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According to literally everyone involved, Iran was in compliance of the Nuclear Deal's terms, and I fully support their attempt to rejoin the community of nations by continued trade with other countries and absolutely oppose Trump's attempt to spitefully damage their economy. Starving them won't make the regime weaker because economic sanctions only work if we do it in tandem with the rest of the world's powers, whereas President Pissbaby tore up a multilateral agreement signed by every major world power that was preventing Iran from getting nukes while reintegrating them into the international community. Anyone in here who supports Trump's unilateral and pointless sanctions against random loving countries is a moron. In case you've forgotten, he attacked Germany, Canada, Mexico, China, and a host of other countries with random tariffs & trade barriers based on whatever brokebrained criminal is his newest economic adviser. The only country he refuses to implement sanctions on is Russia.
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Sep 5, 2018 02:15
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There's that side of it but at the same time, Germany tried to play the nice guy and ended up having German manufactured equipment photographed in chemical weapons used in Syria. And at the same time you've got this poo poo show now with this Iranian diplomat handing out explosives to people to commit an act of terrorism on European soil, facing charges in multiple countries. And any dialogue that happens over the next couple months is going to have a backdrop of the massacres and mass displacement in Idlib that Iran will play a key role in perpetrating. The EU keeps putting skin in the game and they keep getting it torn off. At some point they're gonna have to wise up to this poo poo.
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Sep 5, 2018 02:31
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Sergg posted:According to literally everyone involved, Iran was in compliance of the Nuclear Deal's terms, To boot, Secretary Pompeo agrees and even said part of why the US should pull out ofnthe deal was because they think Iran will continue to comply even with new sanctions. Depending on one’s stance, this is a hosed up betrayal of Iran or a savvy move to ratchet up pressure to hinder Iran’s other activities. Regardless, the idea that Iran was breaking the deal isn’t a position even the US admin takes, but you’ll still see some people swear that’s the case.
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Sep 5, 2018 02:36
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Volkerball posted:There's that side of it but at the same time, Germany tried to play the nice guy and ended up having German manufactured equipment photographed in chemical weapons used in Syria. And at the same time you've got this poo poo show now with this Iranian diplomat handing out explosives to people to commit an act of terrorism on European soil, facing charges in multiple countries. And any dialogue that happens over the next couple months is going to have a backdrop of the massacres and mass displacement in Idlib that Iran will play a key role in perpetrating. The EU keeps putting skin in the game and they keep getting it torn off. At some point they're gonna have to wise up to this poo poo. I mean, funding terrorism and massacring civilians in proxy wars never slowed anyone down when it was the KSA doing it. The question Western states seem to be asking is whether Iran, as nasty as they can be, is a better regional partner than the House of Saud, and that’s rather more difficult to judge.
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Sep 5, 2018 02:37
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The middle easts strategic significance has been on a steady fall for decades. We don't have gas crises anymore. The leverage countries like Iran and KSA had in that regard has steadily dwindled as a result. Both of them are trending downwards. Nowadays, getting in bed with countries like those is a choice, not a necessity. There's no need to do anything other than limit the influence of the government and empower the people against them in either of their cases. The only argument against that is Henry Kissingers. MBS is a gently caress, and anyone who supports him is going to end up wearing a face full of poo poo in the long run, and Iran will use anything you give it to promote fascism, domestically and abroad, and they will spit in your face while they do it. Anyone who wants to play that game is going to suffer consequences for it. Consequences that often lead to failures in policies towards terrorism, which has been the chief geopolitical concern in the region for a while now. People really need to get out of the mindset of the 80's.
Volkerball fucked around with this message at 03:12 on Sep 5, 2018 |
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Sep 5, 2018 02:55
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A deal is better than a weak and isolated Iran, but a weak and isolated Iran is better than unrestrained Iranian adventurism
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Sep 5, 2018 02:57
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Cat Army 
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Some footage from Basra last night https://mobile.twitter.com/Duaa_IQ/status/1037055613128372226
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Sep 5, 2018 04:02
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I don't see anyone in here calling for heavy sanctions against Saudi Arabia despite the fact that they also fund terrorism and have been attacking their neighbors. Literally thousands of Al-Qaeda AP fighters are on the Saudi side in the Yemeni Civil War. I'm not even talking a splinter group like ISIS or JaN/HTS, but directly for Al-Qaeda's most active and deadliest branch.
