Nuclear deal with Iran - good or bad?

zippy2

Well-Known Member
Jul 18, 2015
2,077
1,098
71
Texas
✟15,441.00
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Republican
Iran has no means of getting a warhead anywhere near the UK. It has been pointed out often in this thread, but to repeat, you need both a warhead and a means of delivering it. Iran has neither.

Not to mention the small matter that Iran would have no desire to attack the UK, even if it could.

The suggestion that this might happen was mindless scaremongering.

I never suggested anything of the kind!
 
Upvote 0

classicalhero

Junior Member
Jun 9, 2013
1,631
399
Perth,Western Australia
✟11,338.00
Faith
Baptist
Marital Status
Single
Politics
AU-Liberals
Nice Meme..
What exactly does "elder of Ziyon" signify? Thanks



http://elderofziyon.com/

Elder of Ziyon

Controlling the world since 70 CE.
It's a blog by an American Jew. It's a play on the fraudulent Book "Protocols of the Elders of Zion".

But you you do have answer the question in the poster, who is lying in those quotes? The two quotes can't be true at the same time. But it looks like for the most part people have ignored what President Obama said in 2012 about what he wanted from a deal with Ian and changed his mind for the worse.
 
Upvote 0

FredVB

Regular Member
Mar 11, 2010
4,507
921
America
Visit site
✟265,191.00
Country
United States
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Single
LittleLambofJesus said:
I for one do not believe that Israel will risk retributions from other countries that are agreeing to the deal. Unless of course Iran decides to attack Israel, then I suppose all bets would be off.........

http://www.johntreed.com/IsraelbombIran.html
There are a number of practical problems like a path for Israeli planes to get into and out of Iran.
Presumably, Iran has arranged for distant early warning of such an attack so Israel would not be able to achieve surprise. Indeed, their prior two attacks on Iraq and Syria have probably destroyed their ability to surprise any enemies.
The distance between Israel and Iran is greater than to Iraq and Syria.
The attacks on Iraq and Syria embarrassed the muslim world. Another such attack would increase the cumulative Islamic anger. If Israel can attack other countries, they can attack Israel. Israel was not very impressive militarily in the Lebanon situation in 2006. No one goes undefeated forever. Victories are extremely expensive financially.
I doubt Iran could do very much back at Israel. Israel is a long ways away. Iran seems to me working on missiles to attack israel. That would be about the only way.

This is what I expect anyway, that it is really possible it would come to missile attacks.

classicalhero said:
By President Obama's own standards leading o the 2012 Presidential Election this is a bad deal.
http://observer.com/2015/08/dershowitz-obama-is-an-abject-failure-by-his-own-standards/

A picture is worth a thousand words.
CLqhf6JUYAAAyDV.png%20large_zpsao3glrhh.png

This is something for what is good to have known more generally. I think I will be sharing it in more places, as some can do.
 
Upvote 0

RDKirk

Alien, Pilgrim, and Sojourner
Supporter
Mar 3, 2013
39,137
20,170
US
✟1,440,860.00
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Married
Dozens of retired generals, admirals back Iran deal

Three dozen retired generals and admirals Tuesday released an open letter supporting the Iran nuclear deal and urging Congress to do the same.

Calling the agreement “the most effective means currently available to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons,” the letter said that gaining international support for military action against Iran, should that ever become necessary, “would only be possible if we have first given the diplomatic path a chance.”

....

Signers of the military letter include retired general and flag officers from every branch of service. They include four-star Marine Gens. James Cartwright, former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Joseph P. Hoar, former head of the U.S. Central Command; and Gens. Merrill McPeak and Lloyd W. Newton of the Air Force.

“There is no better option to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon,” the letter said. “Military action would be less effective than the deal, assuming it is fully implemented. If the Iranians cheat, our advanced technology, intelligence and the inspections will reveal it, and U.S. military options remain on the table.”

“And if the deal is rejected by America,” it said, “the Iranians could have a nuclear weapon within a year. The choice is that stark.”

The generals are saying (and nobody is more gung-ho for war than General McPeak) is that the military option requires a solid pretext.

What is also said there is that "technology can always find technology." The more true weapons technology they actually develop, the easier it is to detect it and target it.

Retired Navy Rear Adm. Harold L. Robinson, a Jewish rabbi and former naval chaplain who currently chairs the National Conference on Ministry to the Armed Forces, also signed.[/quote]

“As a lifelong Zionist, devoted to Israel, and a retired general officer and a rabbi for over 40 years, and operating without institutional encumbrances, I have a unique perspective,” Robinson said in an interview.
 
Upvote 0
Jan 25, 2013
3,501
476
✟58,340.00
Faith
Muslim
Marital Status
Private
"...the Arabs at least will suspect the truth: that the Americans have taken the Shia Muslim side in the Middle East’s sectarian war."

Iran Nuclear Deal: America Has Taken Iran's Side

Andrew Tabler, a Syria specialist at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, pointed out that.....“A deal between the U.S. and Iran only reinforces the narrative to the opposition that the U.S. is secretly in league with Iran against the Syrian Sunni majority population,” Tabler said. “The concern now is that this may launch a fake political process, one that purports to deal with the conflict but just ends up giving more concessions to the Assad regime and Iranians in Syria. That’s hardly something the Sunni allies will go along with.” Assad, Tabler added, remains confident that he can win the war outright and this deal will only make him more so.

