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All this talk about nuclear weapons is purposefully misleading. Iran had agreements in place to keep its nuclear program under strict and thorough international

All this talk about nuclear weapons is purposefully misleading. Iran had agreements in place to keep its nuclear program under strict and thorough international checks, and was currently negotiating a new one. The original deal was scrapped on Netanyahu's request, and the bombing was started by Netanyahu to prevent a new one. Israel doesn't fear Iran's nukes. Israel fears an economically functional Iran and uses the wmd excuse to sabotage it as much as possible. The worst possible outcome for them is Iran proving it has no nuclear weapons at all and having its sanctions lifted.

nine_k 1y ago
Realistically, a secular Iran would be the only real ally of Israel in the region. This is how it was under the shah, until 1979. Israel is set to benefit enormously from an economically functional Iran, with sanctions lifted, and a sane, non-fanatical, non-oppressive government. Iran used to be a pretty cool and developed country in 1960s, and could be now. (Edit: typo)
- dttze 1y ago
  You’re like the gusanos that say Cuba was so much better before the revolution. Without mentioning it was only great for the landowning slavers. Why do you think there was a revolution?
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - nine_k 1y ago
    Cubans kept massively supporting Fidel for quite some time, and quite explicitly, even through the disastrous Communist economic policies. Iranians keep protesting; last few years have seen several large protests, involving hundreds of thousands, and continuing for months. The popularity just isn't there. Regarding revolutions, it's quite often that a relatively small group of like-minded people capture the control, and the majority is weakly supporting them, or is even weakly opposed but complies. The French revolution was mostly about some nobility wanting to remove the monarchy that oppressed them, along with the rest; most of the population wasn't overtly anti-monarchy, and not even covertly so, but it did not like the monarchy's pressure either. The Russian revolution was "communist" and "proletarian", but even by their own Marxist accounting, proletarians were less than 10% of Russian population, and communists, much fewer still. Nevertheless, they subdued most of the Russian empire. The Iranian revolution was also done by a group of highly religious people who were fed up with the shah's secularization reforms. The shah, AFAICT, was a guy a bit like Putin, or Saudi kings: efficient and geared towards prosperity of the country, but quite authoritarian. The fact that e.g. the educated urban population in Iran wasn't happy about authoritarianism does not imply that the same people were (or are) huge fans of theocracy. Actually, the theocracy ended up even more oppressive.
  - HK-NC 1y ago
    Well I'd argue 50% of the population got a raw deal in the revolution at least.
  - inglor_cz 1y ago
    The Cuban revolution was more of a coup than a widespread national uprising. It was a blind alley anyway. Zero countries that embraced Marxism-Leninism were able to reach prosperity on that ideology. Meanwhile, a lot of desperately poor countries of the 1950s are nowadays reasonably well of, on the basis of a normal, regulated market economy.
    - LtWorf 1y ago
      Do you have sources for all of this fantasy spin on history?
      - inglor_cz 1y ago
        AFAIK Castro had never more than 3 thousand armed men at his side, and often much fewer, down to lower hundreds, spending much of the protracted conflict hiding in the countryside. A revolution is something in which a significant part of a nation actively participates, not something that almost the entire population sits out passively. Of course we can debate what is the necessary fraction, but 3000 militants isn't a big deal in a country of several million. Every Iraqi cleric in 2010 was able to put together a bigger militia than that.
- lostlogin 1y ago
  > This is how it was under the shah, until 1979. Sort of? The US played a role in that shit show and it wasn’t all happy days under the Shah. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution
  - nine_k 1y ago
    Not "happy", but Iran was quite a bit more sober, not hostile towards Israel, and relatively secular. (Similarly, China under Deng Xiaoping was not a paragon of political freedom at all, but it was quite a bit more sober than under Mao Zedong. The US administration had tons of shortcomings under president Biden, but it was in quite a bit less of disarray than under president Trump.)
- throw310822 1y ago
  > Israel is set to benefit enormously from an economically functional Iran, Israel is currently engaged in genocide, how would it be good for it to benefit enormously?
  - foxglacier 1y ago
    People keep saying genocide but has it been established objectively? I seem to remember the ICJ deciding they weren't, but that was some time ago.
    - Krasnol 1y ago
