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Why? These things are usually drawn out because America and Iran don’t negotiate directly and pass everything through intermediaries. And by Trump’s account they agreed essentially on every point except for the nuclear question. I don’t see why it would take longer than 21 hours to realize that, the idea that negotiating is this special activity that takes lots of expertise is a myth from the Georgetown school of foreign policy to promote the need for bureaucrat-scholars to run everything.
The leading theory on this forum a week ago was that Trump was losing so badly he would accept any peace deal as long as it was face-saving and he could declare victory. Not so?
America totally destroyed Iran’s military in a stunning lopsided victory. I’ve been told this was only a tactical victory because Iran now controls the straits and is using that as leverage, but, weirdly, Trump is now announcing a blockade of the straits himself. Perhaps America isn’t defeated?
I fear that denying this will have me marked as some kind of rabid Trump fanboy who can’t deal with reality but I have to point out that oil was much higher during the 2008 crisis, back when the same dollars were worth more.
To believe in US defeat you have to believe the US is so squeamish that we'll beg Iran to re-open the SOH and in exchange offer to let them build nuclear weapons with impunity.
Stabilizing the strait may be costlier than we would like and somehow we'll do this public good alone, as usual, but not as costly as letting Iran have nukes.
I don't think Iran having nukes, in and of itself, would be costly for me. I estimate the chance of a nuclear-armed Iran using nuclear weapons against the US to be extremely low unless the US for some reason launches an existential war against the nuclear-armed Iran, which I also think would be very unlikely to happen.
As for a nuclear-armed Iran's ability to disrupt global shipping, I also do not care about that. A nuclear-armed Iran would likely prefer to be integrated with the global economy, just as it prefers that now over being sanctioned, and would not benefit from being heavily sanctioned if it tried to strong-arm itself into control of the Strait of Hormuz.
If Iran had nuclear weapons, it would be able to more successfully deter US and Israeli geopolitical ambitions in the Middle East, but I don't care about those ambitions.
The only thing that actually bothers me about the idea of a nuclear-armed Iran is that having nuclear weapons could help to stabilize the Iranian government and its authoritarian chuddism, with negative consequences for its population. But then, the current war has so far also been bad for the Iranian population. So far they are getting a really bad deal: getting bombed, their economy damaged, but without the government being replaced by a better one. And that seems unlikely to change barring a US ground invasion or a sudden collapse in the government's structural integrity. So it's not like the US is actually pursuing a policy that is focused on helping the Iranians to get a better government.
I would have to disagree with this. The leadership regularly chants "death to America" and has done so for some time. It's reasonable to believe that this means what it seems to mean. Iran has regularly attacked Israel even though Israel would gladly accept an uneasy peace with it just like Israel has with Egypt, Jordan, and the UAE.
Even if the US did absolutely nothing to harm Iran, Iran's leadership would still have strong incentive to harm the US if they thought they could get away with it. As a way of gaining clout in the Muslim world.
The Iranians chant death to America and the ayatollah has publicly gone to great length to explain that the slogan is not a direct wish for harm against American citizens, but a screed against their government and its belligerence and hostility towards Iran.
Which fits rather snugly as a contrast with the more Orwellian terminology of the west, like 'regime change', 'liberation' or other such verbiage. Which then translates to aerial bombing campaign with large amounts of civilians killed in practice.
Outside of drastic otherization and dehumanization, saying that Iran is exporting terrorism or spouting threatening rhetoric is functionally meaningless. In context their actions are a rational consequence to US and Israeli strategy in the region. Be that state sponsored invasions of Iran, the funding of terrorists in the region or other destabilizing actions such with Syria, Iraq and Libya.
And it's hard to pretend that Iran is hogging all the religious lunatics when Americans have decades of failed Zionist adjacent policies laying in their backyard. Along with theologians like Mike Huckabee, Pete Hegseth or Paula White.
This is silly. If you're buying this then I have a bridge to sell uou.
I'm not really in the market for a bridge, but if you can sell me an alternative explanation for what Iranians truly mean and feel that doesn't rely on blank otherization of them being blood thirsty animals with no rationality or reason, I'm all ears.
The basic rule is that in assessing peoples' motivations, you pay more attention to their actions and less attention to their self-serving words. Iran's leadership has demonstrated -- through its actions -- what it means by its longstanding "Death to Israel" policy. It has been aggressively and chronically attacking Israel in general for many years now. Not just Israeli leadership or military facilities, but general attacks on everyone. The reasonable inference is that "Death to America" means something similar.
Simply not true.
Iran has shown through actions that it retaliates in measured and controlled ways to defend itself. Israel has demonstrated a complete disregard for human life time and time again. Which is demonstrable by Gaza looking like rubble.
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