Syria's Butcher Really Won the Iran Deal - The Daily Beast
"
Rhodes’s innovative campaign to sell the Iran deal is likely to be a model for how future administrations explain foreign policy to Congress and the public. The way in which most Americans have heard the story of the Iran deal presented — that the Obama administration began seriously engaging with Iranian officials in 2013 in order to take advantage of a new political reality in Iran, which came about because of elections that brought moderates to power in that country — was largely manufactured for the purpose for selling the deal. Even where the particulars of that story are true, the implications that readers and viewers are encouraged to take away from those particulars are often misleading or false. Obama’s closest advisers always understood him to be eager to do a deal with Iran as far back as 2012, and even since the beginning of his presidency. “It’s the center of the arc,” Rhodes explained to me two days after the deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was implemented. He then checked off the ways in which the administration’s foreign-policy aims and priorities converged on Iran. “We don’t have to kind of be in cycles of conflict if we can find other ways to resolve these issues,” he said. “We can do things that challenge the conventional thinking that, you know, ‘AIPAC doesn’t like this,’ or ‘the Israeli government doesn’t like this,’ or ‘the gulf countries don’t like it.’ It’s the possibility of improved relations with adversaries. It’s nonproliferation. So all these threads that the president’s been spinning — and I mean that not in the press sense — for almost a decade, they kind of all converged around Iran.

In the narrative that Rhodes shaped, the “story” of the Iran deal began in 2013, when a “moderate” faction inside the Iranian regime led by Hassan Rouhani beat regime “hard-liners” in an election and then began to pursue a policy of “openness,” which included a newfound willingness to negotiate the dismantling of its illicit nuclear-weapons program. The president set out the timeline himself in his speech announcing the nuclear deal on July 14, 2015: “Today, after two years of negotiations, the United States, together with our international partners, has achieved something that decades of animosity has not.” While the president’s statement was technically accurate — there had in fact been two years of formal negotiations leading up to the signing of the J.C.P.O.A. — it was also actively misleading, because the most meaningful part of the negotiations with Iran had begun in mid-2012, many months before Rouhani and the “moderate” camp were chosen in an election among candidates handpicked by Iran’s supreme leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The idea that there was a new reality in Iran was politically useful to the Obama administration. By obtaining broad public currency for the thought that there was a significant split in the regime, and that the administration was reaching out to moderate-minded Iranians who wanted peaceful relations with their neighbors and with America, Obama was able to evade what might have otherwise been a divisive but clarifying debate over the actual policy choices that his administration was making. By eliminating the fuss about Iran’s nuclear program, the administration hoped to eliminate a source of structural tension between the two countries, which would create the space for America to disentangle itself from its established system of alliances with countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel and Turkey. With one bold move, the administration would effectively begin the process of a large-scale disengagement from the Middle East.

The nerve center for the selling of the Iran deal to Congress, which took place in a concentrated three-month period between July and September of last year, was located inside the White House, and is referred to by its former denizens as “the war room.” ....Rhodes “was kind of like the quarterback,” running the daily video conferences and coming up with lines of attack and parry. “He was extremely good about immediately getting to a phrase or a way of getting the message out that just made more sense,” Kreikemeier remembers. Framing the deal as a choice between peace and war was Rhodes’s go-to move — and proved to be a winning argument.

The person whom Kreikemeier credits with running the digital side of the campaign was Tanya Somanader, 31, the director of digital response for the White House Office of Digital Strategy, who became known in the war room and on Twitter as @TheIranDeal. Early on, Rhodes asked her to create a rapid-response account that fact-checked everything related to the Iran deal. “So, we developed a plan that was like: The Iran deal is literally going to be the tip of everything that we stand up online,” Somanader says. “And we’re going to map it onto what we know about the different audiences we’re dealing with: the public, pundits, experts, the right wing, Congress.” By applying 21st-century data and networking tools to the white-glove world of foreign affairs, the White House was able to track what United States senators and the people who worked for them, and influenced them, were seeing online — and make sure that no potential negative comment passed without a tweet.

As she explained how the process worked, I was struck by how naïve the assumption of a “state of nature” must seem in an information environment that is mediated less and less by experienced editors and reporters with any real prior knowledge of the subjects they write about. “People construct their own sense of source and credibility now,” she said. “They elect who they’re going to believe.” For those in need of more traditional-seeming forms of validation, handpicked Beltway insiders like Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic and Laura Rozen of Al-Monitor helped retail the administration’s narrative. “Laura Rozen was my RSS feed,” Somanader offered. “She would just find everything and retweet it.”....

.....In March 2013, a full three months before the elections that elevated Hassan Rouhani to the office of president, Sullivan and Burns finalized their proposal for an interim agreement, which became the basis for the J.C.P.O.A.

The White House point person during the later stage of the negotiations was Rob Malley, a favored troubleshooter who is currently running negotiations that could keep the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in power.

.....“We created an echo chamber,” he admitted, when I asked him to explain the onslaught of freshly minted experts cheerleading for the deal. “They were saying things that validated what we had given them to say.

Rhodes...said, “We had test drives to know who was going to be able to carry our message effectively, and how to use outside groups like Ploughshares, the Iran Project and whomever else. So we knew the tactics that worked.” He is proud of the way he sold the Iran deal. “We drove them crazy,” he said of the deal’s opponents.

