(01-08-2020 09:23 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Advocating for this agreement in effect is advocating for Iran - a state sponsor of terrorism and a threat to the world.

I advocate for the agreement. We were better when it was in place then we are today. Iran destroyed centrifuges and significantly reduced its stockpile. If it was violating the agreement with secret sites like indicted Prime Minister Netanyahu claimed in the link posted by 69/70/75, then that would have been discovered and sanctions would have been clamped back down. Only then, the world would have been on the side of the US in reimposing sanctions instead of against the US.

The conservatives here like to attack the deal and you all act like you are either Iran experts or nuclear proliferation experts. Perhaps someone on here is and I'm not aware of it, and if so, I can certainly weigh your opinions a little differently. I fully admit that I'm not an expert on either. But when Russia, China, the EU, France, Germany, and the UK (and their respective experts) all agree that the deal should stay in place and made the world a little safer, then I trust the decision of those folks over some people on a message board (conservative or progressive), regardless of how smart and articulate the people here can be.

I get that the inspections regime was far from perfect and that Iran might have had secret sites. But they did reduce their known stockpile and known centrifuges. I keep looking for details on how the inspection regime changed. What I have seen so far is that the number of inspectors assigned to Iran increased from 50 to 150 and Iran agreed to a number of in-facility technologies (radiation detection, seals with fiber optics, satellite imaging) that they previously opposed. I saw plenty of comments from past and present inspectors saying that the JCPOA strengthened inspections, but not as many details as I hoped explaining specifically how. Doing my best to be informed so that I can adjust my opinions accordingly.

(01-08-2020 12:16 PM)mrbig Wrote:  I advocate for the agreement. We were better when it was in place then we are today. Iran destroyed centrifuges and significantly reduced its stockpile. If it was violating the agreement with secret sites like indicted Prime Minister Netanyahu claimed in the link posted by 69/70/75, then that would have been discovered and sanctions would have been clamped back down.

Maybe, maybe not. We had inspectors on the ground in Iraq, and they couldn't tell us definitively whether there were or were not NBC weapons there. If they want to hide it from inspectors, they can.

Quote:Only then, the world would have been on the side of the US in reimposing sanctions instead of against the US.

Maybe, maybe not. If they had businesses established in Iran and making money, they would have been hard pressed to go along.

Quote:The conservatives here like to attack the deal and you all act like you are either Iran experts or nuclear proliferation experts.

Don't know whether I qualify as an expert, but as far as Iran and Saudi, I've been on the ground in both countries, worked in naval intel in the area for a year, had business clients in the area (mostly UAE), and read classifies intel on the area for 20 years

As far as nukes, I did have that intel experience that included the Israeli nukes, and I personally (jointly with a second person) did have custody of the nuke launch codes for a couple of years.

Quote:Perhaps someone on here is and I'm not aware of it, and if so, I can certainly weigh your opinions a little differently. I fully admit that I'm not an expert on either. But when Russia, China, the EU, France, Germany, and the UK (and their respective experts) all agree that the deal should stay in place and made the world a little safer, then I trust the decision of those folks over some people on a message board (conservative or progressive), regardless of how smart and articulate the people here can be.

You can weigh my opinions as you like. That's your business, not mine. But it does seem that there was considerable opposition among senior retired military people (active duty have to keep their mouths shut).

Quote:I get that the inspections regime was far from perfect and that Iran might have had secret sites.

And that's the whole problem. As long as they can have secret sites, be assured that they will. My understanding is that their military bases are still no-go places. And no matter how many inspectors we have or how many inspections they perform, unless they have access to all those sites, it's no good.

Quote:But they did reduce their known stockpile and known centrifuges. I keep looking for details on how the inspection regime changed. What I have seen so far is that the number of inspectors assigned to Iran increased from 50 to 150 and Iran agreed to a number of in-facility technologies (radiation detection, seals with fiber optics, satellite imaging) that they previously opposed. I saw plenty of comments from past and present inspectors saying that the JCPOA strengthened inspections, but not as many details as I hoped explaining specifically how. Doing my best to be informed so that I can adjust my opinions accordingly.

