I understand that you’re quoting Trump’s arguments as a demonstration there, not presenting your own, but I still feel the need to debunk.
So:
The deal already contains adequate provision for inspection, and the Iranians are not in violation of the deal. The claim that they are violating the terms of the deal is pure invention based upon zero evidence.
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The demand that Iran cease their support for Shia resistance groups across the Gulf is rendered somewhat problematic when it comes from the world’s leading supporter of terrorism.
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And, as always, there is the exquisite irony of (a) the only nation to ever use nukes and (b) the holder of the world’s largest unregulated nuclear arsenal joining forces to demand that their target forswear its only reliable means of securing itself against the aggression of those two nations.
He also pulled out of 2 marriages, 4 business deals (that he drove to bankruptcy), numerous contractor business deals (where he didn’t pay them), and countless other dealings and promises. What makes anyone think they could or should trust this malignancy?
So… two people twitter-quoted in a HuffPo article, neither of whom actually use the word “traitor”, and neither of whom are actually in a position of institutional power to influence or act on that declaration. Got it.
You’re going an awful long way to build this dumb false equivalence that establishment Dems would have blown up the Iran Deal somehow. The deal has broad support within the Democratic party, and sanctions would never have been brought to the floor of the Senate or signed by a Democratic president. Your sauce is weak.
The EU is the world’s largest economy - with a number of French, German and Italian companies more than willing to pick up the slack from the US retreat.
$20bn loss to Boeing? That’s a nice contract to swoop in on.
And I know that The Treasury are barking about fines - but multinationals are pretty good at hiding who owns what and where - Shell companies are all the rage.
Just to be clear, or FTR, I am not saying Trumps decision is either defensible nor positive.
I am saying the world is capable of alternative solutions for non-proliferation in Iran. I acknowledge your points that the level of difficulty is increased due to the lack of direct US support. But I disagree that there is a forgone conclusion to this issue and that the US position can’t be circumvent via other means.
To think that this statement comes from the good guy among recent American presidents.
“Iran engages in destabilizing behavior” - “support for terrorism” - “threats toward Israel and its neighbors”.
When? What? How?
Choosing to support bad-guy Assad against ISIS and other terrorists is not demonstrably a morally worse choice than supporting the other terrorists against ISIS and Assad.
Support for terrorism? When was Shiite Islamic terrorism ever a problem for the US or Europe?
Threats towards Israel? One doubtful out-of-context translation of something a previous Iranian president said. Anything else? Compare that to Netanyahu’s recent ridiculous attempt at Powellizing the Iranian nuclear programme, and the near constant threats coming from Israel and the US.
Iran has been supporting Hamas and other terrorist orgs for decades. They may not directly be attacking the west, but it is affecting them via destabilization of the region and attacking their allies. Their threats against Israel are more numerous than one out of context translation. One of the more recent one was the rocket test with a threat to Israel painted on it.
This isn’t to say Israel is completely innocent in all of this. While I am typically pro Israel, some of their actions, while I can partially understand, can’t fully defend either.
maybe it was more about messaging to the American public (who also seem to like big simple easy to understand narratives)? Either way, it’s clear that Netanyahu feels closer to this administration than the last.
I mean, this isn’t great, but in hindsight, the Gulf of Tonkin was pretty fucking foolish, and that was LBJ, who wasn’t a terrible president by many metrics.
While I’m on board with less of the white savior complex, what is worse than that is US acting as the imeperial bully here. Part of the problem with them pulling out of the deal is that they plan to punish anyone (via sanctions) that does business with Iran, too, and I fully expect that this will be aimed at our allies as well as anyone who isn’t an ally. This is not isoliationism, because we aren’t pulling our troops out and we’re not pulling back from trying to get everyone else to go along with what we want them to do. We are still expecting everyone else to comply with our wishes here. This is just as much imperialism as us being a part of this agreement was.
I think that’s because we’ve been trained to think in simplistic terms, thanks in part to all of us growing up with the mass media. We all need a huge break from the mass media, maybe some mindfulness meditation, too, as a nation. Also, we need to read more books.
The reality is that black and white thinking isn’t helpful when it comes to foreign policy. We have to get better at understanding the grays and functioning with a higher level of empathy. We’re going to just kill ourselves, otherwise.