Yet Rhodes bridled at the suggestion that there has been anything deceptive about the way that the agreement itself was sold. “Look, with Iran, in a weird way, these are state-to-state issues. They’re agreements between governments. Yes, I would prefer that it turns out that Rouhani and Zarif” — Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister — “are real reformers who are going to be steering this country into the direction that I believe it can go in, because their public is educated and, in some respects, pro-American. But we are not betting on that.

.....When I asked whether the prospect of this same kind of far-reaching spin campaign being run by a different administration is something that scares him, he admitted that it does. “I mean, I’d prefer a sober, reasoned public debate, after which members of Congress reflect and take a vote,” he said, shrugging. “But that’s impossible.”

......Another official I spoke to put the same point more succinctly: “Clearly the world has disappointed him [Obama].” When I asked whether he believed that the Oval Office debate over Syria policy in 2012 — resulting in a decision not to support the uprising against Assad in any meaningful way — had been an honest and open one, he said that he had believed that it was, but has since changed his mind. “Instead of adjusting his policies to the reality, and adjusting his perception of reality to the changing realities on the ground, the conclusions he draws are exactly the same, no matter what the costs have been to our strategic interests,” he says. “In an odd way, he reminds me of Bush.” The comparison is a startling one — and yet, questions of tone aside, it is uncomfortably easy to see the similarities between the two men, American presidents who projected their own ideas of the good onto an indifferent world.

....Leon Panetta, who was Obama’s head of the C.I.A. and secretary of defense and also enough of a product of a different culture to give honest answers to what he understands to be questions of consequence....I ask him about a crucial component of the administration’s public narrative on Iran: whether it was ever a salient feature of the C.I.A.’s analysis when he ran the agency that the Iranian regime was meaningfully divided between “hard-line” and “moderate” camps.

No,” Panetta answers. “There was not much question that the Quds Force and the supreme leader ran that country with a strong arm, and there was not much question that this kind of opposing view could somehow gain any traction.

......Perhaps the president and his aides were continually unable to predict the consequences of their actions in Syria, and made mistake after mistake, while imagining that it was going to come out right the next time. “Another read, which isn’t necessarily opposed to that,” I continue, “is that their actual picture is entirely coherent. But if they put it in blunt, unnuanced terms — ”Panetta completes my sentence: “ — they’d get the [expletive] kicked out of them.”

.....What has interested me most about watching him [Rhodes] and his cohort in the White House over the past seven years, I tell him, is the evolution of their ability to get comfortable with tragedy. I am thinking specifically about Syria, I add, where more than 450,000 people have been slaughtered.

“Yeah, I admit very much to that reality,” he says. “There’s a numbing element to Syria in particular. But I will tell you this,” he continues. “I profoundly do not believe that the United States could make things better in Syria by being there. And we have an evidentiary record of what happens when we’re there — nearly a decade in Iraq.”

Iraq is his one-word answer to any and all criticism. I was against the Iraq war from the beginning, I tell Rhodes, so I understand why he perpetually returns to it. I also understand why Obama pulled the plug on America’s engagement with the Middle East, I say, but it was also true as a result that more people are dying there on his watch than died during the Bush presidency, even if very few of them are Americans. What I don’t understand is why, if America is getting out of the Middle East, we are apparently spending so much time and energy trying to strong-arm Syrian rebels into surrendering to the dictator who murdered their families, or why it is so important for Iran to maintain its supply lines to Hezbollah. He mutters something about John Kerry, and then goes off the record, to suggest, in effect, that the world of the Sunni Arabs that the American establishment built has collapsed. The buck stops with the establishment, not with Obama, who was left to clean up their mess.
"
The Aspiring Novelist Who Became Obama’s Foreign-Policy Guru
 
Upvote 0
Jan 25, 2013
3,501
476
✟58,340.00
Faith
Muslim
Marital Status
Private
Part of a video of a State Department press briefing addressing secret talks between the U.S. and Iran was deliberately deleted before it was posted online, an investigation by the department's legal adviser found Wednesday....an unknown U.S. official made a request over the phone to delete several minutes of a December 2013 video...

The deleted portion of the video involves questions about a previous press briefing in 2012 in which then-State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland denied secret talks between the U.S. and Iran about a potential nuclear deal were taking place....then-spokeswoman Jen Psaki admitted the administration lied in order to protect the secret negotiations.

Earlier this month Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes acknowledged to The New York Times that the administration was deceptive about the talks, creating a "narrative" that they did not take place.

State Department doctored video to hide Iran deal
 
Upvote 0

Loudmouth

Contributor
Aug 26, 2003
51,417
6,141
Visit site
✟98,005.00
Faith
Agnostic
Part of a video of a State Department press briefing addressing secret talks between the U.S. and Iran was deliberately deleted before it was posted online, an investigation by the department's legal adviser found Wednesday....an unknown U.S. official made a request over the phone to delete several minutes of a December 2013 video...

The deleted portion of the video involves questions about a previous press briefing in 2012 in which then-State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland denied secret talks between the U.S. and Iran about a potential nuclear deal were taking place....then-spokeswoman Jen Psaki admitted the administration lied in order to protect the secret negotiations.

