> Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. It's an intolerable premise and if the price to be paid is global oil catastrophe it's a price well worth paying
Says you.
All other nuclear nations behave (even Pakistan and India, which are at each other throat all the time). What makes you think that Iran won't? It will also have Russia and China keep a lid on them, same as North Korea. And I don't buy the "Iran is different" gospel. North Korea and China have completely different mindsets than the western world and still play ball.
Additionally, if Iran really is that adamant in getting nukes, I can see them asking some enriched material to Russia as a payment to the 100s if not 1000s of drones they are giving them. They share a "land" border through the Caspian sea and smuggling a few 10s of kilos of enriched material would be relatively easy.
Finally, it is not a good proposition if the hypotethical benefits will be reaped by US/Israel while the suffering is globally spread.
Russia, China, the U.S., North Korea, Israel. These are all countries that absolutely do not behave. Each commits atrocities on a regular basis. Them having nukes makes accountability much more difficult.
Just to be clear: the current situation is a huge mess caused by one deranged leader.
> Just to be clear: the current situation is a huge mess caused by one deranged leader.
Agreed. The situation is worse than before the U.S. attack.
Iran has proven they can control the straight, threatening the world's energy supply. This is a more powerful weapon than a nuke (which multiple agencies, including U.S. intel, said they didn't have when this all started). New leadership in Iran is more galvanized against the U.S. than ever.
The U.S. already lost this war. Iran is dictating terms. Allies in the region have seen that the U.S. cannot protect them, and are making other accomodations, reducing U.S. influence in the region and beyond.
And you're getting downvoted because the truth is too unpleasant.
Everyone else realized that the world wasn't ready for anything but appeasement, our idiot didn't understand and pushed it into open conflict. Didn't change the basic situation, though.
Trump sure is an idiot, but it seems somewhat likely that Netanyahu pressured him to perform this particular idiocy that is also against his previous anti-war attitude - one of the few things that was good about his first term.
> Trump sure is an idiot, but it seems somewhat likely that Netanyahu pressured him to perform this particular idiocy that is also against his previous anti-war attitude - one of the few things that was good about his first term.
Turns out the last 6 or US presidents were presented the same stupid pitch and guess who finally fell for it...
> The U.S. already lost this war. Iran is dictating terms. Allies in the region have seen that the U.S. cannot protect them, and are making other accomodations, reducing U.S. influence in the region and beyond.
Let me break it down some for you, and anyone else who may be interested:
1) Iran is dictating terms
Look how often Trump has changed his story on how long the war will last [0]:
> March 2, We will easily prevail. We're already substantially ahead of our time projections
> March 9, We're ahead of our initial timeline by a lot. I would say that we probably would not have thought after a month we'd be here
> March 17, We'll be leaving in pretty much the very near future
> March 31, I think two or three weeks
> April 1, I'm pleased to say that these core strategic objectives are nearing completion
> June 11, We just made a great settlement of the war with Iran
> Aug. 6, I think it's going to end pretty soon
Now he's sayign the war will be over right after the midterms [1].
Then there's all the times he said the straight was open, when Iran still was able to strike ships trying to transit.
Does that sound like someone who is in control of events? I've never heard a U.S. president who was wrong so many times.
2) Allies in the region have seen that the U.S. cannot protect them
> During the conflict, Iran reportedly carried out attacks or hostile actions against multiple countries and targets across the region, including Israel, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman—where specific incidents involved ports and ships—Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, Turkey, the British overseas territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia, and the West Bank. Additional alleged activity was reported in Azerbaijan, while maritime targets included vessels of the United States Navy and Thai-flagged ships operating in the region. [2]
The above page includes a detailed list of all of the above attacks [3] and caulaties [4]. More ally citizens have been killed than U.S. military personel.
Trump even threatened to bomb an ally at one point:
> President Donald Trump has threatened to bomb Oman - a US ally - if it "gets in the way" of his administration's own talks with Iran, Fox News reports. [5]
And now the war is expanding, with the Saudis, a U.S. ally, being attacked:
> Yemen's Tehran-backed Houthis attacked four cities in the south of U.S. ally Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, wounding more than 70 people and setting oil installations ablaze. [6]
The Saudis and even some of our European allies are restricting U.S. air traffic [7]
3) and are making other accomodations
Regional powers are making alliances amongst themselves, alliances that do not include the Unites States:
> The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, formally the Mecca Defence Alliance, is a defence pact between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey signed into force on 7 August 2026 [8]
4)reducing U.S. influence in the region and beyond
China is using this as an opportunity to increase their influence in the region:
> Iran expresses willingness to continue diplomatic negotiations but vows to defend its sovereignty firmly, appreciating China's role in regional peace and seeking deeper cooperation with China. [9]
The U.S. has shown itself as incapable of securing shipping in this straight, and, by implication, other strategic straights. Countries have seen how having U.S. bases in their territories become a liability, drawing enemy fire, enemy fire that the U.S. is not able to intercept. This will echo for a loong time.
