Should we cancel the Iran deal?

[northernpowerhouse]

And here they are celebrating the original deal:

The current Iranian government aren't hardliners. There's a hell of a lot worse in Iran than Rouhani. Remember Ahmedinejad?

[Imploding Turtle]

And here they are celebrating the original deal:

Which of those are the hardliners?

[Rowls]

The current Iranian government aren't hardliners. There's a hell of a lot worse in Iran than Rouhani. Remember Ahmedinejad?

You've given me a chuckle at least.

Imagining that the Iranian regime aren't hardliners reminds me of the kind of thinking challenged in that quote from Churchill about the crocodile. It's very wishful thinking pretending these puppets are affecting change.

[Kapusta_Claret]

The Iranians are not one entity. Its a bit like the Tory party, there are different factions fighting for control and some are nutters. The current leadership that are seen on the photo, happy to be signing the deal, represent the more moderate, liberal elements. And now power will tilt from them to the hardline nutjobs.

[northernpowerhouse]

You've given me a chuckle at least.

Imagining that the Iranian regime aren't hardliners reminds me of the kind of thinking challenged in that quote from Churchill about the crocodile. It's very wishful thinking pretending these puppets are affecting change.

As far as Iranian politicians go Rouhani's a relative moderate. That's why the Supreme Leader backed his opponent in the last election.

This whole thing is just a case of history repeating itself. Back at the turn of the millennium Iran had a reformist president (Khatami) who wanted to improve relations with the West. George W Bush snubbed him and labelled him part of the axis of evil. This strengthened the hardliners in Iran and led to the election of Ahmedinejad and a growing nuclear program. Trump's making the exact same mistake because the people behind him don't give a **** about peace with Iran. They want regime change and nothing less.

[ecc]

Does anybody honestly believe Trump knows what he's doing?

[Rowls]

As far as Iranian politicians go Rouhani's a relative moderate.

"As far as Iranian politicians go" - that's all you need to have said.

[aggi]

Rowls, whilst you are posting on this thread are you able to answer the question I asked on post 43?

[northernpowerhouse]

"As far as Iranian politicians go" - that's all you need to have said.

Not really. Rouhani's a big improvement on Ahmedinejad. Iranian politics is gradually moving in the right direction.

You said it yourself Rowls: "There is a blossoming middle class of the most genuinely liberal kind of people (in the Middle East) in Iran. It would be great if they could overthrow their theocratic dictatorship."

Well Trump's move only strengthens the theocratic dictatorship. Now the Ayatollah can blame all the country's problems on the West and consolidate his own position. It makes a revolution less likely.

[Lancasterclaret]

I don't know why you are bothering, we are all saying roughly the same thing to Rowls since about post 10 and he's ignoring it.

[Rowls]

You said it yourself Rowls: "There is a blossoming middle class of the most genuinely liberal kind of people (in the Middle East) in Iran. It would be great if they could overthrow their theocratic dictatorship."

They aren't in charge and they aren't the Ayotollah.

Until his regime is removed it doesn't really matter which of his puppets is fronting their government. They're either openly hostile or covertly hostile. It's the same thing.

[Rowls]

Out of curiosity for those who are against the deal (Rowls and dsr seem to be the main ones), how will tearing up the deal and resuming sanctions stop the enrichment of uranium and possible development of weapons.

It would be very tricky but of course the deal doesn't really stop Iran doing that anyway - it just pushes that can down the road for a few years. And in the meantime awards them with billions of dollars to fund terrorism.

As has been stated time after time - it's not an easy situation. There are no easy solutions. But I don't think the deal is a very good one at all.7

I don't know why you are bothering, we are all saying roughly the same thing to Rowls since about post 10 and he's ignoring it.

Well you can view this as an open discussion and exchange of opinions.

Or you can view it as yourself proving to everyone else why you are 100% right.

[northernpowerhouse]

They aren't in charge and they aren't the Ayotollah.

Until his regime is removed it doesn't really matter which of his puppets is fronting their government. They're either openly hostile or covertly hostile. It's the same thing.

Of course it matters who fronts the government. If it didn't the Ayatollah wouldn't have bothered rigging the election in Ahmedinejad's favour back in 2009.

Trump's actions strengthen the Ayatollah and the Iranian hardliners, increase the risk of Iran getting a nuclear weapon, and remove any incentive for Kim Jong-Un to sign up to a nuclear deal. It's by far the stupidest thing Trump has done, which is saying something.

[AndrewJB]

We’ve been here before - weapons of mass destruction somewhere, and a regime to be forcefully changed. What could possibly go wrong?

