Another way to think about opposition to the Iran deal

[IU-Curmudgeon]

This is Israeli interest pushing the republican stance, IMHO.

It has been so long since the republicans, as a party, have come up with their own ideas and not had their 'idea' foisted on them by whoever put the ring through their nose.

The religious right or the Koch Bros have set the tone for the party since Reagan and look at the mess they've made of it.

In the 90s then we as a nation went too far left, for the time, today we've gone too far right.

 

[Rockfish1]

And there's no deal that wouldn't satisfy Democrats as long as a Democratic president made it.

More vacuous bullshit. Note that there are Democrats (like Chuck Schumer) who oppose the Iran deal. To my knowledge there are no Republicans who support it -- even though it's obviously better for us than the real-world alternatives.

I've explained why Republicans (in particular) oppose any deal, and not just this deal. Some of it is partisanship, but much of it is not. You deal with none of the merits and instead launch another of your typical "you're as bad as us" posts. Well, no we're not. If you engaged with the substance you'd see why.

 

[IU-Curmudgeon]

Every time I read some article about someone who went to Iran and visited it says...

...the people are not like the leaders.

I've never read or heard one person or article say differently. I believe that, until we screwed them over, Iran was one of the most progressive countries in the world.

Want to point a finger, look at the 3 pointing at us when you point it at them.

True for Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan... we have sown much that is coming back on us.

We trained the Taliban, al-Queda, likely a fair amount of ISIS leadership. We provide arms, hell when we invaded Iraq we didn't even send people to defend or blow-up the arms depots in the country...and we found them empty when we got around to them.

...and now you want to keep repeating the same thing being said about Iran for 20 years like it is new news.

sorry, you just need to shut up and go away.

 

[toastedbread]

Saudi's are not our friends, they hold us in contempt and teach their children to hate us in their schools.

Israel is headed for a rude awakening, the world is tired of it's equivocating excuses for becoming their own style of nazi on the Palestinians all these years.

http://jfjfp.com/?p=39918

Sorry, but that's simply not true. I happpen to agree with most of your posts, but equating Israel to Nazi germany puts you in the anti-semitic loon bin. There is no moral equivalence. Zero. And from the tone of your posts, I can tell you are the person who believes that Jews control the media and economy and so forth.

 

[toastedbread]

More vacuous bullshit. Note that there are Democrats (like Chuck Schumer) who oppose the Iran deal. To my knowledge there are no Republicans who support it -- even though it's obviously better for us than the real-world alternatives.

I've explained why Republicans (in particular) oppose any deal, and not just this deal. Some of it is partisanship, but much of it is not. You deal with none of the merits and instead launch another of your typical "you're as bad as us" posts. Well, no we're not. If you engaged with the substance you'd see why.

I question if Schumer's opposition is sincere or if it's merely token opposition. We don't have any choice now, but I would be absolutely shocked if the Iranians don't already have a bomb or will continue working on one underground. Also, it's not as if they can blow Israel off the face of the earth considering there are many Muslim Arabs in Israel. That's pure propaganda by the Israeli side, and used as domestic fodder by the Iranian regime.

I'm not a negotiation expert, but it seems obvious to everyone that Zariff is far more skilled than Team Kerry and Obama. Also, I would suggest that rhe continual delays in the negotiations clearly benefited Iran as they seemingly had greater gains after each delay.

 

[toastedbread]

I don't disagree on the hardliners being rich. But, how rich could they have been given sanctions combined with plummeting oil and Iran's continuous decline in production?

At the end of the day, money buys a lot. It does not buy permanence and I believe the Iranian youth would have pushed out the hardliners. They were close to doing so already.

Well the hardliners had no money before sanctions... but the sanctions caused the liberal rich businessmen to become bankrupt... the govt only employees hardliners and they picked at the scraps and started taking their cut everywhere. All industry became domestic.

The problem is that not all young people are so liberal. I don't even know if a majority are "liberals". The mullahs are everywhere. To become even a school teacher you are intensely investigated. If they discover you wore jeans while younger or have a sattelite dish you are unable to become a teacher.