      Who cares about ICJ or any International Law these days anymore? Yeah, I mean we can still use it (or it's slowness and uselessness) to hide behind it but the facts are on the table. Gaza looks like post-war Germany at this point. People ARE starving. Meanwhile Israel expands to the east. Also illegally.
      - foxglacier 1y ago
        Anyone who calls something genocide needs to care because it has to have some definition or set of examples to mean anything, and those organizations are pretty much where the definitions come from. People love exaggerating political issues by using stronger words, so you have to tune it out, and then there's no information left.
    - tdeck 1y ago
      > ? I seem to remember the ICJ deciding they weren't Is this some reality distortion field? This never happened. Instead the ICJ issued multiple explicit orders to Israel that Israel has violated and the genocide case is still ongoing.
      - foxglacier 1y ago
        So it hasn't yet decided if there's genocide or not? People should just say what they actually mean instead of ambiguous words like genocide. Is the genocide limiting food aid with the aim of demoralizing the population into losing support for Hamas? Or is it directly killing people in the fighting? He could have just said that so his words mean something. Those actions might or might not be genocide but they might still be something worth criticizing.
- praptak 1y ago
  Shah was a dictator propped up by US. There's no going back to these times.
  - CalChris 1y ago
    Installed. We overthrew Mossadegh. We overthrew a democracy.
    - nine_k 1y ago
      Indeed, it was a shameful act.
  - mensetmanusman 1y ago
    Don’t forget Iran was defined as a country by the Ottoman Empire and others arbitrarily drawing lines around various groups that hate each other.
- Tylkwvld 1y ago
  [dead]
energy123 1y ago
Iran has violated the NPT so many times at this stage that no good faith observer can say what you've said here with a straight face. This is just using words to persuade for political purposes, it is not analysis.
- throw310822 1y ago
  Iran has violated the NPT because there were agreements in place for it to respect it, and the agreements have been violated by the other side. An action that must have consequences, otherwise there is no point in making deals with anyone.
ivell 1y ago
> The worst possible outcome for them is Iran proving it has no nuclear weapons at all and having its sanctions lifted. Circumstantial evidence seems to be that Iran indeed was enriching Uranium beyond what was necessary for electricity. Why would they build enrichment facility deep underground? It is not that Iran is having energy crisis. The claim that Iran is thinking of green energy and climate change effects is a bit weak.
- LtWorf 1y ago
  Remember all that evidence about iraq? Remember the british guy who worked at the ministry and went to the news saying there was no evidence and then suicided without leaving his own fingerprints on the weapon?
  - simonh 1y ago
    The uranium enrichment is confirmed by the Iranians, the have published pictures of their leaders inspecting the centrifuges. You can find them with a quick search.
- compsciphd 1y ago
  its not circumstantial. Even Iran has publicly said that they have enriched to 60%. 60% is not needed for civilian uses and only useful for research in how to make it go boom.
  - 8note 1y ago
    thats still circumstantial. they could show research that theyre doing for how to make nuclear power using 60% enriched uranium. nothing says they have to use an existing design
petre 1y ago
Sure, they're making weapons grade uranium to exhibit it in the Museum of the Islamic Revolution and the Holy Defense in Teheran.
k7sune 1y ago
How about the UN censuring Iran for not complying with the agreement? Was this a manufactured consensus? I don't see anyone mentioning IAEA's decision here. www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/world/un-nuclear-watchdog-censures-iran-a-move-that-could-lead-to-restore-sanctions
xdennis 1y ago
> Israel fears an economically functional Iran and uses the wmd excuse to sabotage it as much as possible. Israel couldn't care less about Iran until 1979. It's the Islamists who are obsessed with Israel. If Iran stopped chanting "Death to Israel" and stopped arming anti-Israeli groups then Israel would have no issue with Iran.
- thunky 1y ago
  > If Iran stopped chanting "Death to Israel" It's a stupid slogan because it gives politicians ammunition, but it can be interpreted various ways. For example: Ali Al Bukhaiti, the former spokesman and the official media face of the Houthis, said: "We really do not want anyone's death. This slogan is only against the intervention of those governments [i.e. the United States and Israel]." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_to_Israel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_to_Israel Meanwhile, if you judge a country by it's actions rather than it's slogans tell me how Israel is looking right now on the "death to ..." scale.