[ElectroClaret]

(Financial Times, 5 Hours Ago)/BBC
Oil prices on world financial markets jumped to their highest since 2014, $77 a barrel,
following America's exit from the Iran deal.

And it ain't gonna stop there, methinks.
Think I'll get an E-bike.

[Lancasterclaret]

Sorry Rowls, was a bit arsey I admit.

But Trump is like Bush, they will have a plan for destroying Iran, but they won't have a plan for the afterwards (like in Iraq)

All they see is something to be destroyed, while the more moderates (ie everyone else) understands that the slow pace of change in Iran is vastly preferable to whatever the US and Israel have in mind.

[aggi]

It would be very tricky but of course the deal doesn't really stop Iran doing that anyway - it just pushes that can down the road for a few years. And in the meantime awards them with billions of dollars to fund terrorism.

As has been stated time after time - it's not an easy situation. There are no easy solutions. But I don't think the deal is a very good one at all.7

Cheers. I agree that the current deal only delayed the issue rather than solving it but, by pulling out of it, it just seems to have brought that 8 years nearer with no planned solution. (Other than Bolton's plan of invading them this year https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I988P0KDLHk" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; )

[Rowls]

Cheers. I agree that the current deal only delayed the issue rather than solving it but, by pulling out of it, it just seems to have brought that 8 years nearer with no planned solution. (Other than Bolton's plan of invading them this year https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I988P0KDLHk" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; )

We don't know yet what kind of unilateral sanctions the US may impose.

This all boils down to whether you want to cosy up to these dictators or play hard ball with them. Both can be good solutions in the right circumstances.

Many people here seem blinded to that simple truth by the fact that this is down to Trump.

He's already scored a far bigger success with North Korea than Obama ever achieved in 8 years of his foreign policy.

[martin_p]

He's already scored a far bigger success with North Korea than Obama ever achieved in 8 years of his foreign policy.

Trumps approach only seemed to be escalating the situation and the suddenly it all changed. This change seems to coincide with the rumours that North Korea’s nuclear test site has been rendered useless by a series of landslides and collapses. Funny that!

[Spijed]

We don't know yet what kind of unilateral sanctions the US may impose.

This all boils down to whether you want to cosy up to these dictators or play hard ball with them. Both can be good solutions in the right circumstances.

Many people here seem blinded to that simple truth by the fact that this is down to Trump.

He's already scored a far bigger success with North Korea than Obama ever achieved in 8 years of his foreign policy.

There are also many who think he's just trying to destroy Obama's legacy by repealing every law that Obama put in place.

[Rowls]

Trumps approach only seemed to be escalating the situation and the suddenly it all changed. This change seems to coincide with the rumours that North Korea’s nuclear test site has been rendered useless by a series of landslides and collapses. Funny that!

Yes this is one interpretation.

It wouldn't be like Trump's internet critics to ever admit he did anything right.

[bluelabrador16]

Rowls

"..And in the meantime awards them with billions of dollars to fund terrorism...."

What terrorism?

While America has....Timber Sycamore

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timber_Sycamore" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Billion dollars from the U.S. and...

[Lancasterclaret]

If Trump brings peace to the Korean peninsular Rowls, no one will be churlish enough not to give him credit, but its almost certainly a combination of the South having an ex-North refugee as a PM, China putting proper pressure on (again, could be Trump putting the pressure on them) and the collapse of the North Korean test site, the continuing poverty in the north etc etc etc

But no doubt that the US going in heavy (and backed by the rest of the world don't forget, inc China and USSR) has had an effect. But its still early days yet so no one is getting carried away.

[ecc]

I recently read a French expert (yes, there are so many of them) state the following words concerning Putin and Trump:

"It's easier dealing with a reliable enemy than an unpredictable ally."

I think he might well have a point.

Trump seems hell-bent on supporting Netanyahu. Whilst it's true that the States have always very strongly backed Israel, Trump is doing everything possible for Netanyahu. It doesn't auger well for the immediate future.

[bluelabrador16]

Amusing and Informative!

I Know Which Country the U.S. Will Invade Next.......Lee Camp .....May 2

"By the end of this column, it will be clear which country the United States will invade and topple next. Or failing that, it will be clear which country our military-intelligence-industrial complex will be aching to invade next.....

But we all seem to assume that America—the entity, the corporation—has some sort of larger reasoning behind the actions it takes, the actions put forward by the ruling elite. And almost all of us know that the reasons we’re given by the press secretaries and caricature-shaped heads on the nightly news are the ripest, most fetid grade of bullshit....