Sergg fucked around with this message at 05:19 on Sep 5, 2018 |
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Sep 5, 2018 05:17
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Feldegast42 posted:Only because Mattis doesn't want to blow up the world Trump appointed mattis.
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Sep 5, 2018 05:29
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Volkerball posted:and Iran will use anything you give it to promote fascism, domestically and abroad, and they will spit in your face while they do it. While Assad is obvious, who else does this apply to? Hezbollah? Ansarullah? I dont see Iran play any rougher than the neighbors. Which of course is a pretty low bar considering Turkey, Iraq and the Saudis are all there.
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Sep 5, 2018 05:46
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so that means I can be a cheapskate and post about posting instead of having some wit or spending any more on comedy avs for people. Which I'm also incapable of. Comedy.
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Retarded Goatee posted:I dont see Iran play any rougher than the neighbors. Which of course is a pretty low bar considering Turkey, Iraq and the Saudis are all there. They're playing rough against US foreign policy interests and that is literally the only reason why they get singled out for sanctions, no matter how much they cooperate beforehand, while someone like the Saudis get to skate free no matter how many kids they starve out/bomb into oblivion in Yemen. If the US didn't currently have a chaos president at its helm, that literally throws out sanctions whenever he has a hissy fit, then Turkey would not have been sanctioned one bit either, even if it decided to do something as blatant as exactly that tweet that just got linked here in Afrin tomorrow. Fascism has always been fine with the US, so long as it works with its foreign policy interests. It's only when it doesn't that the press statements suddenly shine the light on this 'horrible, reprehensible' behavior, while not saying poo poo about the one that it actively supports. CrazyLoon fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Sep 5, 2018 |
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Sep 5, 2018 06:08
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Feldegast42 posted:Only because Mattis doesn't want to blow up the world This is what cracks me up. Mattis is as hawkish toward Iran as they come, and even HE respects the depths. Iran hawkishness lasts until someone who knows something about anything at all effects the process. Luckily for the ideology, it's confined to those the beltway and NoVA where uncalloused hands may type in its favor with vigor. reignonyourparade posted:Trump appointed mattis. Because the name he never asked for was "Mad Dog" and because Trump didn't know him very well outside of that. And now Mattis is the dove of the administration. And for reference: Mattis is a Big loving Hawk, but he's a hawk who knows what he's asking of the enlisted who Do The Dew, and he does have some integrity, as quaint as it might seem after the last fifteen years or so. Volkerball posted:The middle easts strategic significance has been on a steady fall for decades. We don't have gas crises anymore. The leverage countries like Iran and KSA had in that regard has steadily dwindled as a result. Both of them are trending downwards. Nowadays, getting in bed with countries like those is a choice, not a necessity. There's no need to do anything other than limit the influence of the government and empower the people against them in either of their cases. The only argument against that is Henry Kissingers. MBS is a gently caress, and anyone who supports him is going to end up wearing a face full of poo poo in the long run, and Iran will use anything you give it to promote fascism, domestically and abroad, and they will spit in your face while they do it. Anyone who wants to play that game is going to suffer consequences for it. Consequences that often lead to failures in policies towards terrorism, which has been the chief geopolitical concern in the region for a while now. People really need to get out of the mindset of the 80's. the value of the gulf states is not solely in oil but also in finance, which despite rampant commodity growth in the US domestically is also americans' preeocupation as well, in absolute terms of value. this is not necessarily limited to KSA--see qatar propping up the turkish lira's liquidity as a quid pro quo for previous beneficence during KSA's blockades--nor does it mean its less volatile than a simple commodity bubble. you talk about it clean and easy like its a choice, but it's not, everyone is performing actions for reasons, even if the reasons are dumb and bad. please do not make me insult you by demonstrating the ways other gulf states are enmeshed with the value of US currency.
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Sep 5, 2018 06:25
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Willie Tomg posted:please do not make me insult you by demonstrating the ways other gulf states are enmeshed with the value of US currency. Could you insult me by doing it instead? I'm curious now that you've mentioned a bit of it. 
