But you forget, the Iranian hardliners have their own peanut gallery to contend with too. I see it very much like North Korea. On paper, it makes absolutely no sense for Kim (be it Kim the elder or Kim the runt) to keep going out of his way to threaten everyone around him, and it’s a very dangerous game to play with the US… but he’s not playing it with the US. He’s playing it with his own people, using the US as a prop to show how tough he is as well as to prove he’s not anybody’s pawn. It’s literally a matter of life and death for them, because their own military could turn on them at any point, any sign of weakness.
I would expect a similar dynamic works in Iran. Now their military are big strong men, striking hella blows against the great Satan/Israel’s attack dog and whatnot. As for risking flak with the international community… well, nobody’s a big fan of the US right now, so I think they might get a pass on that particular incident. In either case, any diplomatic setback could be construed as the cost of doing in-house business, maybe ?
Of course that’s not the only alternative and I never suggested it was. It’s entirely possible that the US could rescind its decision to leave the Iran nuclear deal. It’s entirely possible that the US could pull its forces back off Iranian waters. It’s entirely possible that Trump could fire Bolton, stop making provocative statements, and take another diplomatic approach.
There is an entire universe of alternatives here. I wonder why none of these occurred to you.
Assuming Ashena is an accurate measure of Iran’s leaders’ negotiating position, the only way Iran will stop aggressive acts, up to and including open hostilities between Iran and the United States, is if the sanctions are removed. The sanctions will not be removed without utter proof that Iran is no longer pursuing a nuclear weapons program. In light of the IAEA’s oversight regime for the past 10-15 years, finding no evidence of anything other than peaceful nuclear energy activities, yet with the Mossad a few years ago finding several shipping containers of documents showing the opposite, and making those documents available to the US, I don’t see this utter proof showing up anytime soon. We are agreed that Iran should not be allowed to have nuclear weapons, right?
Alternately, the sanctions will probably be removed with another US President in power. I infer the sanctions are causing enough concern to Iran’s leaders that waiting it out until the Democrats inevitable victory in 2020 is not an option.
Because it seems highly unlike the US would rescind it’s decision to leave the nuclear deal with the current administration without major concessions from Iran. After all, WE don’t need the deal, economically.
The second one seems equally doubtful, especially given the rash of attacks against civilian shipping lately, so, again, not likely.
Trump COULD fire Bolton, but I’m not seeing that this would fundamentally change the war hawks position on this, nor that it would suddenly let Trump see the light and do the first thing you mentioned…or the second.
So, does this explain why I didn’t mention any of these? They did, of course, occur to me, just as ‘space aliens COULD come down and force Iran to give up it’s women’ and ‘monkeys could fly out of Trump’s butt, making him re-evaluate the situation differently’, but as they are equally unlikely during this regime they really weren’t worth mentioning. Basically, Iran will re-negotiate with the US and the current regime…or they won’t. It will take a re-negotiating to change Trump et al’s position on this as they seem themselves in the drivers seat here, in the stronger position, and one where the US doesn’t have to make a concession…Iran does, being in the weaker position, especially economically. So, realistically, Iran can wait things out (funny YOU didn’t mention this one…it certainly occurred to me) and hope Trump goes down in the next election (seems likely but not a sure thing), and hope that the new administration will go back to the original deal (seems likely but not a sure thing), or they could keep pushing things until there is a war. Those seem the only alternatives at this point. Even if Trump has a heart attack tomorrow due to all that shitty food he eats and just being a bad human being it doesn’t seem likely Pence would change the current trajectory.
[del]Iranians[/del]Americans have no qualms about fucking with everyone else in the M.E. Including US allies. Maybe they should fuck off and quit being such assholes.
Your statement seems to ignore more than 100 years of history. People in Iran didn’t just wake up one day and decide to dislike America.
