Terran wrote:QUOTE (Terran @ May 1 2019, 12:24 PM) people outside of the security establishment debating geopolitics like they have the complete picture, lol
It's a good reminder that we argue about this in our spare time while other people do this for a living. I'm always open to hearing what the professionals have to say. That said, I wouldn't trust them implicitly. I remember watching Colin Powell going up to the UN Security Council and saying, "we know Saddam Hussein is hiding weapons of mass destruction" and even a 23-year old dumbass sitting on his living room couch like me could tell, in real time, that there was no real proof of that and they were suffering from a severe case of confirmation bias.
QUOTE i mean, i understand why we hesitate to trust the intelligence agencies on these matters. maybe they're just out to inflate the risks so that the military-industrial complex pays them more bribes. or maybe they're all mostly honest working people with a @#(!ton more information and expertise than us. i guess we'll never know and continue debating geopolitics without actually knowing anything.[/quote]
I don't have any doubts that there many hard-working, very knowledgeable people in the civil service. I have big doubts whether those people are being listened to by folks like Trump, Bolton, Pompeo -- because as far as I can tell, the professionals generally support the JCPOA, and are considered "the deep state" because of it.
Terran wrote:QUOTE (Terran @ May 4 2019, 09:06 AM) My biggest problem with the jcpoa is that it allows Iran to keep all it's nuclear related R&D facilities and scientists. The deal is a delaying action rather than any long term solution. What this deal really was: Iran, please build your nukes, just don't build them during my presidency. Oh and here's some cash for Hizbollah.
Understandably Israel goes, the $#@! mate? Cashto's assessment aside, saying that it's better than no deal at all is wrong. Sure, they might get the nuke faster without the deal, but at least you're maintaining a pressure front and example for any other @#(!ty states that want to get a nuke. The fact that there are less than 10 states with nukes today is proof that pressure does work. (And also the occasional military strike a la Israel on Syria)
The deal basically means the difference between a rich Iran with nukes or a poor Iran with nukes. Nuclear armed Iran with lots of money for shia proxies or nuclear armed Iran hardly any money for shia proxies.
Well, it is very unlikely Iran would be able to make significant process towards enrichment while there are inspectors who can inspect literally any facility in the country. They would first have to come up with a pretense to kick us out. Even North Korea didn't do that under 10 years under the agreed framework.
I think the fact that there are less than 10 states with nukes today is proof that the majority of states either are a) depending on a friendly nuclear state to protect them from a hostile nuclear state or b) don't have the resources to pursue an independent program. Which non-nuclear state do you actually think is being indirectly deterred by American sanctions on countries like Iran and NK? I have a very hard time believing this hard-to-quantify deterrent effect on some hypothetical program outweighs the very easy-to-quantify benefit of delaying or preventing Iran, specifically, from getting nuclear weapons.
And lastly, I personally have no stake in Iran being poor. Nuclear or non-nuclear: I want them to be rich. Specifically I want the people of Iran to be rich, and free, and living in a democratic society, and many other things. I don't think we can have a foreign policy that involves never lifting the foot off the neck of our enemies ever. I don't have illusions about the benevolence of the current regime, but regimes come and go. I don't accept conflict with Iran as inevitable. It may take a generation to recover the goodwill with the people of Iran that we have lost. And a good way to start is to not sign agreements and then renege on them two years later.
After what Trump's done. who in their right mind who sign an agreement with us now? We will be feeling the aftereffects of this impulsive, irrational, and unilateral withdrawal from the Iran agreement for years to come, not just with Iran but with every country.
