It would have needed to be acceptable to both parties, of course, which probably means it would have needed to be a compromise. Which means that it probably wouldn’t be acceptable to the Iranian’s. But if that’s the case, then there wouldn’t be sufficient grounds for compromise for a treaty, so the status quo would continue (which basically meant Iran would continue to be ground under heavy sanctions until they could figure out a compromise position acceptable to the US).
You seem to think that this is a bug in our system, but this is actually how the system is supposed to work. If Obama couldn’t rally enough support for his proposal in the Congress then it’s a failure politically. We have separation of powers specifically for this reason.
China has certainly honored their agreements not to militarize the South China Sea region, right? China honors what agreements they choose to, and ignores what they choose to ignore. I don’t believe that this is the take away the world is getting, that they should deal with China and not the US. The take away from this particular incident should be that if there isn’t sufficient political will by the US to do something like this (i.e. you don’t have the president AND the Congress able to agree on a formal treaty) that you shouldn’t rely on the promises from one administration to the next.
I imagine that Mohammad Javad Zarif, who has an B.A. and an M.A. in international relations from San Francisco State University, and a second M.A. in international relations as well as a Ph.D. in international law and policy from the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver, has a - shall we say - fairly decent understanding of how the American political system works overall, how American foreign policy works, how American law relates to international law, the difference between a treaty and a deal, etc.
I imagine that he entered the deal knowing full well that, due to Republican resistance, it wouldn’t be ratified by the Senate, and could very well be ripped up by a future President, be it a Republican or a Democrat.
But such is Realpolitik - he, as well as the other parties involved, had to work with what they had, not what they wished they had. “Rather a three-legged donkey than a horse that doesn’t exist.”
No, it isn’t ‘fucking bonkers’, or even the regular type of ‘bonkers’ that doesn’t copulate. It’s merely a different viewpoint. What I found interesting was the difference in perspective. As to agree with, I do agree that Iran has used the shift in politics and sanctions to become more involved regionally in the conflicts happening, especially in Syria but also with it’s covert support of terrorist/para-military groups like Hamas. Not that this is any great surprise, but the article is correct that this is what they have done. Where I think the article (and many posters in this thread) are off the rails is in thinking that Iran is some sort of monolith all in lockstep, either for good or evil. Instead, you have various factions of hardline conservative fundamentalist types who ARE pushing a militant agenda and pushing for more assertive Iranian involvement in the region, as well as further covert support for those terrorist/para-military groups while shifting their development posture from nukes to missile and asymmetric warfare, and various moderate factions who support some of those things but also support more contact, especially wrt trade, with the west (or, in fact, China, since China is one of their largest trading partners wrt purchasing their oil). So, there is enough complexity in this whole mess to see that there are two viable sides to this.
What Trump has done, IMHO, was stupid…like so many of the things he has done or tried to do. He’s done what he’s done for all the wrong reasons, and I think the article is mistakenly giving him more credit than he is due. But that doesn’t mean it’s ‘fucking bonkers’ to see a different side. I always find things interesting that make me think about something more deeply, to do some searches and read a bit more, even if ultimately I don’t agree with them or even reject their theme.
Then Trump supporters would point to that as a monumental achievement by a master deal maker. Parades to follow. Believe me. MAGA.
We already heve a thread about Trump’s supposed statesmanship with regard to North Korea. Trump supporters are notoriously easy to impress.
That’s… Regular. Missiles are regular. Regular countries have armed forces, which have missiles. Iran is a country, and it has armed forces, and those armed forces have missiles. That’s all perfectly regular.
Quite regular. Happens all the time.
Yeah, budding regional powers tend to get involved in the affairs of their neighbours and their neighbours’ neighbours. That’s par for the course. Might even call it regular.
And even if building missiles, harassing foreign citizens and meddling in other countries was somehow “irregular,” so what? Pulling out of the deal won’t help with any of it.
What? How might sticking to a deal which keeps Iran away from a nuclear bomb lead to an Iran “on the brink of attaining the bomb”? How?
Obama didn’t ignore congress; congress voted itself the power to review the deal, and then reviewed the deal. By the rules congress assigned itself, they could vote to disapprove the deal, at a risk of presidential veto. They voted to disapprove, but not enough to override a veto.