Earlier this month Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes acknowledged to The New York Times that the administration was deceptive about the talks, creating a "narrative" that they did not take place.

State Department doctored video to hide Iran deal

I am sure that every government has secret meetings with other governments all of the time. Why is this a problem?
 
Upvote 0
Jan 25, 2013
3,501
476
✟58,340.00
Faith
Muslim
Marital Status
Private
Because the administration lied to the public about it. They deleted a portion of a video before posting it online (the part where they confess to lying). It matters because this exposes a total lack of transparency. The narrative they gave to the public was that talks had begun in summer of 2013 when the supposedly "moderate" regime (chosen by Khomeini) was elected when in reality the proposal was finalized well before that time.

Maybe read the post before the one you quoted. It contains (long) excerpts from the (even longer) article in the NYT. It shows how the administration spun this deal to win public support. Ben Rhodes himself states that another administration using the same tactics scares him.

I don't see how the government lying so blatantly over such a big thing in order to drum up support for the Iran deal (at a time when Iran is supporting terrorism in Syria) is not a problem.
 
Upvote 0

Loudmouth

Contributor
Aug 26, 2003
51,417
6,141
Visit site
✟98,005.00
Faith
Agnostic
Because the administration lied to the public about it.

It wouldn't be much of a secret if they didn't. The government wouldn't function if they were forced to divulge everything whenever asked.

It matters because this exposes a total lack of transparency.

A lack of transparency is exactly what some negotiations require. There's nothing wrong with that.

The narrative they gave to the public was that talks had begun in summer of 2013 when the supposedly "moderate" regime (chosen by Khomeini) was elected when in reality the proposal was finalized well before that time.

Maybe read the post before the one you quoted. It contains (long) excerpts from the (even longer) article in the NYT. It shows how the administration spun this deal to win public support. Ben Rhodes himself states that another administration using the same tactics scares him.

I don't see how the government lying so blatantly over such a big thing in order to drum up support for the Iran deal (at a time when Iran is supporting terrorism in Syria) is not a problem.

Why does it matter when the talks started? What matters is the end result.

It would appear that you are more worried about window dressing than you are on the actual policy.
 
Upvote 0
Jan 25, 2013
3,501
476
✟58,340.00
Faith
Muslim
Marital Status
Private
Why does it matter when the talks started? What matters is the end result.

Because that little detail may have led to a huge difference in this deal and that matters a lot to me when hundreds of thousands of civilian lives (Sunni Syrians, Iraqis, Yemenis), if not millions, are in imminent danger due to Iran's terrorism. If you didn't bother scrolling up to read the excerpts I referred to, I'll do you a favor and post the relevant ones (to your question) here:

"The way in which most Americans have heard the story of the Iran deal presented — that the Obama administration began seriously engaging with Iranian officials in 2013 in order to take advantage of a new political reality in Iran, which came about because of elections that brought moderates to power in that country — was largely manufactured for the purpose for selling the deal."

"In the narrative that Rhodes shaped, the “story” of the Iran deal began in 2013, when a “moderate” faction inside the Iranian regime led by Hassan Rouhani beat regime “hard-liners” in an election and then began to pursue a policy of “openness,” which included a newfound willingness to negotiate the dismantling of its illicit nuclear-weapons program."

However, reality was different and this would likely have put more of the public against this deal:

"the most meaningful part of the negotiations with Iran had begun in mid-2012, many months before Rouhani and the “moderate” camp were chosen in an election among candidates handpicked by Iran’s supreme leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei."

"By obtaining broad public currency for the thought that there was a significant split in the regime, and that the administration was reaching out to moderate-minded Iranians who wanted peaceful relations with their neighbors and with America, Obama was able to evade what might have otherwise been a divisive but clarifying debate over the actual policy choices that his administration was making."

The Aspiring Novelist Who Became Obama’s Foreign-Policy Guru
It would appear that you are more worried about window dressing than you are on the actual policy.

I'm more worried about Iran continuing to help Assad commit genocide with the funds that they will now be getting due to this deal.
 
Upvote 0
This site stays free and accessible to all because of donations from people like you.
Consider making a one-time or monthly donation. We appreciate your support!
- Dan Doughty and Team Christian Forums

Loudmouth

Contributor
Aug 26, 2003
51,417
6,141
Visit site
✟98,005.00
Faith
Agnostic
Because that little detail may have led to a huge difference in this deal and that matters a lot to me when hundreds of thousands of civilian lives (Sunni Syrians, Iraqis, Yemenis), if not millions, are in imminent danger due to Iran's terrorism.

The same applies to the actions of the US. How many millions of Iraqi's did we kill? In fact, the direct actions of the US led to the political situation in Iran.

Also, what huge differences are you talking about?

"The way in which most Americans have heard the story of the Iran deal presented — that the Obama administration began seriously engaging with Iranian officials in 2013 in order to take advantage of a new political reality in Iran, which came about because of elections that brought moderates to power in that country — was largely manufactured for the purpose for selling the deal."
"In the narrative that Rhodes shaped, the “story” of the Iran deal began in 2013, when a “moderate” faction inside the Iranian regime led by Hassan Rouhani beat regime “hard-liners” in an election and then began to pursue a policy of “openness,” which included a newfound willingness to negotiate the dismantling of its illicit nuclear-weapons program."

