Trump Withdraws US From Iran Nuclear Deal (nytimes.com) 900
President Trump on Tuesday announced he is withdrawing the United States from the Iran nuclear deal, a historic accord signed in 2015 that aims to limit Tehran's nuclear ability for more than a decade in return for lifting international oil and financial sanctions against the country. "This was a horrible one-sided deal that should never, ever been made," Mr. Trump said at the White House in announcing his decision. "It didn't bring calm, it didn't bring peace, and it never will." The New York Times reports: Mr. Trump's announcement, while long anticipated and widely telegraphed, plunges America's relations with European allies into deep uncertainty. They have committed to staying in the deal, raising the prospect of a diplomatic and economic clash as the United States reimposes stringent sanctions on Iran. It also raises the prospect of increasing tensions with Russia and China, which also are parties to the agreement.
One person familiar with negotiations to keep the accord in place said the talks collapsed over Mr. Trump's insistence that sharp limits be kept on Iran's nuclear fuel production after 2030. The deal currently lifts those limits. As a result, the United States is now preparing to reinstate all sanctions it had waived as part of the nuclear accord -- and impose additional economic penalties as well, according to another person briefed on Mr. Trump's decision. Despite Trump's decision, President Hassan Rouhani said that Iran would remain committed to a multinational nuclear deal. "If we achieve the deal's goals in cooperation with other members of the deal, it will remain in place. [...] By exiting the deal, America has officially undermined its commitment to an international treaty," Rouhani said in a televised speech. "I have ordered the foreign ministry to negotiate with the European countries, China and Russia in coming weeks. If at the end of this short period we conclude that we can fully benefit from the JCPOA with the cooperation of all countries, the deal would remain," he added.
One person familiar with negotiations to keep the accord in place said the talks collapsed over Mr. Trump's insistence that sharp limits be kept on Iran's nuclear fuel production after 2030. The deal currently lifts those limits. As a result, the United States is now preparing to reinstate all sanctions it had waived as part of the nuclear accord -- and impose additional economic penalties as well, according to another person briefed on Mr. Trump's decision. Despite Trump's decision, President Hassan Rouhani said that Iran would remain committed to a multinational nuclear deal. "If we achieve the deal's goals in cooperation with other members of the deal, it will remain in place. [...] By exiting the deal, America has officially undermined its commitment to an international treaty," Rouhani said in a televised speech. "I have ordered the foreign ministry to negotiate with the European countries, China and Russia in coming weeks. If at the end of this short period we conclude that we can fully benefit from the JCPOA with the cooperation of all countries, the deal would remain," he added.
If I were Iran I'd just wait it out (Score:5, Interesting)
I have a feeling that a lot of Trump's nonsense will be corrected once Trump is gone.
I think there is a potential for Trump to be like the Mule in the Foundation Trilogy; in the same way that he's extremely disruptive in the moment, but may ultimately have little effect on the course of history.
The Paris Accord, the Iran deal, the Wall, ... if the rest of the planet just holds shit together until Trump is gone, the next president is reasonably likely to just put a lot of the pieces pretty much back where they were.
Not that I really expect trump to resign or anything, and we may have several more years of his chaotic nonsense, but he will ultimately have to go and unless America decides to double down and elect Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho for president... or maybe Ted Nugent, things will probably return to normal pretty quickly.
Re:If I were Iran I'd just wait it out (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If I were Iran I'd just wait it out (Score:5, Interesting)
"What they cannot fix is the total loss of credibility."
I think this is particularly where the analogy to the Mule is apt.
Trump has damaged America's credibility, but honestly, we're largely trading on Trumps credibility right now, not "America's"; so when Trump goes, the rest of the world will breathe a collective sigh and assume things go back to normal -- provided they do, a do so quickly the long term damage should be small -- the chaos will belong to "Trump" not so much to "America"; especially if America is seen struggling to contain Trump, which it is; and things go back to normal when he's gone.
America's credibility is only damaged to the extent that Trump was elected in the first place. But after that, to quote Mulaney... he's like a horse loose in a hospital.
Re:If I were Iran I'd just wait it out (Score:5, Interesting)
The one life experience I have that makes me hope you are right: In ~2000, I was in western Cambodia that was bombed to hell by the US. I asked people what they thought about the people that bombed them back then, and they were rightly infuriated with those Damn Nixon's... but they love Americans. I just hope things get sorted out for good and not just this bullshit ping-pong shit going on now.
Re:If I were Iran I'd just wait it out (Score:5, Insightful)
How about this? Negotiate with those with treaty making authority, e.g. the Congress. None of what Trump has undone is a recognized 'treaty' in the US. Only Congress can pass treaties, Presidents can't. So if you don't want your agreements undone by another Administration don't make agreements with the Administration, make it with Congress. Anything else & you're setting yourself up for failure AND you are treating the President as a Monarch.
You may have a treaty undone by a new Congress but that's far less likely and harder to occur.
Re:If I were Iran I'd just wait it out (Score:4, Interesting)
America's credibility is assured by our military strength,
That only assures the credibility of our threats.
our technological superiority,
Waning
by our scientific and cultural dominance,
Also waning, the former as per usual and the latter as per Trump
by our economy,
Faltering, worsening, in large part due to Trump.
and by our nuclear stores.
That is not a separate point, that is part of the first point.
Instead, your fair weather "allies" are bleeding this country dry. Believe me, $20 trillion in debt is no joke. We can no longer afford to keep buying friends, particularly such shitty friends.
Just wait until you see what it costs to stop.
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I don't agree. You are implying that Trump is the cause of declining cultural dominance. I argue that the decline (long, slow, and spanning several decades) was the cause of Trump getting elected.
It's a vicious circle. Politicians love low-information voters because they are easy to manipulate, so they enact policies to create more of them, and the whole nation goes down the toilet. Even when the Democrats control congress, they don't do anything. The Republicans sure do, though. The Republicans actively seek to fuck people over, the Democrats mostly just let it happen — but they're equally complicit. And let's not forget that support for spying on citizens has been bipartisan...
