[quote]Bismark wrote:
[quote]Cortes wrote:
[quote]Bismark wrote:
Have you actually read the 159 pages of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)? Or are you basing your views solely on the views of others?
- CruzÃ???Ã???Ã??Ã?¢??s figure doesn’t take into account the tens of billions of dollars Iran owes to China and others in outstanding debts. Those will be subtracted before Iran receives any of its frozen assets, which they won’t receive until the IAEA finds Iran’s account of its nuclear program’s past military dimensions (PMD) to be satisfactory. The actual number is around $56 billion.
The clerical regime has to shore up its support among the public. That is why Rouhani, a moderate, was allowed to assume the presidency. He ran on a platform to end Iran’s pariah status and to pursue the end of biting international sanctions, which have had a devastating effect on the economy. The funds in question are frozen assets - Iranian oil revenues being held in foreign banks. Much of that will need to be devoted to economic development and social welfare programs to shore up the clerical regime’s tenuous base of power.
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You’d throwaway a breakthrough diplomatic and security achievement for what, exactly? You think keeping Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons state is less important than the freedom of 4 Americans, three of whom are also Iranians (and thus are subject to Iranian jurisdiction under the nationality principle of international jurisdiction)? It has rightfully been perceived as a separate issue. The deal is a non-proliferation agreement after all. You do realize that if the US made the release of the prisoners contingent on a nuclear deal that it would only increase the leverage of the Iranians and further incentivize similar behavior in the future? Prudence trumps principle in an anarchic international system. It isn’t a realm for the weak or fainthearted. The moral logic of preventing a nuclear Iran far outweighs the fate of four individuals.
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No, it does the opposite in fact. Which is why it enjoys a wide degree of support from nuclear scientists, arms control experts, diplomats, staff level military officers, and intelligence professionals. The attached picture provides a succinct overview of the technical specifications of the deal.
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Iran becoming a nuclear weapons state is not conducive to American national security. The JCPOA is the best policy option at this point to prevent a nuclear Iran. The absence of a deal facilitates Iran joining the nuclear club.
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Iran�??�??�?�¢??s strategy is inimical to the interests of the United States and its allies in many ways. However, the regime is neither millennial nor suicidal. Rather, Iranian policy �??�??�?�¢?? both foreign and domestic �??�??�?�¢?? can be described as extreme rhetoric in public pronouncements balanced by calculated flexibility and utter realism in practice.
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Cruz is simply factually incorrect. All the Iran Review Act did was delay the President’s ability to waive domestic sanctions. Congress is effectively powerless to stop the Iran deal. The main cause of Congress’s lack of leverage on the Iran deal is the pre-existing congressional sanctions regime that gave the president discretion to waive or lift the sanctions under certain circumstances. If Congress had not delegated to the president authority to lift the sanctions, the president could not lift them now, either directly or via an international agreement. See the following:
https://fas.org/...east/R43311.pdf
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Which federal laws are you referring to? The JCOPA is not a treaty under American or international law, but what’s known as an international political agreement.
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No, it does the opposite in fact. The deal also strengthens other aspects of prevention. The deal provides an implicit casus belli for a preventative air campaign against Iran’s nuclear supply chain. It’s indisputable that the US is more likely to strike with a deal than without one. It’s also indisputable that the virtuous circle between IAEA inspectors and Western intelligence agencies significantly increases the efficacy of collection, analysis, and targeting efforts. The military option has been significantly strengthened by the deal, which will augment prevention and containment.
What alternative to the deal do you propose Cortes? It isn’t enough to disagree. Continued or deepened sanctions are a non-starter. The myth of a better deal is an illusion. The alternatives to the United States’ coercive diplomacy are war or containment, a daunting dilemma to say the least. Critics of the deal (the vast majority of whom hadn’t even bothered to read the text of the JCOPA before voicing their vehement opposition to it) have been unable to articulate cogent policy alternatives. The challenge in Iran policy (as is so often the case) lies not in picking an ideal course but in choosing among lesser evils. Diplomacy is preferable over containment, and containment over war.
