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Al-Saqr posted:The problem is, donald trump got elected when most of the Iran deals benefits would take place. And also, the American deep state will never allow the fulfillment of those deals because they list for Iran’s blood, now with trump in the White House apparently America’s commitment to treaties it signs is now dubious. well, "now." we're not exactly known worldwide as a good faith actor to begin with, it's just thrown into significantly sharper relief by poo poo like this
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Jan 2, 2018 03:34
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Al-Saqr posted:Can’t wait to see what happens in Afghanistan if this guy gets his way:- He's... Not wrong? Like ignoring the money bit that's a 100% accurate statement
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Jan 2, 2018 04:35
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The Iron Rose posted:He's... Not wrong? Nah. They do provide meaningful support sometimes, mixed in with the lies and sandbagging. They aren't willing to help enough to get the job done, and do engage in harmful activities (theoretically it's rogue agencies, but no agency is rogue enough to do this poo poo for almost two decades), but it's still arguably the case that things would be even worse without any pretense of them being on board. Trump's already picking one fight with a nuclear state, so picking right now to essentially call another a state sponsor of terrorism seems like bad timing at best. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 04:44 on Jan 2, 2018 |
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Jan 2, 2018 04:42
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Sinteres posted:Nah. They do provide meaningful support sometimes, mixed in with the lies and sandbagging. They aren't willing to help enough to get the job done, and do engage in harmful activities (theoretically it's rogue agencies, but no agency is rogue enough to do this poo poo for almost two decades), but it's still arguably the case that things would be even worse without any pretense of them being on board. Trump's already picking one fight with a nuclear state, so picking right now to essentially call another a state sponsor of terrorism seems like bad timing at best. Oh 100%. I should have clarified that Trump, like always, is making things significantly worse and pissing off the second most unstable nuclear state in the world. Pakistan, of course, still provides us with support that we could ill do without; they're an essential partner for the US for the Afghanistan war. But it's undeniably true that they regularly lie to us and provide support to the Afghani Taliban. I doubt I need to even mention Bin Laden either.
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Jan 2, 2018 05:28
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The Iron Rose posted:Oh 100%. I should have clarified that Trump, like always, is making things significantly worse and pissing off the second most unstable nuclear state in the world. Trump never does a single thing on the international stage who's goal is not "throw red meat to my base." Dumping on Pakistan, antagonizing Iran, writing blank checks to Saudi Arabia, moving the embassy to Jerusalem, saber rattling with North Korea, the Paris Accord, making threats to the UN and then framing already-negotiated contribution reductions as backing those threats up, trying to throw NAFTA in the trash, constantly slap-slap-kissing with China, it's all about absolutely nothing but making his zombies froth at the mouth by 1) appearing to be a bullying strongman or 2) creating some appearance of undoing something Obama did, even in cases where he's literally changing nothing from what Obama did. He doesn't care about any actual consequences to anything he says or does. He might not even believe such consequences exist.
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Jan 2, 2018 07:46
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The Taliban is essential to the military regime of Pakistan domestically as well. Remember who they used to kill Benazir Butto?
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Jan 2, 2018 09:11
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Sanguinia posted:He doesn't care about any actual consequences to anything he says or does. He might not even believe such consequences exist. He probably doesn’t care. Some people are so thoroughly self obsessed, literally nothing outside their immediate horizon matters.
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Jan 2, 2018 09:12
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This was less than three months ago, and shows yet again why conducting top level diplomacy via twitter is insane. He has no understanding at all of the position he's in, and the long term damage he's doing to American credibility. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/919003314674634752
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Jan 2, 2018 15:49
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very interesting and informative thread on Iran protests: https://twitter.com/alihashem_tv/status/947974851129683969
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Jan 2, 2018 16:25
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mediadave posted:very interesting and informative thread on Iran protests: Is it true that Rouhani is being considered for Supreme Leader?
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Jan 2, 2018 16:36
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Al-Saqr posted:The problem is, donald trump got elected when most of the Iran deals benefits would take place. And also, the American deep state will never allow the fulfillment of those deals because they list for Iran’s blood, now with trump in the White House apparently America’s commitment to treaties it signs is now dubious. 1) The independence and influence of the American "deep state" may be a bit weaker than those you are personally familiar with. 2) Lust for Iranian blood as such is more of a thing for the shallow state, quite frankly. 3) The US has always been a somewhat iffy negotiating partner due to being a two-party democracy, this does admittedly go quadruple regarding Iran and North Korea. Trump is just unusually bad.
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Jan 2, 2018 16:46
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Count Roland posted:Is it true that Rouhani is being considered for Supreme Leader? Ridiculous imo. Haven't seen anyone else suggesting such a thing.