nine_k 1y ago

Realistically, a secular Iran would be the only real ally of Israel in the region. This is how it was under the shah, until 1979. Israel is set to benefit enormously from an economically functional Iran, with sanctions lifted, and a sane, non-fanatical, non-oppressive government. Iran used to be a pretty cool and developed country in 1960s, and could be now. (Edit: typo)

dttze 1y ago
You’re like the gusanos that say Cuba was so much better before the revolution. Without mentioning it was only great for the landowning slavers. Why do you think there was a revolution?
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- nine_k 1y ago
  Cubans kept massively supporting Fidel for quite some time, and quite explicitly, even through the disastrous Communist economic policies. Iranians keep protesting; last few years have seen several large protests, involving hundreds of thousands, and continuing for months. The popularity just isn't there. Regarding revolutions, it's quite often that a relatively small group of like-minded people capture the control, and the majority is weakly supporting them, or is even weakly opposed but complies. The French revolution was mostly about some nobility wanting to remove the monarchy that oppressed them, along with the rest; most of the population wasn't overtly anti-monarchy, and not even covertly so, but it did not like the monarchy's pressure either. The Russian revolution was "communist" and "proletarian", but even by their own Marxist accounting, proletarians were less than 10% of Russian population, and communists, much fewer still. Nevertheless, they subdued most of the Russian empire. The Iranian revolution was also done by a group of highly religious people who were fed up with the shah's secularization reforms. The shah, AFAICT, was a guy a bit like Putin, or Saudi kings: efficient and geared towards prosperity of the country, but quite authoritarian. The fact that e.g. the educated urban population in Iran wasn't happy about authoritarianism does not imply that the same people were (or are) huge fans of theocracy. Actually, the theocracy ended up even more oppressive.
- HK-NC 1y ago
  Well I'd argue 50% of the population got a raw deal in the revolution at least.
- inglor_cz 1y ago
  The Cuban revolution was more of a coup than a widespread national uprising. It was a blind alley anyway. Zero countries that embraced Marxism-Leninism were able to reach prosperity on that ideology. Meanwhile, a lot of desperately poor countries of the 1950s are nowadays reasonably well of, on the basis of a normal, regulated market economy.
  - LtWorf 1y ago
    Do you have sources for all of this fantasy spin on history?
    - inglor_cz 1y ago
      AFAIK Castro had never more than 3 thousand armed men at his side, and often much fewer, down to lower hundreds, spending much of the protracted conflict hiding in the countryside. A revolution is something in which a significant part of a nation actively participates, not something that almost the entire population sits out passively. Of course we can debate what is the necessary fraction, but 3000 militants isn't a big deal in a country of several million. Every Iraqi cleric in 2010 was able to put together a bigger militia than that.
lostlogin 1y ago
> This is how it was under the shah, until 1979. Sort of? The US played a role in that shit show and it wasn’t all happy days under the Shah. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution
- nine_k 1y ago
  Not "happy", but Iran was quite a bit more sober, not hostile towards Israel, and relatively secular. (Similarly, China under Deng Xiaoping was not a paragon of political freedom at all, but it was quite a bit more sober than under Mao Zedong. The US administration had tons of shortcomings under president Biden, but it was in quite a bit less of disarray than under president Trump.)
throw310822 1y ago
> Israel is set to benefit enormously from an economically functional Iran, Israel is currently engaged in genocide, how would it be good for it to benefit enormously?
- foxglacier 1y ago
  People keep saying genocide but has it been established objectively? I seem to remember the ICJ deciding they weren't, but that was some time ago.
  - Krasnol 1y ago
    Who cares about ICJ or any International Law these days anymore? Yeah, I mean we can still use it (or it's slowness and uselessness) to hide behind it but the facts are on the table. Gaza looks like post-war Germany at this point. People ARE starving. Meanwhile Israel expands to the east. Also illegally.
    - foxglacier 1y ago
      Anyone who calls something genocide needs to care because it has to have some definition or set of examples to mean anything, and those organizations are pretty much where the definitions come from. People love exaggerating political issues by using stronger words, so you have to tune it out, and then there's no information left.
  - tdeck 1y ago
    > ? I seem to remember the ICJ deciding they weren't Is this some reality distortion field? This never happened. Instead the ICJ issued multiple explicit orders to Israel that Israel has violated and the genocide case is still ongoing.
    - foxglacier 1y ago
      So it hasn't yet decided if there's genocide or not? People should just say what they actually mean instead of ambiguous words like genocide. Is the genocide limiting food aid with the aim of demoralizing the population into losing support for Hamas? Or is it directly killing people in the fighting? He could have just said that so his words mean something. Those actions might or might not be genocide but they might still be something worth criticizing.
praptak 1y ago
Shah was a dictator propped up by US. There's no going back to these times.
- CalChris 1y ago
  Installed. We overthrew Mossadegh. We overthrew a democracy.
  - nine_k 1y ago
    Indeed, it was a shameful act.
- mensetmanusman 1y ago
  Don’t forget Iran was defined as a country by the Ottoman Empire and others arbitrarily drawing lines around various groups that hate each other.
Tylkwvld 1y ago
[dead]