 

[hoot1]

The reality is that our experts aren't so unrealistically idealistic as you seem to be. Iran's leadership isn't interested in peace, love and understanding. They're interested in dominating the Middle East region and controlling it with their radical Shia version of Islamic theocracy. They officially say they want to destroy Israel. They actively support terror groups that kill Sunni Muslims and Jews. The Iranian leadership isn't moderate under any reasonable understanding of the word "moderate."

Aloha, let us assume you are correct. I'll go a step further and say your assumption should be the basis upon how we deal with Iran. Given that Iran wants to dominate the Middle East with its Shite version of Islamic theocracy along with destroying Israel, why wouldn't we try to prevent them from having nuclear weapons as a first step in dealing with Iran's ambitions?

Furthermore, let us assume Iran cheats on the agreement and begins to develop nuclear weapons covertly. How does make them any more dangerous than if there wasn't an agreement? Iran could have been secretly redeveloping a nuke all along.

Granted the extra money available to Iran when sanctions are gradually lifted presents a problem. However, I believe the sanction regime will collapse anyway if the U.S. turns down the deal. So the reality is that a deal has been made and there is no going back.

Finally, all this talk about Iran hardliners and moderates gives the impression we actually know what is going on behind the scenes in Iran. Our intelligence has never been right on Iran, so all we can do is expect the worse and let them prove us wrong in my opinion.

 

[CO. Hoosier]

That's insanely idiotic. If you want to predict what a foreign government is going to do, recognizing that it is made up of people is going to be a necessary first step.

Now you are making yourself totally and completely irrelevant

If you are suggesting with your "human motivations" comment that all human beings have motivations you've said exactly nothing. The point is about recognizing differences and making the appropriate adjustments.

Maybe you think there is no difference between a fundamental Shia Muslim finger on the button and say, Barack Obama's, but I don't.

 

[Aloha Hoosier]

Aloha, let us assume you are correct. I'll go a step further and say your assumption should be the basis upon how we deal with Iran. Given that Iran wants to dominate the Middle East with its Shite version of Islamic theocracy along with destroying Israel, why wouldn't we try to prevent them from having nuclear weapons as a first step in dealing with Iran's ambitions?

Furthermore, let us assume Iran cheats on the agreement and begins to develop nuclear weapons covertly. How does make them any more dangerous than if there wasn't an agreement? Iran could have been secretly redeveloping a nuke all along.

Granted the extra money available to Iran when sanctions are gradually lifted presents a problem. However, I believe the sanction regime will collapse anyway if the U.S. turns down the deal. So the reality is that a deal has been made and there is no going back.

Finally, all this talk about Iran hardliners and moderates gives the impression we actually know what is going on behind the scenes in Iran. Our intelligence has never been right on Iran, so all we can do is expect the worse and let them prove us wrong in my opinion.

I think we negotiated a very poor deal, but as I said prevously, we're stuck with it now and it's better than not going ahead with it at this point. If we don't implement it the sanctions regime will collapse because Russia, China, France, etc., at all eager to do business with Iran. We'd be mostly alone in trying to enforce sanctions. I think with the deal we get at best some modest restraint on their nuclear weapons program and I can only hope that they do stick to those provisions. I don't trust them to do it and all the money that will be unfrozen will help them increase their support to terrorist groups and could assist them with accelerating their nuclear weapons program should they desire to do so. So it boills down to us negotiating a hope and change deal to implement. We hope that Iran will change and not continue their nuclear weapons program. We negotiated basically nothing else from them than that.

All this stuff is really just a bitch session anyway. The deal is going to be implemented. The deal will be disapproved by Congress, the President will veto the disapproval and Congress will fail to override the veto. The politicians will use their votes, whichever way they vote, in their reelection campaigns. The bitching at each other will continue. It's what we do, isn't it?

 

[TheOriginalHappyGoat]

Now you are making yourself totally and completely irrelevant

If you are suggesting with your "human emotions" comment that all human beings have emotions you've said exactly nothing. The point is about recognizing differences and making the appropriate adjustments.