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Jan 2, 2018 16:50
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The reformist president before Ahmadinejad. https://twitter.com/SGhasseminejad/status/948218091078430720 Tone of the tweet might be hyped up a bit, but reformists definitely aren't coming out in favor of the protesters. Rouhani's statement had similar themes. Volkerball fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Jan 2, 2018 |
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Jan 2, 2018 16:56
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word is a good portion of the protesters were ahmadinejads base during the election and his presidency, but it's nothing i can confirm one way or the other. e: which kind of makes sense, they've clearly not done well under rouhanis economic policies, what with unemployment still rising, too spaceships fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Jan 2, 2018 |
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Jan 2, 2018 17:22
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Definitely, but it doesn't account for all of them. In general this seems to be coming from the heartland of rural Iran where Ahmadinejad was polling highly before he was DQ'd from the election, but there are cities where he doesn't have support wrapped up in this as well. Ahmadinejad has been using particularly aggressive rhetoric lately, which might've played a role in inspiring people to rise up. I'd bet making concessions to the reformists isn't going to satisfy these people.
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Jan 2, 2018 17:28
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https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/948214827402629121
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Jan 2, 2018 18:05
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https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/01/pakistan-war-words-donald-trump-tweet-180102055709366.htmlquote:In response, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Pakistan's prime minister, called a meeting of the National Security Committee (NSC), comprising the army chief, naval and air heads, intelligence chiefs and other ministers, on Tuesday to discuss the future course of action. quote:The NRC's response came after Khawaja Asif, Pakistan's foreign minister, said Trump was trying to blame Pakistan for the US' failure to win the war in Afghanistan. Pakistan is pissed. Also lol at being a US ambassador and having to explain/apologize for tweets from the president. OhFunny fucked around with this message at 18:16 on Jan 2, 2018 |
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Jan 2, 2018 18:12
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If there's anyone who understands the downside of creating protest martyrs, it should be the leaders of Iran. I expect there will be a successful crackdown, and protesters will die, but that they'll take more efforts to avoid mass death than some of the worst case scenarios people are expecting--this isn't Syria, where the government can paint the opposition as posing a genocidal threat to a core constituency if they come to power. IRGC on the ground may see things differently though, who knows.
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Jan 2, 2018 18:14
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GreyjoyBastard posted:1) The independence and influence of the American "deep state" may be a bit weaker than those you are personally familiar with. Yeah, I'd say it's more of a neocon thing. The sorts of people who are now the  serious people in the Trump administration (i.e. Mattis).
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Jan 2, 2018 18:18
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It seems different people are protesting different things, even if "the economy isn't good" is a shared sentiment.
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Jan 2, 2018 18:19
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OhFunny posted:Pakistan is pissed. And the ambassador probably has to wing this whole thing from start finish because the Trump administration has made sure that his chain of command and support structures are either absent or crippled. He should have had a year of practice though, so maybe he'll manage.
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Jan 2, 2018 18:24
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I don't know, I definitely see the hardliners shoring up the reformists in their ranks. They're trying to paint the protests in a negative light, by undermining the scale of the protests, and trying to situate the protests within the regimes internal dialogue when the protests very clearly went "death to rouhani, death to khamenei," right out of the gate. There's also a lot going around with the intent of scaring reformists away from the protesters. I think they might get the reformists on board for a crackdown, perhaps even your generic reformist supporter living in Tehran. That said, the regime is obviously not going to attempt a crackdown unless it becomes completely clear they can't co-opt the protests, and the protests aren't stopping. Unless both of those things become true then this isn't going to necessitate a real response.
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Jan 2, 2018 18:28
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Sinteres posted:If there's anyone who understands the downside of creating protest martyrs, it should be the leaders of Iran. I expect there will be a successful crackdown, and protesters will die, but that they'll take more efforts to avoid mass death than some of the worst case scenarios people are expecting--this isn't Syria, where the government can paint the opposition as posing a genocidal threat to a core constituency if they come to power. IRGC on the ground may see things differently though, who knows. A common trope of the Syrian civil war is Iranian IRGC officers (allegedly) being shocked and disappointed at the stupid thuggishness of the Syrian regime forces. We'll see how they operate in their own country though, if it ever comes to that (I doubt it will).
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Jan 2, 2018 18:40
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Volkerball posted:The reformist president before Ahmadinejad. If Khatami did say that, give us a credible source. Cugel the Clever fucked around with this message at 19:11 on Jan 2, 2018 |
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Jan 2, 2018 19:04
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Cool that the generic Iran map only has pipelines on it, not even cities.