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America's credibility is assured by our military strength, our technological superiority, by our scientific and cultural dominance, by our economy, and by our nuclear stores.
No. America's credibility, like anybody else's, rests first and foremost on America keeping its word.
It's a sad day when a US President makes the mullahs look more credible--and reasonable--than he is.
Re:If I were Iran I'd just wait it out (Score:5, Insightful)
Saying that America has broken its word would be like saying that a company has broken its word after the CEO employee signed a contract with another company which exceeded that employees authority and the other company had received a letter from the first company's Board of Directors stating that the CEO did not have the authority to enter into such a contract. There are limits to the types of contracts that even the CEO of a company cannot commit the company to without the approval of the Board of Directors.
Re:If I were Iran I'd just wait it out (Score:5, Informative)
Re:If I were Iran I'd just wait it out (Score:4, Interesting)
Credibility means that you keep your word. You military strength only helps you to bully others. bullies are never credible (beside being an ass).
- Your technological superiority is not really there. You lost a lot of technology capability to China. Your steel sucks and you have to import it elsewhere.
- You scientific dominance is based on past reputation and the ability to attract foreign scientists. Without them you would not be able to fill all positions.
- I do not know where you get the cultural dominance thing from? Just because people watch US movies all around the world? In the past the US were a beacon of hope and enlightenment (even if that was not really the case, but that was how people looked at the US). Nowadays, you inability to provide freedom to all people living in the US, giving them education, healthcare, real jobs, etc. shows that you are not the model other want to copy anymore. SO cultural dominance was a thing in the past. Now no one really looks at the US to see how things are done in a better way, you have become an example of how not to do it.
- Your economy has one edge that is having the Dollar as a global reserve currency, which allows you to create money in the currency if needed. However, if you look at the complete industry of the US, you can see that the producing parts marginalized while money-based companies are generating more and more of the GDP. They are fueled by money lend by others.
- Your nuclear arsenal only helps you to bully others.
BTW nobody asked you to have the over 40% of the world's military budget. And regarding your state deficit, this is because Trump and other republicans before him lowered taxes for the rich and big companies. Also Trump and other didn't work towards a global fair tax system where companies and individuals cannot trick the system. Quite the contrary, the US itself incorporates tax safe havens. If you want to reduce your debt. Stop spending for more and more military, make less war and tax the rich. Instead you lower taxes for the rich and start wars.
And one final thought: You really want to fix Afghanistan alone? Or is the help provided by allies not helpful.
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That's a lesson other countries would be very wise to learn.
I suggest they learn to solve international problems without US involvement. Learn fast.
Looks like they're already getting started.
And people in the US with globalist dreams should wake up and realize that you can't project a worldview your citizens don't believe in.
You've got that backwards: Isolationists in the US need to realise that sticking their heads in the sand doesn't make the rest of the world go away.
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Same with China, how do you gain credibility for negotiating agreements by acting like a lose cannon to whom agreements mean nothing and can be undone by the next twitter tweet.
I just hope we survive the Trump dark age (Score:4, Insightful)
The sheer force of sucking vacuosity is threatening to disrupt the space time continuum.
The waves of lies after lies are beating down the defenses of the still sane.
He's steering his nuclear-armed bumper car into every obstacle at full throttle, while he races down the track backwards against the traffic.
My slashdot username is truly relevant again. I coined it in the lead-up to the J.W. Bush "weapons of mass delusion" Gulf War.
I could never have imagined a more dumb-ass president than JW. Boy was I wrong.
Re: (Score:3)
Hear, hear, especially as regards Dubya. Actually I'm almost shocked by the amount of insight I've seen in the so-modded comments I've seen so far.
You didn't mention one important aspect, however. The reason for this mess and the real driver of Iran's increasing power is Dubya's mess in Iraq, brought to you by the very same fools who have produced today's fiasco. The power vacuum they created in Iraq had to be filled in some way. The only problem is whether to describe it as "irresistible" or "inevitable",
Re:I just hope we survive the Trump dark age (Score:5, Insightful)
Hear, hear, especially as regards Dubya. Actually I'm almost shocked by the amount of insight I've seen in the so-modded comments I've seen so far.
You didn't mention one important aspect, however. The reason for this mess and the real driver of Iran's increasing power is Dubya's mess in Iraq, brought to you by the very same fools who have produced today's fiasco. The power vacuum they created in Iraq had to be filled in some way. The only problem is whether to describe it as "irresistible" or "inevitable", but the bottom line is that the winners of Dubya's wars were Iran in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan. On America's tab--which is still open and bleeding.
Don't forget ISIS, that's pretty damn easy to attribute to the Iraq war. And Putin is probably a lot more manageable if the mid-2000's NATO expansion didn't convince him that the US was out to create a military alliance encircling Russia. Not to mention the other contributing factor in the invasion of Ukraine, the Iraq war lowering the international standards for invading other countries.
Oh and Bush's bone-headed "temporary tax cut" that caused skyrocketing deficits in a time of economic prosperity, making the financial meltdown much worse than it needed to be.
People spend so much time treating politics like a team sport they forget the actual consequences of political action. Hundreds of thousands of people died because the Bush administration make easily avoidable errors.
That's not a minor thing, that's a very, very, big consequence of incompetent/irresponsible politicians.
All these people just falling in line with Trump as he stumbles along making bone-headed decisions based on a Fox and Friends segment. Are they actually thinking about the consequences that kind of decision making will bring?
Re: (Score:3)
Authoritarians I don't understand as well...
There are two kinds. One is "everyone else is a dumb kid and I'm a smart adult so everyone should do what I say" and the other kind is "I grew up respecting the rules and it worked for me so everyone should respect the rules OR ELSE".
but the ones who really perplex me are what should be standard relatively ordinary Republicans. I get partisanship can make you a reluctant supporter, but he still has massive support among rank-and-file Republicans, I don't understand how they can look at his antics and corruptions and not be completely freaked out.