However, reality was different and this would likely have put more of the public against this deal:

"the most meaningful part of the negotiations with Iran had begun in mid-2012, many months before Rouhani and the “moderate” camp were chosen in an election among candidates handpicked by Iran’s supreme leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei."

"By obtaining broad public currency for the thought that there was a significant split in the regime, and that the administration was reaching out to moderate-minded Iranians who wanted peaceful relations with their neighbors and with America, Obama was able to evade what might have otherwise been a divisive but clarifying debate over the actual policy choices that his administration was making."

The Aspiring Novelist Who Became Obama’s Foreign-Policy Guru


I'm more worried about Iran continuing to help Assad commit genocide with the funds that they will now be getting due to this deal.

Again, how does any of this change what the deal actually is? Are you just concerned with the window dressing around the deal itself?

Are you saying that you would be fine with the current deal if negotiations really had started in 2013?
 
Upvote 0
Jan 25, 2013
3,501
476
✟58,340.00
Faith
Muslim
Marital Status
Private
The same applies to the actions of the US. How many millions of Iraqi's did we kill? In fact, the direct actions of the US led to the political situation in Iran.

What does that have to do with Iran's support for terrorism and genocide?

Also, what huge differences are you talking about?

Making the deal vs. not making the deal

Again, how does any of this change what the deal actually is? Are you just concerned with the window dressing around the deal itself?

It changes how much resistance there would have been to the deal in the first place, perhaps not being made at all.

Genocide is not window dressing.

Are you saying that you would be fine with the current deal if negotiations really had started in 2013?

No, I'm not fine with the deal taking place when Iran is assisting in genocide. The way they sold the deal to the public was deceptive and had they not engaged in that deception, there likely would have been different results. Then perhaps Iran wouldn't be given more funds to help commit genocide.
 
Upvote 0

Loudmouth

Contributor
Aug 26, 2003
51,417
6,141
Visit site
✟98,005.00
Faith
Agnostic
What does that have to do with Iran's support for terrorism and genocide?

Just pointing out the hypocrisy.

Making the deal vs. not making the deal

The government officials already knew when negotiations started, so how would that have affected the deal?

It changes how much resistance there would have been to the deal in the first place, perhaps not being made at all.

So let me get this straight. Your approval of the Iran nuclear deal only has to do with when negotiations started? That's it?

Genocide is not window dressing.

We aren't talking about genocide. We are talking about when officials started talking to one another. Why are you so hung up on this?

No, I'm not fine with the deal taking place when Iran is assisting in genocide.

Then why do you care when negotiations started? It appears that you oppose any deal, no matter what.
 
Upvote 0
Jan 25, 2013
3,501
476
✟58,340.00
Faith
Muslim
Marital Status
Private
Just pointing out the hypocrisy.

That does not mean we should allow Iran access to funds at a time when they will use to help assist in committing genocide.

The government officials already knew when negotiations started, so how would that have affected the deal?

Public opinion against the deal could have swayed whether it was taken. The administration recognized this which is why it lied to the public and created a deceptive narrative.

So let me get this straight. Your approval of the Iran nuclear deal only has to do with when negotiations started? That's it?

No. I have made it clear that I am not in approval of the deal. I don't know what's so hard to understand. Broken down: I don't like the deal because it gives Iran access to funds which it will use to help commit genocide and terrorism. This deal may not have gone through had the public been aware of all of the details regarding it (like when the negotiations started and with the type of people).

We aren't talking about genocide. We are talking about when officials started talking to one another. Why are you so hung up on this?

I have been talking about genocide while you seem to want to gloss over it and call it window dressing. Why am I so hung up on genocide? Because the funds released from the nuclear deal will help assist in genocide. This deal has a real and profound negative impact on the lives of millions of Syrians.

Then why do you care when negotiations started? It appears that you oppose any deal, no matter what.

I care about how the story was portrayed to the public in order to win support for the deal (which, yes, I opposed no matter what given Iran's assistance in genocide and terrorism).
 
Upvote 0

Loudmouth

Contributor
Aug 26, 2003
51,417
6,141
Visit site
✟98,005.00
Faith
Agnostic
That does not mean we should allow Iran access to funds at a time when they will use to help assist in committing genocide.

First, you need to prove that Iran is doing any such thing.

Public opinion against the deal could have swayed whether it was taken. The administration recognized this which is why it lied to the public and created a deceptive narrative.

If public opinion is swayed by when negotiations started, then the administration should ignore public opinion. What matters is the actual deal. Again, all you are demonstrating is that you could care less about the actual deal.

No. I have made it clear that I am not in approval of the deal.

Then why don't you tell us which parts of the deal you don't like instead of focusing on details that don't matter?

I don't like the deal because it gives Iran access to funds which it will use to help commit genocide and terrorism.

What genocide are they funding?

have been talking about genocide while you seem to want to gloss over it and call it window dressing.

That is FALSE!!! You have been talking about when negotiations started!!! Read your own posts.
 
Upvote 0
This site stays free and accessible to all because of donations from people like you.
Consider making a one-time or monthly donation. We appreciate your support!
- Dan Doughty and Team Christian Forums
Jan 25, 2013
3,501
476
✟58,340.00
Faith
Muslim
Marital Status
Private
First, you need to prove that Iran is doing any such thing.

