Iran Cheated On Odumbo Before The Ink On The Treaty Was Dry.

Since this is one of the classic threads in ECCIE political forum history and since it's particularly timely, I'm taking the liberty of resurrecting it.

Long ago I wrote,



In view of recent developments I'm rethinking my agnosticism, and believe the USA would have been better off if we'd stuck to the terms of the nuclear agreement with Iran.

On Sunday, Iran announced it will cease to honor all operational restrictions imposed by the nuclear deal, including restrictions related to uranium enrichment, production and research. So instead of slowing Iran's march to obtain nuclear weapons, now we're speeding it up.

The USA's abandonment of the deal and the economic hardship imposed by our sanctions arguably lead to the provocations by Iran and their proxies, including Kataib Hezbollah's strikes against U.S. interests in Iraq. This in turn lead to the USA's retaliation by assassinating Soleimani and others.

Iraqis were mounting huge demonstrations against Iran. Now they're demonstrating against the USA.

Iranians were getting fed up with corruption in their government and mounting huge demonstrations against people in power. Now they're demonstrating against the USA. We've actually increased the power domestically of the mullahs and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard.

Trump wisely wanted to remove U.S. troops from the Middle East. Now we're having to send our sons and daughters back in greater (but still small compared to Bush and Obama) numbers.

The U.S. and Iran were fighting ISIS in Iraq. Maybe Iran still is, but this week the U.S. suspended its operations against the Islamic State to protect its bases and the Iraqi Parliament voted to get U.S. troops out of Iraq. Actually maybe that last part is a good thing.

To be clear, yes, posters here have a strong case that Iran's ICBM testing and meddling in foreign countries were weak points in the deal. And I believe the case for killing Soleimani and the leader of Kataib Hezbollah was much stronger than the case for abandoning the nuclear deal -- we had to retaliate somehow. But instead of tearing down what Obama and the Europeans did, we should have been building on it and trying to improve relations.

Trump's instincts regarding foreign entanglements are good - he wants to stay out of them. So what happened? My theory is that Trump was trying the same thing he did with the North Koreans,scare the crap out of them and then negotiate. The Mullahs and many others don't respond to that. They look forward to the harem of virgins they'll have in the next life if they're off'ed by the Great Satan in this one.

Trump's unilateralist instincts are too strong. It hurt us with trade, and now it's hurting us in Iran. Why not work with our allies and try to work constructively with the Iranians to improve their behavior. When you impose sanctions on Iran, and countries like Russia and China are ignoring them, and Europe is looking for any way possible to get around them, they're a lot less effective than they would be if most countries were on board. Originally Posted by Tiny

The agreement was a POS. Iran doesn't have a delivery system. Developing a nuclear warhead without a delivery system is an exercise in futility as other nations would continue to invoke sanctions.

Odumbo offered Iran an alternative for which they received billions in cash (for terrorist activities) and granted relief from the crippling economic sanctions.

It's a win-win for Iran, and the U.S. gets nothing substantive in return. Odumbo gets to strut around and pretend he accomplished something, but all he did was allot Iran the time and the resources to develop a functional delivery system.

Everyone concedes that Iran is within months of developing a warhead, but the delivery system has proved more elusive. Don't fool yourself into believing that once the delivery system is ready, Iran would for one moment hesitate to develop the warhead.

With the agreement, Iran stalled for time, was rewarded with billions in cash and freed from economic sanctions. The U.S. got nothing substantive in return, and Iran's Soleimani continued to target and kill Americans using the money Odumbo gave Iran. R.I.P. Ambassador Stevens.

P.S. Regarding Odumbo and his POS agreement. Imagine how much better it would be for the U.S. today if Odumbo had let Israel take the blow-back for a hit on Soleimani in 2015 when he had the opportunity -- instead of betraying Israel's plan to Iran.

Odumbo was so intent on his POS deal that he gave Iran billions of dollars, lifted sanctions (including those on Soleimani personally), gave the Russians strategic uranium reserves and prevented the Israelis from taking out Soleimani when they had the chance in 2015. All of that because of Odumbo's POS deal. None of that is Trump's fault.

A question about ICBM's. Realistically, does Iran stand a chance of developing ICBM's with sufficient range to hit the USA and not be knocked out by anti-missile defense systems? And if the answer is "no", why is this our problem? Russia and Europe don't want sanctions, but they're the ones that would be in reach of Iranian ICBM's. I don't understand why we have to do their heavy lifting, especially if they're the ones that would benefit, not the USA. And they're fighting us every step.