A large part of U.S. influence, and related military and economic power, was build-up over 80 years. Eighty Years of alliances and goodwill. And all that is very much in decline.
> Just to be clear: the current situation is a huge mess caused by one deranged leader.
Sorry that's just dead wrong. This doesn't happen in a vacuum. I mean you could simply add Netanyahu and make your statement incorrect here. Nevermind all the other actors, Iran's deranged death cult, and more.
my reflex was to think that sounds like a lie israel would tell to get trump to go to war with iran, but i realize my reflexes aren't always right, so i looked it up and it turns out, yes, it's obviously an israeli lie and the only reason you'd believe it is because you really want to.
Hamas is claiming a total of around 70k. Israel is claiming a total of over 20k combatants. Thus at most Israel killed something under 50k innocents, and probably a lot less.
Not every, but I hope it is hard to deny that concentration of radicalized members of Hamas is very high in that area, they historically use civilians as human shield, thus casualties.
> They share a "land" border through the Caspian sea and smuggling a few 10s of kilos of enriched material would be relatively easy.
I'm not a nuclear weapons expert but from what I understand the United States and others are pretty easily able to identify where enriched material comes from. Also we probably have eyes on the material in general and can see where it is being moved. It has to be stored in places, put into a missile, &c.
But if your argument were to be taken to be correct you're also highlighting the problem with the JCPOA. Well, one of them at least.
Well that's a big IF. Iran wasn't allowing inspections, also we shouldn't need a special deal with Iran or else they build nuclear bombs and try to kill people.
But what I meant was that if a weapon was used we'd be able to identify the signature of the material used and pinpoint the exact location on earth that it came from. In other words, if Russia "easily" (again that's an another feather in the cap agains the JCPOA) sent material to Iran and they used it and built a bomb and used it we'd know it came from a Russian mine. Of course they could maybe steal material from somewhere else and then Russia could transport that but hey, look where we're at. We've got Russia who invaded Ukraine supplying nuclear material to Iran to build a bomb. Maybe we shouldn't be on team Russia/Iran yea?
Sorry I can't view the article b/c of the paywall also because Jeff Bezos sucks.
But the Iranians aren't stupid, they just moved the research to "military sites" and then denied access. Sometimes I think the UN and some of these agencies are run by people who grew up in very manicured gardens with their fancy law degrees and filet mignon and can't use their imagination to understand how someone might deceive them lol.
But this still begs the question - why do we need to have some sort of deal in the first place? Why does Iran of all countries need to have this special treatment where they threaten to build nuclear weapons unless we all do or give them something. Other countries don't do that.
> why do we need to have some sort of deal in the first place? Why does Iran of all countries need to have this special treatment where they threaten to build nuclear weapons unless we all do or give them something.
Iran signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty ages ago which put certain limits on what they could do. Other countries had growing concerns that Iran wasn't living up to that treaty, and those violations (plus some other stuff) resulted in a bunch of sanctions being placed on Iran.
Eventually Iran got a president who requested an international agreement that would ease both the sanctions Iran was under and the fears other countries had over their nuclear program. After lots and lots of negotiations they settled on the Joint Plan of Action which did a pretty good job.
I don't think Iran was being treated as all that special here and we'd see similar events play out if any country under the NPT started building up its nuclear program, especially if other countries thought that country was unstable/terroristy enough that the idea of them having a bunch of nukes was extra scary AND they also felt an agreement could be reached that would help make them less frightened.
Sorry I do not follow this line of reasoning at all. Iran signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Then they started a nuclear program, then they wanted some sort of special treaty, and yet they aren't being treated specially or differently than other countries?
Iran signed a treaty that let them have a nuclear program but with rules. Iran didn't follow the rules so they got in trouble. New president comes in and agrees to follow rules if it means they won't be in so much trouble anymore and works with a bunch of countries on a new agreement. That's pretty much just the standard treatment isn't it?
The new agreement itself was kind of impressive in some ways. It's really long. There's lots of special provisions for making sure Iran does what they're supposed to do and detailing what would happen if they don't because they had a sketchy history, but otherwise it just meant that Iran followed rules just like other countries do and they weren't punished like other rule following countries weren't. It took a new agreement to get there, but things were basically back to normal
If it's just standard treatment can you name the other countries where they agreed to the rules, didn't follow them, and then wanted a specific treaty in order to keep them following the rules?
