Obama isn’t doing it. Obama is not demanding tougher sanctions. The 76 Senators were doing that until Obama stopped it in the Senate. No double standard.
I’m sure he is relying on top-secret sources like Wikipedia and PBS. This isn’t some mystery, I thought everyone who followed Iranian politics for more than six days knew full well that the Supreme Leader has the final say on every major policy Iran undertakes, and that the President can only do major policies to the extent that the Supreme Leader allows him to. There’s literally nothing surprising or in factual dispute here, your continued snark notwithstanding.
Nobody is saying that the agreement “dropped” enforcement of sanctions. That’s another straw man, or at least yet another sloppy use of language on your part. It’s undeniable that the agreement relaxed some aspects of the sanctions, which is the entire fucking point of the agreement. I’m certainly not saying that the Iranians are correct to protest, but it just seems patently obvious that Obama’s move to crack down on companies who were skirting the sanctions would create a dispute on the letter versus the spirit of the agreement.
It just takes an extraordinary amount of blindness not to see that the stricter enforcement of existing sanctions would create a problem under the interim agreement; and the point I’m making here is that your dismissal of this problem is at odds with your gloom-and-doom assessments of the August letter shows how your perspective on this matter is incredibly warped by your unflinching support of everything the White House does and your unwaivering partisanship against anyone who raises a question about the wisdom of every White House policy.
ETA: By the way, what’s the deal with your habit of responding to one post with multiple posts of your own, each one separated by 30 or 45 minutes? It just strikes me as a strange practice, that I post one thing and you respond three times over 90 minutes with no intervening debate. What’s up with that?
Ravenman beat me to the punch. Spend 10 minutes reading the PBS cite, then go forth and sin no more. *Ego te absolvo. *
Gosh, you mean to say there is structure of power in Iran? An actual constitution with ascribed powers and offices? Wow, I had no idea, I thought they made decisions by a game of bean bag.
I am, of course, abashed and embarrassed by these revelations. If you will just scooch over a bit, so that I can sit at your feet and take notes, that might help…
Anyway, these elections they hold, which might have some significance in another country, they are just a public mummery show, a pantomime parliament that is oftimes brushed aside according to the whim of the Supreme Leader? Thus, the slow but ultimately dramatic change in the public voting can be ignored, and any perceived changes in Iran’s pubic stance must be regarded as solely the will of the Supreme Leader.
Well, OK, when did he change *his *mind? Did he simply awake one spring morning and think to himself “You know, this whole stance of belligerence to the US, that needs to be toned down a bit, we could have a few chats with them, what’s the harm?”. No, wait, that can’t be quite it, since we are assured that Iran (the singular entity, with a unified will the eludes even a hive-mind) never really intended any sincere negotiations. The fact that such negotiations appears to be a consensus on the part of the voting public, we can safely ignore that.
But something moved Iran to the table, yes? But that wasn’t it.
And what are we to make of nonsense like this:
Iran’s supreme leader publicly blesses the nuclear deal
Wait, what? There is dissent in the unified hive mind of Iran? Perish the thought! But why should he criticize if he can simply silence?
And this?
Wish I had seen that sooner, that part about Iranian politics being “complicated and noisy”, then I might realized instanter that this fellow is not a graduate of the Mace-Magiver School of International Certainty and be safely ignored.
But, gee, John, there are so many who are at least as wildly ill-informed as this fellow is! Your work is cut out for you.
I posted their social/political structure. You’ve posted nothing in this thread which is listed under a debate forum.
Well, that’s because you actually have this encyclopedic knowledge and understanding, and thus the advantage on me. Perhaps if you shared the wellsprings of your certainties? Like this fellow cited above, he is perhaps just some guy on the internet. But. then again, so are you, no?
No one ever said there wasn’t dissent. But the ultimate decision is up to the Supreme Leader. If he wants a deal, he gets it. If he wants to get rid of the hard-liners, he simply doesn’t let them stand for election next time around. No one runs for parliament unless they are approved by him and his “Council of Guardian”. They can stack the deck any way they want. And if Parliament gets out of line, that same Council of Guardians can veto any law they choose.