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Jan 2, 2018 19:10
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Cugel the Clever posted:Please stop passing off neo-conservative propagandists financed by Iran's arch-rivals as credible news sources. The people struggling against hardliners in their regime don't deserve to be pawns in Saudi Arabia and Israel's multi-million dollar bullshit campaign. There's enough confusion about events on the ground as it is, so let's avoid the astroturf, shall we? Ghasseminejad and Amir Toumaj have solid records long before this. Dubowitz, Ceren, and Doran are the ones out spreading the FDD/MEK line. If you expect fully non-partisan translations of Farsi news, good luck. Only other people reporting it is the Zarif crew. https://twitter.com/thekarami/status/948250912413253632
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Jan 2, 2018 19:16
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just got off the phone with my pops in iran, he's rather hopeful about all of this going forward. he believes the current and older generations of mullahs are a lost cause but he sees a new, younger generation that are more than willing to engage with reforms and more secular rule of law. regardless of how westerners understand secularism, iran is still a religious country, and even those who call for secular reforms are proud shi'ites. he's making a distinction between protesters calling for economic reforms and are unhappy with rouhani and the government, who have been largely peaceful through this whole thing, and the protesters who are breaking poo poo, most of whom, he assumes, are the same people who were violent during-before-and after ahmadinejads reign, there are some red threads there, he says. he also talked about outside provocateurs, but i'm not sure how i'm gonna weigh that just yet. unless the IRGC gets involved, he's optimistic. if they do get involved, he's pretty sure it'll end in a bloodbath e: i asked him if he was out throwing bricks too and he said "no, the revolutionary guard beat the poo poo out of me in '79 and i'm too old for such a beating now." spaceships fucked around with this message at 19:38 on Jan 2, 2018 |
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Jan 2, 2018 19:34
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spaceships posted:just got off the phone with my pops in iran, he's rather hopeful about all of this going forward. he believes the current and older generations of mullahs are a lost cause but he sees a new, younger generation that are more than willing to engage with reforms and more secular rule of law. regardless of how westerners understand secularism, iran is still a religious country, and even those who call for secular reforms are proud shi'ites. Your dad sounds like a grade A jerk.
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Jan 2, 2018 20:10
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TildeATH posted:Your dad sounds like a grade A jerk. ???
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Jan 2, 2018 20:12
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TildeATH posted:Your dad sounds like a grade A jerk. Anarchist grade cool? idgi
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Jan 2, 2018 20:14
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Sinteres posted:If there's anyone who understands the downside of creating protest martyrs, it should be the leaders of Iran. I expect there will be a successful crackdown, and protesters will die, but that they'll take more efforts to avoid mass death than some of the worst case scenarios people are expecting--this isn't Syria, where the government can paint the opposition as posing a genocidal threat to a core constituency if they come to power. IRGC on the ground may see things differently though, who knows. It probably should be mentioned that according to at least wikipedia (but I have seen the information elsewhere), most of the deaths at this far (15-16) have been clashes at police stations with security covers. Of course, that could be a cover story, but in that case, no one really knows what is happening. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017%E2%80%9318_Iranian_protests A crackdown is very much still obviously possible Ardennes fucked around with this message at 20:31 on Jan 2, 2018 |
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Jan 2, 2018 20:22
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spaceships posted:just got off the phone with my pops in iran, he's rather hopeful about all of this going forward. he believes the current and older generations of mullahs are a lost cause but he sees a new, younger generation that are more than willing to engage with reforms and more secular rule of law. regardless of how westerners understand secularism, iran is still a religious country, and even those who call for secular reforms are proud shi'ites. People like your father give me hope for our future.
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Jan 2, 2018 20:39
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I thought I read the IRGC had already been brought out?
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Jan 2, 2018 20:43
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Count Roland posted:I thought I read the IRGC had already been brought out? https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-demonstrations-deaths-fifth-day/28949535.html According to the Radio Free Europe, the IRGC has been restrained, but these has been at least one clash between protestors and the Basij (where a member got his pants stolen). Ardennes fucked around with this message at 20:55 on Jan 2, 2018 |
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Jan 2, 2018 20:53
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Count Roland posted:I thought I read the IRGC had already been brought out? not in any significant capacity. if they were, you'd have more than the two dozen or so reported deaths.
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Jan 2, 2018 20:53
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This is going to be a shitshow. https://twitter.com/DefenseBaron/status/948279974288678919
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Jan 2, 2018 21:02
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Sinteres posted:This is going to be a shitshow. Aren't the saudis really not going to like this?
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Jan 2, 2018 21:04
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Thanks for that post, spaceships, it was interesting. https://twitter.com/borzou/status/948282906295881729 He seems confident.
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Jan 2, 2018 21:04
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I went for loving coffee and now we're threatening Pakistan. 2018 shaping up nicely so far.
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Jan 2, 2018 21:05
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Bip Roberts posted:Aren't the saudis really not going to like this? Maybe not, but Pakistan has increasingly been pulling into China's orbit (more than it did).
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Jan 2, 2018 21:05
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