I have to prove that Iran is assisting in committing genocide?

"The Sunnis have been deliberately targeted and destroyed by the Alawite dictatorship, an offshoot of the Shi’a sect of Islam. As such, a Shi’a oriented minority is mass murdering another group. Destroying a religious group is genocide unless they are combatants. The regime is fighting the rebels to be sure, but, as in most known genocides, killing civilians in much larger numbers.

The current genocide in Syria is comparable to those of Bosnia and Rwanda approximately two decades ago, or East Pakistan, East Timor or Armenia. In fact, it is comparable to all the cases that the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, wrote about in her book, A Problem from Hell, which described U.S. inaction in all of these cases. Upwards of 50,000 Sunni civilians* is indeed a large percentage of the Syrian population of 22 million, and the UN estimates that 5,000 Syrians are dying each month now. The point is that if there is a moral claim in the Syrian crisis, whether genocide or not, action to stop the mass killing is required."


Syria's Civil War Has Become a Genocide

*No longer 50,000 dead Sunni civilians but now around 200k (at least) at the hands of the regime and its allies.

The evidence is conclusive that the al-Assad regime is committing intentional crimes against humanity. Among the crimes the al-Assad regime is committing are: indiscriminate, widespread attacks on civilians, arbitrary detention of thousands in the political opposition, genocidal massacres of whole villages of Sunni Muslims, rape of detainees, widespread torture- including torture and murder of children- and denial of food, medicines and other essential resources to civilians.

The International Alliance to End Genocide

"The Islamic Republic of Iran has conducted an extensive, expensive, and integrated effort to keep President Bashar al-Assad in power as long as possible while setting conditions to retain its ability to use Syrian territory and assets to pursue its regional interests should Assad fall."


Iranian Strategy in Syria

Her husband, Yasser, a merchant who owned two stores in the city, disagrees with this analysis—he thinks Shiite militias supported by Iran are an even greater danger than Putin’s air force. “We ran away from the city because we know that after the Russians will finish it, the Iranians will come in. The Iranians are sending people to kill us for Assad.”

These militias, which are entering Syria from neighboring Iraq, have quite a reputation when it comes to killing. “They are just like ISIS, only difference is they are Shi’a and they talk Farsi,” says Yasser. “Tell me—why isn’t anyone bombing them? Why is the entire world only talking about ISIS? The Iranians in Syria burn people alive, burn children and women. Where is the world?”

....One man in his 50s, who presented himself in perfect English as a university professor from Aleppo, added: “I’m running away from Da’esh (the Arabic name for ISIS), but there are many different kinds of Da’esh operating in Syria today. There is Da’esh-Da’esh, the people who cut off heads and burn prisoners in cages. There is also Da’esh-Assad, which is actually much worse, and Da’esh-Iran, the Iranian militias who rape and murder women in front of their children’s eyes. They have much more money and capabilities, and they don’t film themselves while doing their atrocities. They are smart enough to hide it from the world. In addition to all these, there is also Da’esh-Putin. I’m coming from Aleppo; I’ve seen the results of his bombings. It’s a massacre. People are killed like cockroaches under a shoe. And then there is Da’esh-the West, which I think is the worst! I mean the civilized world, doing nothing to stop all of this.”


Is the U.S. Supporting Mass Extermination In Syria?

Consider Iranian support for Assad thus far. The U.N. special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, estimated last month that Iran has spent between $6 billion and $35 billion per year to keep its ally afloat and in an active state of war. Just days ago Damascus ratified a $1 billion credit line from Tehran. The mullahs have also been caught sending oil to Syria that is more or less “free” because there’s no expectation that Assad will ever be in a position to repay the loans Iran extended to it to buy the stuff in the first place. And all this support has transpired under a still-active and robust international sanctions regime.

...Naame Shaam, a citizens’ journalist collective, has argued in a series of research reports that Iran is technically an “occupying force” in Syria, so extensive is its military intervention in the country. What’s more, the IRGC-QF is guilty of orchestrating numerous war crimes against the Syrian people, including ethnic cleansing.

Much of Iran’s funding in Syria has gone toward arming predominantly Shia proxies—notably the so-called National Defense Force, an IRGC-QF-built super-militia—which fight Sunnis on behalf of Assad. An outgrowth of the sectarianism inherent in the Iranian and Syrian regime’s counterinsurgency has been ISIS, which draws thousands of Sunnis seeking to shield themselves from what they view as Shia jihadists.


....“The deal with world powers does not address Iran’s terrorist activities in the region carried out by its proxies in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen,” the Syrian National Coalition, the Western-backed opposition group, said in a statement today. “In Syria, Iran is offering a lifeline to Assad by providing arms, financing, training, and paying monthly salaries for Afghans and other foreign Shia mercenaries coming to Syria to fight for Assad. Iran is almost certainly going to use the newly available cash and bolstered economy to prop up its proxies and try to assert its hegemony in the region, causing more conflict and bloodshed.”

....according to Frederic Hof, a Senior Fellow at the Washington D.C.-based Atlantic Council and a former State Department policy planner on Syria under the current White House.... “The administration decided not to table Tehran support for Assad’s mass homicide in Syria,” Hof said. “Now that the nuclear agreement has been reached, it is essential for the U.S. to pivot immediately to civilian protection and political transition in Syria.”


