I don’t know if it is cool or not, but I gather presently and despite having Pompeo AND Bolton on the team he couldn’t let himself be goaded into an armed conflict with Iran or anybody else without hugely losing face. Not because he would be concerned about American or Israeli safety, rather because of his very personal problem of having maneuvered himself needlessly deeply into a tough position. He has criticized his predecessors for going against Iraq and spending money which should be used at home or so, promised to bring back soldiers, end the wars/conflicts that others have started, and so on. So contrarily to that course ramping up towards a massive armed conflict with THE major Middle East power is not an option, which is why he is currently verbally slouching off with his tail between his legs, calling it de-escalation. The Iranians are clever enough to know this and will surely not budge in any way without lifting of sanctions etc. Therefore, Trump was stupid enough to put himself into a spot where the Iranians can blackmail him, which they will be happy to do.
But that was to be expected from this windbag. Screeching “America first” to enthusiastic Americans is one thing but anybody outside the US will not buy that notion just because a loud-mouthed president shouts it. The US as a nation is not great or, even more important, respected and looked up in a way that leads to this nation having political clout on the world stage just because of Mr Trump being president. Nor will it ever become (back again) as long as he is or people of his ilk are.
I mean, yeah, but there we’re basically talking annexation/conquest. While that does involve regime change most of the time, it’s not really the same kettle of fish. Or the same tax bill :p.
President Trump, right now, is taking a measured approach. I suppose the spin and debate is on ___________________________.
Wherein the blank is everyone predicting what he’ll do next or why he didn’t do something.
OBVIOUSLY, he can have all sorts of reasons to act or not act, BUT… every decision seems to be based on something rationale, vs just a nut going off about something.
I’ve read this thread looking for why a lunatic will act as so, but then it doesn’t reveal itself. No prediction seems to match his history.
So, then I further absorb the predictions for the next move. Based on what I see, I expect more measured approaches and an aversion for war and death.
I’m just not getting it (wherein ‘it’ is anyone viewing this Iran issue objectively to make an accurate prediction).
Tearing up the nuclear agreement, instituting devastating sanctions and moving in our military are awesome ways to avoid a war. Makes you wonder how we’ve managed to avoid war with Iran in the past, don’t it?
Nations crowd other nation’s international borders all the time. The Russians (and the Soviets before them) routinely fly aircraft right up to American airspace, and this sometimes triggers fighter launches to shadow the aircraft. And America does the same to them. Sometimes those planes stray into national airspace and are escorted out or threatened with missile lock or otherwise deterred.
China does this constantly with all its border nations, and then some. Basically any country that has the capacity to project power will sometimes push up against another nation’s boundaries. There’s a good reason for this - if you constantly bounce up against your enemy’s territory, then you aren’t telegraphing your intentions when the day comes that you actually want to attack. So everyone does this routinely for strategic advantage, and only rarely does anything get shot down. And when that happens, it’s usually an error by someone. Or it’s claimed to be an error, but message sent.
As for the spy drone, my understanding is that those surveillance drones are not necessarily spying on Iran, but on shipping. It was a drone that got the pictures of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard removing an unexploded limpet mine from the Japanese tanker that was damaged. My guess is that the Iranian attack is an attempt to ‘brush back’ drone flights over the gulf so that they can continue their shenanigans with shipping without being caught.
For this type of monitoring, satellites are no good. Satellites are good for watching static installations, or large slow troop or convoy movements and such. But to catch a speedboat doing a short-duration task requires flying assets, or the Iranians would just wait until their sky is clear of spy sats before doing whatever. Aerial surveillance is much more useful for this type of work. That’s what Iran would like to stop.
The analogy which immediately comes to mind is Japan in 1941. The US-British-Dutch oil embargo, as tightened in the summer of 1941, caused Japan eventually to decide to start the Pacific War.
Should we ‘understand’ that the embargo ‘threatened Japan’s sovereignty and self determination’? In the sense of understanding what happened in history I’d say yes. But obviously the risk there is making it seem like ‘Japan was justified’, which then also reflects back on the Japanese policies in China (and Indochina, the Japanese coercing the Vichy French into giving basing rights there was the final straw) which led to the sanctions.
I personally think these discussions have a pretty low value because most people who post here are highly political, with a ‘socially aware’ twist and historical knowledge and interest no as much generally. If the discussion started with Japan and China, ‘racism’, ‘imperalism’, they’d be a lot more uncomfortable with vague statements which might be taken as sympathetic to Japan’s position at that time. Iran’s regime’s actions are quite odious also (not as bad, and not on as large a scale), but the same people tend to squirm at the idea of taking the side of the modern day (and Trump-led particularly) US on anything. It’s 95% politics, and thus bullshit, IMO.