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Sep 5, 2018 06:43
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Sergg posted:I don't see anyone in here calling for heavy sanctions against Saudi Arabia In all the years I've read this thread I'm struggling to think of a single poster who has been pro-Saudi. It's true that sanctions against Saudi Arabia don't get discussed much, but if we were to put it up for a vote is there any doubt how this thread would go? Retarded Goatee posted:While Assad is obvious, who else does this apply to? Hezbollah? Ansarullah? I dont see Iran play any rougher than the neighbors. Which of course is a pretty low bar considering Turkey, Iraq and the Saudis are all there. Aside from Assad, Hezbollah and the PMU's are the big ones. Between those three, Iran is in the drivers seat in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. In that seat, they've had proxy forces upload photos of chemical weapons deployment systems they took right before attacks, operate the largest concentration camps of the 21st century, and spark two massive civil wars that have threatened to destabilize the whole middle east, just in the last 7 years. That's to say nothing about things like the AMIA bombing and this recent plot on the MEK rally, showing that they continue to be directly involved in terrorist plots around the world. You can what about all you want, but none of that changes the fact that on its own merit, empowering the force behind that is a horrible idea with very predictable results. Willie Tomg posted:the value of the gulf states is not solely in oil but also in finance, which despite rampant commodity growth in the US domestically is also americans' preeocupation as well, in absolute terms of value. this is not necessarily limited to KSA--see qatar propping up the turkish lira's liquidity as a quid pro quo for previous beneficence during KSA's blockades--nor does it mean its less volatile than a simple commodity bubble. you talk about it clean and easy like its a choice, but it's not, everyone is performing actions for reasons, even if the reasons are dumb and bad. please do not make me insult you by demonstrating the ways other gulf states are enmeshed with the value of US currency. Sure, but you could make the same argument about South Africa when US sanctions went into effect against it. You could make it about Iran. Don't overinflate the importance of the financial side of things, especially when you have the entire recorded history of middle eastern terrorism to weigh against it. National security is a thing.
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Sep 5, 2018 06:49
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GreyjoyBastard posted:Could you insult me by doing it instead? I'm curious now that you've mentioned a bit of it. Okay quote:He explained to me that Standard Oil sold its oil at a very low price from the Near East to Liberia or Panama or Lagos, or wherever they have a flag of convenience and no income tax. Then they would sell it at a very high price to its refineries in Europe and America, at such a high price that these “downstream” affiliates don’t make any income. So there’s no tax to pay. For all US oil investment in Europe, there’s no tax to pay because the oil companies’ accountants price it so high, and pay so little per barrel to third world countries such as Saudi Arabia, that they only get a royalty. Standard Oil and other U.S. oil companies – and also mining companies – don’t earn an income there, because they sell it so low, all the profits are reported to be taken in Liberia or Panama. These are non-countries. Of course, things are different these days. For starters: Saudis can buy a shitload of stake in American enterprise and also real estate. Which has been most of where the USA's economic growth has been in the last 20 years.
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Sep 5, 2018 06:52
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Volkerball posted:Sure, but you could make the same argument about South Africa when US sanctions went into effect against it. You could make it about Iran. Don't overinflate the importance of the financial side of things, especially when you have the entire recorded history of middle eastern terrorism to weigh against it. National security is a thing. When Iranian terrorism becomes endemic I'll take it as gravely as you'd like. As it stands the ones doing the dirt are getting a pass. If they're "merely" financing proxies and Coalition-financed and supplied proxies keep getting owned, then them's the breaks. Personally I'd rather we didn't do any of that poo poo. At least we'd have a moral basis upon which to judge. I suspect much of the reason you don't hear more about this in public is the incredibly, insanely obvious truth of that sentiment outside of this thread in particular.
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Sep 5, 2018 07:09
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Willie Tomg posted:Because the name he never asked for was "Mad Dog" and because Trump didn't know him very well outside of that. And now Mattis is the dove of the administration. And for reference: Mattis is a Big loving Hawk, but he's a hawk who knows what he's asking of the enlisted who Do The Dew, and he does have some integrity, as quaint as it might seem after the last fifteen years or so. Yeah but if we're going to go full what WOULD trump do if literally everything was happening how he wanted, it's only fair to do the same for bush, and i think bush would once again beat trump there on awful.
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Sep 5, 2018 07:18
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How many tens of thousands of Syrians need to be tortured to death before Iranian proxies stop just owning the Americans and start to full on dabble in dirt? Is there a specific number or how does this work
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Sep 5, 2018 07:23
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Volkerball posted:Aside from Assad, Hezbollah and the PMU's are the big ones. Between those three, Iran is in the drivers seat in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. In that seat, they've had proxy forces upload photos of chemical weapons deployment systems they took right before attacks, operate the largest concentration camps of the 21st century, and spark two massive civil wars that have threatened to destabilize the whole middle east, just in the last 7 years. That's to say nothing about things like the AMIA bombing and this recent plot on the MEK rally, showing that they continue to be directly involved in terrorist plots around the world. You can what about all you want, but none of that changes the fact that on its own merit, empowering the force behind that is a horrible idea with very predictable results. NATO member Turkey has been running a 40 year ethnic cleansing of its second-class citizens. Saudi is domestically just as oppressive, intervened in Bahrain and Yemen. Israel literally is writing apartheid laws in 2018. I am not trying to excuse any vile deeds, but as long as imperial stooges get away scoff-free, there literally is no incentive to improve either. You just tie yourself up with restricitions nobody else abides by.