Because they have been brainwashed with a steady diet of lies about how liberalism will cause the downfall of society, when in fact all government is socialist and the basis of this nation was liberal ideas.
Re:If I were Iran I'd just wait it out (Score:5, Interesting)
There's nothing for Iran to wait out. They wanted the US out of the deal from beginning.
The only reason they even came to the table was European sanctions, not US sanctions, that Obama got Europe to implement with the idea to draw Iran to the table. With the deal now directly between Europe and Iran all US leverage is gone. Iran got exactly what they wanted with this action. The US has no leverage in the deal anymore, Iran gets the European sanctions removed that actually hurt their economy and the US no longer has an leverage over the deal or enforcement of it's conditions.
Iran wins, USA loses.
Re:If I were Iran I'd just wait it out (Score:4, Insightful)
the next president is reasonably likely to just put a lot of the pieces pretty much back where they were
And then the President after him will just undo (or "correct", depending on which team you are on) it all and put it back to the way Trump has it.
Instead of this, how about if Presidents start actually representing the people of the country? A good start would be not entering into international agreements that intentionally circumvent congressional approval because they could never be ratified by representatives of voters.
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damnit (Score:3)
He's keeping yet another campaign promise.
Trump Hands Iran the Win (Score:5, Insightful)
And in one fell stroke Trump handed Iran the win.
The US has never had any material pressure economically against the Iranian regime. We've had sanctions on them for 30 years. The only thing that drew Iran to the table was European sanctions that through the hard work of the Obama administration was able to draw Europe to the table and get them to implement sanctions to drive Iran to a deal. By withdrawing the US from the deal all US pressure is now gone and the deal is directly between Europe and Iran (what Iran wanted from the beginning). The US will implement sanctions, Europe won't and Iran gets what they wanted, the US out of the deal and monitoring regime and Europe on board to maintain the deal and keep sanctions off.
And with the stroke of a pen Trump snatched defeat from the Jaws of victory.
It would be humorous if it wasn't so bloody SAD.
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A lot of things can change in 10 years. Compare the Europe of 1948 with that of 1938.
Doesn't Matter. (Score:4, Funny)
North Korea will no doubt take note (Score:5, Insightful)
of what America's word is worth when they make a "deal".
Trump will one day be gone, but the USA's untrustworthiness will take much long to repair.
They figured that out with Gaddafi (Score:3)
How does Trump stand to benefit from (Score:3)
this personally? That will tell you all you need to know. He doesn't give a single fuck about the country or the world and never has.
Re:Nice (Score:4, Insightful)
How the US deals with them should be correct, we would be stupid (were being stupid) to let enemies get Nukes if we can stop them. Only someone sick in the head would let that happen (by the way this is what happened prior to WWII with Germany.) They burn our flags chant death to America etc. They announce themselves as our enemy.
For some sort of insanity people want to let our enemies get Nukes. How long have we heard crying that Trump was going to cause a nuclear war with North Korea?
Now we are going to get the same crying about Iran for a while from the same people. I say go ahead and cry, but fortunately as good or bad as trump is he is not all FUD (like Obama wrt Iran and this whole sh*t deal we just canned. It was a sham to make people feel good.)
Re:Nice (Score:5, Interesting)
Did you see the intel from Israel about WMDs in 2003?
The "intel from Israel" consisted of a PowerPoint presentation with a slide that said, "Iran is Cheating". You could change the word "Iran" to "Iraq" in everything that's been presented by Israel and you'd get an exact copy of the run-up to the Iraq War. Coincidentally, the people who are most keen to believe the "intel from Israel" are the exact same people who insisted that Saddam was hours away from being able to send a nuke to New York. It's been 15 years since Bush invaded Iraq and the Likudniks assume we've forgotten by now.
You've been played. No, you played yourself.
Re:Nice (Score:5, Insightful)
The "intel from Israel" consisted of a PowerPoint presentation with a slide that said, "Iran is Cheating"
If you read it carefully, it doesn't even say that. It says they were cheating in 2007. Nothing in the Israeli intel is relevant to anything that has happened since the deal was reached in 2015.
Re: Nice (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Nice (Score:5, Insightful)
War is bad no matter who it's with. People forget this. They see WWII and think "we stopped Hitler, yea!" and become warhawks. Never mind that Hitler came to power because of WWI, and WWI happened because of prior wars, and you can follow the chain all the way back to the Romans. And after WWI we majorly screwed up in Vietnam and Iraq, and yet we still have people who think we could have "won" Vietnam even though technically we were only supposed to be advisors there, and people who think Iraq was a good idea and that we just need more troops on the ground. At some point the world needs to just agree to stop fighting over petty issues, like economics, religion, oil, ideology, tribalism, etc.
Re:Nice (Score:5, Interesting)
You think that allowing Iran to build a nuclear weapon, become more isolated and have the hardliners get back in power is going to lead to disengagement?
It's the same story as 2003, 2006, 2010 and 2014. We're going to bring peace to a Middle Eastern country by doing everything we can to fuck it up.
You don't get it. It doesn't matter who's in office here. It only matters who's in office in Israel. The intelligence and military apparatus of Israel wanted to keep the Iran deal in place. Netanyahu wants it destroyed to help him because like Trump he's facing all sorts of legal problems for himself, and his family. It's the tail wagging the hintele.
Re:Nice (Score:4, Informative)
We already knew they had a nuclear program and lied about it, so that's not news. Israel is trying to whip people like you into a froth with some old facts. They have nothing new of interest whatsoever.
Re: (Score:3)
Mossad doesn't claim Iran wants nukes. The inspection teams all say Iran was complying. Khomeini issued a Fatwa making nuclear weapons illegal to be owned by Islamic countries. The only people decrying the deal were Trump and Netanyahu, for domestic political reasons.