Maybe you think there is no difference between a fundamental Shia Muslim finger on the button and say, Barack Obama's, but I don't.

Now you are proving you don't pay the slightest attention.

I didn't say anything about emotions. I don't even know what that's supposed to mean. I said that Iranian leaders are humans, and thus have complex motivations, rather than the caricatures Aloha - and apparently you - see them as.

 

[IU-Curmudgeon]

We can go about it this way or go to war.

That is the basic choice we have here.

...because we apparently think we have the right to tell a sovereign nation what to do with its resources.

 

[mjvcaj]

Well the hardliners had no money before sanctions... but the sanctions caused the liberal rich businessmen to become bankrupt... the govt only employees hardliners and they picked at the scraps and started taking their cut everywhere. All industry became domestic.

I thought Iran always controlled the oil production.

 

[Aloha Hoosier]

Now you are proving you don't pay the slightest attention.

I didn't say anything about emotions. I don't even know what that's supposed to mean. I said that Iranian leaders are humans, and thus have complex motivations, rather than the caricatures Aloha - and apparently you - see them as.

That's total BS. I don't see them as caricatures at all. I see them as they are. Saying they're humans with "complex motivations" is just happy nonsense. You can't know what their motivations are - you're not their therapist and you don't know them. We can only go by their actions and what they say. If you looked at the Iranian leadership like you look at Republlicans, you'd be running for the hills.

 

[Rockfish1]

I think we negotiated a very poor deal

By "we" you mean the US, Europe, Russia, and China, right? Presumably you recognize that concerted action was necessary to maintain the sanctions and that concerted action requires compromises within the coalition. When Iran agreed to terms acceptable to our coalition partners, our leverage within the coalition fell away.

 

[CO. Hoosier]

Now you are proving you don't pay the slightest attention.

I didn't say anything about emotions. I don't even know what that's supposed to mean. I said that Iranian leaders are humans, and thus have complex motivations, rather than the caricatures Aloha - and apparently you - see them as.

Are you just being deliberately stupid?

You are the one who claims to know what I mean despite what I write. You blew it here. I fixed the post.

 

[TheOriginalHappyGoat]

That's total BS. I don't see them as caricatures at all. I see them as they are. Saying they're humans with "complex motivations" is just happy nonsense. You can't know what their motivations are - you're not their therapist and you don't know them. We can only go by their actions and what they say. If you looked at the Iranian leadership like you look at Republlicans, you'd be running for the hills.

It's not BS. It's realism.

Your last comment is unnecessary, even with the smiley face. I'm far more scared of Iranian leadership than I am of Republicans, and you have absolutely no reason to suggest otherwise, unless you really are incapable of imagining Bad Guys as being complicated individuals, and think my argument here is somehow that the Mullahs are all just misunderstood softies or some such nonsense. It appears that is what COH assumes I think, but I'd have hoped for better from you.

 

[Rockfish1]

It's not BS. It's realism.

Your last comment is unnecessary, even with the smiley face. I'm far more scared of Iranian leadership than I am of Republicans, and you have absolutely no reason to suggest otherwise, unless you really are incapable of imagining Bad Guys as being complicated individuals, and think my argument here is somehow that the Mullahs are all just misunderstood softies or some such nonsense. It appears that is what COH assumes I think, but I'd have hoped for better from you.

Aloha and CO. think of Iran as cartoonishly evil. You disagree with them, so they assume you must think of Iran as cartoonishly good. The problem is to get people to stop thinking cartoonishly.

 

[TheOriginalHappyGoat]

Are you just being deliberately stupid?

You are the one who claims to know what I mean despite what I write. You blew it here. I fixed the post.

The only thing I blew was time trying to talk with you. It's impossible to have a conversation with you. You don't reply to me. You reply to what you imagine I must have said in your imaginary world. Hence, your absurd remark about Mullahs vs Obama. In done playing with you.

 

[NPT]

More vacuous bullshit. Note that there are Democrats (like Chuck Schumer) who oppose the Iran deal. To my knowledge there are no Republicans who support it -- even though it's obviously better for us than the real-world alternatives.

