Biden's secret Iran deal

[friend of]

Why do democrats and the left at large WANT Iran to be a nuclear armed adversary? Why do they want that so badly?

 

[essentialsaltes]

Why do democrats and the left at large WANT Iran to be a nuclear armed adversary? Why do they want that so badly?

I don't. And I have no reason to believe President Biden does either. And I have no reason to believe this alleged secret deal exists.

 

[dzheremi]

Why do conservatives believe that Newsmax is a legitimate news source?

 

[NxNW]

Considering the Obama/Biden administration took out Iran's centrifuges with the Stuxnet virus, I see no reason to believe they want Iran to be a nuclear power.

 

[friend of]

I don't. And I have no reason to believe President Biden does either. And I have no reason to believe this alleged secret deal exists.

According to the video, the Biden admin is poised to give Iran 20 billion dollars. Why do democrats and the left want to give Iran, the worlds biggest state sponsor of terrorism, so much money? Just answer that simple question, because this response of yours is defending the administration offhandedly.

 

[Pommer]

According to the video, the Biden admin is poised to give Iran 20 billion dollars. Why do democrats and the left want to give Iran, the worlds biggest state sponsor of terrorism, so much money? Just answer that simple question, because this response of yours is defending the administration offhandedly.

According to the man in the gray suit this is “part of a much larger secret unwritten arrangement”.
How’s he come by this “knowledge”, one might ask?

 

[essentialsaltes]

because this response of yours is defending the administration offhandedly.

I'd like to think I'd defend anyone against assertions without evidence.

 

[friend of]

I'd like to think I'd defend anyone against assertions without evidence.

Literally all you have to do is Google "Biden gives Iran 20 billion dollars" or "Biden Iran hostage deal" and you'd find the stories. This is what's happening. This is real. Here, let me help you with some bipartisan links:

Iran set to free 5 U.S. citizens in exchange for access to billions of dollars in blocked funds

Four Americans held in a notorious prison in Iran have been freed and placed on house arrest, an attorney for one of the prisoners said Thursday.

www.cbsnews.com

Opinion | The Biden-Iran Hostage Deal

The U.S. is poised to hand over a $6 billion ransom for five Americans.

www.wsj.com

There Are No Good Deals With Iran

But the Biden administration’s latest negotiations with Tehran are still the best option available.

foreignpolicy.com

Republicans slam Biden’s deal to free Americans in Iran as ‘appeasement’

The plan, now unfolding, involves a prisoner exchange and giving Tehran regulated access to billions of dollars.

www.politico.com

 

[essentialsaltes]

Literally all you have to do is Google "Biden Iran hostage deal"

Aha, now we're talking about Biden's deal to release Americans held in Iranian prisons.

This is a topic I posted my own thread about a few days ago.

It is not a nuclear deal, so that part of the OP is just erroneous.

The money ($6 billion, not $20B) involved is not American. It is Iranian, being held in foreign banks. And it can be "spent only on humanitarian-related materials"

 

[SimplyMe]

Why do democrats and the left at large WANT Iran to be a nuclear armed adversary? Why do they want that so badly?

I'd ask the same of Trump supporters. Obama, along with US allies, created a deal that would keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons, complete with verification checks to ensure Iran was not breaking the agreement. Trump's removed the US from the deal, which led Iran to again start progress on developing nuclear weapons. Trump supporters all thought it was such a great thing that Trump broke the treaty with the foreseeable result of Iran working on them again, so why do Trump supporters want Iran to be a nuclear armed adversary?

 

[Green Sun]

Considering the Obama/Biden administration took out Iran's centrifuges with the Stuxnet virus, I see no reason to believe they want Iran to be a nuclear power.

Absolutely. Stuxnet is an excellent example of how much the US, under several presidents, very much does not want Iran to get nukes. It's a program that spanned development across both Bush's and Obama's administration, with both clearly wanting this to go forward.