This deal imposes real restrictions on Iran, restrictions the US has decided to simply remove. If Trump really thinks Iran is dangerous, he just gave them carte blanche to be dangerous. He's not very good at this.
Re:Nice (Score:5, Insightful)
According to everyone including Netanyahu, they were not building nuclear weapons. I guess you must be smarter than all of Mossad and the CIA put together. Or you are complete doofus.
Re:Nice (Score:4, Interesting)
According to everyone including Netanyahu, they were not building nuclear weapons. I guess you must be smarter than all of Mossad and the CIA put together.
I have no opinion on this issue specifically, but it is indeed possible that the person you are talking to could indeed be smarter than all of Mossad and the CIA put together. And you probably are, too. Any organisation which actively rejects public scrutiny can very easily be far stupider than any single person who works for them.
In the lead up to the Iraq war, our intelligence services were convinced that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. The "evidence" that they presented in public was laughably stupid, but many (including me) figured that they had better information but couldn't tell us because that would give away stuff like exactly how they got it.
What nobody (including me) seemed to question was the premise that our spies knew what they were doing and had some understanding of how the world worked. It turns out that they knew shit. They did not have any information that the rest of us didn't have. That laughably stupid "evidence" was literally all they had, and they convinced themselves anyway.
I've seen a lot of films and TV shows presenting a fictionalised account of MI5, the British agency responsible (amongst other things) for finding foreign spies. Do you know how many foreign spies they have actually discovered since it was created a century ago?
You probably know the answer already by my tone of voice: The number is exactly zero. [bbc.co.uk] Even the ones who worked for MI5. Everyone MI5 "caught" by their own devices was not a spy, and every one who was an actual spy was caught by someone else or they turned themselves in.
The assumption that our intelligence services know more than you do, or understand the world better than you do, is a fatal one. This is, if you like, the anti-conspiracy theory. "They" are not suppressing information, "they" are not arranging atrocities, "they" do not possess secret knowledge that you do not, "they" are not secretly running the show. In reality, "they", more than likely not, are incompetent weirdos who live in a fantasy world.
Re:Nice (Score:5, Informative)
I have no opinion on this issue specifically, but it is indeed possible that the person you are talking to could indeed be smarter than all of Mossad and the CIA put together. And you probably are, too. Any organisation which actively rejects public scrutiny can very easily be far stupider than any single person who works for them.
In the lead up to the Iraq war, our intelligence services were convinced that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
Cool story Bro. The people who were convinced were the Neocons running the country at that time. Turns out that was not an intel failure, but a lie.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The people who were convinced were the Neocons running the country at that time. Turns out that was not an intel failure, but a lie.
The DCI during the run up to the war was George Tenet, a Clinton appointee. He told GWB that it was a "slam dunk" to prove that Iraq had WMDs, and GWB had no reason to doubt him. That was an intel failure.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
You may call it an Intel failure, I call it the failure of a political appointee to report the actual intelligence his agency had. There's a difference between the agency failing, and someone appointed over them following an agenda. This is a failure of the appointee...a political, not intel failure IMO.
In September 2002, the Senate Intelligence Committee met with Tenet in a closed-door session. Sen. Bob Graham requested a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq. Tenet responded by saying "We've never done a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq" and resisted the request to provide one to Congress. Graham insisted "This is the most important decision that we as members of Congress and that the people of America are likely to make in the foreseeable future. We want to have the best understanding of what it is we're about to get involved with." Tenet refused to do a report on the military or occupation phase, but reluctantly agreed to do a NIE on the weapons of mass destruction. Graham described the Senate Intelligence Committee meeting with Tenet as "the turning point in our attitude towards Tenet and our understanding of how the intelligence community has become so submissive to the desires of the administration. The administration wasn't using intelligence to inform their judgment; they were using intelligence as part of a public relations campaign to justify their judgment."[43]
Congress voted to support the Iraq war based on the NIE Tenet provided in October 2002. However, the bipartisan "Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Prewar Intelligence" released on July 7, 2004, concluded that the key findings in the 2002 NIE either overstated, or were not supported by, the actual intelligence. The Senate report also found the US Intelligence Community to suffer from a "broken corporate culture and poor management" that resulted in a NIE which was completely wrong in almost every respect.
Re: (Score:3)
BTW, I appreciate the thoughtful post. Thank you.
For a bit of context, 2003 is not the first gobsmacking foul up that the CIA and other intelligence services were collectively responsible for. The other big one was when the CIA told JFK in very certain terms that Castro was so hated that the island was ready to explode with countless insurrections the moment the news got around that there was armed rebellion over in the Bay of Pigs.
In the aftermath, there was a lot of introspection about how it was possib
Re: (Score:3)
"In the lead up to the Iraq war, our intelligence services were convinced that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction...."
That was the narrative pushed by our leaders, knowing full well that the IC could not speak out publicly to defend themselves. It's a crutch politicians can use at their whim.
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The spies in the field knew what they were doing and argued that the evidence that Iraq had wepaons of mass destruction was not credible. But the political appointees and neocons re-wrote the reports to justify "liberating" Iraq. Beware of Bolton, the new appointee who is a proponent of going to war with Iran. He was one of those pushing for war with I
Re:Nice (Score:5, Informative)
Wow, what a nice little fairy tale. Let me tell you a real story. I was alive and old enough to remember the runup to IRAQ, and I was politically aware enough to watch the news. TONS of people knew Iraq had jack and squat. THere were NIGHTLY news stories about how the UN weapons inspectors, over and over again, weren't finding even hints of a nuclear program. In fact, when bush finally got his authorization of force, they had to hurry inspectors out who had been begging for time to finish yet another inspection trying to debunk the made up evidence.
Evidence by the way that Cheney had to essentially create an office in the pentagon to come up with. After our intelligence continually told him over and over that it wasn't the case, he had to create a department to "find evidence at all cost". The most telling thing I remember was watching the state of the union and hearing bush say "...and a european intelligence report states that Sadam Hussien is actively seeking nuclear materials." I remember thinking "What do OUR intelligence agencies think about it? Why couldn't he cite them in the speech?"