Inspectors have a vested interest in overstating the effectiveness of their inspections. Yeah, it was better than the Iraq inspection protocol, but it still had enough holes you could drive a Mack truck through. And Iran is a much, much larger country that Iraq, with mountains that give you more places to hide.

A good agreement would have been useful. A good agreement IMO would ave included:
1) Anywhere, anytime inspections, with no places red lined and with maybe a 24-hour warning.
2) The money would have been released in tranches, maybe 10% a year for 10 years, or maybe starting with smaller amounts and working up, contingent on good behavior by Iran,
3) Some restrictions on their missile program. Building a nuke warhead is the easy part of the problem. The hard part is the delivery vehicle. Letting them proceed with missile development means that in 10 years they could have a missile ready. Then its just a matter of making a warhead and bolting it on.

That would have been an improvement. What we got, not so much.

69/70/75 - If you aren't an expert, you certainly have a lot of expertise. A lot more than 50 of me! Thank you for the detailed response.

I understand your concerns with the deal and I acknowledge that there are legitimate concerns with enforcability and inspections. I completely disagree with the argument that all the US got was a piece of paper, but your concerns are certainly legitimate. The easiest way for me to evaluate the deal isn't to ask "could we have gotten a better deal" because there is no way to know whether Obama or another president could have gotten more concessions from Iran or changes to the release of the frozen assets. I can only evaluate the worth of either the deal in place or no deal at all. And I am still of the opinion that the deal in place was better than doing nothing, notwithstanding the weaknesses you discuss. So we can disagree on that, but I don't think your arguments are unreasonable and I appreciate the detailed explanation by you. If nothing else, I am coming out of this back-and-forth feeling much more educated on the topic.

OO - Despite your beliefs, I disagree with your categorizations or descriptions of me based on my support for the Iran Deal.

(01-08-2020 11:49 AM)Foff Wrote:  just listened to his remarks,, and sounds like donny's backing down. thank God!!

Sounds to me like both sides are backing away from war.

(01-08-2020 12:16 PM)mrbig Wrote:  

(01-08-2020 09:23 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Advocating for this agreement in effect is advocating for Iran - a state sponsor of terrorism and a threat to the world.

I advocate for the agreement. We were better when it was in place then we are today. Iran destroyed centrifuges and significantly reduced its stockpile. If it was violating the agreement with secret sites like indicted Prime Minister Netanyahu claimed in the link posted by 69/70/75, then that would have been discovered and sanctions would have been clamped back down. Only then, the world would have been on the side of the US in reimposing sanctions instead of against the US.

The conservatives here like to attack the deal and you all act like you are either Iran experts or nuclear proliferation experts. Perhaps someone on here is and I'm not aware of it, and if so, I can certainly weigh your opinions a little differently. I fully admit that I'm not an expert on either. But when Russia, China, the EU, France, Germany, and the UK (and their respective experts) all agree that the deal should stay in place and made the world a little safer, then I trust the decision of those folks over some people on a message board (conservative or progressive), regardless of how smart and articulate the people here can be.

I get that the inspections regime was far from perfect and that Iran might have had secret sites. But they did reduce their known stockpile and known centrifuges. I keep looking for details on how the inspection regime changed. What I have seen so far is that the number of inspectors assigned to Iran increased from 50 to 150 and Iran agreed to a number of in-facility technologies (radiation detection, seals with fiber optics, satellite imaging) that they previously opposed. I saw plenty of comments from past and present inspectors saying that the JCPOA strengthened inspections, but not as many details as I hoped explaining specifically how. Doing my best to be informed so that I can adjust my opinions accordingly.

Far from perfect? That is a real understatement. I cannot see where it is any better than no inspections at all. We monitor parolees more closely than that. Maybe if they promised to be good...