Um…what assumptions? They shot down a US drone at a time when tensions are already sky high. Trump said (of course, his mouth was moving so…) that he was pretty much ready to order a strike but the chili dog he was eating upset his tummy so he decided not too. One doesn’t exactly have to be Kreskin to sus out the fact that some faction, almost certainly the Iranian hardliners are pushing this just as hard as our idiots are. Unless you want to make the case that shooting down that drone was an accident or completely fake news, never happened? This leaves aside the fact that Iran is already suspected of being involved, at some level, with the rash of oil tanker attacks. Whether they are or not is irrelevant…they are suspected of it. Couple that with this drone shooting and, like I said, you don’t need to make a lot of assumptions here, nor be a fake psychic to see this as ‘pretty obviously’ the case. I think folks are bending over backwards to see Iran as fully the good guy in all of this, to totally wronged party. But they aren’t. This didn’t just happen by accident, it was deliberate.
Iran are not innocent in all this. Indeed they have game-theoretic reasons to think that incremental escalations may work to their advantage, and they may be doing that. One of those advantages, which I’m pointing out to you, is that it’s absurd to suggest Iran should unilaterally bring this back to the negotiating table. The US had Iran in a state of relative peace under a comprehensive diplomatic agreement, and the US decided to scrap it. If you want to argue “we’re bigger and stronger so they should just suck it up”, fine, but that’s a different argument than saying they’re wrong for giving up on overt international diplomacy.
Of course the “we’re bigger and stronger” argument obviously isn’t airtight either, being that the aborted military strike showed a prime example of Trump waving his big stick and having it suddenly go limp in his hand. A moment we all knew was coming, and there will likely be more to follow. We know Trump sees his political fate as being tied to the economy, and that he believes (right or wrong) that oil shocks are bad news for him. Right now he’s threading a needle between looking tough and keeping the economy afloat, and Iran is going to have fun keeping him off balance. We’ll see what happens.
Why are you pointing that out to me? You need to decouple something here…there is what I think Trump et al think and why they are doing something, and what I think we should or shouldn’t do. Basically, the latter is irrelevant to the discussion since, sadly, I’m not in charge.
Thing is, TRUMP expects them to re-negotiate, and thinks he’s in a strong position to force that outcome. He certainly thinks we are bigger and stronger, both militarily and economically, and that this means he can negotiate from strength. Again, one doesn’t have to be Kreskin to sus this all out…it’s pretty obvious. He wants to re-negotiate the Iran deal, since Obama made the last one, and he was vocally opposed to it. Our war hawks also think it was a bad deal, that the US should impose a deal from strength. Whether this is right or wrong doesn’t really matter except academically, since that’s what we are in the process of doing…and not just with Iran. It’s pretty much Trump’s main modus operandi.
So, as I said, in the real world as it actually is, Iran has fairly limited choices. They can wait for a new administration, assuming that happens. Issue there is, even though the US pretty much unilaterally pulled out of the deal, that alone is still hurting the Iranian’s economically, and assuming Trump follows through, the pain will increase as the US pressures all the other signatories to follow suit. Not sure if that will happen…but I bet the Iranian’s don’t know either, so it’s a major issue for them. They NEED the deal, economically. Their other choice is to re-negotiate with Trump and basically lose face in Iran. The only other choice I see is to try and dance on the razor, up the pressure and hope Trump keeps eating bad chili dogs and deciding, nope, not going to drop the hammer this time either. Myself, I think the best route is for them to re-negotiate. They will almost certainly come out with the same deal, as Trump basically wants some sort of deal, any deal, so he can show he’s the man. But, as I said, my opinion on this is irrelevant, since I’m not in charge.
I have this (admittedly CTish) type theory here. I wonder sometimes if Trump is deliberately playing these games to influence the stock and commodities market. Think about it. He Tweets a bunch of shit about more tariffs or whatever concerning Mexico. Threatens, blusters, etc etc. Stocks plummet. Then he holds out something about a possible deal. Stocks rise a bit. Then back to bluster…they fall. Then…DEAL! And stocks shoot up. Now, consider all the other shit we are doing. China. Iran. North Korea. The EU. Canada. The list goes on. I can’t help but wonder…he is really this stupid (ok, yeah, he is) or does he have some sort of goal to manipulate the markets for his own good?