A few days later we learned why, the news started airing reports that our intelligence agency had long considered that particular report fiction. Even the days of the week didn't match up to the numeric dates!
I don't know if you were a child or an early victim of fox news, but it was widely known by anyone paying attention that the Iraq war was being manufactured. There were protests, constant news reports, general skepticism.
Re:Nice (Score:5, Informative)
I don't think this was a treaty, just an agreement. Congress didn't approve it. Which made congress at the time very very angry, but then the president as executive can abide by the agreements anyway and doesn't need permission from congress to remove the sanctions or insist on inspections. However without congress this agreement doesn't have force of law, and the next president can overturn the agreement on a whim. The executive branch decides on foreign policy, not congress.
Re:Nice (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly right. Had Obama wished to make the deal permanent, he needed to go to the Senate to have them ratify it. Since the Senate at the time was controlled by Republicans he was in no mood to negotiate with
Your take-away from the Obama administration is that Obama was the one reluctant to negotiate with Republicans?
Were you even paying attention [politico.com]?
Re: (Score:3)
I mean he did kind of throw away that whole post-partisan president thing early when it came to the Obamacare legislation...
Both sides are asshole filled committees that don't negotiate or deal. They only take bribes from lobbyists and make loud statements for the media to push as negotiations. I'm sure the Iran nuclear deal fell apart because some business interest wanted the sanctions again.
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The suggestions which Obama rejected were along the lines of "We think it would more effectively stimulate the economy if we spent government money this way." As we learned, the ways in whic
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The learned lesson in this for other countries is to never make a deal with the President of the USA and expect it to last past the next election. If Congress doesn't pass the deal, then pray we don't alter it further...
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Almost anything a President can enter into unilaterally...can be undone by a President, unilaterally.
And, because we're taking advantage of that, soon nobody will trust an American president with any commitment beyond his presidency.
Re:Nice (Score:5, Informative)
The UN observers, US Secretary of Defense and the joint chiefs of staff are satisfied that Iran is following the terms of the agreement. You're so desperate to believe that Iran is doing stuff in secret, *somehow*, that it becomes an easy chip to play for political gain for Trump. It's almost too easy.
Re: Nice (Score:4, Interesting)
No, they don't. No.
I know several who hope fervently that they are raptured in their lifetime. What is the use of the Desert gawd if you don't get to heaven and send most everyone else to hell?
Re: Nice (Score:4, Informative)
One can conclude only that either your ignorance is wilful in nature, or that you just don't read [wikipedia.org].
Re: Nice (Score:4)
One can conclude only that either your ignorance is wilful in nature, or that you just don't read [wikipedia.org].
I've never been quite able to pierce the veil of the deeply religious after breaking free of it's toxic grips. So many people who are so certain of their fate and their deity, and so many diametrically opposed. Yet all of them the only true belief. And so many willing to kill those who do not share that one true belief.
Rapture lust and the celebration of the Post Tribulation suffering of the unsaved id a core competency of the group.
Re: Nice (Score:4, Insightful)
I've actually read the whole series, and a follow on, and it's entertaining fiction.
But it's fiction.
First, while there is substantial theology devoted to the role of Israel (more specifically Jerusalem) in eschatology, they are two significant points that Christians should agree on:
1. No man can or will know the time when Jesus will return. Not by signs, not by events, not by prophecy, no. Even Christ said He did not know the time, for it was appointed by the Father.
2. The manner of the return of Jesus cannot be predicted with any specificity. His descent from Heaven is the best description, we can lay claim to very little detail, though the imagery in Revelation of compelling, one guide to use in interpreting that book would be, as given to me, consider what is written literally as figurative, and what is written figuratively as literal. For instance, though I thought of the Number of Man, 666, as a literal mark, it may be better to consider it as just sorry of perfection, such perfection being represented by the number 7. 777 would be perfection, in body, mind and spirit. But we fall short of the Glory of God.
Not many Christians subscribe to the theory of some war in the Middle East presaging the return of Christ. No, not really. Many do recognize that Jerusalem is key in God's plans, but how and when are not well understood.
It is, however, good sport to claim this, especially by non Christians, to attempt to denigrate and marginalize Christians with outlandish and fantastic claims. This tactic is used in politics regularly. Nothing new here.
Re: Nice (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, you really need to realize that the majority of Christians are far crazier than you.
There's no biblical basis for the rapture, it's 100% recent bullshit but people believe in it because they're pig ignorant.
There is a sizable chunk of the American population that believes a nuclear war is good because Jesus, scripture doesn't enter into it, just like it doesn't enter into their following horoscopes, eating lobster, wearing mixed fabrics, or trying treating diseases with medication instead of assuming
Re: (Score:3)
Christ said? Errrrr....you do realize the Gospels were written at least two generations after the Romans nailed him to a cross, yes?
Re: Nice (Score:3)
You do realize I know a bit about the origin and history of the Bible, right? And that even then people could remember. Also that some of the New Testament was written OR dictated by those who claimed to be apostles, though many of the Pauline Epistles are generally accepted as genuine, and having been written between 60-90 are about the same generation.
The Nicean Council around 400 settled on a Canon, but that's not when it was written.
And, of course, believers who recognize so this can still accept the s
Re: Nice (Score:5, Interesting)
Several. Yeah. You know very few, and very little.
I was raised by them - so I know a lot more than you know about them, my friend.
But I certainly will provide some evidence not of my upbringing. Let us start with the little list of the apocalypse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Howard Camping, who's Family Radio group publicized his prediction that the World would end on May 21, 2011 was enraptured with the Rapture. They even made happy songs about it. They are mentioned in this article about the hopeful. https://www.theguardian.com/wo... [theguardian.com].