energy123 1y ago

Iran has violated the NPT so many times at this stage that no good faith observer can say what you've said here with a straight face. This is just using words to persuade for political purposes, it is not analysis.

throw310822 1y ago
Iran has violated the NPT because there were agreements in place for it to respect it, and the agreements have been violated by the other side. An action that must have consequences, otherwise there is no point in making deals with anyone.

ivell 1y ago

> The worst possible outcome for them is Iran proving it has no nuclear weapons at all and having its sanctions lifted. Circumstantial evidence seems to be that Iran indeed was enriching Uranium beyond what was necessary for electricity. Why would they build enrichment facility deep underground? It is not that Iran is having energy crisis. The claim that Iran is thinking of green energy and climate change effects is a bit weak.

LtWorf 1y ago
Remember all that evidence about iraq? Remember the british guy who worked at the ministry and went to the news saying there was no evidence and then suicided without leaving his own fingerprints on the weapon?
- simonh 1y ago
  The uranium enrichment is confirmed by the Iranians, the have published pictures of their leaders inspecting the centrifuges. You can find them with a quick search.
compsciphd 1y ago
its not circumstantial. Even Iran has publicly said that they have enriched to 60%. 60% is not needed for civilian uses and only useful for research in how to make it go boom.
- 8note 1y ago
  thats still circumstantial. they could show research that theyre doing for how to make nuclear power using 60% enriched uranium. nothing says they have to use an existing design

petre 1y ago

Sure, they're making weapons grade uranium to exhibit it in the Museum of the Islamic Revolution and the Holy Defense in Teheran.

k7sune 1y ago

How about the UN censuring Iran for not complying with the agreement? Was this a manufactured consensus? I don't see anyone mentioning IAEA's decision here. www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/world/un-nuclear-watchdog-censures-iran-a-move-that-could-lead-to-restore-sanctions

xdennis 1y ago

> Israel fears an economically functional Iran and uses the wmd excuse to sabotage it as much as possible. Israel couldn't care less about Iran until 1979. It's the Islamists who are obsessed with Israel. If Iran stopped chanting "Death to Israel" and stopped arming anti-Israeli groups then Israel would have no issue with Iran.

thunky 1y ago
> If Iran stopped chanting "Death to Israel" It's a stupid slogan because it gives politicians ammunition, but it can be interpreted various ways. For example: Ali Al Bukhaiti, the former spokesman and the official media face of the Houthis, said: "We really do not want anyone's death. This slogan is only against the intervention of those governments [i.e. the United States and Israel]." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_to_Israel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_to_Israel Meanwhile, if you judge a country by it's actions rather than it's slogans tell me how Israel is looking right now on the "death to ..." scale.