I freely concede that all of this is a coincidence and not some exercise into some sort of deep long game, which Trump probably doesn’t even exhibit with porn stars. Not that I want to think too deeply about that either. I was just saying that there are some dots there that could be connected.
For sure. And I guy like Bolton will certainly want to try. My feeling is that cooler/wiser heads will prevail long enough for the orange buffoon to be endited or suffer a stroke. Or both. And I sincerely hope neither is trivial.
The EU issued a statement that if Iran continues to abide by the agreement the EU will consider it still in effect. Not sure if that will hold, as I’m unsure if the hardliners in Iran, who REALLY hate this deal will not use this as an opportunity to get rid of it and discredit the moderates. On the other side of things, though, Saudi is going to be VERY happy with this, and I’m unsure if they might not, along with the US hit back at the EU if they don’t play along.
This is a pretty complicated mess with a lot of nations and groups having various vested interests that are in conflict. A lot of the Europeans, for instance have a vested interest in this working, since they have invested a lot of political capital in this. Israel pretty obviously has a vested interest in guiding the US to the conclusion that Trump reached. Saudi has vested interests. Russia has vested interests. Various factions in Iran have conflicting interests. In the US it’s a liberal/conservative thing with vested interests ranging from political to simple profit (or loss). Even China and North Korea have interests in this, though for different reasons (even different from each other).
This is the price we pay for putting basically an idiotic version of Loki in the White House…
If the EU stays n the deal, then Iran may as well. Just losing us as trading partners may not hurt so much, losing the rest of the world, maybe a bit.
If the EU and the rest of Iran’s trading partners pull out of the deal, then Iran has no reason not to just go ahead and start building nuclear bombs.
As far as negotiation strategy, all that tells north korea or anyone else that we are looking to make deals with is that we do not honor the deals that we make. I think that demonstrating that you do not honor the deals that you make would make future deals harder to do, not easier.
I suspect that Kim Jong Un purposely told the US diplomats that the Iran deal “doesn’t matter,” specifically so that they could later use that as a justification to resume their nukes when it suits them.
In the meantime, if North Korea can bullshit the US into dropping some sanctions and moving troops and gradually suspending their nuke and missile program, then it’s a win/win/win – for North Korea.
But there will be other countries that will want to arm themselves and use their weapons as bargaining chips. The takeaways they get from the first two years of the Trump administration are clear: make sure you get nukes first, then negotiate.
The increase in oil prices is a huge benefit to Russia - they have been hurt by the drop in oil prices since 2014.
Gotta give Zarif props; that was an excellent turn of phrase, and all too true.
Might be a bit difficult, they have already destroyed most of their centrifuges.
He stole it from a JFK speech.
Hell, the original was probably written in cuneiform.
So I keep saying that Trump isn’t as bad as Bush… yet. A worse statesman, a worse politico, an all-around terrible guy, but in terms of “awful”, Bush set the bar painfully high by invading Iraq.
Well, between this and hiring Bolton and Pompeo, I think it’s pretty likely that “yet” is really a matter of time. 
If Dickhead Donnie* had ever secured a negotiation between Russia, China, Iran, Germany, France, Great Britian and the US his suckers would be proclaiming that as proof of his supreme deal making skills. (That’s in an alternate universe, of course. In this universe such a deal is merely an Obama accomplishment to be destroyed, damn the consequences.)
- It is alright to refer to politicians with insulting nicknames, just look at the Dickhead’s twitter account for proof.
More thoughts on exiting the deal:
Wow, what a huge blunder. Not only do we appear to be the dishonorable party, by leaving a deal that we, our allies, and Iran signed, but we place ourselves alone against most of our closest allies. Further, Iran has an easier path towards nuclear weapons – if the US doesn’t stick to the terms of the deal, it’s now much easier for Iran to say that they don’t have to either.
But that’s not all. American corporations like Boeing now have to cancel big deals they made with Iran. Also, German and British and French corporations made business deals with Iran and Iranian companies – deals that would now violate the sanctions the US is planning to put back into place. So now the US has placed itself in a position in which we either stick to our guns and sanction those German, British, and French corporations, or we ignore their violations of our sanctions and look completely toothless. Which is better: economically sanctioning our allies, or appearing totally feckless, weak, and foolish? I don’t know. I just know that we wouldn’t be in this very weak and dangerous position had we just stuck to a deal we signed – a deal that, according to the experts on nuclear proliferation, was successfully keeping Iran 10 to 15 years away from a nuclear weapon, at worst.
Uggh. Stupid, stupid, stupid… we gain nothing, Iran gains status, and we’re forced to decide between sanctioning allies or looking even weaker and dumber.
Apparently the State Department had no idea what any of our allies thought about the deal or what they would do after we pulled out. Jesus Christ, what a shit show.
One particular exchange:
That seems borderline impossible. Like, they can’t honestly be that clueless about what our allies have been very loudly saying. Right?
Pulling out of this deal is possibly the best thing to happen to the USA in decades or more. The power of treaties* is in Congress’s hands, not something the President can unilaterally twiddle his fingers and declare (and I don’t give two fucks and a shit over who did it first, if the Republicans did it too, if the Dems did it more…no President should ever have the ability to make treaties via executive orders).
Trump’s reasons were stupid, his handling of this was ham-fisted at best and there’ll be a lot of short term damage to the US’s allies and to the US’s reputation, but going forward, I’ll bet that there will be a lot less treaty by executive order and our allies will hopefully realize that Presidential “deals” are absolutely not to be trusted and to wait for Congress to pass something or not.
*And this was a treaty, even if you weasel-word it as a “deal”
So, by your logic, “the best thing to happen to the USA in decades” is something you concede has only negative consequences right now, but might, in the future, if everyone interprets events in the way you just did, lead to a positive constitutional change.
Even though there’s no evidence of such an interpretation surfacing and several worse messages that many might take from this; that making decisions based on an utter ignorance of the data and screwing over allies and our obligations is all good.
MAGA!
I doubt most legal scholars would agree with you here. Although foreign policy is not exclusively the president’s domain, the law of the land makes it clear that the president is the single most important figure in shaping and representing American foreign policy. The Constitution and the laws therefrom clearly allow the president to enter into executive agreements without requiring congressional approval in advance. There are mechanisms in place to ensure that the president’s power isn’t unlimited. For one thing, such agreements can later be rescinded by future presidents. In the interim, congress can also vote to block or simply pull funding from any such agreement, as Congress more or less did when Clinton entered into a non-proliferation framework with North Korea in the 1990s (which probably reflects poorly on congressional Republicans in hindsight).
The Iranian deal probably wasn’t perfect but it offered some degree of regional stability in a part of the world that is economically and politically sensitive, and an area that badly needs greater stability. I would agree with AK84 that Iran might not find it easy in restarting its nuclear program, but I think that fact demonstrates to a large degree the success of the framework in place. In the short term, a possible consequence of pulling out of the agreement is that it raises the possibility of instability. Iran may also regard Israel and Saudi Arabia as more existential threats to its continued viability, thus raising the prospects of a very nasty conflict between these three countries. There is no real way to predict what could happen if those conflicts progress beyond proxy wars and turn into more visible direct confrontations. I can’t imagine that it would be particularly helpful for global political and economic stability.
They removed the page. :dubious:
Glad you at least grabbed the text. I’d send it to NYT and WaPo. See what they want to do with it.