Michelle Bachmann, one of the Republican Presidential candidates called specifically by gawd to run - had this to say:
[the U.S.'s funding of al Qaeda in Syria] happened and as of today the United States is willingly, knowingly, intentionally sending arms to terrorists, now what this says to me, I’m a believer in Jesus Christ, as I look at the End Times scripture, this says to me that the leaf is on the fig tree and we are to understand the signs of the times, which is your ministry, we are to understand where we are in God’s end times history. Rather than seeing this as a negative, we need to rejoice, Maranatha Come Lord Jesus, His day is at hand. (emphasis mine) When we see up is down and right is called wrong, when this is happening, we were told this; these days would be as the days of Noah.”
Praying for the Rapture: https://gracethrufaith.com/ask... [gracethrufaith.com]
Not just pray for it - desire it! http://christinprophecy.org/ar... [christinprophecy.org]
Any questions? Like I said, I was raised by these folks, and I can find plenty more of them if need be.
Re: (Score:3)
This. It's the same among more conservative Jewish communities: many believe that Messiah will not appear until the Temple of Solomon is reconstructed. That would require blowing up one of the holiest Muslim mosques to get the location right, so long-term peace with the Muslims is pretty much not an alternative.
These things remind me exactly why I left religion. That the angry desert god would demand such an earthly thing as a specific temple, or change his story around and have the last book of the New Testament appear to be a case or ergotism, or possibly the effects of consuming datura.
But there is no doubt the angry desert god enjoys himself some death.
Re: Nice (Score:4, Informative)
Several. Yeah. You know very few, and very little.
The Late Great Planet Earth predicted in 1970 that the Apocalypse would occur within one generation of the founding of the State of Israel (and thus by 1988 by the reckoning of its author Hal Lindsay). It sold 28 million copies by 1990, and millions who read it believed Lindsay's every word (including my grandmother at whose home I read the book myself). She marveled at the fact that she was living at the "end of days".
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Even if you did, that doesn't mean they're hoping for it as a result of a nuke war as the AC lied about.
The exact mechanism is not terribly relevant. While there are almost as many endtime narratives as there are angry desert gawd worshippers, I was raised with the concept that the righteous would be raptured - transported directly to heaven without the issues of earthly death, and those not so lucky would be subject to a millenium of tribulation.
When I was a teenager, the birth of the state of Isreal was widely considered as the blossoming of the fig tree that would mark the last generation. to wit:
- Ma
Re: Nice (Score:4, Insightful)
All one has to do is look at the Evangelicals in the American South and their support for apartheid policies to know that arm of the religion thinks of religion in terms of hate. Worse, they will construct logical arguments why Jesus preferred this, it is just that their premises are screwy....garbage in, garbage out, no matter how logical the reasoning.
Re:Petro-dollar is so 20th century anyway (Score:4, Insightful)
If you realize that this is a complex issue then why would you suggest such a simplistic and short-sighted action? Also, we don't produce anywhere near the amount of oil needed to match our consumption.
https://www.eia.gov/energyexpl... [eia.gov]
Re:Petro-dollar is so 20th century anyway (Score:4, Insightful)
The US absolutely can not produce all the oil it needs domestically, even with fracking. The US consumes approximately 20 million barrels of oil per day and imports just over half of that. Doubling domestic oil production is just not something that the US can do. Even if it could (it can't) that production would require a huge investment and would be very short-lived.
More to your meaning, the US could probably live without imports from the middle-east (about 2.6 million barrels of oil per day). It would be immensely painful. Certainly, many many countries would like to see the US pull out of the region, but I think US interests in the region have as much to do with the Jewish community's strong connection to Israel as oil interests.
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Re: Petro-dollar is so 20th century anyway (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Petro-dollar is so 20th century anyway (Score:5, Interesting)
The US absolutely can not produce all the oil it needs domestically, even with fracking.
Not only can it (see sibling comments) but it doesn't need to, either. We have more than enough unused land (crappy land, too, not the good stuff) to produce 100% of our transportation fuel from algae feedstocks with current technology. That accounts for 71 percent of our oil consumption...
Re:Petro-dollar is so 20th century anyway (Score:5, Interesting)
We tried doing that with Syria, letting them just sort their own shit out. The resulting civil war led to a refugee crisis and the rapid growth of ISIS, and then let Russia expand its military reach into the Mediterranean.
A Saudi-Iran war would result in a refugee crisis bigger than any since WW2, an oil crisis bigger than any since ever, and if it went nuclear (Israel is a known-but-undeclared nuclear power, Iran and Saudi Arabia are just a serious political push and a year away from building their own nukes), a radioactive crisis when the winds carry it either eastward towards China, or southwestward into Africa.
Peace, if possible, is a vastly preferable alternative.
Re:Ben Rhodes admitted lying to sell it (Score:4, Informative)
That's not what the article says, at all.
Re:Ben Rhodes admitted lying to sell it (Score:5, Insightful)
Here was the subject line of his comment:
"Ben Rhodes admitted lying to sell it"
Re:Ben Rhodes admitted lying to sell it (Score:4, Insightful)
Misrepresent the truth, yes, to help the region deescalate. Too bad Trump and Netanyahu seem to be trying to inflame the situation.
Re: (Score:3)
Netanyahu wants the US to go to war against Iran, he believes this will solve Israel's problems. He's a fool, just like Trump.
The scariest thing is Trump might be stupid enough to try to launch military action against Iran and just like Bush before him he'll spend another trillion dollars on a war that should have never been started to begin with over weapons of mass destruction.
Re: Ben Rhodes admitted lying to sell it (Score:3)
Yes, Iran wants nukes, but it also wants relief from sanctions. Also, as Mattis himself pointed out, the Iran deal was written under the assumption that Iran would try to cheat and made it difficult to do so -- forcing Iran to choose between nukes and relief.
Re: Ben Rhodes admitted lying to sell it (Score:4, Insightful)
More specifically, Iran wants security. The US already invaded its neighbour and US politicians have talked openly about attacking Iran for decades.
