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No it's not. I've already asked you to clarify what the reasonable action for Iran would be, but you never answer. It's always a negative insinuation without context or explanation that 'Iran bad' and therefor causal.
You are again cutting off events from context. Maybe it would be helpful if we just run down the entire chain of events so my point can eventually get across when we get to the part where you disagree with US action. So I would ask if supporting action that compels the Houthis to bomb shipping is in the interest of America. Or if it would have been better to pressure Israel to stop bombing so many civilians in Gaza before it ever came to Houthis taking action. To me the answer is very clear. America loses nothing by stopping Israel and its excessive bombing of Gaza, it loses a lot by having to engage with Houthis after they disrupt shipping.
That would be a violation of the NPT. The JCPOA was valuable as a tool to coerce Iran to allow inspectors to sites where potential breaches like the one you mention occur. Iran would only be in violation of the JCPOA if they denied access to investigators and/or if the findings would reveal that Iran was using material to enrich above the set cap or that this material would in total exceed the 300kg maximum stockpile and they refused to hand it over. Findings like the one you mentioned are precisely why the JCPOA was useful.
This makes rifting the JCPOA extremely stupid as it now leaves inspectors in the dark and Iran is floating the idea of leaving the NPT entirely. From a standpoint of wanting less nuclear weapons, especially when it comes to Iran, the Trump admin made bad decisions.
What do you think "leverage that as a reason" refers to in my comment? The entire premise of the NPT is to facilitate conditions where a nuclear arms race does not occur. The US is explicitly allied with a nation neighboring Iran that did not sign the treaty and has nuclear weapons. To say Iran was allied with Israel in a similar way, or Iraq, is not getting it.
Of course, I'm sure there are cases like that. But in other cases there is a clean line of causation where Iran had to take action and it is precisely because of that why I say that the existence of Iran proxies would not be a good reason to increase hostilities but rather to try to bring them down. I mean, is there a genuine belief that the forever war in the middle east has been beneficial to US interest? What are the soldiers getting blown up by Iranian proxies dying for?
As for cases like the captured US colonel, if negotiations fail, you would have to track down the perpetrators and kill them. Torture is uniquely ugly.
Iran voted to nationalize oil assets after Britain refused to allow investigation into AIOC. Iran suspected they were not being paid their fair share, which was 16% of profits at the time. On top of that, Iran wanted a new deal similar to neighboring states, which would split profits 50/50. Britain refused.
I am personally of the opinion that people outside the west do even recognize the enormous amount of technology they are given freely. Most natural resources would be no resource at all if it weren't for Europeans, their descendants and their towering technological achievements. That being said, after having allegedly been paying less that the agreed upon 16%, and after the AIOC had made profits on their original technological investment many times over, 50/50 sounds fair to me. To say that Iran was unilaterally confiscating British property is, I would argue, unfair.
I've noted several times that I do not think all of Iran's actions were unreasonable.
I think that if Iran had been more restrained with its proxy networks (either directing them to refrain from behaving in such aggressive manners against the United States or cutting off ones they could not control) and pursued a more conciliatory policy towards the US and Israel, they would have had better outcomes.
They could also have pursued rapprochement with the US and tried to reintegrate themselves into the US regional umbrella as the Shah had (remember, a lot of US interest in the region was due to the Soviets and that interest did not go away when the Shah was deposed) or they could have, particularly after the fall of the Soviet Union, taken the hint from Russia and dropped their nuclear weapons research. Pursuing either option would likely have allowed them better access to conventional weaponry, either American or Russian, and better access to the global market. This would have given Israel and other nations less reason to intervene (no nuclear weapons) and imposed higher costs on their intervention (more high-end weapons to defend themselves with.) They could even have continued their cooperation with Israel after the Iran-Iraq war. Israel might have been willing to continue helping them maintain and build out their conventional forces as a counterweight to hostile Sunni states. Instead, Iran's aggression towards the United States, Israel, and their Sunni neighbors created a powerful regional coalition against them, while their pursuit of nuclear weapons alienated Russia (which to be fair maintains good relations with Israel in any event.)
Or, they could have tried to coalition build with their Sunni Muslim neighbors. This would be mutually distasteful, but the United States listens to Saudi Arabia, and a more restrained Iran that was not-hostile towards the United States and not-friendly towards Israel could have coalitioned together to prevent Israeli aggression.
Or, they could have pursued a nuclear weapon quietly instead of creating a nasty regional proxy network while pursuing conciliatory policies towards their neighbors. This would lower the perceived threat of the nuclear weapons program.
Iran did none of this. Instead, they pushed the Saudis into the corner with the Israelis, alienated the Russians, and angered the Americans.
Giving the Houthis the ability to dictate US policy by threatening to cut off international trade is not really a great idea.
Which Iran signed!
But, as I understand it, it was also a violation of the JCPOA, at least in the sense that Iran was supposed to disclose past nuclear dealings.
Sure, I am open to the possibility that the US leaving the JCPOA was a bad idea.
First off, to be clear, Israel doesn't border Iran; they are separated by about 500 miles of other countries. (They are all arguably in the same neighborhood, that's fair enough!) Secondly, other nations, including ones actually bordering Israel, haven't pursued the path that Iran has, though, even if they have reason to be fairly hostile to Israel (or even if they are probably conducting illicit nuclear weapons research.) So the idea that Iran has had no choice but to do all of this doesn't really seem correct.
I mean - shooting ballistic missiles after the US killed Soleimani was fair enough. Forming proxy networks, maybe. Mining international waters? Seems like (in hindsight) it likely hurt more than it helped. Most of the other stuff seems gratuitous.
Sure, and it depends a lot on who you ask. The idea that the US should uphold international trade, by military force if necessary, is pretty popular in America even with people who are skeptical of, e.g., Iraq.
Yes, this is why the US hit Soleimani (for killing Americans, not so much for the torture although maybe he did that too). So it seems like we're both agreed that US retaliation against Iranian assets when those Iranian assets kill Americans is, in fact, reasonable?
I am very sympathetic to Iran's position (AIOC seemed to be doing shady stuff!) but moving from a contract dispute to seizure is pretty escalatory. And even if it was entirely justified, they had to have anticipated a negative British reaction.
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