So it’s absolutely false to say that Obama ignored congress. Congress voted itself the power to review, and did review, but didn’t meet their own standard to reject the deal.
As far as Trump, he was well within his rights to do this. It was just colossally stupid, greatly weakens the US, strengthens hard liners in Iran, increases the chances of Iran getting a nuclear weapon, and angers our allies, with no benefit to America or Americans. Just massively stupid and harmful to America, and to the world.
It was/is considered “bonkers” by the rest of the western world because almost none of us considered Americans would select, let alone elect, a massively ignorant buffoon president. Sure republicans would huff and puff about weak kneed democrats but once in office would work within the post-war American crafted framework. A delayed nuclear program in Iran coupled with economic development could be used both push democratic reforms in Iran and make future sanctions more effective. Iranian efforts to expand their sphere of influence without a nuclear program could be opposed in other manners.
Luckily we have a spineless GOP unable to see value in a tentatively rule based international order, willing to try to contain an Iran filled with people that no longer see the US as a potential ally, that has no economic reason to listen to the US and that could easily restart a nuclear program. I mean who wouldn’t want that?
There is no way to ever know for certain, but…I kinda doubt it. In particular Iran has been cultivating a relationship with Syria since the 1979 Revolution. It’s had its hiccups, especially when Syria and Hezbollah came to blows in Lebanon. But it was a well-developed well before the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War - they had signed a military cooperation treaty as far back as 2006. IMHO they were always going to intervene to prop up the Assads in Syria and I don’t think international sanctions would have made an iota of difference in that. Bashir al-Assad is simply far too valuable a regional ally to let him go down.
Somewhat similarily in Yemen. I think the analysis that the Houthis are somehow Iranian proxies is foolish. But I think Iranian aid would have flowed regardless of the international situation. Again it is in Iran’s best interests to keep Sunni Islamists and Western/Saudi- backed interests out of power in the region.
Terrorist groups? Iran has supported them since forever, again regardless of sanctions.
It’s IMHO only and unprovable, but I just don’t think that idea of the nuclear deal giving them a freer hand regionally holds water. The reigning ideology of the state as well as realpolitik kinda compels them to act regardless.
What the United States did do that REALLY helped Iran quite a bit and tilted the local power balance was not this agreement, but rather overthrowing Saddam Hussein. Iran is considerably friendlier with the dominant political forces in post-Hussein Iraq than the United States is( and are playing a bigger military role in pushing back Daesh ). If anything has given rise to pretensions/possibilities of regional hegemon for Iran it was that little event. I have a sneaking suspicion that the Bush crew never envisioned that particular bit of fallout, but they really should have if they had been paying attention.
You didn’t quote anyone, so it’s a bit of guesswork as to who this post might be directed at. When you say things like “So it’s absolutely false to say …”, it might be helpful to clarify who / where that was actually said.
Personally, I don’t believe anyone claimed that Obama did ignore Congress. The closest anyone got (that I can find) was this post by me:
As I said before, finagling things so that it requires a super-majority to cancel a non-binding political commitment by the president is not as lasting an arrangement as actually building a coalition capable of getting a super-majority in Congress to approve a political commitment by the president that could then take the form of a treaty or legislation. “It was just colossally stupid” for the Iranians or Obama or the Europeans to expect that the non-binding political commitment they made with Obama would last much past the end of his administration. That’s one of the limitations of “pen and phone” diplomacy.
You have a different definition of “colossally stupid” when top members of Trump’s cabinet convinced him for over a year to stay in the deal, principally on the basis that a deal’s a deal.
In this case it’s more like a half-assed deal is a half-assed deal. If they wanted a real, lasting deal, there are ways to get that, but they require building something of a national consensus on the matter.
This sounds a great deal like “well, it may have been collusion, but even if it was it’s not illegal.” Color me utterly unsurprised you’re making excuses for Trump.
Considering how much the arguments in favor of Trump’s position seem to be “he was allowed to do this!”, I suspect that many of them recognize how truly stupid this move was, or at the very least how it doesn’t help the US at all and puts us in a weaker position.