We got very little, if anything. They got a heck of a lot. Maybe we needed a President with some experience at negotiating deals.

Sorry you feel like you do. The only thing I can equate it to is the way I felt when Hillary made her 'deplorables" speech and the left cheered and applauded. But some here have said she was not talking about me, since she made the politically safe correction to only half. I think she was talking about people like me. Middle class workers, small business owners. But in any case, she was not talking about OO personally.

I think we could be better off now if we have kept the sanctions in place rather than give them free rein.

(01-08-2020 04:59 PM)mrbig Wrote:  69/70/75 - If you aren't an expert, you certainly have a lot of expertise. A lot more than 50 of me! Thank you for the detailed response.
I understand your concerns with the deal and I acknowledge that there are legitimate concerns with enforcability and inspections. I completely disagree with the argument that all the US got was a piece of paper, but your concerns are certainly legitimate. The easiest way for me to evaluate the deal isn't to ask "could we have gotten a better deal" because there is no way to know whether Obama or another president could have gotten more concessions from Iran or changes to the release of the frozen assets. I can only evaluate the worth of either the deal in place or no deal at all. And I am still of the opinion that the deal in place was better than doing nothing, notwithstanding the weaknesses you discuss. So we can disagree on that, but I don't think your arguments are unreasonable and I appreciate the detailed explanation by you. If nothing else, I am coming out of this back-and-forth feeling much more educated on the topic.
OO - Despite your beliefs, I disagree with your categorizations or descriptions of me based on my support for the Iran Deal.

Well, I was then, and remain very much today, of the opinion that the deal we got was not better than no deal. I suppose we can just agree to disagree on that.

69/70/75 - on a scale of 0 to 100, with 0 being a total win for Iran and 100 being a total win for the US, how would you rate the Iran Deal? The scale is with 50 being equally good (or bad) for both sides, so not a grade like you would get in school.

I came into our discussion thinking it was around a 50. Based on the discussions on here and the research I did associated with some of my posts, that has probably decreased to a 40, though I still have a lot of remaining questions (How much additional Iranian money is frozen that was not released as part of the deal? What inspections, if any, were there before the deal? How much of the money that was unfrozen was frozen by the USA, as compared to frozen by other signatories to the deal?).

(01-08-2020 12:16 PM)mrbig Wrote:  

(01-08-2020 09:23 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Advocating for this agreement in effect is advocating for Iran - a state sponsor of terrorism and a threat to the world.

I advocate for the agreement. We were better when it was in place then we are today. Iran destroyed centrifuges and significantly reduced its stockpile. If it was violating the agreement with secret sites like indicted Prime Minister Netanyahu claimed in the link posted by 69/70/75, then that would have been discovered and sanctions would have been clamped back down. Only then, the world would have been on the side of the US in reimposing sanctions instead of against the US.

The conservatives here like to attack the deal and you all act like you are either Iran experts or nuclear proliferation experts. Perhaps someone on here is and I'm not aware of it, and if so, I can certainly weigh your opinions a little differently. I fully admit that I'm not an expert on either. But when Russia, China, the EU, France, Germany, and the UK (and their respective experts) all agree that the deal should stay in place and made the world a little safer, then I trust the decision of those folks over some people on a message board (conservative or progressive), regardless of how smart and articulate the people here can be.

I get that the inspections regime was far from perfect and that Iran might have had secret sites. But they did reduce their known stockpile and known centrifuges. I keep looking for details on how the inspection regime changed. What I have seen so far is that the number of inspectors assigned to Iran increased from 50 to 150 and Iran agreed to a number of in-facility technologies (radiation detection, seals with fiber optics, satellite imaging) that they previously opposed. I saw plenty of comments from past and present inspectors saying that the JCPOA strengthened inspections, but not as many details as I hoped explaining specifically how. Doing my best to be informed so that I can adjust my opinions accordingly.

