Maybe they will, but the fact that you’re predicting so makes me feel better. 
One of the provisions of the framework is “U.S. sanctions on Iran for terrorism, human rights abuses, and ballistic missiles will remain in place under the deal,” so it seems unlikely for now.
That seems to be the general view in Congress as well.
The general view in Congress seems to be that Obama is actively conspiring with the enemy to bring down America, so I’m not swayed that their understanding of reality has improved at all.
You aren’t answering my question. What did we do for Iraq and North Korea that was a halfway measure as opposed to reimposing sanctions? What did we back off of? Why relief did we give them? What did they get after breaking the deal that they didn’t have under the deal?
For Iraq, sanctions were a secondary stick. The resumption of hostilities was the primary threat to make Iraq disarm. On that count, we used halfway measures until 2003. And it was only the threat of all out war that got the inspectors back in in the first place.
North Korea is a bit of a different case because as with Iran today, Congress was uncooperative and so we never fully kept our end of that deal. Hopefully Obama was smarter than Clinton and only promised what he himself could legally deliver.
So now you’re saying that we didn’t back down after North Korea violated the deal?
What are these half measures that were taken between 1998 and 2003? Did we loosen sanctions as you stated we did in your first post that I questioned?
Also, do you acknowledge that we know now that Iraq did disarm in the late 1990s, despite Bush’s claim that war was necessary to disarm Iraq? That’s kind of a gaping hole in your theory: we had won, we just didn’t believe it.
The US did not. The international community, however, responded to North Korea by calling for negotiations. I’m not sure what value there is in renegotiating a broken agreement.
Since the disarmament requirement was a cease-fire condition, the proper legal response to Iraq’s refusal to disarm was war. The first time they broke the cease-fire agreement. The argument made by those who opposed the war was that since the cease-fire agreement was multilateral, the US couldn’t just decide to wage war alone. We had to get agreement from the UN, who signed the cease-fire agreement. Thus my question, if Iran reneges, is it proper in your view for the US to reimpose sanctions alone, without getting our European allies on board first? Because if not, then Iran can count on not much happening should they renege a couple of years from now.
To say that Iraq disarmed isn’t exactly accurate. Iraq did suspend its active programs, but they kept their old weapons in violation of the agreement and intended to resume their programs when the sanctions were lifted(and there was international pressure to lift the sanctions late in the Clinton administration despite Iraq’s outright flouting of the agreement).
I’ll admit to a sloppy argument, but it’s clear that nations that do these agreements with us can break them and things won’t just go back to the status quo, mainly due to international pressure.
So when you said that “we” responded with half measures after North Korea violated the agreement, you weren’t talking about “us,” but some other “we.” And who called for negotiations? You must agree that no negotiations actually occurred, right? So you’re bothered that some person you hvent identified suggested something that wasn’t done, which made no difference to what happened since North Korea didn’t get any sanctions relief? Jesus H. Christ, are you not satisfied with diplomacy unless the whole world starts chanting “USA! USA!” after anything happens in he world?
Yes, of course. It’s a stupid question.
But will you agree that if Congress tanks the agreement, the rest of the world likely won’t reimpose sanctions? And that we will then be in a worse position, because US sanctions alone will not cause a change in Iran’s behavior?
Are you under the impression that we found lots of WMD after the war, or are you inbox those “Saddam probably sneaked it out to Syria” kind of guys?
Actually, the real difference with North Korea is that Bush walked away from the deal just like Walker and others are promising to do.
The really sad thing about all of this is that Iran does not really need us in the long run and thus sanctions will be ultimately ineffective. I think it is likely that a deal will be reached with Iran and it is very possible that Republicans will sabotage it. Iran will claim it lived up to it’s side of the bargain and that the failure lies at the feet of the USA; a claim which will most likely be accepted by Europe, Russia, and most importantly, China. The US will try to impose more sanctions (the only other option is war which I don’t believe we have the national will for), and our international partners will most likely not agree as the Iran’s case is persuasive and the potential business opportunities are attractive. It is possible that Israel will try to take out their capabilities, which may or may not be effective, but in the long run it won’t matter as it will only put the international community more on Iran’s side and weaken both the Israeli and US position. I really believe that this agreement may be the best option…
If we don’t reach an agreement, the situation will be about the same. Sanction will continue for the time being, Iran will continue their slow march toward getting a bomb, and over time the international will weaken on maintaining the sanctions. If oil prices rise significantly, which they will sooner or later, it will be really difficult for the US to convince the international community to remain firm on the sanctions.
It’s hard to see where the neocons want to go with this, I truly believe that John’s assessment of their desires is correct. The only outcome that is acceptable to them is war and destruction of the Iranian state or complete capitulation of the Iranian government (which, let’s face it, will never happen without a war and probably not even then).
Stringbean & Terr, as our resident neocon ideologues, if you had your wish what would the most desirable (yet realistic) outcome to this whole thing?
Iran cannot set the world on fire. Iran can set the MENA on fire. But that is no threat to the U.S. The MENA has been on fire since the Arab Spring started and gas is still cheap.
Chiefly, because the bolded would be true. The rather Byzantine workings of the US Government are probably the biggest threat to a lasting solution, along with that clown in the Israeli PM’s office.
Two former senior Israeli intelligence leaders (Amos Yadlin and Efraim Halevy) are cautiously optimistic about the deal framework. And Halevy makes the point that I think is most important – the only alternative to the sorts of monitoring and inspections the framework proposes is the military option, which could only delay Iranian nuclear ambitions for a limited number of years.
Agreed.
Israel has done a great job at showing they know how to deal with their enemies, they need to show they’re equally committed to making friends.
We already have war. We just agreed to stop our side of that war(sabotage). Their terrorism against US targets will continue.
I hear they are only a year away from sharks with freaking lasers on their heads!
DO you really think this is all we do on our side of the war? What about funding and supplying arms to anti-Iranian terrorists; you think we don’t do this? What about the sanctions and other economic acts we take? What about he propaganda we spread in both Iran and surrounding countries? If Iran was regularly stirring up the population of Mexico against us, would we view it as an act of war?
I am all for the US in this and I support many of these activities, but I believe it is important to try to see the “war” (as you imply we have) from both sides of the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has been fucked with by the US ever since they overthrew our puppet dictator. There have a long history of being at war with the US whether the US populace knew it or not.
What anti-Iranian terrorists? The only ones I can think of are ISIS, who are really no threat to Iran, and the U.S. does not fund or supply them. I have not heard of any anti-government terrorists at all operating inside Iran itself.