And I get ridiculously tired of neocons thinking that America has magic powers that will make it all okay in the end. How’d that work for you in Afghanistan? Iraq? Cuba? The modern day GOP believes that Tom Clancy wrote non-fiction. And the GOP doesn’t speak for “Western markets”, only the United States’ market. Other countries can (and will) make their own decisions. And we might not like it when they do.
sigh Nice straw man you’ve constructed there. Hope he burns well. If you’d like to address anything that I actually said…well, I’d love to see it, but don’t expect it to happen.
The agreement being worked out is not acceptable. It’s also not the worst thing that could possibly happen. Giving up on removing sanctions in stages and intrusive inspections, after all the other concessions we made, would be simply horrifying. The only reason to make such a deal is because we are negotiating from a position of extreme weakness. We are not, so we should be willing to walk away.
The administration has stated two things that are of primary interest here:
The deal will involve staged removal of sanctions depending on Iran’s compliance, and intrusive inspections to insure compliance.
We will walk away from a bad deal.
Both of those better be true. Otherwise the Democratic brand will be even wussier than in the 80s.
adaher, seriously, it’s like you’ve been asleep the last 6 years or so. Words only mean what Obama wants them to mean, and his sycophants will just crow hosannas no matter how he twists them. Having one stage is, in fact, “staged”, in strictly technical terms (or of course we can have a second “stage” that would remove something utterly harmless), and “intrusive” is what Obama says it is.
And, of course, since Democrat minority and Obama’s veto will make sure that the Congress will castrate itself and remove any power from itself that could contradict Obama’s interpretation - there you have it.
How do you figure this? The gridlock castrates all branches of government. The Executive can’t govern, and Congress can’t legislate. Obama can’t veto necessary bills that keep the government running…but he also can’t sign bills that have been poisoned by unacceptable amendments.
Both sides need to work together, or we become Bosnia.
Oh, my but Sen Lindsey Graham just adores rough, gruff masculine talk, all about castrating wookies and such We may have to sprinkle him with lilac water until he regains his composure! And John McCain hasn’t seen this much wood since the PornHub Pinocchio Festival!
One of the problems with the President constantly going it alone is that all the other power centers in this country also feel the need to act unilaterally. In a country where power is distributed in this way, consensus is necessary.
The loyal opposition should have thought of that before entering into an eight-year program of destroying consensus at every opportunity and regardless of the harm done to the country.
He is hardly weakening himself. Since the GOP has been openly in full obstruction mode the entire time he has been in office, anything he has chosen to do has required him to do it alone.
He is hardly weakening his party. The Democrats can simply follow the GOP playbook of denying that the last GOP president had any connection to their party once he is out of office.
And, you know what, I’d like a damn answer to my question. Russia has already said they’re going to release a shipment of one of the most sophisticated air defense weapons systems in the world. How does that impact the neocon calculus? Let’s say Israel take unilateral action and it doesn’t work because their planes get shot down. What then? If the GOP can’t answer that, then they don’t have a plan and they damn sure don’t deserve a seat at the grown-up table.
Do you honestly believe that it’s impossible that Obama, Democrats, and supporters can’t honestly be disagreeing with you on the best way to contain Iran’s nuclear program and safeguard our allies? Is there just the slightest possibility that good people can disagree on this?
I’ll answer this: the plan is to keep doing what we’ve been doing. The status quo is not actually untenable, so there’s no reason we can’t maintain it.
Good faith means telling the truth about the agreement you’re negotiating and not spinning everything like it’s a domestic political issue. It would also be nice if he wouldn’t say stupid, unnecessary things about his domestic political opponents. He owes John McCain an apology. Especially if it does turn out that the Iranian understanding of what the framework says is more accurate than the American version.