'far from perfect' is the most amazing understatement of this I have seen.

In order to have anything near a viable inspection regime, one would typically need, among other things, : a) one that isnt dependent upon negotiation back and forth for months to see a site; and b) a full up index of the history of the program and index of all current facilities.

As for those points, what was provided was Iran saying: if you want to see something, let's talk about. And, by the way I am not giving you any history of what I have done or am currently doing.

Sound viable to you?

I mean, I have seen trademark injunctions with more teeth than the slop that is served up in that agreement.

Answering some of my own questions with additional research, it looks like most estimates on the amount of money unfrozen by the JCPOA were $25-50 billion (not $150 billion). $150 billion was way on the high end of estimates and even then, most of that money was not liquid. It was also not all frozen by the USA, but was money held in escrow-type accounts by various banks in multiple countries. So far as I can tell, there was a smaller amount of money that remains frozen for human rights abuses by Iran and is unrelated to nuclear or missile sanctions.

With regard to the inspections, all I can tell you is that I have seen numerous quotes from numerous current and past inspectors who seemed very positive about the inspections. So while I get your concerns, I can't completely discount the actual inspectors saying the inspections are a big improvement.

After writing the above, I found this website https://www.armscontrol.org/2015-08/sect...ding-jcpoa that provides a lot of details. mediabiasfactcheck says they are left-of-center but high factual reporting, so they are basically the mirror version of nationalinterest.org that 69/70/75 linked to yesterday. IAEA also has some stats on how JCPOA affected monitoring and inspections - https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/focus/iran .

(01-08-2020 06:01 PM)mrbig Wrote:  69/70/75 - on a scale of 0 to 100, with 0 being a total win for Iran and 100 being a total win for the US, how would you rate the Iran Deal? The scale is with 50 being equally good (or bad) for both sides, so not a grade like you would get in school.
I came into our discussion thinking it was around a 50. Based on the discussions on here and the research I did associated with some of my posts, that has probably decreased to a 40, though I still have a lot of remaining questions (How much additional Iranian money is frozen that was not released as part of the deal? What inspections, if any, were there before the deal? How much of the money that was unfrozen was frozen by the USA, as compared to frozen by other signatories to the deal?).

I'm not sure how to get above 0, but I'll give us 10 points for trying.

(01-08-2020 06:23 PM)mrbig Wrote:  Answering some of my own questions with additional research, it looks like most estimates on the amount of money unfrozen by the JCPOA were $25-50 billion (not $150 billion). $150 billion was way on the high end of estimates and even then, most of that money was not liquid. It was also not all frozen by the USA, but was money held in escrow-type accounts by various banks in multiple countries. So far as I can tell, there was a smaller amount of money that remains frozen for human rights abuses by Iran and is unrelated to nuclear or missile sanctions.

Once it was bills loaded on pallets, it was pretty liquid.

Well to be honest, the 'pallets o' cash to Iran via USAF Brinks delivery' was to get the sailors returned; not the unfreezing of the assets.

To be blunt, Iran has waged a shadow war against the US for 20+ years. And people are upset that one of their 'shadow warriors' was sent the ixnay the ighterfay?

Good grief --- how many other hostage acts and how many other US servicemen are going to be sacrificed to the shadow war? That is, sacrificed *before* the left realizes the scope of the war and says 'enough is enough'?

The more I think back on it, the more I like Trump's response. We're not invading anywhere, we're not killing civilians. We picked out one guy and focused on him and got him. That's the way to do asymmetric warfare. In Vietnam and Afghanistan and Iraq we have focused on conquering territory, occupying it, and "winning hearts and minds." That has never worked, and it is not going to work. Figure out who needs killing and what needs breaking, kill them and break them, and be done and dusted. If Iran behaves, it was a great move. If Iran doesn't, hit something bigger next time. I still think the navy base at Bandar Abbas should be hit soon if we need to do any more. It's where most of their navy is, and it's the base they used to harass shipping in the Straits of Hormuz. And it's a pretty easy target and it's some distance from town so not as much worry about collateral damage. Cut the head off the snake and 1) the snake loses interest, and more importantly 2) people lose interest in being the head.

