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Notes -
The full text of the memorandum has been released and confirmed by the White House:
If this is signed as written on Friday, I predict major ructions in the GOP, particularly the Senate, which were already coming to a head before this.
LMAO, Trump just signed the deal at Versailles of all places:
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5929356-trump-signs-iran-agreement/
How can we not be in a simulation???
Not the most auspicious location for lasting peace treaties.
Pretty great place for home decorating inspiration though! (He is building a ballroom, after all...)
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In a more recent thread above, someone wonders if contemporary Brits are the most cucked generation in history. They're certainly in the running, but the kind of perverse cognitive dissonance in the minds of the people who think this is a great deal for the US (relative to the pre-war status quo) might steal the chair from them.
But, sure, we should all agree this is the greatest win in the history of winning. Let's declare victory and move on.
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If Trump agrees to prostrate himself before Allah, praise be unto his name, five times daily can we get better terms? He can be the first Shia caliph-president (Cali-president?).
A good start would be to use an actual Islamic honorific for Allah, may He be glorified and exalted, instead of crudely repurposed pentacostal slop.
Astaghfirullah!
Ashnazggimbatullah!
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Assume this goes through, it is a world-historic foreign policy fuckup and unparalleled humiliation, but the terms are so bad (and in some cases involve people not party to the agreement) that I find it hard to believe it is going anywhere. Iran promises they're not going to build a bomb and gets to toll the strait, the US strongarms the Gulf States into giving Iran a bunch of money. Hilarious to think it came to this after all the right-wing seething over Obama's negotiations with Iran.
If we were reasonable, this would probably also spell the decline of the post-Bush kabinettskriege approach to foreign policy, where the Executive tries to run foreign policy without major support from Congress or the general public. This was viable when you were backing state governments in dealing with VNSA, but was never going to fly against a determined and sizeable adversary. The fact that the US can stomp Iran flat if it really wants to means nothing when it can't muster the will do so.
(One thing we can confidently say is that all the people saying "trust the plan" have made absolutely clowns of themselves.)
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My take is that probably the "final deal" is a total pipe dream and isn't happening. Of course that also means the 300B isn't happening either. So we're going to get the initial items from the mou, then negotiations will fall apart later this year. Sanctions waivers will expire, funds will get refrozen, and we'll end up right back where we started. Iran will have some of its sanctioned money back, and also has a bunch of its stuff blown up. It'll definitely be up in the air whether they're ahead or behind after this.
The tolls issue seems to be pretty much in line with what my previous take was. They're going to "conduct a dialogue" which realistically is going to go absolutely nowhere but they can make a spin that totally everyone else is definitely going to agree to tolling.
In the medium to long term, UAE and Saudi Arabia (and Iraq) are going to double, triple, and quadruple down on pipelines and air defense (probably made in USA models but who knows) meaning that even though Iran was able to get serious leverage this time, they'll have far less 5 years down the road when Israel wants to start shit again.
What was Trump going to do? Iran was blocking 13 million barrels of oil a day and it is clear that they could hold out for a long time. Iran has 93 million people, is energy self sufficient and has an economic policy centred around self sufficiency. The oil price shot up and with it came inflation. The price stayed at acceptable levels due to the vast amount of oil in reserves and in the system. However, as that started to run dry the economic fallout would have been disastrous.
If Trump tries to weasel his way out of this Iran can shut down the straight.
As for Iranian long term strategy Russia is building several thousand long term drones a month. If Iran builds 500 a month they will have 60 000 in 10 years. That is enough to wreck the gulf state and their oil infrastructure. Especially combined with a missile stockpile several times what they had going into this war.
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Yeah. First of all, Iran isn't going to stop supporting Hezbollah, Hezbollah isn't going to stop attacking Israel, and Israel isn't going to stop bombing Lebanon nor withdraw to pre-war borders. This probably won't stop negotiations though. Second, there's a good chance the IRGC refuses to stop shooting at ships in the Strait and the Persian Gulf. Third, even if they do, Iran, thinking they've won, is never going to agree to a plan of action that will actually mean they lose their nuclear material. If the IRGC doesn't spoil the deal early on, I expect negotiations will drag, get extended once or twice, and then a fully lame-duck Trump will have freedom of action. I don't know what he'll do though.
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The only viable option for long term peace with Iran is the slow development of trade and business ties. Even though this was has been a strategic disaster for America and especially Israel, in the long term, interesting things might happen.
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With this wording, I don’t see Trump fulfilling his obligations in good faith after he already obtains the valuable concessions in the timetable. That means the $300b will never to to Iran, the frozen assets will never be handed over, and the sanctions will never be cancelled. Practically, the deal says “we will pressure Israel not strike Lebanon while we clear mines for 30 days and while you let ships pass for 30 days after that”. So, the deal seems good for America, as they get to de-mine the strait and let shipping go through for 30 days.
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No toll on the strait, Iran's nuclear material will be destroyed, and diplomatic relations between Iran and America are approaching normal status. Iran's military has been substantially reduced by American bombs. In exchange Iran will be allowed to rejoin the global economic system and begin redevelopment. Matters relating to Israel and broader regional peace will be postponed for the future, but are clearly progressing in a good direction. This is broadly what I have been predicting for months now.
I'm sure that many are going to balk at the $300 Billion and proclaim that this is a bad deal. But if Iran gives up its nuclear program and stops threatening regional war and international trade, the Iran concern is over.
Iran was willing to pinky promise never to build nuclear weapons and play nicely with Obama, too. And Obama got that without paying Iran $300B.
"No toll on the strait (maybe!)" also is a weird flex.
People on this forum were confidently predicting that Iran would toll the strait and this would be evidence that Iran had won. I predicted it would not happen and that this would be evidence that Iran lost.