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Sep 5, 2018 07:28
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Volkerball posted:How many tens of thousands of Syrians need to be tortured to death before Iranian proxies stop just owning the Americans and start to full on dabble in dirt? Is there a specific number or how does this work How many Rohingya in Myanmar? How many Banyamulenge in the Congo? How many Uyghur in China? How many latinos and black people in the USA? There's no limit to how dumb this conversation can get when you ignore the externalities of why we haven't already murdered everyone who crosses the UNHRC, and default to pointless maudlin breast-tearing from afar.
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Sep 5, 2018 07:35
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A Typical Goon posted:Care to actually post these reports/accounts? They're all from Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch Reports.
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Sep 5, 2018 07:39
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Retarded Goatee posted:NATO member Turkey has been running a 40 year ethnic cleansing of its second-class citizens. Saudi is domestically just as oppressive, intervened in Bahrain and Yemen. Israel literally is writing apartheid laws in 2018. I'm aware of all of that but again it doesn't change the fact that all that combined pales in comparison to Syria, and that empowering Iran to continue its destabilizing activities is dumb on its own merit, is it not? It's not like it's a scale where giving Iran more freedom to act with impunity makes the world a better place because the awful poo poo they do counterbalances the awful poo poo other countries friendly to the US have done. Willie Tomg posted:How many Rohingya in Myanmar? How many Banyamulenge in the Congo? How many Uyghur in China? How many latinos and black people in the USA? There's no limit to how dumb this conversation can get when you ignore the externalities of why we haven't already murdered everyone who crosses the UNHRC, and default to pointless maudlin breast-tearing from afar. I don't hear anyone arguing that we should be making deals with Myanmar and working to integrate them further into the global community like it would be a loving good deed so I have no idea where you were trying to go with this.
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Sep 5, 2018 07:50
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Volkerball posted:I don't hear anyone arguing that we should be making deals with Myanmar and working to integrate them further into the global community like it would be a loving good deed so I have no idea where you were trying to go with this. Myanmar is not subject to the same sanction and you know that, and you're proposing quotas of people who get killed before Persian Bloodlust becomes so insatiable that only acts of international terrorism against civilians can slake it further. You're losing the plot of your own narrative. You are talking like an insane man.
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Sep 5, 2018 08:04
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GreyjoyBastard posted:finger on monkey's paw curls, it's run by Barzani and friends as a Turkish vassal state That's the best laugh I've gotten out of this thread since learning Ahmadinejad personally runs an English language twitter about social justice in America.
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Sep 5, 2018 08:13
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The Iron Rose posted:Let's hope they do. Limiting Iran's ability to project power and finance terrorism internationally is only a success for America and ultimately the Iranian people. Cat Mattress posted:On the list of countries who, for the good of mankind, should see their ability to project power and finance international terrorism drastically limited, Iran would be far, far behind Saudi Arabia, and behind the USA too. Ya. Iran's cool and I hope that Iranians don't suffer under economic strangulation imposed by the US. Let's see what happens, but America seems to be running into the same problems the French did when trying to impose their continental blockade against the brits, it's really hard to pull off when your allies actually need trade with the blockadee: https://thewire.in/diplomacy/indo-us-22-dialogue-issues-on-the-table quote:During the 2+2 meeting, India will “sensitise” senior US officials that it is a heavily import-reliant country, with 83% of its energy requirements bought from foreign sources. Oil from Iran accounts for about a quarter of India’s crude imports.
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Sep 5, 2018 18:28
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https://mobile.twitter.com/PhilipRucker/status/1037000761220194304 https://mobile.twitter.com/samueloakford/status/1037080019972120578 Looks like lefties and the deep state are in agreement that regime preservation in Syria is the way to go.
