Actually, I think I answer a lot of questions. See above. Maybe not 100%, but if you have a non-rhetorical question I haven’t answered, just post it again.
I don’t “ignore” rebuttals. I disagree with them. Just because you write what you’re thinking doesn’t mean I’m obligated to agree with it. And may I suggest – that if you say I haven’t answered your question because I snipped out part of a longer post, I’m afraid I just don’t have all the time in the world to respond to every point in every post, so I prioritize points that are of interest to me. I think every person on this message board does the same, so you can’t blame me for that.
Actually I think I’ve contributed more substance to these discussions than either of you. CarnalK keeps insinuating that I’m in favor of Trump, and when I ask you questions, I get a lot of tap dancing.
I said you said right and wrong don’t have any place in Iran defending it’s national interests. You said it isn’t what you argued. And yet you wrote:
Which is a stupid and reckless policy. It’s reckless because it could lead to a US bombing campaign, costing Iranians their lives; and its stupid because I don’t see a way that Iranian violence leads to a good outcome for them, whereas I see other policies that might, but Iran has chosen to cut off those paths.
I blame Trump for a really stupid Iran policy and I blame Iran for resorting to violence. What I see as implicit in your question here – and I believe is certainly part of asahi and CarnalK’s arguments – is that U.S. does A, so Iran does B. To the extent that the U.S. deliberates on whether it should do A, by all means we should have considered whether Iran will do B; in order to better determine whether A was worth it.
However, should A happen, that does not resolve Iran from the actual culpability of doing B. They have free will, and could choose other options (a few of which I’ve laid out from the top of my head). I’m criticizing arguments that the U.S. is responsible for what Iran chooses to do – but I agree with arguments that the U.S. is stupid for doing A.
Well, I’m not Ravenman, but a few things on this. First off, you left some things out. I think the main US issue was with other activities Iran was doing, namely it’s support of paramilitary/terrorist organizations in the region, it’s activities in Syria and it’s proxy war support in several regional nations. It wasn’t really about the nuclear agreement.
Which brings up another aspect…this wasn’t a signed treaty, it was basically an agreement that could (and obviously was) voided when the political tide changed in the US. Finally, while I’ve seen no evidence that Iran wasn’t abiding by the very vertical scope of the agreement, as inspections were never complete it’s hard to really say that with 100% certainty…there was some room for doubt, especially if one wanted to doubt. Personally, I think they WERE abiding by them, but I also concede that, as with Sadam, the opaque nature of the country and inherent secrecy means there is always room to doubt, even if there is no basis for it.
I want to state at this point that, all of the above being said, I think what Trump et al did was a mistake and I wouldn’t have pulled us out of the agreement. There were other ways, if it was even necessary, to punish Iran over it’s activities and we shouldn’t have used the nuclear deal as a bargaining chip. I think that the main motivation for this was, really, that Obama did it and Trump wants to basically scrap everything Obama did. And his own hawks are cool with that as it plays into what they want as well.
All that said, you asked what Iran should have done once the US pulled out of the agreement. Since you are asking me and not the theocratic dictators in chief, I’ll say that their best bet would have been to appeal to the EU to act as intermediary and to underscore they were the wronged party in this. They could do this with Russia and China and some of their other allies as well. Pretty much Trump unified basically everyone against the US on this one, and I think the Iranian’s COULD have used that if they played their cards right. Of course, they just couldn’t do that, because this was a golden opportunity for the hardline fundamentalists to regain their iron grip on the country. Most of them never wanted this deal anyway, and want to confront the US directly, so it plays into their hands…and they are running with it now. At any rate, that’s what I would have done, had I been magically in charge and able to stifle the hardliners. I’d have used that diplomacy stuff, used relations built by the other signatories, but the investments many EU companies has put into Iran, and by the fact that the Americans have an idiot for a president who is simultaneously going after a lot of countries at once and so is really distracted. Instead, they are actually playing into Bolton et als hands, just like we played into their hardliners hands. I think had they played their cards right, they would have come out of this in a MUCH stronger position, perhaps with an actual treaty with the US as an end game, with stronger economic ties and perhaps the beginnings of really rejoining the world community.
Instead, they are push things hard enough that all it will take is someone fucking up on either side and we will have a shooting war in one of the biggest trade routes on the planet, and they are doing so with THE world hyperpower…who, as noted, has an idiot in charge. We are all dancing on a razor and could easily fall off any time, and while that would certainly hurt the world economy, and the US, the Iranian’s are going to have a really bad day if it comes to open hostilities. I’m fairly sure the hardliners expect the US will just back down…kind of like Saddam thought. And look how well that worked out for everyone…
I think Ravenman wants you and others to focus strictly on the “piracy” and not the circumstances that surround it, not the circumstances that have placed Iran in the position in which they feel desperate.