We now know that the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction. We now know that the crushing of Libya had nothing to do with “stopping a bad man.” If one does even a cursory check of what dictators around the world are up to recently, you’ll find that the U.S. doesn’t care in the slightest whether they are bad or good, whether they’re using their free time to kill thousands of innocent people or to harmonize their rock garden. In fact, the U.S. gives military aid to 70 percent of the world’s dictators.....

near the beginning of the Iraq War, “In October 2000, Iraq insisted on dumping the U.S. dollar—the currency of the enemy—for the more multilateral euro.”..

John Perkins, author of “Confessions of an Economic Hitman,” said that the true reason for the attack on Libya was Gadhafi’s move away from the dollar and the euro...

Ellen Brown said, “Several writers have noted the odd fact that the Libyan rebels took time out from their rebellion in March to create their own central bank—this before they even had a government...”

Wow, that sure does sound like it’s all about the banking...

Gen. Wesley Clark, “We’re going to take down seven countries in five years. We’re going to start with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, then Libya, Somalia, Sudan. We’re going to come back and get Iran in five years.” ( We have, of course, added some countries to the list, such as Yemen.)...

Apparently our government/media care only about Syrian children (in order to justify regime change). We couldn’t care less about Yemeni children, Iraqi children, Afghan children, Palestinian children, North Korean children, Somali children, Flint (Michigan) children, Baltimore children, Native American children, Puerto Rican children,....

Ellen Brown goes even further in her analysis of Clark’s bombshell:

"What do these seven countries have in common? … [N]one of them is listed among the 56 member banks of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). That evidently puts them outside the long regulatory arm of the central bankers’ central bank in Switzerland....."

on Jan. 4, it was reported that Pakistan was ditching the dollar in its trade with China, and that same day, the U.S. placed it on the watch list for religious freedom violations. The same day? Are we really supposed to believe that it just so happened that Pakistan stopped using the dollar with China on the same day it started punching Christians in the nose for no good reason? No, clearly Pakistan had violated our religion of cold hard cash...

Who will be next on the list of U.S. illegal invasions cloaked in bullshit justifications? Well, last week, Iran finally did it: It switched from the dollar to the euro. And sure enough, this week, the U.S. military-industrial complex, the corporate media and Israel all got together to claim that Iran is lying about its nuclear weapons development. What are the odds that this news would break within days of Iran dropping the dollar?..

Here’s a 2017 PBS article claiming that Iran is the top state sponsor of terrorism. One must assume this list of terror sponsors does not include the country that made the arms that significantly enhanced Islamic State’s military capabilities. (It’s the U.S.)

Or the country that drops hundreds of bombs per day on the Middle East. (It’s the U.S.) But those bombs don’t cause any terror. Those are the happy bombs, clearly...

Point is, as we watch our pathetic corporate media continue their manufacturing of consent for war with Iran, don’t fall for it. These wars are all about the banking. And millions of innocent people are killed in them. Millions more have their lives destroyed.

You and I are just pawns in this game, and the last thing the ruling elite want are pawns who question the official narrative."

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/i-kno ... vade-next/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Imploding Turtle]

It would be very tricky but of course the deal doesn't really stop Iran doing that anyway - it just pushes that can down the road for a few years. And in the meantime awards them with billions of dollars to fund terrorism.

As has been stated time after time - it's not an easy situation. There are no easy solutions. But I don't think the deal is a very good one at all.7



Well you can view this as an open discussion and exchange of opinions.

Or you can view it as yourself proving to everyone else why you are 100% right.

You said you don't think the deal is very good one at all. What is it about the deal that you feels makes it a bad deal?




(no, I don't think he'll answer this either)

[FactualFrank]

I was talking to a lass about this earlier and she didn't even know Iran was a country. She thought it was a treadmill by Apple!

[Imploding Turtle]

We don't know yet what kind of unilateral sanctions the US may impose.

This all boils down to whether you want to cosy up to these dictators or play hard ball with them. Both can be good solutions in the right circumstances.

Many people here seem blinded to that simple truth by the fact that this is down to Trump.

He's already scored a far bigger success with North Korea than Obama ever achieved in 8 years of his foreign policy.

By hardball, what do you mean? What was it about the deal that you feel wasn't hard enough? We lifted sanctions in exchange for them not developing nukes for 10 years,at which point we can reinstate sanctions is they reinstate their nuke program. So In what way could we have been harder? Stop with the vague bullshit and actually say something.

