Now he’s threatening the EU with throwing a tantrum if there’s any kind of common defense policy. Make up your what-passes-for-a-mind: do you want Europe to pull more weight, or do you want to keep on being the biggest toddler in the room? I mean, we actually do know: you want to be the biggest toddler in the room and be paid for being the biggest toddler in the room, but…
being the biggest toddler in the room isn’t a job.
1.5k plan, apparently.
Well, as you’d need a lot more than either 10K or 1.5K troops for any sort of offensive operations, it probably is defensive. We seem to have backed off of any sort of first strike at this point (though Trump being a total idiot, who knows?), and at least on the US side have calmed things down…to a degree anyway. For a while there it looked like we were working ourselves up to a strike, but that seems unlikely now, at least that’s my read on this.
This whole thing has been a cluster fuck, really on both sides but the lions share is definitely on the US IMHO. I’m not sure what was going on in the Administration wrt the nearly frantic tone that Iran was about to attack or strike or do…something…but at least it SEEMS to have toned down.
“Some very talented people are going to the Middle East right now and we’ll see what happens.”
This is intended solely to provoke Iran.
How has it been a clusterfuck on Iran’s part?
Seems to me they’ve acted honourably throughout the whole ordeal…?
This stupidity is as obvious as a bad orange combover.
“The U.S. move to increase its military presence in our region is highly dangerous and a threat against international peace and security,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told state news agency IRNA.
The new deployment will consist of surveillance aircraft, a fighter jet squadron and engineers to fortify buildings and other facilities. The military is also extending the deployment of a 600-person Patriot missile battalion in the region, defense officials said."
Ok, looks like the latest in a series of US provocations is landing as hoped by the so-called president.
Behold! A nation in the grip of deranged religious fanatics behaving more sensibly than us. Da fuq?
They very likely blew some holes in ships, their proxies have been firing missiles at various states, etc.
Perhaps you could expand a bit on your “very likely” with some solid evidence? By chance, were any torpedo boats involved?
Um…no. Trump didn’t just make shit up out of whole clothe for why the US pulled out of the agreement, and it wasn’t just because Obama was part of the original deal. Iran has been funding and supplying several terrorist groups in the region who are basically Iranian proxies. This is not acting ‘honourably’ by any stretch. And this isn’t like a big secret either. Most of the folks who were signatories on the deal know that Iran is doing some shady shit. They (well, those who don’t have a direct stake in supporting Iran like Russia, China etc) just feel that having the deal outweighs dealing with the other shit Iran does.
Personally, I agree. I think it did outweigh it, which is why I supported Obama and the deal, even though I could see there were a lot of issues with it, and even though I knew the other shady shit Iran was doing. But to hold them blameless and acting honorably, the victim in all this is basically saying you haven’t been keeping even nominally informed on this subject. It’s about like saying China is the victim in the trade war, and that all of that comes from Trump. It doesn’t.
No, it was explosives. And no, there isn’t (as far as I know) any evidence it was Iran. But it’s plausible it was Iran…VERY plausible. It was only a few miles from their coast, after all, and the ships targeted kind of point at likely suspects in and of themselves. Is it conclusive? Nope. Hell, it COULD actually be a false flag operation done by, say, Saudi, to try and bring us in all the way into a shooting war with Iran. But my own Occam’s razor says that it probably was Iran, or an Iranian proxy, though we might not ever know definitively. Which is why I didn’t mention it, and instead brought up their support of terrorist groups and proxies they support.
With regards to the terms of the deal, I’ve seen no evidence that Iran was acting other than “honorably”. They do all kinds of other awful shit, but they were sticking to the terms of the deal, and Trump’s decision to walk away is catastrophically damaging to US national security. Trump just helped the Iranian extremists who want nukes and got absolutely nothing in return.
It was the one time we’ve actually succeeded in getting Iran to cooperate with the entire international community, including the United States. The Iranians were working on nuclear weapons technology during much of the Bush administration, and Obama actually got them to not only stop but agree to international inspections. The danger is that even if we successfully crush Iran in some confrontation, the lesson that others take away is that it’s critical to build nukes before the US stops them. Nukes are the way to get America’s respect. Without them, they’re prey.
“Holy Shit! The Kims were right!”
And all that could be handled through normal channels. The reasoning given for leaving the Iran deal was because Iran wasn’t holding up their end of the bargain. We’ve yet to see absolutely any evidence of that.
Iran isn’t entirely blameless, and I doubt anyone’s making them out to be. In the confines of the deal made by Obama, there has been no evidence they had done anything wrong prior to Trump pulling out.
Well, the thing is, we don’t have to continue to honor it if they are doing that other stuff. We can CHOOSE to, but since it wasn’t ratified by the Congress then we aren’t bound by it. As I said, I think we should have stuck with the deal. But Iran isn’t the innocent victim here either. Sort of like North Korea…or China.
I agree that Trump helped the extremist faction while hurting the, well, moderate (for Iranians) faction, but the thing is, they were already doing their shady shit despite the ‘moderate’(s). My point is that this isn’t coming completely out of Trump’s ass with zero justification, just as what we are doing wrt China and the trade war has real world reasons. As does what we are doing with North Korea. And it’s not JUST Trump who had issues in the US with any of those groups. Like I said, he’s not making this up. He’s just, IMHO, mismanaging because he’s an ignorant fool who doesn’t know what he’s doing and doesn’t understand anything…and he’s surrounded himself with either equally clueless people or with people who do know the score and are using his ignorance to guide him to do things they want…such as hammer Iran.
What other things that are not part of a contract agreed upon do you think are valid reasons for not honoring said contract? And why should anyone enter into any agreement with you, given that kind of reasoning?
ETA: Can I stop paying my mortgage because of Wells Fargo’s transgressions? :dubious:
I think your point is wrong. Getting out of the deal helped no one except those in Iran who want nukes and those in both countries who want war. It doesn’t matter the justification when the move is so colossally self damaging - it’s like debating the justification for stabbing one’s self in the hand.
It’s best to avoid use of words like “innocent,” as they are loaded with bias and highly subjective. No, Iran and North Korea aren’t innocent, but neither is the US. All countries have interests. The great responsibility that we all have is to do what we reasonably can to avoid armed conflict. The framework clearly reduced that risk and Trump’s confrontational foreign policy dramatically escalates the risk.