So…is the fact that oil futures are up or down REALLY hurting him? Especially if he knows or thinks he knows how to shift that back or change it up? I don’t know, but it’s interesting…
Oh you’d be crazy not to suspect that someone is gaming this. I don’t think it is Trump himself - he isn’t known for having those kinds of smarts or vision. But I’m sure he is surrounded by people who are, and who have interests in that regard, and he will cheerfully trade favors with them.
But my Occam’s Razor take is that Trump is governed by the cranky-old-uncle theory of the economy from the 1970’s. Loose interest rates are good, high oil prices are bad. And the economy is everything to him, so he’s going to work those levers as hard as he can to stay popular. Could have been an easy task, but he’s mucked it up by simultaneously pandering to Iran war hawks while losing most of his permanent senior staff capable of navigating it. Oh well. My kids turn 18 in 9 years, hopefully this will all be sorted by then.
As I mentioned, not hurting him financially, but he really does not want to face impeachment/reelection in the shadow of a major oil shock. Not saying that’s a real risk… but I think that’s what he’s calculating.
I’m not saying it would be cool, so you can stop trying to distort my positions. I’m saying that when a country is cornered, you can expect it to retaliate. Iran is the weaker power that is being cornered by a country that is politically, economically, and military much stronger. Not only does the US use its power to prohibit American companies from trading with Iran, but it also uses its power over other nations to prohibit them from doing business with Iran. We’re imposing waging economic war in what is an obvious attempt at regime change.
I’m not asking anyone to defend what Iran is doing morally; I’m asking people to put themselves in Iran’s position and ask what they would do? Capitulate and turn into a Western Democracy? I’m sure that’s what we want, but pretty much ever since Westphalia we’ve accepted the idea that countries have sovereignty to govern themselves as they see fit.
I’m also telling you that we had better think about the consequences to us as well. It could be more than just having a $200 million piece of aircraft shot down.
I’m not misrepresenting anything you are saying. I’m asking you a question.
And when I’ve asked you a question, you’ve avoided a simple answer on whether or not Iran’s violence in the face of sanctions is justified or not.
Instead, you offer these vague statements in the general spirit of, people should look at it through Iran’s eyes for a moment.
Ok, that’s fine, but it doesn’t actually answer my question. Just like how HurricaneDitka once stated something like, I can see where Timothy McVeigh was coming from, and people won’t let him forget that vague statement.
Once more, are countries like Iran generally justified in responding to sanctions with violence?
No, you’re not “just asking a question;” you’re deliberately misrepresenting the entire context of the situation.
But since we’re, you know, just asking questions, I’ll ask one of my own. You said that Iran should be confronted for “threatening our allies.” Which ally is Iran threatening that we should be so concerned that we’re willing to go to war? Saudi Arabia?
I’m thinking about “fighting words”, the notion that there are insults so extreme that direct personal violence is justified. Sure, you busted his nose, but once you tell the judge that he called you yellow-eyed pizzle-sucking dog, all charges would be dismissed. Pretty stupid, in my estimation, but even in stupid, limits apply. Proportionate response, as Il Douche has so admirably asserted. One hundred fifty innocent civilian lives were estimated to be in peril, and that stayed his hand from mayhem. The drone is an expensive object, but it is only a thing, it lacks any human value. Hence, a violent military response is out of proportion to the provocation. Even as we are astonished, we cannot help but admire the thoughtful and humane turn in the mind of Himself.
I don’t know either. He seems to be perfectly willing to rip people off, bankrupt contractors who did everything they agreed to, dodge the draft and lie about it.
But…maybe there’s a shadow of a good man in him somewhere? You cannot deny that it’s a sign of character to not kill 150 people.
Even if all 150 were uniform wearing Iranian soldiers, some of them were draftees or just signed up for that college money*. None of them have every done even one hostile thing to the USA personally, other than turning the keys on a SAM when ordered to fire on that drone.
*ok maybe not, I don’t know what incentives Iran has for soldiers.
Dude. The man puts children in cages (now without beds in them).
Whatever prompted his cancelling the bombing run, I’ll bet my nuts to donuts it’s not any kind of merciful, empathetic feeling towards his fellow man. He’s a narcissistic sociopath, they don’t get those.
