For my money? The Sunset clause and the lack of terms dealing with Hezbollah. Arguably, these were never on the cards, but I’m not privy to the behind closed door details. I know Ben Rhodes admitted they fudged the “moderate” part of who they were dealing with.
This includes European groups, who were foiled from carrying out, in what possibly would have been, London’s deadliest terrorist attack.
A disgrace of the highest order.
Nah, it’s the house of Saud for sure. They are the sponsors of all the “home grown” loveliness we’ve had for the last few decades.
EDIT: May as well repost this article. It makes for some astonishing reading:
The problem is that Hezbollah is, beside of course being a terrorist organization, also a political party in Lebanon where they’re getting around 16% of the votes in Lebanese elections. If you put the Hezbollah question on the table, you’re opening up the Lebanon question which adds an order of magnitude of complexity to the negotiations.
Iranian hardliners treated their negotiators as traitors and the Ayatollah had to publicly support the deal to send a message to the general population.
If anything, Trump’s withdrawal from the Deal had a devastating effect on the standings of “moderates” in Iranian politics.
Yes. Shiite terrorism is top-down centralized, unlike Sunni terrorism.
And the consequences can still be seen in Nigeria and elsewhere… Probably the biggest volte face was the Crimean War where a propaganda campaign tried to explain the similarity between Islam and Anglicanism.
Ah, but there’s the rub. They weren’t especially moderate, were they? That said, I concur with your analysis that it probably was the only deal available, and the mildly less genocidal is a comparative moderate when compared with the millenarian hardliners in Iran.
Which, with the aforementioned foiled plot in my capital, doesn’t incline to the best of humours with them or the state that sponsors them. I’m not an Iran hawk, by any means, but I am not especially fond of the regime.
Lord bless us, and preserve us from the foreign office.
In fairness, he only ever had one at a time. He probably would have stayed within the mother faith had Rome granted his annulment. In retrospect, that was a bit of a boo-boo on the part of the Holy See.
The real enemy for them have always been the desert Arabs. Not Americans, not even Israelis.
They’re furious that they cannot fight the Saudis without as they believe (rightly) that Saudi Arabia would last less than 24 hours.
US troops are disparagingly called “Saudi infantry” in Iran.
The regime are a bunch of murderous opportunistic geriatric pieces of shit, the regular people are a different story. You’ll find more antisemitism among British-born Pakistanis in Bradford than in Tehran.
They also integrate into Western societies without a problem. Ever heard of a Persian ghetto somewhere?
I think you’d struggle to find any post of mine disagreeing with that assessment, my friend.
Alas, the Saudis control the taps, so they call the shots. Among the reasons I wish the west would pursue nuclear energy with alacrity. So that those damned Saudis are left in the cold.
I am under no misapprehension about the quality of the Persian people. They have a culture more ancient and impressive than my own. We are of an accord on that fact, nor do we depart on the issue of Persian cultural integration. They are of the same calibre as Sikhs or the Nepalese as far as the UK goes.
Let me be very clear, I detest their regime and their terror operatives, but I would happily favour a detente with Iran under even mildly more favourable circumstances. Hell, I might be persuaded to do so now, rather than fighting a war in one of the most defensible parts of the planet.
Wasn’t the far from perfect “Iran Deal” a step in that direction?
What we have now is a more and more desperate regime being backed into a corner (with talk that we have exhausted sanctions, and only a full blockade of Iran is left); we are not even remotely in talks with Iran (merely talking past each other); and the havoc they create in the Middle East (along with Saudia Arabia) has not abated in the least.
And their nuclear program? I would imagine going full force.
I do not know enough about the “Iran Deal” to know all the strengths and weaknesses (much like Trump, I am sure); but it seems that negotiations would have been ongoing. In other words; the terms would have been modified based on Iran’s verifiable actions. (Which now is not even a consideration).
Now; Israel. Deal or no deal; Trump or no Trump; Israel will take care of herself (with our aide) and will not base her decisions on the fickle nature of U.S. Politics. And that aide was just as strong under President Obama as it is under Trump.
This for one. The quashed AML cases against Hezbollah for another. That’s not to say he’s uniquely full of shit, but I have an olfactory dislike of the man which I can’t fully explain.
Also, Obama had a habit of attempting to make things treaties without resort to the Senate. This left them vulnerable. Had he actually gotten the thumbs down from the senate, that would have been an excellent time to use his bully pulpit.