paper written for the Air War College back in the 70’s concluded that Israel had a nuclear arsenal made up of a minimum of 80 warheads and growing. It also mentioned that the Israelis had developed suitcase nukes, like the US and Soviet Union, that could be smuggled into strategic targets by Israeli special operators.
That was forty years ago. What do you suppose the Israelis have in their nuclear arsenal now? They certainly have super-quiet diesel boomer subs, built in Germany, that can launch cruise or IRBM missiles with nuke warheads from hides in the Arabian Sea or even the Persian Gulf.
And all the talk about Israeli aircraft having to fly through hostile airspace to reach targets in Iran just went out the window with this agreement because I’ll wager they can now use Jordanian and Saudi airspace with impunity.
So, as regards the threat of attack by Israel, the danger level has just been kicked up several notches. This agreement the Persians are so thrilled with may very well turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory.
They hold a treaty with Egypt, too, because of the Sinai peninsula.
This is going to be interesting.
There’s a reason why the Israeli Air Force was training in the Georgian Republic. Likely a main reason why Putin invaded to put an end to that.
Why? Well, to start with, Putin is “friends” with the Iranian government. Good market to sell weapons and spare parts to. Good proxies to fight the westerners with.
But Georgia also has something useful to israel: air bases. Bases capable of large aircraft, plenty of hangar and bunker space.
And those air bases? You take off north, turn right, and very shortly you’re over the Caspian Sea. Turn south, and you reach Iran. Coming in low, over the water, and it’d be damned hard to detect anyone until they began to rise up prior to reaching their IP. At that point, regardless of the defenses thrown up, someone will be getting through.
The pilots would fight like hell to make it in, and get back out again, but considering the threat to Israel, they’d also likely know that failure was not an option.
So, I say my prayers. Not just for my family, and my nation, but for Israel, and everyone who will be in harm’s way in the very near future.
Our civilization has been abandoned by our own leadership. Now we must trust Israel to be our “sword and our shield”, as the old psalm says.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m lighting another candle and keeping it lit.
Tim, that’s an approach which had not occurred to me. Interesting…
Have B. Hussein 0bama & Company EVER done anything beneficial to the US or her interests?
Uh, no.
How ’bout we chip in and send Kerry an umbrella and a bowler?
If you change his name, I’ll chip in.
Well the “conservative media” has its hair on fire about this deal but it’s a big “meh” to me. Two questions, one real, and one rhetorical: First of all (real question) in the long history of “arms control”, has it ever worked? Has there ever been a country that sought to have certain types of weapons that was prevented from acquiring those weapons by treaty alone? Ever? I’m not aware of any but I’ll welcome any corrections. Germany rearmed in the 1930’s in spite of the Treaty of Versailles that prohibited them from doing so. Iraq, Syria and Libya all acquired huge stockpiles of chemical weapons in the face of various international conventions prohibiting it, NdTBF acquired nukes in spite of explicit agreement to not do so. The only thing that finally brought Iraq back from the brink was our invasion and conquest and AFAIK that is literally the only way to prevent an adversary from acquiring weapons. My rhetorical question is this: Why is it OUR responsibility to prevent rogue states from acquiring nukes? Apart from a few staunch allies like the UK and Australia, the rest of the “civilized” world pissed its collective panties when we invaded Iraq and spent the next 10 years wringing its hands and gnashing its teeth over the terrible things we had to do there. Unlike a lot of other conservatives I don’t think the world will end if Iran gets a nuke. For all the histrionic claims about Iranians being crazy Muslim fanatics I think they’re more likely to be run-of-the-mill power hungry hegemons, just like they were back in the days of Darius and Alexander. They don’t want nukes to start WWIII they want nukes so they can be the ‘big kid on the block’ and extend their hegemony as far as possible in their region. Having nukes also gives them a nuclear “trump card” that effectively inoculates them against an Iraq-style invasion by the Western powers and specifically the US. And so I ask: Why is this OUR problem to fix? The rest of the world didn’t like the way… Read more »
No one believed Hitler when he wrote in “Mein Kampf” about his plans to rid Germany of all it’s Jews.
“It’s all just saber -rattling” “politics, that’s all!” “He’s just saying that to sell books” and all sorts of other platitudes.
Well, the world refused to take Adolf at his word, and look at the results.
Now the Mullahs are stating, very publicly, that Israel will be “consumed by fire” and that it will “cease to exist” and be “wiped off the map”, etc.
No one took Hitler seriously and the world burned. Why should we NOT take the Iranian government’s threats at their face value?
To not do so risks an even greater conflagration than that which our father and grandfather suffered to put down.
Countries make bellicose threats all the time. Look at the nonsense that comes out of North Korea.
If Iran (or any other country) wanted to attack Israel with WMDs and didn’t care about the consequences (which seems to be your thesis) then there’s no reason they could not have attacked with chemical weapons years ago.
That they haven’t shows that they fear retaliation in kind. Which is exactly the same situation that would occur with nuclear weapons.
Furthermore, fantasies about “surgical strikes” or “taking out their capabilities” are just that – fantasies. The Iranians have learned from Iraq’s Osirak experience and have undoubtedly scattered their facilities so far and wide that a single strike or even a single series of strikes is unlikely to take them all out at once.
And finally there simply is no political support in this country or in the rest of the world for a military attack on Iran.
As I said above, we invaded Iraq and toppled Hussein and the world pissed and moaned about it. So if “the world” now is worried about Iran getting nukes then “the world” can come up with a solution for it.
The only ‘negotiation’ with Iran should’ve stated: Oh you’re trying to acquire nuclear weapons? We already have a shitload. AND we know how to use them. Ask the Japanese.
This one-sided agreement (I won’t call it a ‘deal) with Iran has had an effect on the price of crude already. Iran is now free to sell its crude on the open commodities market.
http://www.mining.com/web/opec-get-ready-for-the-second-u-s-oil-boom/
The article is pretty straightforward, but there is one thing I didn’t see, and that is the suggestion that we stop exporting our own crude and hold that for when we need it ourselves.
Now, cheap oil prices will not make bodaprez’s admin happy, because using fossil resources to run cars conflicts with the bubblicious daydreams of not using carbon-based fuels to run privately-owned vehicles. That includes company vehicles. POV means NOT USGOV-owned. It’s not in the ‘do something’ category. But this may throw OPEC into more disarray, and certainly will not keep the Iranians from exporting their own crude and using it to fuel their own military vehicles, will it? No. It won’t.
I’m less concerned with Iran’s nuke neediness and keeping an eye on their antics than I am with people in the current (lack of) administration being asleep at the switch, because I see this ‘deal’ as a long road to bigger and nastier issues.
The Iranians are dancing in the streets, the press is covering for Obama and Kerry is doing victory laps. Tell anyone anything about this deal?
I’m predicting that the Israelis and GCC states “take care of business” with Iran with the next 24 months. They fear Iran with a nuke and they will “cooperate” to make sure that they don’t have a bomb, using a direct strike on Iranian nuke facilities.
“…in fact, we should expect that some portion of that money would go to the Iranian military and could potentially be used for the kinds of bad behavior that we have seen in the region up until now. But the goal here, Wolf, was never, and was not designed to prevent them from engaging in bad behavior in region.” 15 July 2015 That’s Susan (Benghazi) Rice on Iran’s likely use of freed assets to support terrorism–I mean, “bad behavior.” Are you f’n kidding me? Bad behavior?