Trump is trying to get a non-proliferation agreement with NK, so he thinks diplomacy works in that case. Therefore you'd have to agree that diplomacy can be effective in the case of nuclear weapons development containment. It seemed to have worked with Russia in terms of reducing the number of nuclear warheads. Or you don't agree with Trump on his handling of NK? Assuming that you agree with him on NK, why should someone prove to you that such agreements are enforceable? Shouldn't it be on you to defend Trump's decision making vis-a-vis withdrawing from an agreement that was ratified by a whole lot of parties (Nations!) after extensive amount of diplomatic work? What was wrong with it? How is he being successful at improving on it so far? When is he going to staff the State Department fully so the Diplomacy can be effectively wielded? Will the intelligence community help him overturn the Iran government - the intelligence community that he constantly criticizes and is ostensibly hiding details of its operations for fear of POTUS inadvertently divulging that info to adversaries? Why do you expect Iran to suddenly become democratic and completely realign itself and its geopolitical interests? - it has never been democratic for long (a running trend when it comes to middle east) and long term alignment with the west requires it to be democratic.
Sorry, Deckard, I see you as being a sort of NYT tacit semi- supporter of frequent wars with your sort of old fashioned logic and conventional talking points largely devoid of reality.. You need to think. So "appearing week" he is encouraging war? Do you actually think Iran will attack us? It is all a question of whether we want war and whether we will keep provoking with overflightrs and other actions to invite some sort of minor action as an excuse to start a war to feed to the gullible public that our national security is somehow threatened,. We are not weak. We are immensely powerful. We can destroy Iran any time we want and we continually threaten to do it. They know we can and there are very scared. What is the bs with appearing to be week encouraging war? Iran has even keeping the Obama deal when we have put in place sanctions. You need to think.
One more thing. A large part of the bi-partisan foreign policy establishment, which does include for the most part the present politicized leaders of the CIA etc. want to do the Project for the New Amercian Century or something similar and and turn Iran into another messed up state like Libya, Iraq, and Syria. American foreign policy should be based on morality and the real national interest for most Americans who suffer from forever war --, not the desires of the neo-cons and their fellow travellers in the foreign policy establishment , and the fanatics in Saudi and Israel. For those who want to think and not just repeat platitudes about projecting weakness. General Wesley Clark, American general on the plan that Bolton, Pompeo and the rest are trying to implemernt once again. https://www.globalresearch.ca/we-re...q-syria-lebanon-libya-somalia-sudan-iran/5166
It's apparent that they will keep destabilizing the region and doing proxy wars for one. For two, them shooting down our drones and not seeing any retaliation, implies that more drones will be shot down and not only by Iran. US has many enemies and our immensely powerful military is limited and also immensely expensive and 150 people will not necessarily mean troops on the ground, because just like you said Iran is unlikely to start a direct confrontation. The fact of the matter is saber rattling doesn't work on national actors - it only works on domestic electorate. They are all likely pointing at him and going "soft like Charmin". Do you disagree? Why?
Perhaps...UNTIL Iran did get the bomb, and starting exercising their goal of being the preeminent power in the area. Look at this way...they are the major terror broker in the area (and the world) currently. What will happen when they have nuclear capability?
The deal delayed any potential of weaponized uranium enrichment by ten years. Getting out of the deal has provided Iran with an excuse to commence weaponized enrichment again.
They will then go straight at Israel in a Cold War type of scenario to minimize their power in the region by the threat of completely wiping them off the map to galvanize support of their hard liners with the Iranian regime. That threat is going to be coming much much sooner since Trump pulled out of the Iran Nuclear agreement allowing them to start up their program again. Shame on Trump turning his back on the people of Israel just to score political points at home by erasing an Obama era policy and to keep Netanyahu in power by installing unnecessary fear on voters in Israel.
trump can't even get the timing of sanctions straight... at best, he blunders out upcoming unannounced sanctions; at worst, he simply lies and pence has to lie to cover for him. btw, love this line: "they're going on slowly and, in some cases, pretty rapidly"
So what are we going to do to Iran that’s worse than what’s happening already, once trump actually says what he wants to do? A naval blockade? Just what we don’t need. Further upping the tension in the region, which is on a knife edge already. If trump would consider using our diplomatic resources for renegotiating the treaty we unilaterally pulled out of that had put a decade’s delay in Iran creating nuclear weapons, that would be an idea worth using. Instead, he’s busy castrating our foreign policy establishment by driving away career State Department diplomats with deep experience in the area. The same thing he did with North Korea. He seems to think that he can “handle” a crisis like a deal selling condos in Florida’s to Russian oligarchs, or filling hotel rooms with the underlings of Saudi billionaires in Washington. And will someone tell glynch that “weak” isn’t spelled week? It’s hopeless if I were to try. He’ll accuse me of using Webster’s to start a land war in the Middle East, along with the New York Times.
The most troubling thing in all of this is that our current aministration has a demonstrated lack of capability to deal with crisis situations in a competent or credible way. Who here trusts that our stable genius misleader-in-chief is the level-headed strategist we need in a crisis?
I agree that we don't need an escalation or blockade. It all depends on the oil price. If it doesn't slip, I imagine we won't see a huge escalation. Maybe some cyber warfare. War is not profitable and would kill Trump's chances of reelection. Also Israel can wait. The US can wait. There is no hurry at all when the pressure is on the leaders in Iran who face a growing young population who want a modern country. We already know war is not going to happen since Russia will back Iran. This would be suicide. A blockade... eh... maybe but even then do we have the assets in place to do that? I don't think so without heavy losses to us and our allies. It would be a huge blunder. Now I do disagree about pulling out of the treaty. I largely don't consider it to matter, and it actually may help collapse Iran further if this is the goal. A modern Iran is good for the Iranians, good for the region, and good for us. But that's largely not their motive. They largely just want to manipulate the oil price to profitable levels IMO.
Glad you agree with that, anyway. Tell that to Bolton and Pompeo, who have trump’s ear. You seemed earlier to have the idea that Iran was benefiting from a high price for crude. They aren’t, not now. They’re exporting about 400,000 barrels a day, a fraction of what they were selling before trump stupidly imposed sanctions again, against the wishes of our allies.
Yeah I have to wonder how much effect Bolton has if we aren't at war yet. Bolton seems like he might be more bark than bite actually. The one thing I know is that Trump has met with Kissenger who is a proponent of the madman strategy. This would be inline with it.. brinksmanship of course which is kind of what Trump did with North Korea too. I largely think Trump is a madman in this case and you could argue even attempting to fake such a thing is mad in itself. Bolton and Pompeo... I'm not huge fans of tbh. I don't like war hawks and I detest war unless it is defensive or to the aid of allies. I'm also not a fan of the previous strikes Trump laid down in Syria and not a fan of his sending more troops and not pulling them home. I get criticized a lot for being too pro Trump, but there you go. I don't like war hawking and I think he isn't doing enough to bring our boys home. Period.
I don't think Bolton wants to go to war. That so many people here seem to think so, though, indicates his tactics (and Trump's, most likely) are working perfectly. If Iran thinks we might, they'll be more likely to negotiate, and in a position more favorable to us. Everyone who really believes Bolton wants us to go to war with Iran should therefore pay special thanks to Bolton for putting forward such a strong stance. Clearly an effective performance.
Weaponized enrichment of uranium isn't going to stunted by sanctions. It never has and never will. It will only force the Iranian's hand to desire weaponized enrichment because then at least they can be like NK and not fear regime chance threats because they are sitting on nukes.
