Rov_Scam
11hr ago
No but that relies on the fallacy that sanctions are an effective tool for preventing a country from getting a nuke. Pakistan wasn't under sanctions, but they got nukes in 1998 despite having an economy of approximately the same size as Iran's, and much worse per capita. North Korea got nukes despite being under US sanctions for years and being one of the poorest countries in the world. I don't see what killing generals has to do with their nuclear program. The "scientists" you're referring to are literally one guy. And he was killed by the Israelis, who weren't party to the agreement.
Rov_Scam
12hr ago
I thought I was giving you a layup there but instead you decided to wander even further off into fantasy land by claiming that the war aims were now that Iran, at the threat of bombing, will turn into normal, friendly, prosperous state. Of all the various contradictory objectives Trump has given for this war so far, I have not once heard him suggest any of this. Neither have I heard any other politicians suggest this, nor have I heard anyone in the media suggest this. Because the elephant in the room that you conveniently ignore is that the Strait of Hormuz has been closed, causing oil prices to spike and wreaking havoc on international shipping. Trump hasn't figured out a way to force it open other than through a ground occupation of the coast, which he is unwilling to do, and has thus resorted to making threats. Pretty much everyone who knows everything about Iran has been saying that this was the likely outcome for the past 20 years, but Trump figured he knew better and that by making things go boom the Iranians would just give in.
Now that Trump has hit that tripwire, repoening the strait is priority number one in the immediate term. If he does nothing, the strait remains closed indefinitely. If he invades the coast, he takes a huge political hit for putting boots on the ground and while the strait will eventually be reopened, it will take a while, and will only stay open so long as US troops are there to protect it. Meanwhile, energy prices, which are already elevated due to futures speculation, are going to rise even further once we start seeing actual supply cuts. The only thing that matters right now is getting the strait reopened. You can load up your wishlist with all the items you want, but all of that's negotiable, and Iran has the upper hand. Trump can bomb all the power plants he wants, but it won't reopen the strait. Trump assumed that taking out Iran's navy, missile power, etc. would keep them from closing it, but the people who are actually taking the risk of transit aren't going to attempt it without permission from the Iranian government.
Rov_Scam
14hr ago
I'm going to limit my response to this post for the time being, since @Amadan summarized my position better than I ever could, but you state:
We destroyed Iran’s military. They can project very little force anymore in the region. Of course they could rebuild, that’s just a property of time having a forward direction. We can also stop them from rebuilding. We can bomb them again. We can do that whenever we want and they can’t stop us.
This is what winning looks like. It is in fact concomitant with several win conditions Trump laid out at the beginning of the war.
If this is what winning looks like, then why does Trump need a deal? Why not just declare victory and walk away, secure in the knowledge that Iran will not be able to obtain a nuclear weapon for the foreseeable future, that they will not be able to arm proxies in the region, and, as you say it, will not be able to project any appreciable amount of force in the region?
Rov_Scam
18hr ago
My point is that if Mexicans receiving remittances were living high on the hog due to wage and cost of living differentials, as OP suggests, then meeting solvency requirements for immigration should be a piece of cake. The fact that this might not be possible is evidence that they're not.
Rov_Scam
18hr ago
We're not talking about people working in Mexico. We're talking about people not working in Mexico and being sent remittances from people working in the US.
Rov_Scam
18hr ago
If you're trying to make an argument for restricting the labor supply, don't pick a country with over a billion people as an example of how to do things, especially if most of those people were poor peasants a generation ago.
Rov_Scam
18hr ago
Do you find gentrification harmful as well? Looking back at my recent post about Lawrenceville, in 2000 it was a working-class to lower class area with an average home sale price of around $25,000. At the same time, a house in a good suburb like Bethel Park would cost over $100,000. These days, the average sale price in Lawrenceville is over $400,000 while Bethel Park is around $300,000. Bethel Park hasn't changes much over that time period but Lawrenceville certainly has.
That's the only explanation I can think of. I did a time-restricted search for "melania epstein" and the only story that came up was a Chicago Tribune piece about the email from January 30. This tells us three things:
If someone released potentially damaging information about me, and no one cared, I wouldn't call a press conference for the specific purpose of denying the allegations. Especially if I wasn't normally calling press conferences. In any event, it seems to have worked, somewhat, as the story was mentioned on a radio news program I heard on the way home and while I didn't hear the actual segment, that's one segment that won't be discussing Iran, which otherwise dominated the discussion.
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