You guys are all comparing a diplomatic fuckup of historical proportion with war.
This isn’t about war. Not yet. It is about contracts, about the situation of the United Nations, and about diplomacy in general.
War is the end of diplomacy. And diplomacy is, often, the end of war.
The reason why I argue this is the worst decision of any US president is that by breaking this contract this administration undermines all multilateral diplomacy.
Ending any war, preventing any war, any de-escalation, de-nuclearisation, de-militarisation will get massively more difficult from now on.
Fuck this shit.
This is worse than Tonkin, in my opinion.
Sure, but what if this leads to a war? That’s the thing, war is diplomacy by other means. They’re all related, I’d argue.
Thing is, we don’t know yet. We didn’t know what a disaster Tonkin was going to be until years later. The vietnam war was a major disaster to the Vietnamese, of course, but also to an entire generation of young men who fought in that war and then were promptly blamed for fighting in it. It’s hard to remember what a disaster vietnam was for generations that didn’t live through it (thought Gen X most certainly was deeply impacted by what many of their parents went through - I’d suspect that over and above changing social mores around marriage, that the Vietnam war contributed to the break up of numerous marriages in the 70s and 80s, which did have a major effect on Gen X).
I think that’s true, but that’s likely what this administration really wants, to solve more problems with wars instead of diplomacy. They see what a big hammer we have, and see that it’s the quickest solution (in their minds, ignoring the reality of war itself). Diplomacy is messy, hard work, and people rarely get exactly what they want out of it. Administrations like this want to have quick fixes for everything, and they have the luxury of seeing war as a quick fix, because they themselves do not bear the brunt of the consequences - neither does the majority of the American public, frankly.
Yes the EU has the largest GDP, (not that the Eurozone is without problems - Italy has the 3rd largest bond market and yet is 23rd in population which is on average 41 years and is not terribly welcoming to immigrants to enlarge the workforce. In twenty years there will not be enough to cover those bonds, with more people collecting pensions.
However in the past (under Clinton) when the US threatened sanctions on companies doing business with Iran the EU passed a law blocking it and neither Clinton nor Bush was willing to press the issue with the EU.
They didn’t make a mistake; ending the Iran deal was a goal that they have been deliberately pushing towards for some time. Mission accomplished.
This was only a mistake if you assume that they are trying to avoid war. They aren’t; they are attempting to create war. Destroying the existing Iranian state is their goal, and they have not been at all coy about that.
Ok, but I believe Trump and Bolton have different reasons for this. Bolton/Pompeo probably want war; Trump just wants to destroy Obama’s legacy. Trump isn’t smart enough to understand the consequences. It’s likely Trump hired Bolton and Pompeo because he wanted support for ending the deal. He is clever enough to realize that if it all goes sour, he can blame them, like he blames the Democrats for ending DACA.
Seoul is a city of 25 million people (half the country or so), less than 30 miles from the border. Why does it matter who can win a conventional war, when the enemy can wipe out half the population in the initial exchange if it so chooses?
Turning away the St. Louis in 1939 was also pretty terrible.
OTOH, Trump has been marinading in Fox/Breitbart anti-Iranian propaganda for years, and has a publicly-declared fondness for the idea of looting oil-rich nations. He’s an overtly aggressive militarist and imperialist. I don’t see it as unlikely for Trump to be motivated by both anti-Obama animus and imperial greed.
Either way, it doesn’t make that much difference to the Iranians. The underlying motivations don’t change the effects of the bombs.
You guys are still underestimating the impact this might have.
Forget about what they want for the near future, forget about those singular incidents of the past.
Think bigger than just the next few wars. To illustrate: I woke up with the news of retaliation strikes in Syria, and this doesn’t even bother me. This is just background noise.
The problem created by breaking a international framework backed by three superpowers in unison is disregard for institutions. For international law.
Don’t think single wars, don’t think single ships
Think pre-westphalian. We are going back to way before 15. May of 1648 if multilateral agreements are dead.
Just an interesting note, in High School we did a thing were we were supposed to pick and track 5 stocks for like a month. And since the 1st Gulf War was on, and I loved air planes, I picked a couple defense stocks (I think Lockheed was one of them). Anyway, they didn’t do shit. Barely moved up or down. But there may have been a bump when the war was first announced, I dunno.
I’ll let history prove me wrong gladly. But I, OTH, think you underestimate this.
Even superpowers usually go through lengths to make sure it appears like they are not violating international law. And usually, the roles are clear.
But since the second Iraq war, the value of international law is deteriorating. I think this, now, is a new quality of dumbfuckery. Note down my words: I am concerned May 8th will be remembered as an important turning point.
I’ve been following this news for days and none of the stories explain what the deal actually entails or what pulling out of it means. I find it really frustrating. We live in an age where I can easily do my own research, which is nice, but I find it really crazy that the public discussion of this issue seems to be completely devoid of any what this means (not what pundits think will happen next, but literally what the words “pulls out of Iran nuclear deal” mean).
ETA: To be clear, this is less about BoingBoing and more about mainstream media stories, including those in Canada even though Canada wasn’t a part of the deal. Please inform people, newspapers, please.
I saw that kind of analysis, where people try to explain what kinds of outcomes we might expect. I meant a much more basic: What is the deal and what does it mean when we say “pull out of it.”
As others have pointed out in this thread, “pull out” is kind a misleading way of putting it. “Violate” would have more explanatory power, or, if you wanted to be more neutral, you could say they are imposing sanctions despite the terms of the deal.