“I’ve said that the US was wrong when we invaded Iraq”
Fine, we get that. But seriously, who gives a toss? Who cares if the US was morally wrong for invading Iraq – we got it then, and we get that now. Not only was it morally wrong, but it was utterly fucking stupid, and the world is still dealing with the consequences of that invasion years later. I digress…
I don’t know why it’s so hard for people to understand that nobody on this or the other Iran thread (save one or two people perhaps) is necessarily defending Iran. We’re not; we’re saying that our behavior has consequences. Ravenman talks about breaking the rules ignoring the fact that Iran was playing by rules and the hawks in this administration decided that they were going to completely rewrite the rules. It’s not worth even discussing what the rules are when the country that has more power than any on earth to write those rules, decided it can keep changing the rules until they put other countries at a distinct disadvantage. Talking about Iran not playing by the rules in this context is absurd.
As an American, I don’t have any influence at all over what Iran does or doesn’t do. I was hopeful that they would live up to their obligations under the 2015 framework and cease nuclear production and allow inspectors in their facilities. Turns out, they did exactly that! Now that this rogue administration has decided that it wants to completely rewrite the rules and impose newer and more onerous ones, I can only hope that Iran doesn’t overreact, but I have no influence over what Iran’s regime does. But as an American citizen and a regular participant in American democratic elections, I have at least some (albeit quite small) influence in terms of political discourse here. As others have pointed out, we can control us. So for that reason, I am much less concerned about Iran’s behavior and much more concerned with ours.
I feel compelled to suggest that Iran did pursue a non-violent policy, and got screwed over by Trump. What sort of deal would YOU make with Trump?
I’m going to suggest that Trump’s guys did consider whether Iran would do B, and chose A with the intention of encouraging Iran to choose B. This is not some unintended consequence. Trump’s policy isn’t stupid*, it’s malicious.
*I mean, it IS stupid, but the policy is working as intended.
No, completely the opposite: I’m urging people to take a broader view of the crisis by bringing into the discussion issues like: the IRGC designation; the nonmilitary policy options open to Iran; how military action is probably boxing Iran into poor outcomes; how the foreign policy and domestic policy goals may be in conflict; etc. I’m quite explicitly trying to move the conversation beyond “But Trump did this thing first!!”
Oh yes, Iran WAS playing by the rules in the context of the agreement. Trump trashed the agreement, which is also allowed for by the rules, but was a really stupid thing to do. But in starting to attack tankers and drones, there is no conceivable universe where anyone can argue that Iran is now playing by the rules.
Acts of war not in self-defense of imminent harm are NOT playing by the rules, no matter which party is involved.
I would see no point of Iran trying to make a deal with Trump at this point. That’s part of the stupidity of Trump’s Iran policy: he’s shown his Administration to be worthless to talk to, who can’t be trusted to carry out any deal in the name of the United States. That’s why when I was asked a little earlier what non-military policies Iran could pursue, none of those included starting new talks with Trump.
Oh, I totally agree that Bolton and Pompeo were likely thinking along these lines. But it is curious that Trump seems to be on a much different page. At this moment, I think Trump wants a big photo op with Khamenei far more than he wants to launch missiles at Iran. I would guess that Trump called off the airstrikes when he realized that he can’t have a nice meeting in front of cameras with the world’s leading antisemites if he bombs them first.
No, I’m not going to think about any of that because the obvious solution that we can choose is not to fuck with Iran in the first place – that’s the easy and obvious answer. Easier and more obvious than debating how Iran should behave when we’ve reneged on our word and tried to manipulate them. Keep in mind that our government is doing this in no small part because they assume that the American public will go along with it or not protest their actions, just like we did 16 years ago when we foolishly supported a war in Iraq (and by the way, making the same idiotic arguments that you are in this thread).
Some posters have pointed to Iran’s regime lacking democratic mechanisms and therefore lacking legitimacy. In my mind, the relative absence of democracy in Iran may weaken the legitimacy of Iran when it comes to representing popular will, but it doesn’t weaken their claims to sovereignty. Moreover, the fact that we have more democratic influence only obligates Americans to focus less on Iran’s response and more on our own government’s behavior. Iran’s people have fewer options for expressing objections to their country’s policies; in theory at least, we have more. I’m doing my part to let it be known that I am NOT okay with this, and it really doesn’t matter how Iran responds or doesn’t respond. Thinking that how Iran responds to a crisis we’ve arguably created is somehow just as important as how our government acts in our name is an egregious a case of “Whatboutism” if there ever was one. Sorry, I’m not playing along.
On the other hand, we see others trying to do “winning” by inserting. For example, you said I wanted to focus the discussion solely on “piracy,” and (a) I haven’t used that term and (b) I completely disagree that the term even belongs in this discussion.
I’m mainly bemused by the series of threads on this subject. I DID find it extremely funny, from an irony perspective, when asahi said “We’re going around in circles and I’m not going to leave it to you to frame what I said. I think others in this thread can read it for themselves” to which I’d like to quote him from another thread as saying “Ya know, I’m not obligated to read every one of your posts, so maybe you could just restate what your position is, then”. Sorry, but I’m not obliged to re-read or, you know, scroll up, so I’ll just take stuff out of context and assume the characterization of another poster MUST be true unless you want to go ahead and restate in a new post exactly what your position is.
Right, because nothing’s been taken out of context on this thread by Ravenman. His entire argument is pretty much predicated on taking something out of its context and putting it under the microscope in isolation.
