OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
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User ID: 359
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
5d ago
Israel didn't make America bring half its military assets to Iran.
Rubio's full remarks make it clear - the US was going to attack on its own, but at a different time. Israel changed the timing when it discovered a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take out all of Iran's leadership. It did not drag us into a war we weren't prepared to fight.
I highly recommend everyone watch the full 12 minute video because it is the clearest explanation of the US's rationale the leadership has given yet.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
6d ago
I don't know what they intend, nor do I expect to guess. We could probably pull it off with fewer people, but a long term base of 100,000 troops right up against Russia's butt wouldn't be a bad outcome for the US.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
6d ago
Trump first explicitly called it a regime change war and said it was Trump fulfilling his promise to intervene if the government of Iran started killing protestors. He's also said it's not a regime change war and governing Iran isn't his responsibility. This contradiction seems to be Trump's typical MO: https://scholars-stage.org/on-bombing-iran/
Recall that in my story, I said the guy with the gun is threatening the police, not just the battered wife. America also is tired of putting up with Iran and their proxies threatening shipping and launching ballistic missiles at American bases every year. It can be tired of Iran providing weapons to Russians and oil to China. And maybe, the thought of stopping these irritants while being able to be the big damn hero, riding up to rescue the battered wife, gave it the self-righteous push it needed to get the job done.
Things can have more than one cause - it can be a preponderance of snowflakes that creates the avalanche.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
6d ago
How do you know Japan will not develop nuclear weapons and attack the US? Of all the countries in the world they have the most right. But to suggest such a thing today is laughable.
It would not have been such a laughable thing in the 1940s.
Things can happen. The world can change. America made Japan the way it is now, we can do the same to Iran if we wanted.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
6d ago
I think those 80% of Iranians would be in favor of a government less focused on supplying their proxies with weapons and more focused on water conservation and management. Which in and of itself is a win for the US.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
6d ago
In June 2024, "Only around 20 percent of respondents want the Islamic Republic to remain in power, according to the survey." I think that number went even lower after the recent violent suppression of protests.
The US sees it more like intervening in a messy domestic dispute, where the male partner (Islamic Republic Government) keeps threatening to get a gun and shoot the police, the police (USA) keeps saying, "Don't do it or we'll have to come in there," and the wife and kids (80% of Iranian people) are hoping that the police intervene but are afraid of getting beaten up again.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
6d ago
There are conflicting reports on if Iran was starting to concede it's nuclear stance during negotiations last week.
On the one hand, Oman said Iran was going to reduce it's stockpile.
“The single most important achievement, I believe, is the agreement that Iran will never, ever have a nuclear material that will create a bomb,” said Albusaidi, describing the understanding as “something completely new” compared to the previous nuclear deal negotiated under former US President Barack Obama.
He said the negotiations have produced an agreement on “zero accumulation, zero stockpiling, and full verification” by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), calling it a breakthrough that makes the enrichment argument “less relevant.”
On existing stockpiles inside Iran, Albusaidi said that “there is agreement now that this will be down-blended to the lowest-level possible … and converted into fuel, and that fuel will be irreversible.”
“I think we have agreement on that, in my view,” he added.
Wall Street Journal says the opposite though. Laurence Norman, WSJ reporter in Germany, says, "My understanding comes from non-U.S. officials close to the talks as well as what Washington has said. This is what we have from 3 people."
Iran came to Geneva on Thursday with a draft text of a few pages as it had been asked. It did not permit the U.S. or others to keep the text. It was planning to do so Monday at the technical talks. But they talked through what was in it. But the draft text was not the key text
Attached to the text was a single piece of paper, which Iran described as its 10 year nuclear plan. The text was based around the idea that as Iran's enrichment needs expanded, it's enrichment should be permitted to expand. The paper set out an ambitious set of targets or expanding its civilian nuclear program. The new version of the Khondab reactor (formerly known as Arak heavy water reactor) would be completed. A number of other long-planned, never-built research and power reactors would be put into operation.
In order to fuel those supplies, Iran would need to run 30 cascades of IR-6 advanced centrifuges Tehran said. That's more than 5,000 advanced centrifuges. Iran would need to be able to enrich up to 20% to meet the demands. That is what Iran was proposing.
Let's compare that for a moment to JCPOA. For the first decade under that accord, Iran was permitted around 6.000 IR-1 basic centrifuges. For 15 years, its enrichment purity cap was 3.67%. In other words, Iran was saying the enrichment deal shld be weaker than the Iran deal.
Overall, I don't think we can take it for granted that Iran was capitulating during talks.
And then Iran kept rounding up people who were involved with the protests.
30 of whom still face the death penalty.
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