Obama Order Sped Up Wave of Cyberattacks Against Iran

What he did not say then was that he was also learning the arts of cyberwar. The architects of Olympic Games would meet him in the Situation Room, often with what they called the “horse blanket,” a giant foldout schematic diagram of Iran’s nuclear production facilities. Mr. Obama authorized the attacks to continue, and every few weeks — certainly after a major attack — he would get updates and authorize the next step. Sometimes it was a strike riskier and bolder than what had been tried previously.

While the US will almost certainty not admit to developing it for several decades until it's eventually declassified, it's difficult to stress just how much of a paradigm shift Stuxnet was in terms of what malware is used for - In the field of cybersecurity, it is consider to be the first true "cyberweapon" - Not only was it a piece of malware designed to cause physical damage (through the breaking of centrifuges), it was laser targeted at a specific goal, designed to spread as quietly as possible until it happened to hop onto a USB drive that would just so happen to be connected to a system at Natanz. A single error allowing it to move to an engineer's computer also attached to their network is the only reason it was discovered in the 2010s by security researchers.

To say that democratic presidents wanted or want Iran to become a nuclear power is so blatantly wrong.

 

[friend of]

I'd ask the same of Trump supporters. Obama, along with US allies, created a deal that would keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons, complete with verification checks to ensure Iran was not breaking the agreement. Trump's removed the US from the deal, which led Iran to again start progress on developing nuclear weapons. Trump supporters all thought it was such a great thing that Trump broke the treaty with the foreseeable result of Iran working on them again, so why do Trump supporters want Iran to be a nuclear armed adversary?

Biden has been in office for a while now. Why is Iran's nuclear program proliferating under Biden? Because it's certainly not being stymied under this admin, it's flourishing. The fact of the matter is that Iran was, in various ways, non-compliant with the terms and conditions off the Obama deal and their weapons program was progressing. So Trump walked away from a bad deal.

Considering the Obama/Biden administration took out Iran's centrifuges with the Stuxnet virus, I see no reason to believe they want Iran to be a nuclear power.

Pretty sure that happened under Trump.

 

[friend of]

The money ($6 billion, not $20B) involved is not American. It is Iranian, being held in foreign banks. And it can be "spent only on humanitarian-related materials"

You expect me to believe that? Do you really believe that yourself? The worlds biggest state sponsor of terrorism is going to spend billions of dollars on "humanitarian aid materials"?

 

[Arcangl86]

Biden has been in office for a while now. Why is Iran's nuclear program proliferating under Biden? Because it's certainly not being stymied under this admin, it's flourishing.

What actions do you want Biden to take that he hasn't?

The fact of the matter is that Iran was, in various ways, non-compliant with the terms and conditions off the Obama deal and their weapons program was progressing. So Trump walked away from a bad deal.

I haven't heard that they weren't complying with the deal. All I heard from Trump was that it was a bad deal and that the US shouldn't have entered into it in the first place, not that Iran was not following it.

Pretty sure that happened under Trump.

Only if he had a time machine. The Stuxnet attacks happened between 2010 and 2012.

 

[DaisyDay]

Why do democrats and the left at large WANT Iran to be a nuclear armed adversary? Why do they want that so badly?

Now that is begging the question.

 

[SimplyMe]

Biden has been in office for a while now. Why is Iran's nuclear program proliferating under Biden? Because it's certainly not being stymied under this admin, it's flourishing.

I'm sorry, what do you expect Biden to do about it? Start a war with Iran? If the deal was still in place there would be methods for dealing with it but, since Trump ended the deal, no President has any good way of preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Nor is Iran interested in negotiating a new deal, at least in part because the next President is likely not to abide by it -- that they will be like Trump (maybe even be Trump) and cancel the deal.

The fact of the matter is that Iran was, in various ways, non-compliant with the terms and conditions off the Obama deal and their weapons program was progressing. So Trump walked away from a bad deal.

Oh, and what evidence is there of that? Again, we had programs in place that would stop it under the treaty, including the ability to go in and inspect. This claim is revisionist history, trying to justify Trump's decision in the hindsight that Iran started their nuclear program again under Trump (who was also powerless, without starting a war, from stopping Iran from doing it).