Nukes are one expensive, risky way to get that. Another is this type of deal with widespread international support.
Re:Ben Rhodes admitted lying to sell it (Score:4, Insightful)
1. They don't. Mossad, CIA, MI6 all say they don't. Iran wants nuclear power, not nuclear weapons.
2. It isn't. There is no such thing as an "enemy country". Land masses cannot hate or disagree.
Re:Good, was a terrible deal. (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea that Iran, who has lied,
Who hasn't?
The point of the deal is you didn't have to trust Iran because they're subjected to rigorous inspections.
who has claimed to want to destroy entire countries
You mean their blowhard former President once made a comment that sounds like that when translated and taken out of context.
But you can't relate to anything like that.
and it the worlds leading sponsor of terror,
Whether or not that's true is irrelevant. The deal was about Nukes, not missiles, Hezbollah support, or anything else.
would not use the principle of Taqiyya (Shia being much more flexible in its use) to lie about their goals is ridiculous.
WTF? You think the only people on the planet capable of lying are Muslims following your distorted understanding of religious practice? Was it really that necessary to discredit your already dumb argument by demonstrating to everyone that you're an ignorant Islamophobe?
The perfidy of the Iranian government is well documented as is the avoidance measures they took to truly by limited in their goals to become a nuclear power.
Good for Trump.
Yeah, good for Trump. He's destroyed a perfectly good non-proliferation deal and risked a Nuclear arms race in the Middle East because he's too big a wuss to admit that he got suckered by the Fox News/GOP push to smear Obama in the lead up to the 2016 election.
Risking Nuclear war is one thing, but admitting you were wrong??? That's unthinkable!!!
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Um... or they might be for it because it's working now? There are lots of potential reasons.
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61% percent of congress both democrats and republicans said "Nah dawg, no way, no deal" so Obama did it without approval.
Kenh, you are being lied to (Score:5, Insightful)
It wasn't a legally enacted treaty - never went to Congress for approval as all treaties must.
It's not a treaty. It's an agreement. Iran agreed to do a thing, the UNSC permanent members and the EU agreed to do a thing, all within the bounds of their respective executive powers. Congress's approval was not necessary, because nothing in the deal required legislative authority.
We were prevented from inspecting numerous locations considered 'military' by Iran's leaders - which is the most likely place to develop a nuclear program.
False - that is categorically and unquestionably incorrect.
The agreement provided for guaranteed inspection of *any* location the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors deem potentially in violation. Iran has a limited ability to push back - they have a 24-day window to negotiate an alternative, but if we decide we *need* to see it, we will see it or the sanctions will kick back in. 24 days is not enough to hide a nuclear weapons facility from close inspection - particularly not when we have satellite surveillance and can easily see any large movement of equipment and materiel away from the site.
Additionally, a term of the agreement required Iran to accede to the "Additional Protocol", which has even more stringent requirements allowing short-notice inspections of any site by the IAEA - and that protocol will *not* expire with the rest of the agreement.
As I type this the news on tv is showing me Schumer, Menendez, and other democrats speaking AGAINST the Iran deal in 2015 - who now oddly embrace the deal they were against because Trump ended it.
Schumer and Menendez were the *only* two Democrat senators to oppose the deal. A symbolic resolution decrying the bill was passed through the House on party-line vote, and was never formally voted on in the Senate due to lack of sufficient votes. And I have not seen either of them publicly support the deal to this day. I strongly suspect your sources are being misleading on this, as they clearly are on other issues.
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It's almost impressive how many wrong things you can cram into one post.
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Yep, nothing to do with anything except cancelling anything Obama implemented.
It's almost as if that Lion King joke stuck in Trumps craw.
Re:Iran withdrew first (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Iran withdrew first (Score:5, Insightful)
Israel claims they have a bunch of evidence and the US intelligence services have confirmed the information. Is that not enough for you?
No. It's not enough for Michael Hayden [youtube.com], former director of the NSA and CIA, either. In fact, none of the information Israel has is new. We already knew Iran lied about their nuclear program; that's actually part of what led to the Iran Nuclear Deal. What Israel has uncovered is the specific details of Iran's former nuclear program, which explains how they lied. But we already knew they lied, so Netanyahu has dropped exactly zero bombshells with his powerpoint presentation.
While we're on the subject though, I don't believe anything Israel says. Like, literally anything. They deliberately murder journalists to prevent the truth from being heard. That's not a good look.
You want to see a mushroom cloud before you believe the Iranians are building the bomb? Isn't that a bit too late?
We have been inspecting the shit out of them for years and we know the state of their nuclear program in some detail from a combination of direct and indirect intelligence gathering. The nuclear deal has been working, and you fell for Netanyahu's dog and pony show. What a maroon.
We owe you nothing (Score:3, Insightful)
The rest of the world needs to recognize and appreciate that America is becoming a shithole country and move along without the US.
Isolationist, nationalist, Islamophobic, anti-immigration, anti-refugee, intolerant of its own people, warmongering, and oligarchical, America's beacon has dimmed and she is doomed.
You know what? Screw it.
It doesn't matter how much of our wealth we give away, there will always be someone like you spewing lies and hatred, trying to guilt us into giving more. It will never be enough
We owe you nothing. We owe the world nothing. We sometimes enter into agreements with allies for a common goal, but these one-side giveaways are going to stop. It's not our problem, and we are tired of all the giving.
The US allows about 1.1 million immigrants into the country every year, which is remarkably g
Re:This is not for /. (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope Iran, Russia, China, and the EU pick up the slack and prosper from trade deals with each other.
Iran? Nope. Too much fundamentalism. Russia? Nope. They've been empire-building since before the USA was even a thing. China? Nope. They'd like to rule the world, too. They're not going to play nice with Russia.
Truth is, America is still the world's most benevolent superpower. If China or Russia were where we are, things would be even worse. That doesn't mean don't fix the problems with America, but it does mean have some perspective.