By taking decisive action against Soleimani, Trump showed that Iran’s power is an illusion generated by D.C.’s willingness to look the other way.

The missiles in response, well, there are some stories that Iran alerted both the US and Baghdad that they would be tossing some boomsticks.

So in response, Iran blows up some dirt, shoots down a civilian airliner, and says 'we responded forcefully'.

(01-08-2020 05:00 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(01-08-2020 11:49 AM)Foff Wrote:  just listened to his remarks,, and sounds like donny's backing down. thank God!!

Sounds to me like both sides are backing away from war.

no "strike back" that he promised Iran 2 days ago,, thank God!

better off a laughingstock than another WAR! !

(01-08-2020 08:57 PM)Foff Wrote:  

(01-08-2020 05:00 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(01-08-2020 11:49 AM)Foff Wrote:  just listened to his remarks,, and sounds like donny's backing down. thank God!!

Sounds to me like both sides are backing away from war.

no "strike back" that he promised Iran 2 days ago,, thank God!

better off a laughingstock than another WAR! !

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ira...li=BBnb7Kz

From CNN. Must be the truth.

“The President, though, offered very little room for Iran to maneuver, essentially sticking to a maximalist approach and demanding that any de-escalation happen on US terms. Reading carefully from teleprompters, Trump announced that his administration would once again slap Iran with more sanctions and demanded that US allies leave the nuclear deal so a new pact can be negotiated.”

More sanctions. A new pact. No war.

Sounds good to me. Plus, a terrorist was eliminated.

Maybe it’s a good thing to have some backbone.

From a purely intellectual level, I am curious to see how the Iran situation plays out. While Iran's public response was obviously less than feared, the bigger concern seems to be how all the different groups that Soleimani had contacts with respond. If Trump ends up getting a better deal in the end without additional loss of life or another war in the middle east, then I'll be happy for him and our country. I'll cross my fingers, but not hold my breath.

(01-09-2020 12:00 PM)mrbig Wrote:  From a purely intellectual level, I am curious to see how the Iran situation plays out. While Iran's public response was obviously less than feared, the bigger concern seems to be how all the different groups that Soleimani had contacts with respond. If Trump ends up getting a better deal in the end without additional loss of life or another war in the middle east, then I'll be happy for him and our country. I'll cross my fingers, but not hold my breath.

What has changed is that we have made it known that if you mess with us, we will hit you back, and make it hurt. We've tried being nice for 40 years, and it has not worked. Proportional responses don't work either, because that's playing for a tie, and when you play for a tie you get a tie--otherwise known as a quagmire. See Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

We need disproportionate responses to make it clear that we are in it to win. Never fight a war that you don't intend to win. There may (or may not) be a couple more iterations, but once Iran figures it out, we will be fine.

Well, the Democrats are working to cut his feet out from under him in any dealings with Iran. Maybe this qualifies as either being for Iran/against Trump?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/...li=BBnb7Kz

(01-09-2020 12:27 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Well, the Democrats are working to cut his feet out from under him in any dealings with Iran. Maybe this qualifies as either being for Iran/against Trump?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/...li=BBnb7Kz

A lot of democrats see Trump as a bull in the china shop. Plus he doesn't seem to have much intellectual curiosity or base of knowledge in foreign affairs. He also has surrounded himself by people without much diversity of thought (or actual diversity). Combined, those are some terrifying qualities to someone like me. Maybe it works out, but until some things actually work out then I remain concerned and skeptical.

I can't think of any foreign affairs issues that I classify as a "win" by the Trump administration so far. The abandoning the Kurds, giving North Korea a photo opp for nothing, his treatment of immigrants from south of the border, and the erosion of relationships with Europe stick out most prominently to me.