Which is why, in the grand scheme of things, they are most to blame. They engineered the situation. If Iran is falling into their trap, shame on Iran’s leaders, but the trap (and whatever happens after it goes off) belongs to Trump.
This is probably the least surprising part of the story. Trump was all in on Bolton’s plan, and 6 months later wanders past something sparkly and decides our foreign policy needs to be completely different than what he already approved.
Now he wants to see if he can tiptoe back to the negotiating table, hammer out a “deal,” and call it the: “BEST EVER US-IRAN #MAGA DEAL!!! BEST IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY!!!” (or something).
Trump hired Bolton because a) he appeared on Fox News, b) Bolton != Obama fan, and c) Bolton = tough guy who talks about bombing countries. #MAGA!!!
But Bolton and Pompeo are not dicking around. They want to use military power to effectuate regime change, and they’re doing this because they’re delusional.
Suppose Iran continues to raid ships and detain crews to the point that shipping through the Strait of Hormuz is no longer considered safe passage. Global trade starts to show glimpses of being adversely impacted. Fearful of risking his economic gains, which are probably the only reason his approval ratings are above 40%, this tactic pushes Trump to the negotiating table and the US and Iran begin to de-escalate.
Is the “escalation” by Iran necessarily wrong?
Consider what happened when the US put missiles in Turkey (during the Cold War)? The Russians responded with nuclear brinkmanship, which was an escalation, but they ended up getting the US to capitulate and removing the missiles from Turkey. See that’s my point: I’m not really arguing that escalation is good - in fact from my point of view as an American, it’s actually almost always bad. But history shows that sometimes escalation and confrontation can work, which is not very p.c. to point out, but it’s the truth.
It’s certainly risky, since it goes down the path that many in the administration want, and puts Iran at risk of military intervention. They’d then be relying on Trump to come to the conclusion that capitulating to Iran in the face of increasing hostility is the right move for him.
You can’t rely on Trump to feed a goldfish, much less take a specific direction for foreign policy.
Of course it’s risky, but doing nothing is also risky. There’s no non-risk scenario here, which is what Ravenman doesn’t understand or just conveniently doesn’t want to acknowledge.
The conventional view of a conflict like this is that Iran’s escalation necessarily increases the outbreak of war, and I certainly won’t deny that it’s a risky strategy that could “backfire.”
But the real question is, what evidence do we have that not escalating will work out in Iran’s favor? Indeed, the evidence we have right now is that Iran can follow the rules, and the conflict will be escalated by a country that not only wants to escalate but wants to escalate in ways that put Iran in a weaker position, and in a position that gets weaker day-by-day, week-by-week. The passage of time equals the draining of Iran’s strength.
This is why Iran’s putting the pressure back on the United States and its allies. Iran is not going to give the US time. Iran is also trying to turn on its head the assumption that the US and allies can put pressure on Iran without having them put pressure on them in return. It looks to me that Iran has actually gamed this situation out pretty well, which doesn’t mean that they still won’t get attacked, but if they get attacked, it would be very difficult for the US to argue that Iran could have avoided the attack had they just allowed themselves to be weakened to the point of internal political chaos.
Well, we have the evidence of all the other nations that the US doesn’t like world wide who aren’t on the verge of being bombed. I’m not sure where you are even coming from with all of this to be honest. Do you really think that if Iran continues down this path of escalation that the US won’t bomb them?
Well, there is a difference between economic sanctions and actual military conflict. Also, the EU (and China, Russia and several others) had actually not completely stopped trading…and US trade is pretty much negligible at this point. Had Iran made the effort to play up the fact that they were the wronged party and negotiate with the EU, say, directly, then they wouldn’t be in ANY sort of weaker position, and it’s possible that the EU might have confronted the US over Trump et al trying to broaden the sanctions. Basically, there is nothing in it for the EU to confront the US over this when Iran is obviously reacting so poorly…but that wouldn’t have been the case had they not pretty much gone off the deep end with this. Even WITH them doing it there is still reluctance to caving into the US demands among the EU. And this doesn’t even get into the fact that China and Russia are basically ignoring the US on this.
So, I think your analysis is flawed and deeply biased to be honest. Iran doesn’t have to escalate this to a direct confrontation with the US in the way they are doing it. What they are doing risks direct military confrontation. Hell, we COULD be there already with the shoot down of the drone. It was basically Trump’s whim that stopped the US from launching air strikes into Iran.
:smack: This is the single worst analysis I’ve ever seen to be honest. Good grief, it’s hard to comprehend how anyone could think something this ridiculous to be honest. Iran has played this nearly as badly as the US has, and both countries have brought the region to the brink of war. Even the smallest incident at this point could trigger a shooting war that would wreak havoc in the region and with one of the busiest trade routes on the globe. And they are doing it simple because their own hardliners see this as an opportunity to strengthen their domestic power, without thought to the wider ramifications of what happens if this situation goes over the edge. As it easily could.
Sorry, but I’m not obliged to re-read or, you know, scroll up, so I’ll just take stuff out of context and assume the characterization of another poster MUST be true unless you want to go ahead and restate in a new post exactly what your position is.