The twisted logic is thinking that the Congress, an institution which even fewer than 10% of Americans have any faith in, has the capacity to scare the leaders of our NATO allies, Russia and China into resuming negotiations that would be aimed at only two possible things: either demand total capitulation by Iran, which is a pipe dream; or try to build a case against Iran to justify military action. Congress can’t just cry “You is gonna be nuked if you don’t follow us’s lead!!” and expect countries to follow. That barely worked for invading Iraq, and it won’t work again.
But more likely, the UK, France, Russia and China might say, “Fuck it, we tried and our partner screwed us out of something that we thought was a square deal. If the US wants to do things the crazy way, we will just rely on our strategic deterrent to defend us. If it is good enough for us, it’s good enough for the U.S. and Israel.”
You do realize that Congress is viewed as being monkeys with machine guns, right? Both in this country and outside of it? Nobody wants to follow a monkey with a machine gun anywhere - they have a lot of power and no sense of responsibility. This criticism is self-evident, because nobody who hasn’t drunk the neocon Kool Aid thinks that going back to the negotiating table will result in Iran giving up every single aspect of nuclear research.
I think the answer is clearly “yes”, especially for Israel – if this deal is blown up by the US Congress, Iran is more dangerous to the region and the world than if the deal (under the general framework proposed) goes through.
The monte important question is, do you think our NATO allies, Russia and China will simply follow the U.S. lead on a foreign policy decision that has no direction, no reasonable chance of success, no intelligible principle, and no common sense simply because the esteemed US Congress thinks that they know what’s best for those other countries?
This is what Cameron told Parliament on Monday: “Obviously we should not do a deal at any price, but I do think the alternatives to doing a deal are not alternatives that are attractive and frankly they are not attractive for Iran.” He’s saying there’s no attractive alternatives to this deal, despite what Tom Cotton has to say. Are you seriously suggesting that the Prime Minister will eat crow and head back to the negotiating table if Congress cancels this agreement?
By the way, I’m starting to think that this issue is like the Panama Canal treaties of the 1970s: very unpopular until people learned what’s at stake, then people supported them. I think enough Dems might listen to our NATO allies to sustain a veto of a bill to undo the deal.
I think the Prime Minister, and other states, will definitely continue the sanctions and head back to the negotiating table. Why? Because it is in their interest to do so - with the increased (as you agree) threat from Iran and all.
This is a retarded definition of “increased threat.”
Let’s say I’m holding a gun to you. Sam comes and takes it away. “Thank God!” you say. Then Sam gives the gun back, and says, “You and I better gang up on this guy, otherwise he could shoot you! Your threat level just INCREASED!!”
You would have to be a fool to think, “Yeah, Ravenman is a real threat to me! Sam sure has my best interests at heart.”
More likely, you’d say, “Sam, you fuggin’ idiot, why did you give the gun back? Are you completely insane?? You’re the one who increased my threat level by giving the gun back after it had been taken away!”
The level of threat clearly increases if no deal. But it does not follow that, at that particular point in time, “tougher sanctions” does anything whatsoever to reduce the threat level.
Possibly. If it’s perceived that the US walked away from negotiations, the European (and other) factions that favor loosening sanctions might gain support, since Iran may gain sympathy.
It can do both, depending on the circumstances. There’s no rule that sanctions always have a certain effect on the motivations and actions of the government being sanctioned.
This is what I believe would happen if the US suddenly called for tougher sanctions in hopes of extracting more concessions from Iran, and Iran walked away from the table.
Our allies like the UK, France, and Germany would say:
Because we’re back to the drawing board, the risk of Iran building a nuclear bomb is greater than it was when there was a framework agreement. (There’s an “increased threat,” as Terr says.)
We are now faced with three options: no sanctions, same level of sanctions as before, or tougher sanctions than before.
The same level of sanctions as before will just take us right back to where we were: an impasse where any agreement Iran is willing to sign is unacceptable to the Americans. And maybe even that agreement is no longer acceptable to Iran, because the Iranians are now even more pissed off at the Americans and Rouhani has been humiliated at home so the hardliners have taken over the negotiations. So reinstating the old sanctions we had before is at best unproductive. [Meanwhile, China, Russia, South Korea, Japan, India, and a host of others with less of a dog in the game than the US will have long since said “Fuck it.”]
If we impose greater sanctions on Iran, we’re only going to embolden hardliners and make it that much harder to strike a deal, since from the Iranian perspective they already gave diplomacy a chance, Rouhani and his fellow moderates have been sidelined, and the hardliners benefit politically from antagonizing the West.
Therefore, since our best hope at stopping Iran from going nuclear is dead, there is no further point in subjecting ourselves to self-inflicted economic pain through continued participation in the sanctions regime.
Thanks, US Congress, for sabotaging what was a promising diplomatic breakthrough.
Of course. They will just throw up their hands and say “fine, build your nuclear weapons”. Basically destroying the NPT in the process and having dozens more nuclear weapon states in the next couple of decades.
Insofar as removing sanctions with no deal would amount to unilaterally forfeiting a key bargaining chip of the P5+1, yes, doing so would increase the threat. But it doesn’t follow that there’s some kind of law of inverse correlation between threat level and sanctions, if that’s what you’re driving at. It depends what context all of this occurs in.
We cranked up sanctions in 2010, after Iran had significantly increased its uranium enrichment activities. The point of those sanctions was to get them to the negotiating table. In that particular context, sanctions worked. But if we increase them now, after they’ve made what they (and the rest of the P5+1) view as significant Iranian concessions, then what we’re doing is just flat-out insulting them and humiliating our Iranian counterparts. I don’t understand what mental model of human psychology you’re operating under, to think that’s what will motivate Iran to give us what we want. Tightening the screws until you eventually get unconditional capitulation to all your terms, at no cost to yourself, isn’t how successful diplomacy works. Diplomacy works by avoiding humiliation and finding a way for all parties involved to save face.
What you’re proposing is akin to Iran deciding to step up its support of Hezbollah as an explicit new bargaining chip to use in the nuclear negotiations. Would we view them as good-faith counterparties in that event?