...According to Oubai Shahbandar, a former Pentagon official who now serves as communications adviser to the Gulf-based television network Orient Media, the scaled lifting of the arms embargo “will wreak massive devastation on the Syrian civilians who seem to have been sacrificed as ‘collateral damage’ to this deal. The Iranian-designed and -produced Falaq-1 and Falaq-2 rockets proliferated to Assad were modified to carry chemical weapons and were the delivery vehicles for the 2013 sarin gas attack. Iran just received a blank check for its deadly activities in Syria.”

Syria’s Butcher Really Won the Iran Deal

Iran-backed Shia militias already play a major role in Assad’s defenses in several areas of Syria, with Hezbollah fighters very prominent in the current offensive against the city of Zabadani. Iranian military advisers have also long been present in the country, and Iran is reportedly a main funder of the National Defense Forces militia network, which has helped fill the gap left by Assad’s shrinking army since 2012.


But Iran’s economic and logistical contributions to Assad’s war efforts may be even more important. Iranian political contacts, organization, and financing underpin the oil tanker traffic keeping Assad’s economy, infrastructure, and power generation abilities afloat. Iranian financial backing and aid shipments have enabled purchases of oil as well as other key imports. As recently as May 19, Iran and Syria signed a new deal for a $1 billion credit line, giving Assad’s failing economy another lease on life.


What Does the Iran Deal Mean for Syria?


If public opinion is swayed by when negotiations started, then the administration should ignore public opinion. What matters is the actual deal. Again, all you are demonstrating is that you could care less about the actual deal.

If the administration should ignore public opinion, then they shouldn't have lied to the public in the first place. But they can't ignore it which is why they lied in order to drum up support.

Then why don't you tell us which parts of the deal you don't like instead of focusing on details that don't matter?

Genocide is a detail that doesn't matter? I don't like the part of the deal that gives them access to funds to continue assisting in it.

What genocide are they funding?

The genocide in Syria. See above excerpts and links.

That is FALSE!!! You have been talking about when negotiations started!!! Read your own posts.

I have been talking about Iran's terrorism and genocide!!! Pay attention. :)

I don't see how the government lying so blatantly over such a big thing in order to drum up support for the Iran deal (at a time when Iran is supporting terrorism in Syria) is not a problem.

Because that little detail may have led to a huge difference in this deal and that matters a lot to me when hundreds of thousands of civilian lives (Sunni Syrians, Iraqis, Yemenis), if not millions, are in imminent danger due to Iran's terrorism.
[snip]
I'm more worried about Iran continuing to help Assad commit genocide with the funds that they will now be getting due to this deal.

What does that have to do with Iran's support for terrorism and genocide?

Genocide is not window dressing.

No, I'm not fine with the deal taking place when Iran is assisting in genocide. The way they sold the deal to the public was deceptive and had they not engaged in that deception, there likely would have been different results. Then perhaps Iran wouldn't be given more funds to help commit genocide.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0

Loudmouth

Contributor
Aug 26, 2003
51,417
6,141
Visit site
✟98,005.00
Faith
Agnostic
I have to prove that Iran is assisting in committing genocide?

"The Sunnis have been deliberately targeted and destroyed by the Alawite dictatorship, an offshoot of the Shi’a sect of Islam. As such, a Shi’a oriented minority is mass murdering another group. Destroying a religious group is genocide unless they are combatants. The regime is fighting the rebels to be sure, but, as in most known genocides, killing civilians in much larger numbers.

The current genocide in Syria is comparable to those of Bosnia and Rwanda approximately two decades ago, or East Pakistan, East Timor or Armenia. In fact, it is comparable to all the cases that the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, wrote about in her book, A Problem from Hell, which described U.S. inaction in all of these cases. Upwards of 50,000 Sunni civilians* is indeed a large percentage of the Syrian population of 22 million, and the UN estimates that 5,000 Syrians are dying each month now. The point is that if there is a moral claim in the Syrian crisis, whether genocide or not, action to stop the mass killing is required."


Then you might as well argue that the US committed genocide when they wiped out the Sunnis in Iraq, by your definition.


If the administration should ignore public opinion, then they shouldn't have lied to the public in the first place. But they can't ignore it which is why they lied in order to drum up support.

Again, you wouldn't like the deal even if they had started negotiations when they said they did, so why do you keep harping about it?

Genocide is a detail that doesn't matter?

The timing of the negotiations doesn't matter, as I have stated over and over. Stop putting words in my mouth.

I don't like the part of the deal that gives them access to funds to continue assisting in it.

Then why keep talking about when the negotiations started?

The genocide in Syria. See above excerpts and links.

Then why keep talking about when the negotiations started?

I have been talking about Iran's terrorism and genocide!!! Pay attention. :)

No, you have been talking about when the negotiations started.
 
Upvote 0
Jan 25, 2013
3,501
476
✟58,340.00
Faith
Muslim
Marital Status
Private
Then you might as well argue that the US committed genocide when they wiped out the Sunnis in Iraq, by your definition

Way to ignore all of the other evidence I gave of the genocide and Iran's part in it. Secondly, it's not my definition.