 

[Green Sun]

Pretty sure that happened under Trump.

No. Stuxnet was developed under what is called "Operation Olympics Games", an (unacknowledged) joint US/Israel project. The project started back in 2005, under Bush, and was continued under Obama, with deployment beginning sometime between 2009 and 2010. Part of the goal of utilizing a cyberweapon was to disable the Natanz plant without Israel resorting to a conventional strike.

The unusually tight collaboration with Israel was driven by two imperatives. Israel’s Unit 8200, a part of its military, had technical expertise that rivaled the N.S.A.’s, and the Israelis had deep intelligence about operations at Natanz that would be vital to making the cyberattack a success. But American officials had another interest, to dissuade the Israelis from carrying out their own pre-emptive strike against the Iranian nuclear facilities. To do that, the Israelis would have to be convinced that the new line of attack was working. The only way to convince them, several officials said in interviews, was to have them deeply involved in every aspect of the program.

The discovery of Stuxnet by the public was back in 2010:
The Man Who Found Stuxnet – Sergey Ulasen in the Spotlight

Stuxnet worm hits Iran nuclear plant staff computers

Microsoft confirms it missed Stuxnet print spooler 'zero-day'

Stuxnet - Infecting Industrial Control Systems

After discovery, Microsoft and Siemens both later issued fixes to prevent future exploitation, ensuring that Stuxnet would no longer pose a risk. This, alongside Stuxnet's own internal "kill date" of June 24th, 2012, means that it was most definitely not used under Trump.

While the worm is promiscuous, it makes itself inert if Siemens software is not found on infected computers, and contains safeguards to prevent each infected computer from spreading the worm to more than three others, and to erase itself on 24 June 2012

There are almost certainly other zero-day exploits that have been used by the US against Iran since Stuxnet, including under Trump and Biden. Nation-states often 'stockpile' exploits to prevent manufacturers from fixing them so they can utilize them, but Stuxnet predates Trump's time in office by years.

 

[essentialsaltes]

The fact of the matter is that Iran was, in various ways, non-compliant with the terms and conditions off the Obama deal and their weapons program was progressing.

That is not a fact. The Trump Administration certified Iran was compliant with the deal.

Trump tore up a deal that was working. And that's why Iran's nuclear program proliferated under Trump, and continues under Biden.

Because it's hard to tape together the torn up shreds of a multilateral treaty. Besides, if Trump wins in 2024, he'll just tear it up again, so why should Iran even bother to talk to us?

 

[Green Sun]

Because it's hard to tape together the torn up shreds of a multilateral treaty. Besides, if Trump wins in 2024, he'll just tear it up again, so why should Iran even bother to talk to us?

I think this is a great thing to bring up.

Just for a moment, put yourself into Iran's shoes.

You've agreed to a deal, you've stuck by the requirements in the deal, you've met every metric that you are supposed to meet, and the group you have the deal with agrees and confirms publicly that you meet the requirements.

That group them bails on their end, tears up the deal, and acts like you never met the requirements.

Why would you trust that group in the future? Sure, the new guy wants to try and revive the old deal, but if another person can just waltz in and spit in your face again, why bother? This is the exact reason why Trump's actions were so damaging on the world stage - The US went from a partner with a lot of different countries, to pounding the drum of "America First" and treating even allies as potential enemies. Not exactly the kind of behavior that has adversaries willing to negotiate with you.

 

[PsaltiChrysostom]

No. Stuxnet was developed under what is called "Operation Olympics Games", an (unacknowledged) joint US/Israel project. The project started back in 2005, under Bush, and was continued under Obama, with deployment beginning sometime between 2009 and 2010. Part of the goal of utilizing a cyberweapon was to disable the Natanz plant without Israel resorting to a conventional strike.


There are almost certainly other zero-day exploits that have been used by the US against Iran since Stuxnet, including under Trump and Biden. Nation-states often 'stockpile' exploits to prevent manufacturers from fixing them so they can utilize them, but Stuxnet predates Trump's time in office by years.

Yup... as I know one of the Stuxnet developers.