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It's the best deal they could negotiate. It was done by moderates on the Iranian side who have now been discredited and the hardliners are ascendant. If you th

It's the best deal they could negotiate. It was done by moderates on the Iranian side who have now been discredited and the hardliners are ascendant. If you think military provocations and escalations are a sign that sanctions are "working" you're in for a surprise. All it takes is one side to make a little mistake and it escalates quickly and unintentionally. Trump has emboldened the Iranian military by pulling his punches. Now they assume they can take action without a military response from the US because Trump is not willing to go to war. That logic unfortunately makes war more likely.

m0zg 7y ago
>> It's the best deal _they_ could negotiate Exactly my point. Doesn't mean it's a good deal.
- nutjob2 7y ago
  By definition the alternative is a worse deal. More sanctions won't necessarily produce a better deal. Iran can also have a military response or build a bomb.
  - m0zg 7y ago
    > By definition the alternative is a worse deal. You need to let go of the illusion that there was any actual permanent "deal" in place at all. What was in place was a temporary stopgap at best, and Iran would exit from that stopgap with multiple avenues to building nuclear weapons within a year or two after the expiration of its provisions. If the goal was to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons, the "deal" didn't accomplish that at all, it merely postponed it. Letting an extremist theocratic regime (and a known sponsor of terrorism) eventually arm itself with nuclear weapons in a powder keg that's the Middle East seems like a terrible deal to me. Much worse deal, in fact, that not doing anything about North Korea for two decades.
    - nutjob2 7y ago
      I know what the deal was and I now who the Iranians are. I'm not defending them. The point is that was the deal that could be done and it had Iran voluntarily not building a bomb or enriching uranium. That was verified by an independent authority. Now they have started enriching uranium again, so they are theoretically moving closer to building a bomb. To stop that without Iran's co-operation would require force, so if the West finds a bomb unacceptable the West is on a path to war. For all your criticism of the deal, you haven't addressed the fundamental question of how this situation is better than the deal. Interpreting Iran's provocations as signs of progress towards negotiations is not convincing.

m0zg 7y ago

>> It's the best deal _they_ could negotiate Exactly my point. Doesn't mean it's a good deal.

nutjob2 7y ago
By definition the alternative is a worse deal. More sanctions won't necessarily produce a better deal. Iran can also have a military response or build a bomb.
- m0zg 7y ago
  > By definition the alternative is a worse deal. You need to let go of the illusion that there was any actual permanent "deal" in place at all. What was in place was a temporary stopgap at best, and Iran would exit from that stopgap with multiple avenues to building nuclear weapons within a year or two after the expiration of its provisions. If the goal was to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons, the "deal" didn't accomplish that at all, it merely postponed it. Letting an extremist theocratic regime (and a known sponsor of terrorism) eventually arm itself with nuclear weapons in a powder keg that's the Middle East seems like a terrible deal to me. Much worse deal, in fact, that not doing anything about North Korea for two decades.
  - nutjob2 7y ago
    I know what the deal was and I now who the Iranians are. I'm not defending them. The point is that was the deal that could be done and it had Iran voluntarily not building a bomb or enriching uranium. That was verified by an independent authority. Now they have started enriching uranium again, so they are theoretically moving closer to building a bomb. To stop that without Iran's co-operation would require force, so if the West finds a bomb unacceptable the West is on a path to war. For all your criticism of the deal, you haven't addressed the fundamental question of how this situation is better than the deal. Interpreting Iran's provocations as signs of progress towards negotiations is not convincing.