[Imploding Turtle]

I'm not even a little bit surprised by the lack of any responce to my questions

[Imploding Turtle]

America might impose sanctions on us if we don't toe the line.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/ ... ons-584206" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[bluelabrador16]

Interesting read:

Did Trump Scrap the Nuke’s Deal to Pay Back His Pro-Israel Campaign Donors? ........Mike Whitney

"Did Donald Trump scrap the Iran nuke’s deal to pay back his pro-Israel campaign donors? Political analyst Eli Clifton seems to think so, and he argues the point pretty persuasively too. Here’s an excerpt from his article at the Lobe Log:

“President Donald Trump has just fulfilled a campaign pledge to tear up the Obama administration’s signature foreign policy achievement…the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA.

….today’s unpopular announcement may have been exactly what two of Trump’s biggest donors, Sheldon Adelson and Bernard Marcus, and what one of his biggest inaugural supporters, Paul Singer, paid for when they threw their financial weight behind Trump. Marcus and Adelson, who are also board members of the Likudist Republican Jewish Coalition, have already received substantial returns on their investment: total alignment by the U.S. behind Israel…

Adelson… contributed $35 million in outside spending to elect Trump…. Newt Gingrich, a huge recipient of Adelson’s financial largesse during his failed 2012 presidential campaign, said that Adelson’s “central value” is Israel….

Adelson… has advocated launching a nuclear weapon against Iran as a negotiating tactic and threatening to nuke Tehran, a city with a population of 8.8 million, if Iran does not completely abandon its nuclear program…..

Trump and the GOP are deeply indebted to anti-Iran deal billionaires who aren’t afraid to advocate for policies that push the country closer to another war in the Middle East.”
So what’s going on here? Did Trump really withdraw from the agreement because he thought it was a bad deal for America or because, as he candidly admitted on Tuesday, “When I make promises, I keep them”?

That’s fine, but on whose behalf did Trump make those promises, that’s what we want to know? The American people don’t benefit from a broken “nukes” agreement nor does Trump’s base nor do the frustrated allies nor does the international community. No one benefits. No one except Israel, that is.....

http://www.unz.com/mwhitney/did-trump-s ... gn-donors/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Comments: 196

Well recommended.

CrossTalk on Iran: Broken Deal.......Peter Lavelle

"Donald Trump claims he is the master of the deal. But when it comes to Iran it is the art of no deal. The reasons the American president withdrew from the nuclear deal ranged from lies and disinformation to outright political propaganda. Trump claims he has made America safer. A dubious claim. Closer to the truth is probably an attempted forced regime change in Iran. CrossTalking with Mohammad Marandi, Adel Darwish, and Roozbeh Aliabadi."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG3sDuSe5XY" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Trump’s withdrawal from Iran nuclear deal gives Europe a choice: Become vassals or be independent .... Finian Cunningham

".....Iran has given Europe a limited time to deliver on assurances that it is committed to the accord by pursuing economic cooperation plans. If not, then Iran says it too will walk away from the JCPOA, which will ramp up even more insecurity in the region.

Europe has for too long been humiliated by Washington as nothing more than a collection of vassals. This harks too to the way European-Russian relations have long been distorted and beleaguered by Washington’s hegemonic ambitions.

This time though could prove a watershed. The stakes for European vital interests in having normal relations with Iran are much higher than before. Trump’s bullying over the Iran deal could turn out to be Washington’s last throw of the dice in trying to maintain its fantasy of unipolar dominance.

For the sake of world peace and its own security, Europe has to cast off the transatlantic shackles and let them sink".

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/426492-iran-de ... assals-eu/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I know where my money will be going!

[Imploding Turtle]

Well, we know where your Trump-love ends, it's where Trump's love for Israel begins. It's just a shame you can't oppose Trump for a reason other than your hatred of Israel.

[aggi]

We don't know yet what kind of unilateral sanctions the US may impose.

This all boils down to whether you want to cosy up to these dictators or play hard ball with them. Both can be good solutions in the right circumstances.

Many people here seem blinded to that simple truth by the fact that this is down to Trump.

He's already scored a far bigger success with North Korea than Obama ever achieved in 8 years of his foreign policy.

Are you still of the same mind given how North Korea is going?

[Lancasterclaret]

I think its safe to say that Trump is treating international diplomacy in the same way as he runs his business empire.

[kentonclaret]

Better still cancel the Trump visit.

[Imploding Turtle]

I think its safe to say that Trump is treating international diplomacy in the same way as he runs his business empire.

Making commitments and then refusing to meet them.

[Lancasterclaret]

South Korea and Japan found out he cancelled the meeting from the media.

What a guy

[Imploding Turtle]

South Korea and Japan found out he cancelled the meeting from the media.

What a guy

It also put journalists in danger. That's not a downside for trump though.