Now, there could be a coup, of course. There could even be large demonstration in the streets, but we all saw how that worked out last time. Notwithstanding a new revolution that kicks the SL out, he runs the show. And the next one after him will do the same.
Well, John, as you so often remind me, I am not a clever man. Complex thinking like this has me scratching my head so often, I am nearly bald.
Now, unless this fellow is just Making Shit Up, then the self same Supreme Leader has publicly endorsed these negotiations. Now, before I take his ill-informed word on that, I shall perforce defer to you.
Is that so?
Never said that even once.
Uh, who said he didn’t endorse it? Rouhani would not be doing this without the SL’s blessing. But did you read your whole cite:
As stated, the decision is up to him. He’s not sitting in an isolation room, completely void of influence from the outside, but he is, shall we dare say it… The Decider!
Since you appear to agree with the singular ruling power of Iran’s Supreme leader it’s hard to understand your endless train of snark. Can we expect to see a caboose any time in the near future on the subject or are you going to infer the political process is independent of his will?
Moving on, it seens Obama new in advance that he was going to sabotage the negotiations with a crackdown on sanctions when he gave the odds of the talks being successful.
You have evidence to offer, or will you shelter behind your verbage “…seens…”? (sic)
Yeah, that seems to be a pretty long leap. Perhaps a new Olympic event?
Well lets work through the logic. Iran engages in talks and makes agreements based on a reduction of sanctions (more money in their pocket). Obama enters into this agreement knowing he is going to double down on existing sanctions(less money in their pocket). Prior to this information he makes a prediction that the talks have less than 50/50 chance of success. It’s a reasonable conclusion that the talks would fail if a favorable change wasn’t made in sanctions.
I think it is more likely that Obama is throwing a bone to the zealots who are demanding more sanctions on Iran today, more sanctions on Iran tomorrow, more sanctions if Iran breaks the agreement, and more sanctions if Iran upholds the agreement. As in, show them that he’s serious about the sanctions that are in place today in hopes of buying time to allow the interim agreement to proceed without Congress voting on even more sanctions that would absolutely tank the deal.
Concur.
But still, wouldn’t want to shut off the flow of Magiver’s creativity. He hasn’t quite gotten around to explaining Obama’s motive for this bit of theater. There must be some reason to deliberately antagonize Iran just when there are the merest hints at a peaceful solution. Is he trying to start some trouble with Iran, distract from Obamacare? Orders from his Zionist masters? What, perzackly?
The only billI’m aware of is directed at Iran if they fail to live up to their agreement. As has been cited, Obama has already cracked down on existing sanctions.
So who is the zealot here? Congress who is drafting a bill addressing future events or a President who is actively making it worse for Iran?
It is clear that the bill will scuttle the agreement, whenever the new sanctions would kick in. You can’t seriously accuse Obama of undermining the agreement when it is the clear that those who are proposing new sanctions are the ones who are not satisfied with it. If Obama wanted to sink the agreement, he could just state his support of that bill.
If he endorsed the bill, the negotiations would fall apart and he could blame Congress. But he cracked down on existing sanctions and he has no one else to point his finger at if the negotiations fail. Your conspiracy theory of Obama trying to sink the agreement fails because it simultaneously makes Obama out to be a cynical genius and an idiot at the same time.
Sorry not following you on this. The bill would be voted on IF the Iranians don’t fulfill their agreement. That’s a future event. Obama has already scuttled the spirit of the agreement by cracking down on sanction violators. that’s a current event.
There currently is no bill to endorse.
What Obama has done is not a theory. You can spin whatever reason you like behind his actions that make you happy. Others have.
why should I have to explain his actions? Isn’t that NotfooledbyW’s bailiwick?
Wrong and wrong. Senator McConnell is threatening to filibuster the defense authorization bill if there isn’t a vote on Iran sanctions.
What you have postulated is a conspiracy theory. Pure and simple.