Trolling or ignorance (Score:3, Insightful)
There's no way you have a college education. China is intentionally, willfully, and with decades of planning attempting to be the only superpower and extend their Han-Chinese ethno-nationalism to the rest of the planet. This isn't a secret. It's their public plan. All you have to do is pick up a college textbook and read countless quotes, articles, and books from Chinese officials, military officers, political scientists, and strategists.
Take in what China has done over the last 78 years and compress it dow
The United States is gearing up for war with Iran (Score:4, Insightful)
As for the Trade Deal, Trump already supports TPP [chicagotribune.com] and literally said he wants guest workers to do your jobs [cis.org] to a bunch of supporters at a rally (that went over about as well as you'd expect, but his approval rating still hasn't budged).
America is exactly what it's always been, a global empire by and for our ruling class. Trump didn't change that, but no, we don't want it. Trump I'll remind you didn't win the popular vote. We are not a Democracy [bbc.com]
Re:This is not for /. (Score:4, Interesting)
I'll quote Nassim Taleb here: "Typically, the IYI get the first order logic right, but not second-order (or higher) effects making him totally incompetent in complex domains. In the comfort of his suburban home with 2-car garage, he advocated the “removal” of Gadhafi because he was “a dictator”, not realizing that removals have consequences (recall that he has no skin in the game and doesn’t pay for results).
The IYI has been wrong, historically, on Stalinism, Maoism, GMOs, Iraq, Libya, Syria, lobotomies, urban planning, low carbohydrate diets, gym machines, behaviorism, transfats, freudianism, portfolio theory, linear regression, Gaussianism, Salafism, dynamic stochastic equilibrium modeling, housing projects, selfish gene, election forecasting models, Bernie Madoff (pre-blowup) and p-values. But he is convinced that his current position is right."
IYI, by the way, stands for Intellectual-Yet-Idiot.
Re:This is not for /. (Score:4)
So I saw a TRS-80 at the Smithsonian museum several years ago.
I got mine in February of 1978.
I wrote articles for Kilobaud Microcomputing back in 1980.
How'd you get your start?
Re:President Rouhani Confirmed Iran Deal was a Sha (Score:5, Insightful)
It looks like "someone" made the claim and every single newsbot out there reproduiced it on their respective sites... and JUST that line.
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s president says if negotiations fail, Islamic Republic will enrich uranium ‘more than before
That's it. There are hundreds of articles out there made up of that one line.
Re: (Score:3)
It never was a treaty - President Obama never presented it to the Senate for approval (as must be done for all treaties), so it was a simple "gentleman's agreement" at best. President Trump is right to withdraw on this basis alone -
No. Simply having the power to do something doesn't make it right.
let alone whether or not Iran is violating their agreement. We should not bind ourselves by agreements made dictatorially by a single person.
Reality doesn't give a flying fuck about political masturbation.
If you break something you broke it. It doesn't matter whether you think you are justified in doing something based on some bullshit abstract philosophical conceptualization.
It's still broke.
You still broke it.
You still own the consequences of your actions.
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Re:Most commenters are completely missing the poin (Score:4, Interesting)
Here's what will actually happen:
Wishful thinking?
-Iran's economy will go from really bad (google it) to significantly worse.
Truish, European sanctions won't return and their economy is probably still recovering from the sanctions being lifted. It's possible they may keep seeing economic growth.
-Political discontent in Iran will grow.
True
-Internal politics will create pressure on Iranian leadership to negotiate directly with the US.
False. Iranian people will be rightly pissed at the US and negotiating with someone who just screwed you over is a huge loss of face, the Iranian leaders won't be able to negotiate with Trump if they wanted to.
Trump just helped but the Iranian hardliners back in power.
-Trump, being Trump, will gladly negotiate.
He'd love to negotiate but he doesn't have much leverage. The Europeans will never re-engage with the sanctions, especially not with Trump in charge. And the US alone can't hurt them enough economically.
-A new nuclear deal, or other peaceful bilateral initiative, will occur.
No new deal is coming. Most likely everyone ignores the US and a somewhat more belligerent Iran keeps trading with Europe. Less likely, Iran drops out and starts working towards a bomb again. And if they ever come back to the table it's with a much weaker deal, otherwise war is the only way to make sure they don't get a bomb.
-Bilateral relations will thaw for the first time since the Iranian Revolution.
They were thawing, not anymore.
Commenters are forgetting that America isn't THAT unpopular among Iranian youth.
Wasn't unpopular, about to get more unpopular. An Islamophobe who screws over your country is not a popular individual.
Discontent runs high. Trump has leverage. Trump has leverage in a few different ways, in fact.
Trump has weak sanctions and a unilateral war, that's about it.
Anyway, guess what...looks like we might get a new deal with North Korea and an end to that war.
Scrapping a deal that the other side was living up to is not a way to build credibility. I suspect Trump just blew his incredibly slim chance of getting real lasting concessions from NK.
Trump winning isn't that far out of reality.
Reality is not your friend.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: Good (Score:5, Informative)
This cash? [cnn.com] It was already theirs. The bigger problem with that payment is that it looked a lot like a ransom.
The $400 million was Iran's to start with, placed into a US-based trust fund to support American military equipment purchases in the 1970s. When the Shah was ousted by a 1979 popular uprising that led to the creation of the Islamic Republic, the US froze the trust fund. Iran has been fighting for a return of the funds through international courts since 1981.
In announcing the agreement, Obama said that paying the $400 million -- plus $1.3 billion in interest -- was saving American taxpayers billions of dollars. The Iranians had been seeking more than $10 billion at arbitration.
Re: Good (Score:3, Insightful)
No one paid Iran anything. Stop watching Fox News.
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an explicit promise, and one that they only technically adhered to while continuing to sponsor terrorists, destabilize the region, research ballistic missiles, and generally be religious psychopaths in pursuit of their fucked up version of the End Times.
Just for clarity, are you referring to Iran here or the US?