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Sep 5, 2018 23:26
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Volkerball posted:
I mean... at this point there aren’t really any other reality-based options are there? I hate Haley but I don’t know what else a rational person could say in her situation either. "Don’t go in or we’ll bomb you" sounds dumb even if it was politically practical, which it isn’t.
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Sep 5, 2018 23:31
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look on the bright side, volkerball, trump might fire him for his intransigence soon, and unleash the cleansing tide of blood and fire on the insufficiently Saudi-aligned of the Middle East. even odds on if he'll be shouting FIFTH TIMES THE CHARM while he does it. and I'll bet you mattis' replacement will even step up the attack on those goddamned Yemenis you're so terrified of
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Sep 5, 2018 23:40
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Volkerball posted:https://mobile.twitter.com/PhilipRucker/status/1037000761220194304 https://twitter.com/timkmak/status/1037003667721859072
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Sep 6, 2018 01:11
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Assassinating Assad would just put his extremely angry and volatile younger brother in charge, which I'm certain would have lead to much worse Syrian casualties down the line. However Maher might have started committing atrocities so extreme that even Russia would have been forced to accept that removing the Assad regime was necessary.
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Sep 6, 2018 01:27
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qkkl posted:Assassinating Assad would just put his extremely angry and volatile younger brother in charge, which I'm certain would have lead to much worse Syrian casualties down the line. However Maher might have started committing atrocities so extreme that even Russia would have been forced to accept that removing the Assad regime was necessary. that's a lot of ifs, on top of pile-the-bodies-higher accelerationism
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Sep 6, 2018 01:38
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Waiting until after the brutal dictator wins the war to kill him is just an unbelievably stupid thing to do. Yeah, Assad was a loving rear end in a top hat/monster/idiot for getting cocky and using chemical weapons again at that late date, but he was cocky in part because Trump openly acknowledged that his regime wasn't going anywhere just a day or two before that. Yeah, foreign policy should adapt to conditions on the ground, but careening wildly between accepting the outcome of a war and reigniting it to reverse the outcome is crazy. It's not like Trump had a secret US-friendly rebel group he'd been hiding in his MAGA hat this whole time, or like Russia was going to be convinced by Trump's brilliant oration that Assad is in fact a monster and they were just going to walk away after years of effort supporting his rule.
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Sep 6, 2018 01:40
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I appreciate that Tim talks to Syrian Americans so that you don't have to, but he should avoid making such sweeping generalizations about massive groups of people. It's no secret that every US strike following chemical weapons attacks in Syria have been applauded by a large contingent of activists, and a lot of the criticism against them has been that they didn't go far enough. Even ISRAELI strikes have gotten such receptions. To look back on this in a general sense, where you have Trump pushing for a harsher response, and the foreign policy establishment resisting, and frame it is though this is in accordance with the wishes of Syrians, is flat out disinformation.
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Sep 6, 2018 01:47
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Volkerball posted:I appreciate that Tim talks to Syrian Americans so that you don't have to lmao, never change.
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Sep 6, 2018 01:56
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qkkl posted:Assassinating Assad would just put his extremely angry and volatile younger brother in charge If the USA can assassinate Assad, it can also assassinate his younger brother.
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Sep 6, 2018 05:18
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enraged_camel posted:If the USA can assassinate Assad, it can also assassinate his younger brother. ah, memories. remember back when we took out Al Queda's Number Two Guy on a monthly basis
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Sep 6, 2018 05:32
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enraged_camel posted:If the USA can assassinate Assad, it can also assassinate his younger brother. I lust for a death spiral of deposed despots that will eventually yield my true goal: an IRL Mad Max zone.
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Sep 6, 2018 06:59
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Volkerball posted:Even ISRAELI strikes have gotten such receptions. Speaking of Israeli strikes...  That's... that's a lot of strikes. 
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Sep 6, 2018 07:17
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Here's some confirmation of something we basically already knew: https://twitter.com/RobbieGramer/status/1037688623318089728 As the article points out, Israeli support for rebel groups still pales in comparison to that provided by other regional powers, so this isn't a shocking revelation or anything. I just thought it was an interesting footnote. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 17:08 on Sep 6, 2018 |
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Sep 6, 2018 17:06
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A question to this thread: Have any of you even heard of the "Global Network for Rights and Development" (GNRD)? There's a big corruption case going on in Norawy right now, and that's the only thing I've ever heard of the organization: https://www.nrk.no/norge/nrk-reveals_-norwegian-foreign-aid-executive-received-support-from-palestinian-intelligence-1.14192543 (the article is in english)
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