What can be said without political bullshit IMO is that it’s been well recognized that countries resorting to violence to counter non-violent sanctions are viewed as escalators and generally in the wrong without a very strong reason why not, not just their ‘sovereignty and self determination*’. The logical reason for that general rule is to promote solutions other than wars, and not have the only two means to counter bad national actions be war on one hand, or meaningless words on the other. I think one should be able to recognize that general idea and detach it from their own socio-political need for the US and/or Trump to always be wrong. IOW it could be unwise to abandon Obama’s nuclear deal and renew sanctions pressure on Iran (not obviously unwise as a general policy IMO, but it could be argued so) but Iran still the aggressor if it responds to sanctions by, for example blowing up random third country tankers, which is also important context here, it wasn’t just shooting down one drone and then arguing about where it really was.
*IMO it’s questionable how ‘self determination’ would apply with the current Iranian regime because it’s too far from itself being determined by the people of Iran. That’s a judgement call and a spectrum, no govt is 100% the reflection of the will of it people in every action, the Iranian system does have an inferior tier that’s elected. But now I think it’s quite fuzzy whether weakening the Iranian regime, so it might be overcome by the next wave of popular uprisings in Iran, they seem to come fairly regularly now, is actually against, or in favor of, Iranian self determination.
Here are the signatories to the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA):
China
France
Germany
European Union
Iran
Russia
United Kingdom
United States
Here are the signatories that subsequently withdrew from, or failed to comply, with the deal:
United States
Between the date of the signing of the deal and the date of Trump’s withdrawal of the U.S. from it, did Iran do anything new to warrant such a move by the U.S.?
Iran didn’t change. The rest of the international community didn’t change. It was the U.S. (under Trump) that changed - into a more confrontational posture, applying economic sanctions and warning that anyone doing business with Iran will not be able to do business with the United States. In 2018, the United Nations International Court of Justice unanimously “ordered” the United States to stop the sanctions.
While both sides have committed escalatory acts, I think it’s clear that Trump/the U.S. is the party that set off this current path of escalation, through unilaterally withdrawing from an international treaty and applying economic sanctions on a country. That’s quite an aggressive thing to do.
So, again, what specifically did Iran do that warranted the U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear agreement and the application of sanctions?
You’re not necessarily wrong, except that there’s some context missing. Yes, nations - even powerful nations that don’t always get along - bump up along each other’s borders all the time. But not all nations are being targeted with massive global sanctions coordinated from the most economically powerful nation on earth. And not all nations are facing the threat of regime change.
It’s true that I find Trump repulsive, but I can separate his Iran policy from my criticism of his policies elsewhere. In fact I think I even begrudgingly conceded that, whatever one thinks of North Korea and/or Trump, he might have accidentally gotten something right – at least for the time being. My criticism of Trump’s behavior with Iran is founded on the premise that pulling out of a deal that was incontrovertibly effective at controlling Iran’s nuclear program and using two militarists to “wage diplomacy” is an extremely risky (if not outright stupid) policy.
And this is where your argument is starting to wander out to sea. Let’s cut the crap: the US is imposing sanctions now and applying maximum pressure on Iran because they are making the calculation that food and power shortages could make people take to the streets to challenge the regime, as they have in Maduro’s Venezuela. That’s a policy that is effectively inciting violence, and even if it doesn’t have the desired effect, it’s clear that this is the intent because Bolton and Pompeo have already made it clear that they want to use American power to change Iran’s regime (sorry, I posted the links already, not doing it again - you can do your own homework).
But as I think I already pointed out, I don’t necessarily make the argument that Iran should shoot down drones or that it necessarily has the right to. What I’m saying is that every nation has sovereignty, and it can be expected to defend it, or to do whatever is needed to ensure self-preservation. The US is imposing sanctions and applying maximum pressure in an overt attempt to weaken Iran’s regime because they assume that they’re in a position to do so. But try that with Russia or with China or with a country that can fight back. Piss them off enough and they might tinker with your elections.
Once upon a time there was a country that put its missile batteries in Turkey and aimed them at Russia. So Russia then decided two can play this game and started putting missile batteries in Cuba. Guess what happened to those missiles in Turkey? They disappeared.
If it was mentioned already I missed it, but while Iran may not have nukes, they do have enriched uranium. I predict that if it comes to war and the regime sees that they are doomed, they will lob dirty bombs at various targets and create a terrible mess on their way out.
"Iranian officials slammed the Trump administration Tuesday for new sanctions targeting the country’s leadership, saying **the measures permanently closed the path to diplomacy **and that the White House had “become mentally crippled” under the current president. "
Donald Trump, congratulations for having the “special” ability to orchestrate a conflict between the US and Iran which paints Iran as the good guy. Big pat on the back for you. Believe me when I say that no one else could have accomplished this amazing feat.
I was describing asahi’s line of arguments, that Trump has declared war on Iran through sanctions, so Iran is justified in fighting back with violence. I think “bully” is a reasonable term to describe those events: nobody likes a bully (Trump), so if the downtrodden (Iran) strike back, it’s kind of worth cheering.
Ok, so if you think Iran is being bullied, I guess I have to ask: how do you define bullying? Is it characterized by equal give-and-take? Is it a desirable situation for both parties?