I've explained why Republicans (in particular) oppose any deal, and not just this deal. Some of it is partisanship, but much of it is not. You deal with none of the merits and instead launch another of your typical "you're as bad as us" posts. Well, no we're not. If you engaged with the substance you'd see why.

Well, about any of your post could be label : "Shorter Rockfish...Republicans suck" and you try to label all of COH as "Obama sucks"... It's really kind of humorous. Besides that you think the Democrats that oppose it are just doing for political purposes so they don't really oppose it.

 

[CO. Hoosier]

The only thing I blew was time trying to talk with you. It's impossible to have a conversation with you. You don't reply to me. You reply to what you imagine I must have said in your imaginary world. Hence, your absurd remark about Mullahs vs Obama. In done playing with you.

You are the one who

Made the "common human motivation" argument not me. Glad you now recognize how stupid you sound.

 

[hoot1]

Aloha, now this statement of yours is what I call realistic.

All this stuff is really just a bitch session anyway. The deal is going to be implemented. The deal will be disapproved by Congress, the President will veto the disapproval and Congress will fail to override the veto. The politicians will use their votes, whichever way they vote, in their reelection campaigns. The bitching at each other will continue. It's what we do, isn't it?

I don't think too many of us from either side of the aisle are going to put all our options aside, including military action, and just hope Iran will change. As I said previously, the burden is on Iran to prove to us and its neighbors that it can be trusted. Aloha, think of the TR quote about walking softly while carrying a big stick. The agreement is walking softly, but we still hold the big stick (military action). Soft power backed by a strong military.

 

[Rockfish1]

Well, about any of your post could be label : "Shorter Rockfish...Republicans suck" and you try to label all of COH as "Obama sucks"... It's really kind of humorous. Besides that you think the Democrats that oppose it are just doing for political purposes so they don't really oppose it.

Again, since you ignore substance your posts are superficial, trivial, and pointless.

 

[Rockfish1]

Besides that you think the Democrats that oppose it are just doing for political purposes so they don't really oppose it.

Where does that come from? Not from me.

 

[toastedbread]

Aloha, now this statement of yours is what I call realistic.

All this stuff is really just a bitch session anyway. The deal is going to be implemented. The deal will be disapproved by Congress, the President will veto the disapproval and Congress will fail to override the veto. The politicians will use their votes, whichever way they vote, in their reelection campaigns. The bitching at each other will continue. It's what we do, isn't it?

I don't think too many of us from either side of the aisle are going to put all our options aside, including military action, and just hope Iran will change. As I said previously, the burden is on Iran to prove to us and its neighbors that it can be trusted. Aloha, think of the TR quote about walking softly while carrying a big stick. The agreement is walking softly, but we still hold the big stick (military action). Soft power backed by a strong military.

Except everyone knows we will not do anything militarily.

 

[toastedbread]

By "we" you mean the US, Europe, Russia, and China, right? Presumably you recognize that concerted action was necessary to maintain the sanctions and that concerted action requires compromises within the coalition. When Iran agreed to terms acceptable to our coalition partners, our leverage within the coalition fell away.

You do realize Russia and China have been helping Iran skirt sanctions for quite some time? It was basically the EU and US only. The only reason Iran has agreed to this is access to SWIFT.

 

[toastedbread]

I thought Iran always controlled the oil production.

Sure, but oil does not play nearly as large a part in the Iranian economy as many think.

 

[Rockfish1]

You do realize Russia and China have been helping Iran skirt sanctions for quite some time? It was basically the EU and US only. The only reason Iran has agreed to this is access to SWIFT.

That's as maybe, but my point remains that the US has been required to act in concert with coalition partners, which means that Obama can't dictate terms to anyone -- a point that persistently eludes the critics.

 

[toastedbread]

That's as maybe, but my point remains that the US has been required to act in concert with coalition partners, which means that Obama can't dictate terms to anyone -- a point that persistently eludes the critics.

