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Admittedly, I was one of the people who wasn’t impressed with the deal Obama made in 2016. I didn’t like that it allowed Iran to keep enriching uranium or that

by jm4 1y ago

Admittedly, I was one of the people who wasn’t impressed with the deal Obama made in 2016. I didn’t like that it allowed Iran to keep enriching uranium or that we paid them. In recent years, that deal has been looking better every day. We are undoubtedly worse off today than we would be had Trump left the deal in place. This is a bad situation.

YZF 1y ago
It was just not a good deal. It was more like kicking the can down the road and funding the regime. That's not good for Iranians and not good for anyone else.
- jm4 1y ago
  It wasn’t a good deal. It was also probably the best deal that could have been achieved at any point in the past 20 years. More importantly, it would have kept things on an even keel and kept us talking to each other for as long as we both honored the deal. It was an opportunity to see if we could build a little bit of trust and make another deal later. Yes, it kicked the can down the road. It also represented a willingness on the part of both countries to try to avoid a conflict even though we both had reasons to want one. It’s possible it would have been a complete failure. We will never know. What we do know for sure is that we have had fewer options for dealing with the situation since we pulled out of the deal and now we are at war. Our country’s handling of Iran has been nothing short of a spectacular blunder. Two administrations have tried to negotiate out of the hole Trump got us into when he tore up the deal. The buffoon actually thought he would cancel the deal and make a better one. Now, after 20+ years of criticizing the Iraq war and campaigning three times on not starting new wars, he is the trigger man getting us into a new one when we are least prepared for it.
  - YZF 1y ago
    The problem in Iran is the government or shall we say the dictatorship. I'm not sure how the US could have/should have handled Iran since the revolution. You're naive if you think the current Iranian regime has any interest in aligning itself to western views via deals. It wants to cement its control, broaden its sphere of influence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_policy_of_exporting_the_Islamic_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_policy_of_exporting_the_Is... Deals are tactical. They're not about shifting world views. I'm not sure the US and Iran are really "at war right now". This is very different than Iraq. But I do agree intervention has risks. The problem is that no intervention also has risks. Take for example Obama's lack of appetite to intervene in Syria. Contrast to Turkey and Israel that effectively intervened recently in Syria and force a regime change that at least so far is more or less holding out.
    - oa335 1y ago
      > I'm not sure the US and Iran are really "at war right now" It’s amazing what decades of propaganda has done to Western discourse. Now somehow bombing another country isn’t war.
      - YZF 1y ago
        I think there's a difference between one attack and a full blown war. The US has had many bombings of other countries without a full out war: https://www.maurer.ca/USBombing.html https://www.maurer.ca/USBombing.html Most recent big example is Yemen. Would you say the US is at war right now with Yemen? Was this already the start of this war? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Praying_Mantis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Praying_Mantis I guess you could say that during the bombing campaign in Yemen until the ceasefire (and maybe now) they were at "war". Were Israel and Iran "at war" when they exchanged blows a year ago?
        oa335 1y ago
        Yes - all of those instances count as war to me. What to you counts as “war”? When the countries fire back?
        YZF 1y ago
        Something like is going on between Russia and Ukraine, Israel and Iran (borderline). The Iraq war. The Afghanistan war. A prolonged period of hostilities. Something you would look back at and call "The US Iran War". I don't think the previous acts of violence, or the current one, between these two meets the mark yet. And it's not clear if this one will. Iran can't really do much right now and it's not clear whether the US will go a lot further here. E.g. we probably aren't going to look back at the hostilities with Yemen and call them the "US-Yemen war" or the "US Houthis war" like we look at Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq. Or as Putin would put it, it's a special military operation (yeah yeah, that one is a war).
        1y ago
  - fallingknife 1y ago
    I guess we'll see what the fallout from this attack is, but if there isn't anything major (and that's where my money is) then it would seem that just dropping bunker busters on their nuclear facilities and then going home was actually the best solution all along.
    - jm4 1y ago
      That is pure fantasy. You don’t launch an unprovoked attack and simply go home without any consequences. What we and Israel have done to Iran in recent weeks is akin to 9/11 or Pearl Harbor. Furthermore, if we were legitimately without any other options it is because of our own failure to honor the deal we made in 2018. You can be assured that there will be a response. What it will be and for how long I don’t know. What I do know is that diplomacy is completely off the table. It’s possible we are dealing with the consequences of this for decades.
      - fallingknife 1y ago
        Well that aged poorly
- lunarboy 1y ago
  Human problems are always in conflict, in cycle. How was that a bad deal? Never let perfect be the enemy of good It also just as well could have been us making another deal to extend the time, but just because Obama's deal was "not good enough" this the outcome we want? What kind of argument is that
  - avoutos 1y ago
    The Iran deal was far from perfect, especially taking into account the ancillary payments to Iran. I find it hard to believe that the oil-rich country of Iran is interested in nuclear energy for purely altruistic means. https://apnews.com/united-states-government-fd4113419276444eba1d2a46d5c29752 https://apnews.com/united-states-government-fd4113419276444e...

