The US just assassinated...

Imaginos1892 wrote:

n7axw wrote:That they won't openly go to war with us doesn't mean they can't make it more difficult for us to protect our people and our interests in the region. Nor does it mean that they can't arrange unpleasantness at home. The question isn't whether or not the man deserved what he got. It's about if the consequences are worth it.

They are already doing everything they dare.

FFS, no. No they were not. Nobody who has even the slightest clue about this topic thinks something so ridiculous.

How far gone do you have to be to think that the justification for assassinating a leading government official of another country is "well it can't get any worse anyway" when all that was currently happening is low level provocations and minor clashes?

Way it got worse number one.... Iran just pulled out of their obligations under the nuke deal. Which they HAD been living up up to despite Trump torpedoing it from his end. So now they've green-lit uranium enrichment again.

That would be a thing they were not previously daring to do. And it's a pretty damn bad thing. And if you think it's the only consequence this is going to have you are mentally living on another planet.

In the meantime, Trump is tweeting about committing war crimes and the entire Republican party is just acting like that's normal.

Even without violations, the nuke deal was intended to allow Iran to enrich Uranium to bomb grade eventually. Iran was building up a stockpile of LEU which was reducing the time for breakout.

http://isis-online.org/isis-reports/det ... t-analysis

TFLYTSNBN wrote:Even without violations, the nuke deal was intended to allow Iran to enrich Uranium to bomb grade eventually.

No, it wasn't. There was a time limit on the deal as there generally are on all deals but for the duration of the deal it halted and even ROLLED BACK efforts to approach a viable weapons program.

And if what you really meant was that eventually the deal would expire and IF no other deal replaced it then Iran could resume nuke development in over a decade from now.... the alternative Trump just brilliantly brought about is they are looking like doing that TODAY instead. So he sped up your worst case scenario by over 10 years.

AND did so in a way that gave Iran significant diplomatic cover for doing so since as far as most of the planet is concerned Trump is the one that has been picking this fight for years after everyone went to enormous effort to put a diplomatic solution in place before he pissed all over it.

http://isis-online.org/isis-reports/detail/iaea-iran-safeguards-report-analysis

Yeah, one problem. That says they found violations of the agreement.

They did not.

They *would* have been violations of the agreement if Trump had not sabotaged the agreement, but the agreement had provisions for requiring the US to abide by it's end of the deal... Trump broke the deal.

So Iran did what the deal allowed it to do if the US violated the deal. As you can read if you go to the actual IAEA report instead of the commentary on it.

http://isis-online.org/uploads/iaea-rep ... ov2019.pdf

Page 2 Point 4 of Background wrote:On 8 May 2019, Iran issued a statement including, inter alia, that "...in implementation of it's rights set forth in paragraphs 26 and 36 of the JCPOA, the Supreme National Security Council the Islamic Republic of Iran has issued an order to stop some of Iran's measures under the JCPOA from today..."

Paragraph 26 and 36 describing commitments under the deal and what happens if someone (aka Trump) breaks those commitments and the conflict cannot be adequately resolved through defined means of mediation.

So first Trump caused them to step back from some of their compliance measures by breaking the deal, but they were still abiding by quite a few of them because they wanted to stay on the good side of all the other signatories.

And now Trump has caused them to just scrap compliance completely.

Iran has some serious advisors behind them somewhere. As if they've hired a PR company.

Firstly threatening legal action over whatshisname, and now making veiled threats against Trump properties after his threats against cultural sites.

That's seriously good thinking by somebody that just doesn't sound like normal Iranian government thinking.

But the bit I loved, was from the Pentagon. The assassination was the incredibly stupid option they offered Trump to try and guide him to the option the Pentagon wanted.
Again, more Yes Minister shenanigans, but this time failed spectacularly.

gcomeau wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote:Even without violations, the nuke deal was intended to allow Iran to enrich Uranium to bomb grade eventually.

No, it wasn't. There was a time limit on the deal as there generally are on all deals but for the duration of the deal it halted and even ROLLED BACK efforts to approach a viable weapons program.

And if what you really meant was that eventually the deal would expire and IF no other deal replaced it then Iran could resume nuke development in over a decade from now.... the alternative Trump just brilliantly brought about is they are looking like doing that TODAY instead. So he sped up your worst case scenario by over 10 years.

AND did so in a way that gave Iran significant diplomatic cover for doing so since as far as most of the planet is concerned Trump is the one that has been picking this fight for years after everyone went to enormous effort to put a diplomatic solution in place before he pissed all over it.

http://isis-online.org/isis-reports/detail/iaea-iran-safeguards-report-analysis

Yeah, one problem. That says they found violations of the agreement.

They did not.

They *would* have been violations of the agreement if Trump had not sabotaged the agreement, but the agreement had provisions for requiring the US to abide by it's end of the deal... Trump broke the deal.

So Iran did what the deal allowed it to do if the US violated the deal. As you can read if you go to the actual IAEA report instead of the commentary on it.

http://isis-online.org/uploads/iaea-rep ... ov2019.pdf

Page 2 Point 4 of Background wrote:On 8 May 2019, Iran issued a statement including, inter alia, that "...in implementation of it's rights set forth in paragraphs 26 and 36 of the JCPOA, the Supreme National Security Council the Islamic Republic of Iran has issued an order to stop some of Iran's measures under the JCPOA from today..."

Paragraph 26 and 36 describing commitments under the deal and what happens if someone (aka Trump) breaks those commitments and the conflict cannot be adequately resolved through defined means of mediation.

So first Trump caused them to step back from some of their compliance measures by breaking the deal, but they were still abiding by quite a few of them because they wanted to stay on the good side of all the other signatories.

And now Trump has caused them to just scrap compliance completely.

Iran has deverloped yet another generation of advanced centrifuges. The treaty prohibits them from building them but hasn't prohibited Iran from building a factory to mass produce them.

This is heartwarming news!

https://www.cnn.com/middleeast/live-new ... index.html

TFLYTSNBN wrote:This is heartwarming news!

https://www.cnn.com/middleeast/live-new ... index.html

And how did I know when I saw that story earlier that TFLY would fixate on it...

gcomeau wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote:This is heartwarming news!

https://www.cnn.com/middleeast/live-new ... index.html

And how did I know when I saw that story earlier that TFLY would fixate on it...

I'm not fixated, just amused.

I have fond memories of the Iranians becoming so distraught over the death of the Ayotollah Homeni that they dumped his rotting carcass in the street.

Imaginos1892 wrote:They are already doing everything they dare.

Well I for one would like to hear more from our resident expert on Iranian Affairs.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/07/politics ... index.html

Trump got his reaction. Now I'm sure we're all confident this administration had a sober and well thought out strategic response to this all carefully planned and ready to execute that *doesn't * send us down the path to the next war in the middle east.... right?

gcomeau wrote:

Imaginos1892 wrote:They are already doing everything they dare.

Well I for one would like to hear more from our resident expert on Iranian Affairs.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/07/politics ... index.html

Trump got his reaction. Now I'm sure we're all confident this administration had a sober and well thought out strategic response to this all carefully planned and ready to execute that *doesn't * send us down the path to the next war in the middle east.... right?

Well I'm confident that the Pentagon does.

Hopefully they've learned their lesson about offering Trump options.