Trump on Iran: what on earth can we do?

[Latro]

@AI_Proofreader

I only pointed out that the idea of “two to tango” required for a war is preposterous in light of the last two decades of U.S. foreign policy.

I would also like to point out that the amount of people, who think the president du jour has any say in foreign policy, is too damn high.

[Mijin]

@AI_Proofreader

And I fail to see the “difference between attacking a sovereign nation and peacekeeping” in regards to years of bombing, and supporting cluster-bombing in Yemen.

I simply was pointing out that there is a difference between these two different things, and that the US does not only do the former.
The specific case of Yemen, I admit I don’t know much about, aside from it being a very chaotic situation with a number of nations taking one side or other.

[up_the_junction]

@Mijin

I expect you’ll probably say I’m being naive. If so, what was the self-serving, mega-profit reason for the intervention in Somalia?

If you don’t the Chinese will own it in a very few years.

[Declan]

@AI_Proofreader

The prevailing foreign policy now is that it does not take two to tango, nor does it require an act of Congress to go to war; any time you want to bomb or invade, just call it a part of the “War on Terror” and tack it on to the 2001 authorization of force given for Afghanistan.

You threw every president at me, but Trump. I figured you would have at least mentioned the Barbary pirates, but noooo.

So, do you think that Iran is going to do something stupid and provoke a war. Neither did I, everything Iran has done to date, has been a proxy action. They know that they are in the weaker position and will try to game for a better one, so our “dance partner” is gonna be sitting this one out.

[Declan]

@Ramira

It is doing well, with the revenues of over USD 3 billion and profit of the one half billion, but this is 100 percent a sad straw man to distract as whatever problem of the equifax company it does not indict the leadership structures of the type of large successful over a century companies in the Forture 1000 or the failures of the no structure family company of multiple bankruptcies.

I am attempting to translate

Yeah it does indict them, you might expect that sort of failure from a family owned business, but not a fortune 500. With the amount of other peoples money, you would expect a higher level of security, and that company should have gone under.

@Ramira

also sad straw man of no relevance as a response, a bad attempt at distraction and some attempt to imply that “art major” as the implied useless knowledge is being advanced as something relevant.

Actually being an Art Major is not useless, a great many things in the world have a requirement for beauty and function. Paris alone, is a city that was built on the concept of beauty, from architecture to fashion. An art major in a major company doing the job of the chief cyber officer is akin to an architect doing brain surgery. The fact that this company placed her in this position, which would have to be signed off by a number of people.

CEO’s have different styles and schools. What happened with Equifax, may never have been able to happen at Trump enterprises, or any type of company of the same nature. You don’t like Trump, I get it. But the man is running the Whitehouse CEO style. I would have loved to have seen this conversation , if it was Steve Jobs in the whitehouse threating thermonuclear war.

@Ramira

Waving the flag of Trump was CEO then should not be used as a sad means to justify the poor and childish high school level type ideas of leadership that the person displayed.

OK, You don’t like Trump and your putting down almost all North American white collar workers

@Ramira

yes, like a poorly run multiply bankrupt family business with no demonstration of the actual leadership skill in the business environment such as the skills of the CEO as it is usually understood, that of persons like the CEO of the Exxon or the CEO of the GE, etc.

so it was a failure of an attempt of justification of what is in the final clarity, bad leadership, not ‘CEO’ leadership, just bad leadership.

Damm, you could have thrown in Enron and Arthur Andersen for completeness .

[Lemur866]

@Declan

You threw every president at me, but Trump. I figured you would have at least mentioned the Barbary pirates, but noooo.

So, do you think that Iran is going to do something stupid and provoke a war. Neither did I, everything Iran has done to date, has been a proxy action. They know that they are in the weaker position and will try to game for a better one, so our “dance partner” is gonna be sitting this one out.

What exactly do you think is going to happen here? OK, the United States threatens to pull out of the agreement. And then we threaten to reimpose sanctions on Iran. And what do you think will happen next? Iran will agree…to what exactly?

Thing is, Russia, China, the UK and Europe are not going to agree on sanctions with Iran, since Iran didn’t actually break the agreement. Iranian oil goes to Europe anyway, so America doesn’t have any leverage there. Due to the last 30 years of US-Iranian relations we don’t have any significant trade with Iran. So what next? We sanction Iran, and Iran tells us to fuck off and continues to trade with Europe, China, and Russia. If you think Russia, China, and Europe are going to impose sanctions on Iran just because Trump asked them to, you’re delusional.

Iran isn’t going to start a war. But if we impose sanctions on them, the deal is off. Iran could kick out the nuclear inspectors. And start up their nuclear program again, remember the point of the deal was that Iran would give up their nuclear program in return for relief from the sanctions.

Iran is smart enough to know that a “deal” with Donald Trump is no sort of deal at all, since Trump believes that a deal should be broken as soon as it is agreed to. You provide Trump with X in return for Y, and as soon as Trump gets X why should he provide Y? He’s already got X, it would be insane for him to do what he agreed to do. First rule of dealing with Trump, never deliver the goods until after the check clears.

So Iran is under no delusion that they’re going to be able to negotiate a new deal with Trump, since that’s impossible. So Trump pulls out of the agreement, maybe gets Congress to vote to impose sanctions, even though Iran lived up to the terms of the agreement. Obviously with Trump in office that’s irrelevant, all other countries on Earth realize that an agreement with Trump means absolutely nothing.

So we impose sanctions on Iran, Iran starts up its nuclear program again, because why wouldn’t they? I guess the only way to stop them is war, right? I mean, they don’t have a nuclear program now, because of the nuclear deal, but we just cancelled that deal, because Trump takes his dealmaking cues from Darth Vader in Cloud City.

Is the goal to stop Iran’s nuclear program, or is the goal to harm Iran because they’re Iran?

[Latro]

@Lemur866

Is the goal to stop Iran’s nuclear program, or is the goal to harm Iran because they’re Iran?

The goal is to create a casus belli against Iran.
So all the nitpicking in this thread is rather unnecessary.

[up_the_junction]

@Latro

The goal is to create a casus belli against Iran.
So all the nitpicking in this thread is rather unnecessary.

It’s a legit point but maybe, given the personality of the protagonist, it’s about wanting to be seen as the tough guy, the man of decisive action - when actually he’s not firing missiles or sending ships, he’s actually not signing a piece of paper. Ditto the Paris Accord. Trade agreements, etc, etc.

Is US foreign policy now about not signing pieces of paper. Just because.