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PaperclipPerfector  19hr ago (text post)   3078 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026

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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.

Is there any way for Iran to credibly promise not to get a nuclear weapon in the foreseeable future?

It strikes me that with each Israeli-USA attack on Iran, it becomes more obvious to any Iranian that a nuclear weapon might be a useful thing to have. The bombings might set back the physical process, but they increase the motivation.

If a bunch of guys come to my house several times and kick in my door and beat me up and break my furniture and tell me "you better not get a gun, if you get a gun we'll get really angry!" My first thought, and I would think any man's first thought, is "I better get a gun."

I just can't see a way for Iran to credibly make a promise that they don't want a nuclear weapon in a world where they quite obviously should want a nuclear weapon.

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.

Do you think that those 80% of Iranians are ultimately in favor of a government whose policies would be acceptable to the USA/Israel? Or would a hypothetical liberal Persian democracy still have to accept a world in which they can be bombed at will if their democracy were to go into an unapproved direction? Ok you've killed the abuser, is she allowed to get herself a gun to keep herself safe in the future?

And more to the point, how does she credibly tell you she won't get a gun in the future? What promise would be accepted?

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.

The American public just elected a government on the premise that they would focus on reducing inflation and avoid foreign adventurism. That government just instituted a policy of kinetic regime change in Iran, and the CPI is identical to the September before the election.

Would an Iranian democracy be allowed to be democratic, or would it be subject to bombing? How would such a government promise not to develop nuclear weapons in a way that the USA/Israel would trust?

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.

Iranian average IQ (IIRC estimated between 99 and 105) does enable all sorts of things that weren't feasible in Iraq or Afghanistan.

It would be interesting to see how Iranian culture compares to Japanese in context during some kind of major reconstruction.

But the US of 2026 is not the US of 1946. I don't think there will be any titanic reconstruction effort in Iran. Here on the homefront we're already panicking about budgets, spending, and general sclerosis. Show me that we can build a rail system here before we speak seriously about reforging Iran nearer to our heart's desire.

Is the 99-105 figure accurate or coming from highly filtered groups (people in Iran who actually take the test). I guess I probably assumed Iran would be a less extreme India with very high IQ groups and some low IQ peasants. If they are a true 103 IQ country then they’ve probably hit below their weight for centuries.

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