by jm4 1y ago

YZF 1y ago

It was just not a good deal. It was more like kicking the can down the road and funding the regime. That's not good for Iranians and not good for anyone else.

jm4 1y ago
It wasn’t a good deal. It was also probably the best deal that could have been achieved at any point in the past 20 years. More importantly, it would have kept things on an even keel and kept us talking to each other for as long as we both honored the deal. It was an opportunity to see if we could build a little bit of trust and make another deal later. Yes, it kicked the can down the road. It also represented a willingness on the part of both countries to try to avoid a conflict even though we both had reasons to want one. It’s possible it would have been a complete failure. We will never know. What we do know for sure is that we have had fewer options for dealing with the situation since we pulled out of the deal and now we are at war. Our country’s handling of Iran has been nothing short of a spectacular blunder. Two administrations have tried to negotiate out of the hole Trump got us into when he tore up the deal. The buffoon actually thought he would cancel the deal and make a better one. Now, after 20+ years of criticizing the Iraq war and campaigning three times on not starting new wars, he is the trigger man getting us into a new one when we are least prepared for it.
- YZF 1y ago
  The problem in Iran is the government or shall we say the dictatorship. I'm not sure how the US could have/should have handled Iran since the revolution. You're naive if you think the current Iranian regime has any interest in aligning itself to western views via deals. It wants to cement its control, broaden its sphere of influence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_policy_of_exporting_the_Islamic_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_policy_of_exporting_the_Is... Deals are tactical. They're not about shifting world views. I'm not sure the US and Iran are really "at war right now". This is very different than Iraq. But I do agree intervention has risks. The problem is that no intervention also has risks. Take for example Obama's lack of appetite to intervene in Syria. Contrast to Turkey and Israel that effectively intervened recently in Syria and force a regime change that at least so far is more or less holding out.
  - oa335 1y ago
    > I'm not sure the US and Iran are really "at war right now" It’s amazing what decades of propaganda has done to Western discourse. Now somehow bombing another country isn’t war.
    - YZF 1y ago
      I think there's a difference between one attack and a full blown war. The US has had many bombings of other countries without a full out war: https://www.maurer.ca/USBombing.html https://www.maurer.ca/USBombing.html Most recent big example is Yemen. Would you say the US is at war right now with Yemen? Was this already the start of this war? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Praying_Mantis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Praying_Mantis I guess you could say that during the bombing campaign in Yemen until the ceasefire (and maybe now) they were at "war". Were Israel and Iran "at war" when they exchanged blows a year ago?
      - oa335 1y ago
        Yes - all of those instances count as war to me. What to you counts as “war”? When the countries fire back?
        YZF 1y ago
        Something like is going on between Russia and Ukraine, Israel and Iran (borderline). The Iraq war. The Afghanistan war. A prolonged period of hostilities. Something you would look back at and call "The US Iran War". I don't think the previous acts of violence, or the current one, between these two meets the mark yet. And it's not clear if this one will. Iran can't really do much right now and it's not clear whether the US will go a lot further here. E.g. we probably aren't going to look back at the hostilities with Yemen and call them the "US-Yemen war" or the "US Houthis war" like we look at Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq. Or as Putin would put it, it's a special military operation (yeah yeah, that one is a war).
        1y ago
- fallingknife 1y ago
  I guess we'll see what the fallout from this attack is, but if there isn't anything major (and that's where my money is) then it would seem that just dropping bunker busters on their nuclear facilities and then going home was actually the best solution all along.
  - jm4 1y ago
    That is pure fantasy. You don’t launch an unprovoked attack and simply go home without any consequences. What we and Israel have done to Iran in recent weeks is akin to 9/11 or Pearl Harbor. Furthermore, if we were legitimately without any other options it is because of our own failure to honor the deal we made in 2018. You can be assured that there will be a response. What it will be and for how long I don’t know. What I do know is that diplomacy is completely off the table. It’s possible we are dealing with the consequences of this for decades.
    - fallingknife 1y ago
      Well that aged poorly
lunarboy 1y ago
Human problems are always in conflict, in cycle. How was that a bad deal? Never let perfect be the enemy of good It also just as well could have been us making another deal to extend the time, but just because Obama's deal was "not good enough" this the outcome we want? What kind of argument is that
- avoutos 1y ago
  The Iran deal was far from perfect, especially taking into account the ancillary payments to Iran. I find it hard to believe that the oil-rich country of Iran is interested in nuclear energy for purely altruistic means. https://apnews.com/united-states-government-fd4113419276444eba1d2a46d5c29752 https://apnews.com/united-states-government-fd4113419276444e...