Well, it was either that or a GAU-8/A Avenger. That's the brrrrt gun that's mounted in an A-10 Warthog.




This post was edited by Ghot on Jun 12 2018 02:47am

Is Kim going to have to negotiate his own amnesty? I mean, his family has been responsible for some truly atrocious behavior. On the other hand, he is the guy who is now negotiating denuclearization, possible peace and maybe even reunification after. Tough one.

I don't watch cable television.

In the best case scenario, Iran agreed to halt their nuclear program in return for significant concessions on sanctions and reintegration into the global economic system. The deal had sunset provisions, meaning they would lapse after a period of time, allowing Iran to resume at a time when their economy was in a far stronger state.

I say "best case", because the halt was unenforceable. IAEA inspectors had easy access only to declared sites. Undeclared sites could be accessed, but with a several week delay. Military sites were off-limits.

There's disagreement on whether or not the deal even increased Iran's short-term "break-out time", but on a longer term horizon Iran would be in exactly the same position in ~15 years, albeit presumably richer and with a stronger economy.

Iran used its new funding to significantly increase its geopolitical footprint in the region. The Gulf States and Israel felt correspondingly threatened, and have adopted more aggressive foreign policy (see: war in Yemen) as a result. These are all concerns that were called out before the deal went into place, not the least because Iran was in an untenable situation, with protests escalating and sanctions crippling their ability to spend abroad.

Contrast that with North Korea. It's doubtful that sanctions will ever have a comparable impact, as North Korea is significantly less modern than Iran, significantly more insulated, and has a much more robust police state for controlling dissidents. Even were that possible, China would not allow North Korea to collapse (both out of concern for refugees and to avoid the prospect of an American-allied united Korea on their flank).

North Korea is also not the same player that Iran is in foreign affairs. North Korea has virtually no foreign policy clout aside from what they can extort from China or threaten from South Korea, the United States, and Japan. A deal with North Korea will not have the same sort of knockdown effect on geopolitical stability, at worst the DPRK reneges on the deal and we're all left a little poorer for wear.

But by all means, continue to pretend that you knew about these issues before CNN raised them to your attention in the post-election era.



He has done terrible things, but nothing that can't be forgiven in return for ending one of the more heinous states of the modern era.

This post was edited by bogie160 on Jun 12 2018 06:54am

Kim may attempt to scapegoat the old guard. He inherited most of his regime the same way that GWB got most of GHWB's old cronies. He could, although the optics wouldn't play well on the world stage, claim he was essentially acting as a hostage to the old ways. He could claim that Juche propaganda was used on him his whole life, and that he is now realizing it's wrong. He could shut down the worst of the camps. Hide his nuclear program or even end it, it was only a deterrent all along anyways.

TBH it's nearly impossible to guess his actions without a clear set of rewards. The guy might be willing to do just about anything with certain assurances, but most of those aren't feasible. We're all trying to solve for 5+ variables right now.

Well, President Trump has done something no other US president has ever done.
Haters of this man are going to downplay this historic accomplishment and take credit away from him but the fact that he met with and signed an agreement with North Korea for denuclearization is incredible.

A wise man once told me "There is a time for politics and that should occur during elections, once elections are over, the american people have spoken and the elected official should be allowed to do what he has promised during elections".
Thats what I believe we are seeing with President Trump and I feel he is doing a great job

what does this mean?

Other presidents have made deals with the North Koreans, and their nuclear program (if you meant nuclear deals) isn't old enough for that statement to hold any water.

I don't know if I agree with this. I think the richer and stronger economy and development in the meantime would position Iran far closer to a nuke even if they abided by the limitations with no secret programs.
We only limited a very narrow range of activities for Iran, stuff like enriching uranium and building the centrifuges to enrich it.

But acquiring a credible nuclear threat requires more than just uranium. Iran needed a missile program to put their nukes on- we didn't restrict their missiles tech at all. It needed to develop the firing mechanisms and carefully manufactured detonators and lensing. Those aren't easy tasks, and they are free to pursue them in the interim. They can use both the time and money they were allotted in order to build the military and industrial infrastructure necessary to mass produce nuclear missiles, they can have their factories ready to assemble centrifuges and nuclear facilities all at the ready, all with just the enriched uranium missing. We effectively were letting them assemble the bomb and just putting a padlock on it and telling them we'll hold onto the key until 2025. And then give them back the key anyway

The best argument in favor of the Iran deal was that it bought us a delay to the inevitable, and maybe once Iran was well enough established and flourishing it would voluntarily continue to delay its nuclear breakout even if it had the means and freedom to do so because it would be willing to leverage that threat to achieve concessions for regional peace. The counterargument was that nuclearization of Iran is not inevitable in the short term and could be disrupted and bullied into submission and that the iran deal wasn't just allowing Iran to pursue the bomb unmolested, but would actually speed up its nuclear ambitions by giving them so many more resources to work with.

There's a very reasonable argument to be made that the Iran Deal as written was actually helping Iran get a nuke far sooner than the previous status quo.



I don't have anything to add to this but just want to acknowledge what an astute analysis it is, I was about to delete the block of text like normal to have a smaller reply but eh I figured I should say something

Iranian whataboutism has been really fun for like 6 months guys, but there are actual developments coming out hourly.

is that dead horse not tenderized yet? The comparison of foreign policies is valid regardless.

This post was edited by thesnipa on Jun 12 2018 07:07am

No president has ever met with a Korean leader

Ahh I see, yes he is the first of the 13 presidents since North Korea came into being to meet with them.

What reasons do you feel that the North Koreans should have been met with pre-nuclear program?