As Robert Jervis writes, “The deal with Iran falls far short of what the United States and its European allies would like. Although the question of whether the West could have gotten a better deal is interesting, much more important is the question of whether the deal was better than the breakdown of the negotiations. It was, and by quite a large margin.” According to the senior RAND analyst Dalia Dassa Kaye, failure to reach a deal would likely have produced one or more of the following: an expanded Iranian nuclear program; an erosion of broad international sanctions without any benefit to regional or global security; heightened potential for military conflict; and the loss of opportunities to work on major areas of common concern to Iran and the United States.
The speech was over thirty minutes long. You apparently could only be bothered to watch a highlight. HRC is thus far the only presidential candidate to have put forth a substantial and cogent strategy toward Iran. Cruz’s promise to rip up the agreement on his first day of office is disconcertingly reckless. [/quote]
I’m not going to go back and forth with a wall of text like this. I honestly have neither the time nor the inclination.
Why all of a sudden is this something we ABSOLUTELY MUST DO RIGHT NOW OMGZ??!!!1!
Iran gets to conduct its own “inspections.”
There are NO “anytime, anywhere” inspections.
If they are suspected of enriching uranium or otherwise violating the agreement, they get up to 24 days notice (!!) before inspectors can come in and then at least four of the P5 + 1 nations have to vote to do anything about it.
The US can never send its own inspectors.
The US gets no access to military sites, so Iran can set up nuclear sites or move material to where ever it dictates is a “military site.”
A lot more of this treaty (and that’s what it is) is being negotiated in secret, and we have no way of knowing what kinds of deals our lawless President and his feckless lackeys will hash out and no means of recourse.
How in the actual fuck is any of this better than just keeping their shifty asses contained??
Like I said, I’m not going back and forth tit for tat on this. I favor Cruz’s plan a million times over the Dems disaster situation that has just about assured WWIII for us. MAD is out the door once these crazies have nukes. [/quote]
The urgency comes from Iran’s mastery of the nuclear fuel cycle and it’s breakout time - the time it takes to enrich 27 kilograms of uranium to 90%, the fissile material needed for one bomb - of 1-2 months. Iran’s nuclear program was steadily advancing in spite of biting sanctions. When Bush 43 came into office, Iran had a mere 164 centrifuges in one cascade. History shows that if states want the bomb (or the capability to quickly manufacture one) badly enough, they will eat grass to do so. The agreement extends Iran’s breakout time to a year, giving the US and its allies plenty of time to act decisively in the event of Iranian violations.
You clearly haven’t read the JCPOA. Am I incorrect? Otherwise, you wouldn’t merely parrot the partisan voices who can’t seem to be capable of comprehending or accurately interpreting explicit technical details found in the agreement’s text. To criticize a document you haven’t even been bothered to read takes a special kind of hubris.
It isn’t a treaty under American or international law, no matter how many times that you assert that it is. I argued why ad nauseum in the Iran Deal thread. If you disagree, you must put forth a reasoned legal argument just as I have.
I don’t think you understand the strategy of containment. Sanctions were imposed to compel Tehran to come to the bargaining table. Containment will continue in the wake of the JCPOA and will be augmented by it. Austin Long wrote an excellent article that explains why even Iran hawks (whom I count myself among) should be for the deal. A conventional Iran will be much easier to contain than a nuclear one, and the deal is the United States best means of preventing horizontal proliferation in the region.
Cruz’s plan? He doesn’t have one. Tearing up the agreement leave the US is an exponentially worse position than under the deal. He (and every other partisan hack who oppose the deal) have presented no viable alternative. It isn’t enough to passionately and vehemently disagree. Critics have to put forth realistic alternative policies. What’s the alternative Cortez? No one on this forum has been able to provide an answer. Can you?
As Iran experts have long known, the clerical regime is neither millennial nor suicidal. Iranian policy - both foreign and domestic - can be generally described as extreme rhetoric in public pronouncements balanced by calculated flexibility and utter realism in practice. That you describe it as “crazy” is indicative that you haven’t given the domestic level of analysis in Iran much thought. MAD can only exist in a conflict dyad in which both nuclear powers that have secure second strike capabilities. The US and Israel possess these. The immature arsenal of a nuclear Iran would not.
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No problem douche bag I will enter one of your threads and take it far off course in the near future.
I hope you’re getting paid overtime to work for the Islamic republic.