I'm not sure I understand the words in italics: Developing a nuclear warhead without a delivery system is an exercise in futility as other nations would continue to invoke sanctions. Other nations would have continued to impose sanctions if Iran didn't agree to stop its development of a functional nuclear device -- a device it couldn't employ without a delivery system. It was to their benefit to stop manufacturing something they couldn't actually employ to reap the benefits of cash and the lifting of economic sanctions in the interval until they have a functional missile.

Give a kid $10 not to ride his bicycle 100 mph, and he'll take your money and grin because he knows he could never do 100 mph on his bicycle. A year later, after the kid gets his Suzuki GSX-R1000, you can give him $10 not to ride his motorcycle 100 mph. He'll take your money and grin because he knows you're a sucker.


A question about ICBM's. Realistically, does Iran stand a chance of developing ICBM's with sufficient range to hit the USA and not be knocked out by anti-missile defense systems? And if the answer is "no", why is this our problem? Russia and Europe don't want sanctions, but they're the ones that would be in reach of Iranian ICBM's. I don't understand why we have to do their heavy lifting, especially if they're the ones that would benefit, not the USA. And they're fighting us every step. Recall this country's first war in that region with the Tripolitan pirates was about trade and the right to conduct commerce without piracy. Originally Posted by Tiny

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And Clearly it Big T fault ,,,,,,,,,,,, Now he's trying to clean up the mess ,,,,,,,

A question about ICBM's. Realistically, does Iran stand a chance of developing ICBM's with sufficient range to hit the USA and not be knocked out by anti-missile defense systems? And if the answer is "no", why is this our problem? Russia and Europe don't want sanctions, but they're the ones that would be in reach of Iranian ICBM's. I don't understand why we have to do their heavy lifting, especially if they're the ones that would benefit, not the USA. And they're fighting us every step. Originally Posted by Tiny

It seems Iran suffered a 25% missile failure rate in this demonstration. They haven't yet quite mastered that technology. And it appears that they don't want a full scale war -- as yet.

It seems Iran suffered a 25% missile failure rate in this demonstration. They haven't yet quite mastered that technology. And it appears that they don't want a full scale war -- as yet. Originally Posted by I B Hankering

Was it a 25% failure rate, or did they intentionally try to miss higher value targets at the military bases to avoid a full scale war? If it's the former it highlights their inability to hit us on our home soil. Which gets back to my earlier point, why is this our problem? Exclude Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait. All the other countries that benefit from our presence in the Persian Gulf, being those within reach of Iranian missiles, aren't going to back us up on this. The Israelis have shown themselves to be very capable of defending themselves. As to the Saudis, they've spread Wahabi Islam throughout the Muslim world and their citizens were the ones who organized 9/11.

Now that the USA is the largest oil producer in the world, I don't see why we need to obsess on the Middle East. One caveat, all the Democratic candidates for president want to do away with the U.S. oil and gas industry, even Biden. If their ideas are implemented, yes, we'll have to make sure oil keeps flowing through the Gulf of Hormuz so we can buy oil from the Middle East instead of producing it here.

Now that the USA is the largest oil producer in the world, I don't see why we need to obsess on the Middle East. One caveat, all the Democratic candidates for president want to do away with the U.S. oil and gas industry, even Biden. If their ideas are implemented, yes, we'll have to make sure oil keeps flowing through the Gulf of Hormuz so we can buy oil from the Middle East instead of producing it here. Originally Posted by Tiny

we do it on the behalf of Europe so they can get their oil. the rest of the world is secondary.

Was it a 25% failure rate, or did they intentionally try to miss higher value targets at the military bases to avoid a full scale war? If it's the former it highlights their inability to hit us on our home soil. Which gets back to my earlier point, why is this our problem? Exclude Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait. All the other countries that benefit from our presence in the Persian Gulf, being those within reach of Iranian missiles, aren't going to back us up on this. The Israelis have shown themselves to be very capable of defending themselves. As to the Saudis, they've spread Wahabi Islam throughout the Muslim world and their citizens were the ones who organized 9/11.

Now that the USA is the largest oil producer in the world, I don't see why we need to obsess on the Middle East. One caveat, all the Democratic candidates for president want to do away with the U.S. oil and gas industry, even Biden. If their ideas are implemented, yes, we'll have to make sure oil keeps flowing through the Gulf of Hormuz so we can buy oil from the Middle East instead of producing it here. Originally Posted by Tiny

Reports are that four out of fifteen missiles did not reach their intended target as based on where the other missiles hit -- i.e., they hit nothing: that's a 27% failure rate.