Why not just not have a treaty and they just follow the rules? I think you're jumping through some hoops here to justify the need for the JCPOA when at the end of the day Iran needs to simply acquiesce to the international community and no longer pursue nuclear weapons. Of course they also need to stop murdering people throughout the region too. Nuclear disarmament is just one step.
Iran themselves said they enriched uranium up to 40%-60%. The US offered "free nuclear fuel forever" to get them to stop and they also refused. I can find sources for you if you'd like but both of these were widely reported.
> can you name the other countries where they agreed to the rules, didn't follow them, and then wanted a specific treaty in order to keep them following the rules?
First, keep in mind that Iran is very different today from when they signed that treaty. It was signed before the Iranian Revolution. A lot happened between the signing and when Iran approached the international community. By comparison, North Korea violated the Non-Proliferation Treaty too, and sanctions were put them as well, but they never came back to the table to reach a new agreement with the rest of the world (although they do have some kind of deal with russia I think)
Iran also didn't even want to "just keep following the rules". They accepted extra rules because at that point other countries didn't trust them. We don't monitor other countries like we did with Iran under the JCPOA. Iran wasn't demanding that we give them a bunch of free stuff either. They wanted sanctions lifted, but not even all the sanctions Iran wanted lifted were agreed to.
Other countries don't get to just tell other countries what to do. All we can do is encourage them to do the things we want by making offers or punish them for not doing what we want through things like sanctions. I mean, technically we can also use the CIA to interfere in their government but we already did that in Iran and it hasn't worked out so well for anybody.
Iran had reached a pretty good agreement with the world on the future of their nuclear program. It wasn't perfect for anybody, it was a compromise after all, but Iran followed the new agreement. Then Trump threw it all away because he was convinced that he could make a "better deal" and that was when the US offered Iran weird things like "free nuclear fuel" as part of Trump's new deal. I guess Iran just felt that Trump's deal was garbage even with the random extras Trump tried to use to entice them to go along with it. Frankly, considering how often Trump cheats people, I wouldn't agree to a deal with him either.
> Iran also didn't even want to "just keep following the rules". They accepted extra rules because at that point other countries didn't trust them. We don't monitor other countries like we did with Iran under the JCPOA. Iran wasn't demanding that we give them a bunch of free stuff either. They wanted sanctions lifted, but not even all the sanctions Iran wanted lifted were agreed to.
I don’t want to go in circles here so I’ll pull this piece out because it’s the crux of the issue. Iran should not pursue the development of nuclear weapons. There is no need for a treaty or special treatment. They should simply not do it. That’s it. We don’t need to have a pretty good agreement. They just don’t do the action. The world distrusts them because they’re earned that distrust.
It's funny reading literature from the mega hawks in US politics during the Cold War.
Descriptions of the Soviet leadership basically word for word use the same apocalyptic terms used for the ayatollahs/IRGC by current neocons about Iran. Just swap in "Islamist" for "Communist" as the current ideology that makes any kind of realpolitik impossible.
"These leaders aren't rational like previous adversaries, they don't fear annihilation, in fact they want catastrophe to prove their own fatalist belief system. There can be no negotiation with this sort of enemy, their singular goal is our destruction even at the cost of their own lives."
It's always different this time, and all assumptions about self-serving human nature need to be thrown out the window. Anyone who thinks force isn't the only solution is a naively deluded suicidal peacenik. All out war right now on our terms is the only rational way to avoid world destruction.
I keep wondering about this western worldview where they keep equating a militant failed state with the largest democracy in the world. I can't fathom why they do it.
And you think Iran will get a bomb and be peaceful? They're already backing multiple genocides. A bomb is immunity from retaliation--until Israel can't tolerate the situation anymore and blows them off the map.
Says you.
All other nuclear nations behave (even Pakistan and India, which are at each other throat all the time). What makes you think that Iran won't? It will also have Russia and China keep a lid on them, same as North Korea. And I don't buy the "Iran is different" gospel. North Korea and China have completely different mindsets than the western world and still play ball.
Additionally, if Iran really is that adamant in getting nukes, I can see them asking some enriched material to Russia as a payment to the 100s if not 1000s of drones they are giving them. They share a "land" border through the Caspian sea and smuggling a few 10s of kilos of enriched material would be relatively easy.
Finally, it is not a good proposition if the hypotethical benefits will be reaped by US/Israel while the suffering is globally spread.