Idk. Maybe Russia was happy about the sanctions because they didn't want Iranian oil hitting the market?

And about skirting sanctions, that is a fact.

I don't think anyone really knows what was going on behind the scenes. There are a lot of "experts" and "pundits" on TV and elsewhere who simply have no idea what they are talking about wrt Iran.

 

[wiede]

And there's no deal that wouldn't satisfy Democrats as long as a Democratic president made it.

If that's true, why did Schumer come out in opposition of the deal? He's a pretty big piece of the democratic leadership, right?

There's a lot more to this deal than any of us will ever know. And I'd trust our leaders who have access to high level, classified information on what's going on "behind the scenes". Obama's legacy depends really on a few things, but two of them are certainly the ACA and this deal. He literally has his legacy riding on this. If he didn't think this was the best option (amoung many terrible ones), he wouldn't support it.

It's a matter of time before Iran has nukes, if they don't have them already. And the rest of the world was going to move on without us. We would've had even less leverage at that point.

What's even funnier to me about this whole deal is that Iran gained influence in the region after Iraq under Saddam was destabilized. Saddam was a horrible man and leader, but he did provide one helluva counterweight to Iran. Under republican leadership and later proven false pretenses, republicans pushed to oust Saddam. Thus destabilizing Iraq, and allowing Iran to gain influence in the region.

Republicans have in general been very bad at interpreting history in the region, and even worse at predicting outcomes (remember Cheney's infamous "we will be greeted as liberators" BS?). There are simply no good choices in the region, which is what the republicans are essentially rallying for to reject the deal. It's pure fantasy.

Instead, there are nothing but bad choices, worse choices- and horrible choices. It's better to go with the "best" option (like the outcomes presented in many professional examinations like the state bars for attorneys) than to go with nothing at all. Going with nothing at all inevitably leads to on sequences more towards the "horrible" end of the spectrum.

It doesn't surprise me that the republicans are engaging in this type of rhetoric. After all, their platform/litmus tests are full of impossible scenarios- like ending birthright citizenship, deporting every illegal immigrant, banning all abortions (even when forcing a woman to bear birth to her rapist's child would be hell for that woman), etc. I'm not crazy about some of the democratic policies either. It's just that I'd rather live in reality rather than fantasy, and adopt policy accordingly. Doing that leaves you in a much better place.

 

[NPT]

If that's true, why did Schumer come out in opposition of the deal? He's a pretty big piece of the democratic leadership, right?

That's easy....like all politicians he does what he thinks is the best move politically if he can do that and not go against the party. Like Rock said in a previous post Schumer is probably sure it will pass without his vote and politically he thinks it's better to be on record as voting against it so that's what he will do. Be assured however that if the Democrats needed his vote to pass the bill he would vote for it.

 

[mjvcaj]

Sure, but oil does not play nearly as large a part in the Iranian economy as many think.

It represents over 1/2 of the country's exports and a significant amount of GDP.

http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/iran/overview

Aggregate GDP and government revenues still depend to a large extent on oil revenues and are therefore intrinsically volatile.

 

[toastedbread]

It represents over 1/2 of the country's exports and a significant amount of GDP.

http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/iran/overview

Aggregate GDP and government revenues still depend to a large extent on oil revenues and are therefore intrinsically volatile.

They are far more diverse economically than Saudi Arabia who they are most often compared to.

 

[mjvcaj]

They are far more diverse economically than Saudi Arabia who they are most often compared to.

That has nothing to do with the fact that the economy is highly dependent on oil still. Saudi can also produce more cheaply than Iran.

From Factbox via Reuters:
Saudi Arabian crude is the cheapest in the world to extract
because of its location near the surface of the desert and the
size of the fields, which allow economies of scale.
The operating cost (stripping out capital expenditure) of
extracting a barrel in Saudi Arabia has been estimated to be
around $1-$2, and the total cost (including capital expenditure)
$4-$6 a barrel.

Operating and capital costs in Algeria, Iran, Libya, Oman
and Qatar were all estimated to be around $10-15 a barrel.

From London Telegraph: