US and Iran Relations (News and Discussion)

[kfrankie]

5 hours ago, Riggo-toni said:

 "for cutting deficits through less spending, free trade, pro-immigration, ending corporate welfare, tax simplification, and rational cost analysis for any regulations.""

 

I think you pretty well have the definition down, except i would substitute the phrase "immigration in accordance with applicable laws" in place of "pro immigration" due to.the current climate and out of respect for friends who came to this country after jumping through the required legal hoops.  I would also add "self reliance," "charity not welfare," and "common sense morality" to the list.

 

[TheGreatBuzz]

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/iran-seizes-foreign-oil-tanker-strait-hormuz-state-tv-reports-n1031116

 

Gonna call in SEAL Team 6.

[visionary]

 

[visionary]

 

 

 

 

[tshile]

i'm glad it wasn't one of our ships.

 

at least it's some other country that has to be involved. i don't really want our country involved in a hostage negotiation with Iran.

[visionary]

 

[visionary]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 19, 2019 by visionary

[Destino]

Iran is calling the western world's bluff.  Shot down a drone.  Blew up a ship.  Took a UK ship.  Said they'd enrich as much uranium as they wanted.  They're doing all this because they know the UK and the US aren't going to do a thing but say some angry words, before inevitably sitting down and negotiate. 

 

[tshile]

Time to start blowing stuff up. 

[Larry]

1 hour ago, tshile said:

Time to start blowing stuff up. 

 

Yeah, part of me is saying "quit the **** escalating things, and get the old deal back in place."

 

And part of me is saying "if Iran is going to use their national navy for the purpose of piracy, then they need to lose about half of their navy."

 

I try to let the former side of me win those arguments. But I won't pretend that the second side doesn't have its own appeal. 

[Riggo-toni]

Might I recommend former CIA Bob Baer's book The Devil We Know.

 

Baer was in Lebanon in the 80s, and was the inspiration for George Clooney's character in Syriana. His autobiography will make you disgusted with the Clinton administration, his book Sleeping with the Devil will infuriate you over W's administration and how many of its people were on the Saudi payroll. The Devil We Know makes a compelling case that we have picked the wrong side choosing governments that finance Sunni fundamentalism over Shiism. 

[PeterMP]

2 minutes ago, Riggo-toni said:

Might I recommend former CIA Bob Baer's book The Devil We Know.

 

Baer was in Lebanon in the 80s, and was the inspiration for George Clooney's character in Syriana. His autobiography will make you disgusted with the Clinton administration, his book Sleeping with the Devil will infuriate you over W's administration and how many of its people were on the Saudi payroll. The Devil We Know makes a compelling case that we have picked the wrong side choosing governments that finance Sunni fundamentalism over Shiism. 

 

I'm not sure either was a good choice.  I'd also say though the decision goes back (at least to) Reagan.  Reagan made the decision to get in bed with the Saudi's to keep oil prices low to improve the economy (because he felt like we needed low oil prices and a good economy to defeat the Soviets) and looked the other way as the Saudi's influenced Islam globally (through North Africa and South East Asia) in not pro-western liberal democratic manner.

 

I think choosing neither might have been a better choice.

[twa]

would the Saudi's have behaved better under Russia's influence?.....has Iran?

 

the ME game started well before reagan, 

[Larry]

Just now, PeterMP said:

 

I'm not sure either was a good choice.  I'd also say though the decision goes back (at least to) Reagan.  Reagan made the decision to get in bed with the Saudi's to keep oil prices low to improve the economy (because he felt like we needed low oil prices and a good economy to defeat the Soviets) and looked the other way as the Saudi's influenced Islam globally (through North Africa and South East Asia) in not pro-western liberal democratic manner.

 

I think choosing neither might have been a better choice.

 

Think it goes back well before Reagan. Recall decades ago hearing an NPR interview with a historian arguing that one of the most important moments of the century was towards the end of WW2, when FDR held a secret meeting with the ruler of the newly-created Saudi Arabia.

 

He points out the irony here. The leader of the free world, the most powerful nation on the planet, the man who saved the world from being enslaved - is meeting with a self-appointed King, who brought his personal slaves to the meeting.

 

And the result of the meeting was the US promising that we would defend the king against any enemies, if his country would sell us oil. 

[Riggo-toni]

36 minutes ago, PeterMP said:

 

I think choosing neither might have been a better choice.

I should have been clearer - his analysis deals more with post-Khomeini Iran versus Saudi hegemony. If you are familiar with Shiite theology, the principal of marj al taqlid states that a supreme religious leader's rulings are voided upon his death and followers must adhere to a new source of imitation. Idiots like Trump still see Iran through the lens of a past era of religious fervour and hostage taking. The current regime is more interested in playing the long game to become the regional superpower.  It is tyrannical, but not by the apocalyptic religious fanatics some seem to think - witness the fact that they supported Armenians in Nagorno Karabakh to temper Azeri nationalism.  Whereas wahhabism enables any kind of nutjob to declare others heretical and murder in the name of Allah, Shiism has a hierarchy and as such we can negotiate reliably. He is no fan of the Iranian regime, but recognizes the utility of dealing with them rather than isolating and combating them.

[PeterMP]

1 hour ago, Larry said:

 

Think it goes back well before Reagan. Recall decades ago hearing an NPR interview with a historian arguing that one of the most important moments of the century was towards the end of WW2, when FDR held a secret meeting with the ruler of the newly-created Saudi Arabia.

 

He points out the irony here. The leader of the free world, the most powerful nation on the planet, the man who saved the world from being enslaved - is meeting with a self-appointed King, who brought his personal slaves to the meeting.

 

And the result of the meeting was the US promising that we would defend the king against any enemies, if his country would sell us oil. 

 

Yes, but in terms of really making a choice between the Sunnis, Shiite, and neither, there was really a decision that Reagan made.  At the time of FDR, we didn't really favor the Sunnis or the Shiite (we were getting oil from Iran and Saudi Arabia).

 

And the aggressive support of the Saudi's in terms of spreading their version of Islam doesn't really start until the mid-1970s.

 

In the late 1970s with the Iranian revolution and the OPEC oil embargo (where OPEC is heavily lead by the Saudis and other Sunni nations), there is really a chance to reset our relationships with both, one, or neither country.

 

Reagan chose the Saudis.

 

@Riggo-toni while Khomeini was a religious extremist, he also appears to have been a rational actor on the international stage.  He seems to have been somebody that you could deal with (and we did at times in terms of things like Iran-Contra).

 

He wasn't bin Laden.

[Larry]

Yeah, but even Reagan couldn't have survived negotiating with the Ayatollah. 

 

Not AFTER he got elected. (Reference to famous conspiracy theory that I think is particularly loony). 

[PeterMP]

2 hours ago, twa said:

would the Saudi's have behaved better under Russia's influence?.....has Iran?

 

the ME game started well before reagan, 

 

The Saudis would not have been able to do a lot of what they did in terms of spreading their (violent and extremist) version Islam without western support.  The Soviets would not have poured money into the Saudis so they could spread their version of Islam the way we did.

 

Countries that were supported and influenced by the Soviets were relatively poor.

 

They just wouldn't have had the money.

 

Without western support of the Saudis is unlikely that the Islam practices in much of world is as extreme as it is.

 

 @SkinsHokieFan

 

has posted a picture of a very western sock hop like happening in Afghanistan or Pakistan in the 1950s.  Obama has talked about how the Islam in Indonesia when he has growing up  is not the same as it is today.

 

The vast majority of our issues with global extremist Islamic terrorism can be traced back to Reagan's decision.

Edited July 20, 2019 by PeterMP

[Larry]

1 minute ago, PeterMP said:

The vast majority of our issues with global extremist Islamic terrorism can be traced back to Reagan's decision.

 

Reagan's decision?  Or the Saudis?  

 

Did Reagan support everything the Saudis did?  Or did he support "the good ones", and elements within SA diverted things?  

[PeterMP]

14 minutes ago, Larry said:

 

Reagan's decision?  Or the Saudis?  

 

Did Reagan support everything the Saudis did?  Or did he support "the good ones", and elements within SA diverted things?  

 

Okay, the Saudis made decisions as well.  But it was clear even in the mid and late-1970s that the Saudis were interested in spreading their version of Islam, which was extremists.  It wasn't a secret what the Saudis were doing, and the Saudi government was actively involved.

 

And Reagan decided to support them.  That was his decision.

 

Reagan's problem is he himself was an extremist, myopic, ideologue.    Defeating the Soviets was the only thing that mattered.

 

And any cost to do so was worth paying.

 

(People like Reagan interest me so I've ended up doing a lot of reading related to him and decisions that he made.

 

There are really two components to it.  Reagan made a decision that the Soviets were an extensional threat.  He did so before he becomes President and had never served in the federal government.  He had no special access to any US intelligence on the Soviet Union.

 

He had no real information on the state of conditions in the Soviet Union, their government, or their rulers.  And despite this complete lack of information, he decided that we should pour the vast majority of our resources into defeating the Soviets.

 

He was very convinced he was right about something when he really had no basis to draw that conclusion.  And he was able to convince a large number of people that he was right despite the fact that those people knew he didn't really have access to information that would be important in drawing such a conclusion.

 

The other thing is that Reagan clearly believes the Soviet system is inferior.  But despite that belief, he doesn't seem to believe that's enough to cause their failure without real overt actions to cause their failure.  It is like, you go two teams where you say you really believe that one team is better than other and will win the game, you bet on team A, but you still feel the need to go out of your way to bribe players on team B (knowing that the act of bribing them might cause you negative repercussions if it is discovered).  If you really/honestly believe team A is better, then why the need to take the extra action?)

Edited July 20, 2019 by PeterMP

[visionary]

 

[TheGreatBuzz]

Are these armed escorts for show or are we ready to fire on an Iranian vassal that tries to take another ship?

[No Excuses]

28 minutes ago, Larry said:

 

Reagan's decision?  Or the Saudis?  

 

Did Reagan support everything the Saudis did?  Or did he support "the good ones", and elements within SA diverted things?  

 

The Saudi relationship with Wahhabism goes back to the very founding of the Kingdom of Saud. You can’t really detach the two from one another. It’s fair to speculate that the spread of ultra-militant and extremely conservative Islam wasn’t taken seriously by Western countries when they decided to ally with Saudis and fund their growth. 

 

At its peak, the Saudi’s were funding Wahhabi propaganda worldwide at 2-3X the entire propaganda budget of the Soviet Union. And this really isn’t possible without Western support. It was a pretty costly miscalculation. The Saudis are the largest funding body of extremist madrasas that educate children into ultra conservative Islam all over Asia. 

Edited July 20, 2019 by No Excuses

[Larry]

2 hours ago, PeterMP said:

Reagan's problem is he himself was an extremist, myopic, ideologue.    Defeating the Soviets was the only thing that mattered.

 

And any cost to do so was worth paying.

 

Oh, I've believed for decades that a lot of the problems, for the US and the world, are because for 75 years our policy has been that we will actively support Satan himself as long as he claims that his enemies are commies. 

 

(Note that one side effect of this is that anybody who doesn't like Satan is forced to go to Russia for help trying to overthrow Satan. 

 

I think the Shah and every dictator in central and South America are proof of that. 

 

I actually think Jimmy Carter actually tried to get us away from that policy. But wasn't in place long enough for it to pay off. I think Obama's support for Arab Spring was a step in the right direction, on that front. 

 

(One which Trump is actively fighting to undo. Partially because Obama, and partially because he wishes he was Satan.)

Edited July 20, 2019 by Larry

[twa]

2 hours ago, PeterMP said:

 

 

 

Without western support of the Saudis is unlikely that the Islam practices in much of world is as extreme as it is.

 

 

I think you are wrong, the oil wealth there enabled it along with it's arab allies.

The Carter doctrine assured it