It all started last week, with the US announcing that it was moving naval resources to the area in response to a claimed missile shipment that supposedly threatened American interests.
Then on Wednesday, Iran made noise about resuming nuclear enrichment operations.
The whole “call me” thing is a serious mis-step, IMO. It is a position that conveys both the attitude of superiority and a weakness of will. It’s just not how things work: if you want to talk to them, you call them. They don’t want to talk to you, or they’d have called already, IMO.
Also, Trump enabled the whole thing by pulling the US from the Iran nuclear accord (INA).
It’s the same bullshit he tried to pull off with North Korea. He thinks that suddenly Iran is going to be so honored by his invitation that it will submit to his demands, because he’s such a great “deal maker.” He’s a self-deluded one-trick pony. Or maybe just an old dog that can’t learn anything.
Abandoning the Iran nuclear deal was IMO the most catastrophic foreign policy blunder since the invasion of Iraq, and with the potential to be even worse. Just incredibly stupid policy.
Why do you have a bad feeling about it? The other signatories are fighting the US on this, and are still honoring the commitments by and large. If Iran breaches the 300 KG limit they signed on to honor then that will change, and everyone will reimpose sanctions back to where they were. So, it’s in Iran’s hands at this point. I think the benefits, even with the US reimposing our own sanctions outweigh the cons for them to continue to honor the thing. I also think it would be smart for them to talk to the US, even if I agree Trump saying to call him is idiotic. But I think there were valid reasons for the US to reassess our stance wrt Iran (their continued support of terrorist groups in the region being the primary one) on this, though I disagreed at the time that this was the best way to do this.
ETA: Of course, what’s really going on in all of this is it’s a struggle between the ‘moderates’ (for Iran) and the hardliners, and we’ve undercut the ‘moderates’.
I don’t disagree with anything you’re saying or (what I think) you’re implying. The nuclear deal was a good thing and Trump and the Republicans are idiots for putting politics over peace.
On the other hand, Iran does seem to be meddling in a most sinister way with respect to the ‘Israeli-Palestinian conflict’[sup]TM[/sup]. They are increasingly involved with sponsoring proxies to destabilize things and inflame that conflict as well as, more generally, in the Middle East, e.g. in Syria and Iraq.
Iran is, ultimately, the Shiite power in a region where, in its opinion, Sunnis are too often calling the shots. And that is intolerable to Iran.
The US could choose to be in a position where they commit to neither Sunni Saudi Arabia nor Shia Iran. But by unreservedly supporting the Saudis, America guarantees an aggressive Iran and makes perpetual conflict in the region inevitable.
So, it’s not so much that the US should try to honor the Iran nuclear deal as it is that it should tell Saudi Arabia to get fucked.
Trump tries to be very chummy with the House of Saud, especially since the Crown Prince murdered a journalist in cold blood — something Trump would like to have the guts to do. Is this why Trump is so hateful against the Saudi’s strategic enemy, Iran? Despite that Iran is stategic ally of Trump’s best pal, Vladimir Putin?
I hope this will be thoroughly investigated by both journalists and hopefully third party investigators. The Iranian government can’t be trusted, and unfortunately, neither can the current administration, for the most part.
UAE asked the Americans for help investigating. Do you think they’re interested in a war breaking out between the USA and Iran? Do you think if the USA was trying to frame Iran for it, they’d say something, or help?
At this point, there is not enough information, to know. Asking the U.S. to assist investigations just means that the U.S. has the most resources to conduct investigations and anyone not directly allied to Iran wants to keep favorable relations with the U.S. regardless of what ultimate goal they desire. How many experts in sabotage investigations does the UAE have to keep an eye on the U.S. And, as GWB demonstrated with his Office of Special Plans, the U.S. cannot be trusted to provide objective analysis. (Bolton strikes me as the sort who would create his own OSP if he felt he could gt away with it.)
North Korea, Iran, and the U.S. are all currently being led by excitable leaders of limited control or sanity and whether it is “the other guys” or the Trump/Bolton team, there are too many torches being juggled near piles of munitions.
I agree that some rumored attribution, without compelling evidence provided, leaves a lot to be desired in terms of confidence in the initial conclusion.
“Iran or Iranian-backed proxies”. So - it was either Iran or someone else. And we don’t know who the someone else is, but despite not knowing who they are or even whether they’re from Iran or somewhere else we somehow know that they were doing it in on behalf of Iran. Sorry - I mean “could be” doing it on behalf of Iran.
It probably was Iran but given our other various recent screw-ups in the region based on lies, false intelligence, nefarious political machinations and general incompetence, perhaps some more solid intel would be good before doing anything precipitous.