The United Nations Human Rights Council’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria issued a report in 2013. In it they said:

"While the definition of genocide can be debated technically, politically and legally, the Genocide Convention makes clear that the crimes committed in Syria are in fact considered genocide. Under Article Two of the Convention, “Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group;(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”"

Syria's Civil War Has Become a Genocide

Again, you wouldn't like the deal even if they had started negotiations when they said they did, so why do you keep harping about it?

Because maybe the deal wouldn't have happened if the public knew the whole story. And then maybe Iran wouldn't be given access to more funds to assist in committing genocide and terrorism.

It's pretty easy to connect the dots but I'll do you another favor and break it down further. Iran uses money (among other things) to help Assad commit his genocide. Iran now has access to more than a hundred billion dollars due to this deal. This deal may not have happened had the administration been upfront instead of spinning a narrative to make the idea more appealing to the public. If this deal did not happen, Iran would not have access to $150,000,000,000 to help Assad's regime commit genocide. I don't think I can make this any simpler so hopefully you understand it now.

The timing of the negotiations doesn't matter, as I have stated over and over. Stop putting words in my mouth.

If the timing of the negotiations didn't matter, then why did the administration create a narrative that they had only begun talking after the supposedly "moderate" regime was elected? Obviously it mattered enough that they had to lie about it.

Then why keep talking about when the negotiations started?

Because maybe the deal wouldn't have happened if the public knew the whole story. And then maybe Iran wouldn't be given access to more funds to assist in committing genocide and terrorism.

Then why keep talking about when the negotiations started?

Because maybe the deal wouldn't have happened if the public knew the whole story. And then maybe Iran wouldn't be given access to more funds to assist in committing genocide and terrorism.

No, you have been talking about when the negotiations started.

I'm sorry if you cannot read quotes properly even when they're handed to you and in bold. Let me try again to make it more obvious to you that I have been talking about the genocide and terrorism Iran is committing (since apparently you asking for evidence that Iran is funding genocide is not indicative of me making that claim in the first place):

I don't see how the government lying so blatantly over such a big thing in order to drum up support for the Iran deal (at a time when Iran is supporting terrorism in Syria) is not a problem.

Because that little detail may have led to a huge difference in this deal and that matters a lot to me when hundreds of thousands of civilian lives (Sunni Syrians, Iraqis, Yemenis), if not millions, are in imminent danger due to Iran's terrorism.
[snip]
I'm more worried about Iran continuing to help Assad commit genocide with the funds that they will now be getting due to this deal.

What does that have to do with Iran's support for terrorism and genocide?

Genocide is not window dressing.


No, I'm not fine with the deal taking place when Iran is assisting in genocide. The way they sold the deal to the public was deceptive and had they not engaged in that deception, there likely would have been different results. Then perhaps Iran wouldn't be given more funds to help commit genocide.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0

Loudmouth

Contributor
Aug 26, 2003
51,417
6,141
Visit site
✟98,005.00
Faith
Agnostic
Because maybe the deal wouldn't have happened if the public knew the whole story.

Again, that is just window dressing. It has nothing to do with the specifics of the actual deal.

It's pretty easy to connect the dots but I'll do you another favor and break it down further. Iran uses money (among other things) to help Assad commit his genocide. Iran now has access to more than a hundred billion dollars due to this deal. This deal may not have happened had the administration been upfront instead of spinning a narrative to make the idea more appealing to the public. If this deal did not happen, Iran would not have access to $150,000,000,000 to help Assad's regime commit genocide. I don't think I can make this any simpler so hopefully you understand it now.

Iran had access to money before that. If there was no deal, they would still have money to give to Assad, but they would also be developing a nuclear weapon at the same time.

If the timing of the negotiations didn't matter, then why did the administration create a narrative that they had only begun talking after the supposedly "moderate" regime was elected?

More than likely, to keep promises to the hardliners within the Iran government that they wouldn't expose their participation in the talks. That's why these talks were done in private, so that Iranian officials could save face. Afterall, the hardliners are as dogmatic about talking to the US as some US officials are about talking to Iran.

I'm sorry if you cannot read quotes properly even when they're handed to you and in bold. Let me try again to make it more obvious to you that I have been talking about the genocide and terrorism Iran is committing (since apparently you asking for evidence that Iran is funding genocide is not indicative of me making that claim in the first place):

The genocide doesn't stop if the negotiations started in 2013 instead of 2012.
 
Upvote 0
This site stays free and accessible to all because of donations from people like you.
Consider making a one-time or monthly donation. We appreciate your support!
- Dan Doughty and Team Christian Forums

tatteredsoul

Well-Known Member
Feb 4, 2016
1,941
1,034
New York/Int'l
✟14,624.00
Faith
Non-Denom
Marital Status
Private
It seems a deal has been struck with Iran to allow them to continue developing nuclear power and to release some sanctions. Is this a good or bad thing, personally I think that it is a good thing and will hopefully show other countries around the world that cooperation with the rest of the world will bring positive results.

It is an action intended to point to a red herring Antichrist. When the deal of "peace" is made in its first step, and WHEN the deal is broken, then everyone will look to someone/somewhere to attribute Antichrist. And the following war (which was inevitable since 1956) will be a red herring for the war of Armegeddon.

That way, the entity that seemingly rejuvenates the earth, and makes peace in a time of plagues, massive pop. decrease, famine, radiological and chemical monstrosity will look like a savior by comparison.

All planned.
 
Upvote 0