or do they sponsor more terror elsewhere and launder the violence through other groups of Sharia minded groups? because that's what will happen. we'll see bombings in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.

i dont see this having a positive marked effect on the proxy wars in Yemen and elsewhere.

but take it a step further, IF they do ramp up sponsorship of terrorism elsewhere, what will be the US response? we've just set a precedent for attacks. so either we attack more or look weak for not attacking. neither good. when the horse's tail slaps at a fly the fly becomes aware that the horse know's he's there.

This post was edited by thesnipa on Jan 3 2020 12:23pm

not a fan of obama's foreign policy in general, but what was wrong with the iran deal? considering the circumstances, it was nothing short of a diplomatic masterpiece, with much larger concessions than anyone had realistically expected to get from iran. the deal put a de facto stop to their nuclear arms program, and was so profound that iran's negotiators were heavily criticised and even received death threats from the more radical forces within the country.

we shouldn't buy into the 'it wasn't perfect because we didn't get everything we theoretically could have wished for' narrative by people, who really don't give a shit about actually making a deal, who wouldn't have gotten half of what obama got because they are terrible negotiators, and who kept pushing for war rather than trying to negotiate "something better", ever since they unilaterally ripped up a deal that significantly de-escalated tensions between the countries and verifiably achieved its main goal ( https://www.iaea.org/ )...

claiming it wasn't even 'decent', and suggesting there was an easy opportunity to get something better, sounds rather ignorant of the larger context in which that deal was made.

More likely to happen in France.

specifically the deadline for nuclear weapons development was far too short. although i dont know if i would have felt comfortable signing a deal at all with a deadline in sight.

as to the last sentence, did i suggest somewhere specifically that a better deal would have been easy?

in any case, while i dont find the deal to be a good one, i also dont think dumping it was a good idea either. so there's that.

This post was edited by thesnipa on Jan 3 2020 12:37pm

No attack on America happened or did it?

I'm concerned because it would be people like me being deployed.




It's rude to talk with your mouth full.

This post was edited by Skinned on Jan 3 2020 01:00pm

So lets all take a trip back down memory lane

When Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama encouraged and gave support to the Arab Spring and even directly intervened in a few instances, deciding to roll with the Cablegate leaks instead of defending against the mobs, how did the pundits and media react? How did social media react? Was anyone screaming bloody murder about how they were risking plunging the middle east into chaos and would spark wars and conflicts and get lots of people killed and lead to attacks on the US? Was that how it was received?
and yet, that's what happened. It was a colossal shitfuck. We created power vacuums that got filled by warring factions, crushed brutally by militarist strongmen dictators or just taken over by ISIS.
and they gave Obama fawning coverage and insisted rainbows were shining out of his every orifice for it.

Hindsight is 2020. Could they have known how it would turn out? But today they've sure decided they know great biblical calamity and misfortune, cats and dogs living together, sky is falling, its all coming.

how do you factor a potential Iranian nuke into this picture?

following along with Fender's post, i can say i dont like the deal we got but still maintain a bad deal beats no deal and an Iranian nuke.

i'd also question the status of the Iranian-Saudi conflict if the US wasn't at all involved in the Middle East. and would guess that the battle of the future of Islam would still be taking place without the US taking sides.

Other ill advised interventions doesn't mean this one should be okay. I agree that the optics are vastly different but that's more due to the MSM bias.

You and I both know that the reason why they are doing all this is because we put the full weight of American hegemony economically & sanctions wise on them. Their economy is imploding and people are taking to the streets precisely because of that.

I don't know, maybe it's just me, but i honestly get annoyed by the fact that our interventionism is the norm and every country around the world is supposed to play to our tune. Maybe i'm just selfish for caring less about people in the ME and caring more about my tyx dollars staying here so my kids can be better off long term instead of being in a region that literally does nothing for me, or me neighbor, or you or pretty much 98% of Americans.

If they get nukes i agree but the Israelis are going to step in much earlier before that ever happens.

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Jan 3 2020 01:45pm

oh man, that's one of those annoying half-truths, perpetuated by hawks in order to criticise and undermine this extraordinary diplomatic achievement.
the part they didn't tell you (and that people apparently couldn't be bothered to do their own research on), is that with the deal, iran ratified the nuclear non-proliferation treaty - meaning that after the deadline, the iaea would still have supervised and controlled them.



the "wasted an opportunity" part sounded like you were suggesting that. in reality, it was a deal that got worldwide recognition for how far reaching and profound the concessions iran made were. the iaea confirmed they were holding up their end of the bargain - no matter what trump and netanyahu told you...



yea sorry, but that very much sounds like sacrificing historical context on the altar of 'centrism', simply because it doesn't matter anymore and therefore is a cheap 'concession' to make. i mean sure, looking at it exclusively from an american perspective, it definitely wasn't 'perfect' - but claiming it wasn't even "decent" is pretty dumb - at least if you care (and know) about the facts and nuances.

Are you blaming the Syrian Civil War on Obama because it was Assad's fault. The Damascus demonstrations were peaceful until the state used military force.

I love how you always try to slip in some crazy presupposition lol.

This post was edited by Skinned on Jan 3 2020 01:55pm