Working great, yet, on the other hand what happened with Iran ... Or even internally with US ...

Obama was certainly naive in forming the Iran deal. It was the best deal that could be done at the time but it didn't have approval from the Senate. That's a recipe for disaster from a foreign policy POV because it means that WE are a source of instability. Us pulling out of the Iran deal permanently destroyed any possibility of a diplomatic deal with the regime. Iran WILL obtain a nuclear weapon if we don't act militarily.

I'd argue that we'll never have peace with North Korea because America just isn't trustworthy (Iran, Libya, the Kurds, etc.) Now, this can't be blamed solely on Trump but Trump exasperated an already delicate situation.

This is a naive view that's not really consistent with what Iran was doing. Their objective has always been to obtain nukes, i think Obama's mistake was thinking he can change that objective. So he released a bunch of money and took his foot off their throats so what happened? They were emboldened and that's why there was so much more meddling in places like Yemen, Iraq, Syria & Lebanon from them subsequently.

Point is, deal or no deal they were going for nukes, just with the deal they got a bunch of economic freedoms to grow their geopolitical clout. Once this was evident that's when the Israelis, Saudis and many other in the region started sounding the alarm bells.

Like if we look back at some of the key reasons why the deal fell apart it was because they didn't want to give in to more intrusive checks on their program. They were saying they are still abiding by the deal even with the US leaving but this is reality today:



https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/09/iran-expanding-enriched-uranium-stockpile-watchdog-200904160435365.html

So how are you going to say you're still compliant and want to pursuit the agreement with the euros but you keep enriching?

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Sep 10 2020 01:24pm

Iran has meddled in Iraq, Syria, etc. for many years. You could argue that this is just a Shia vs. Sunni divide but it's certainly more complicated than that and I can't pretend to understand the geopolitical desires of Iran.

I don't think Obama thought he could CHANGE their goal any time soon. I do think that Obama believed he could kick the can down the road and plant the seed of trust that America/EU are reliable partners. IF we upheld our end of the bargain, MAYBE 10 years from now we could come back and come up with another deal. It's certainly a gamble with but I genuinely think that this would have slowed down (not stop) Iran's nuclear ambitions. Almost all experts agreed that the deal would have succeeded in slowing down Iran's progress.

We can look at the timeline of events here:
https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Timeline-of-Nuclear-Diplomacy-With-Iran#2015

I think it's clear that Iran violated the deal, albeit in a way that's not particularly severe. How hard of a stance do you take? Do you throw the baby out with the bathwater? Do you ignore it? Do you respond with measured retaliation? I don't know what that answer should be but the Trump administration basically threw the baby out with the bathwater.

I love seeing sjw emos getting triggered in the vid.

The way i look at this comes down to whether i think they were genuine and how they behaved subsequently after the cash windfall. Do you honestly believe after 10 years they would of said : "this has been great we will acknowledge the jews rights to exist and not strive for nukes to counteract them"?

To me it was a delaying tactic all along. An advantageous one for them simply because they can make money from exporting oil to the Euros & Asia for 10 years and be on much better geopolitical footing. A prudent bad actor can pretend for 10 years as it's buffing up it's economic and military capabilities. Secondly if we look at how they behaved after the deal i think that's when we realize that there was some serious reasons for concern. Their meddling proved that no they don't just care about their economy and people but actually have regional aspirations. I think if they would of stayed out of Yemen and not get on the Israelis nerves with Hezbollah or not fund Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria then maybe the conversation and outcome would of been much different. Like yeah they had and strived for clout pre-deal but they weren't actively supporting ethnic uprisings like they did in Yemen.

It's hard to put all of the blame on them because i think how some of the Sunni states behaved is way worse but that doesn't change reality. They should have not tried cheating on the deal and they should have been more tame about starting stuff in neighboring countries.

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Sep 10 2020 02:07pm

No, I don't think they would have given us everything that we want from them in 10 years. That IS naive. I do think that a successful 10 year deal may have yielded an even better deal down the line. But it doesn't matter now because we have PROVEN to be unreliable partners. Would you ever negotiate with the US if you were in their shoes? If I were them, I'd develop a nuclear weapon as QUICKLY as possible because once you have one, the US won't do a damn thing about it. North Korea proved that.

I think it's clear that the deal was a delaying tactic because that was the goal of the deal! To prevent Iran for getting a nuclear weapon for 15+ years. It shouldn't surprise anyone that Iran wanted to be stronger militarily and economically during this time...isn't that the goal of any country? I agree that Iran wanted to push the deal to its limit, but every country does this. Meddling in places like Yemen, Lebanon, etc. were not part of the deal so why would they stop that? They absolutely DO have geopolitical aspirations. Look, Iran is NOT a good country. The often operate in bad faith. All I'm saying is that WE screwed up by ESCALATING and destroying the deal without another plan in place. WE are diplomatic failures.

On the contrary, I believe that it is actually Obama's failed foreign ME policy that set things in motion. To quote myself from the thread on the Israel-UAE peace deal:



Note that all of those long-term, geostrategic trends in the ME have already been in place when Trump got elected!





https://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=83870143&f=119&p=562400919

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Sep 10 2020 02:38pm

He deserves it

ooops...