So far the strait remains untolled.
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IF
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Where do you get that from the quoted passage? They'll just pretend they're enriching for "totally true trust us guys it makes sense" civilian power and medical isotopes.
We destroyed their nuclear facilities and now we’re going to destroy the material that remains.
Well now you’re just arguing that Iran isn’t going to follow the deal. If that’s the argument it doesn’t even matter if the deal is good or bad.
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As a follow up: who do we blame for putting this atrocious deal on the table? Trump, of course, has the majority of the blame. But I have also read some comments suggesting JD Vance shared some responsibility since he was working together with Witkoff on this deal. And Trump has made jokes that suggest that Vance worked with him on it, as well. Anyone who had anything to do with this deal shouldn't be considered as a serious politician in 2028, dude.
Edit: Leaks suggest that Vance, Witkoff and Kushner supported the deal; Rubio, Hegseth, and "defense/state officials" were against it. Trump is allegedly thinking about firing Hegseth over this.
Israel
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If this deal goes through, it's going to be an absolute disaster. $300 billion USD, all assets unfrozen, and full access to the Strait along with Oman. Are you kidding me? That's far worse than anything Obama or Biden ever did regarding Iran. All that money going straight into the pockets of terrorists. More money, apparently, than the post-World War II Marshall Plan was in 2026 money ($180 billion). I would have said that they're in a better position than they started in, if many of their leaders weren't killed. But I hope this deal falls through, seriously. It successfully coming through would be a bigger loss than Afghanistan was for Biden. The Israelis need to violate the agreement for our own good.
The deal is crafted so they actually don't get any of that until the final agreement; it is also crafted to appear as though they get that beforehand; #11 is particularly deceptive in this manner. What they get immediately is an end to the blockade and permission to sell oil during negotiations.
This is the crux of the text as is. Most concessions in both sides are in three buckets: what the belligerents offer right now regardless of any deal, what the belligerents offer later conditional on a complete deal, and what the belligerents can't offer personally but promise to pursue via other actors later.
For example, number 11 states "The United States of America undertakes to make fully available for use, the frozen or restricted funds and assets of the Islamic Republic of Iran upon the implementation of this MoU. The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran will mutually agree on the procedures related to the release of these funds during the negotiations."
This states that the US undertakes to make fully available, not immediately makes fully available, with the second sentence stating that the procedure for making available must be mutually agreeable based on later negotiations. Later negotiations, in turn, depending on the prospect of the final deal, until which the US side can claim no mutually agreed procedure has been achieved. While this does not necessarily need to be entirely tied to the 'final deal', the it can be as the US, not Iran, desires, with Iran likely going to push for more early and the US pushing for progress/concessions to get there.
Further, most frozen Iranian funds are not frozen under US jurisdiction. The US agreeing to issue all necessary licenses- which is again contingent on the mutual agreed procedure- does not give the US licensing authority over other actors. This turns into an angle where the holding countries have a veto authority over the return of frozen funds. After all, the US undertakes to make fully available, but anyone who reads this as an obligation to 'strongarm' the countries in question is significantly misreading who is liable to try strongarming countries one on one.
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Hmm I'm not proficient in legalese, what does 11 actually mean?
See Dean's comment. The unfreezing of funds is on the table (as is the downblending or other destruction of the uranium). But it doesn't happen as part of the M.O.U. If Iran and the US are negotiating in good faith we'd expect an agreement to conclude in which the funds were released as the uranium was.
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Then I sincerely hope that the final agreement doesn't come to pass. You can't trust these guys as far as you can throw them, and no assets whatsoever should be unfrozen for them under any circumstances as long as they continue to be the #1 source of terrorism in the Middle East. There better be some teeth behind the "no nukes" part of the deal, or this is worse than the JCPOA.
The $300 billion not being taxpayer funded is great, but that's still $300 billion going towards the terrorist capital of the world.
The important thing for the US is the nuclear material. Terrorism in the middle east -- outside of shooting at ships in the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf/Strait of Hormuz/Gulf of Oman -- honestly, isn't a huge US problem. It's more of a problem for Israel. I expect the final agreement will say that Iran won't support terrorist groups in Lebanon and Israel won't attack Lebanon, and that part of the agreement will last about 5 minutes before it is violated.
That was my (very rough, uninformed) understanding of the famous Obama Iran deal - good for Iran, good for the United States, bad for Israel. So naturally Israel has leapt at every chance it can get to sabotage it.
I am waiting for the "only Nixon could go to China" moment, translated into the current situation as "only Trump could abandon Israel."
Trump has the unique opportunity to forge a reasonably lasting peace with Iran and getting them to abandon "death to America" and nuclear materials in exchange for completely abandoning Israel. It might get some bipartisan support, and it would be politically impossible for a democratic president and most republican presidents.
In this way, Trump could legitimately claim to have put America first, and I would admit that he secured an excellent deal. He would get a lot of heat for it, but I think it would slide right off him and he would be able to sell it to the public as a win.
I don't put any faith in Trump to take advantage of good opportunities he has, but in the abstract I would say, at least, that a re-ordering of American alliances in the Middle East seems like a good idea.
Part of what's baffling about the current situation is that, in pure geo-strategic terms, there is no particularly compelling reason for Iran and the United States to hate one another. Neither is there a particularly compelling reason for Israel and Iran to hate one another. Neither is there a very good reason for the United States to be ride-or-die with Israel.
In some ways it's quite sad - historically Persia has been relatively friendly to Jews, at least by the standards of the region. The current hatreds in the region are almost entirely post-WWII. The Americans supported the British with the Mossadegh coup back in the 50s, and then bungled responses to the revolution in 1979, and there's lingering hatred from that even though there isn't a very good reason today why America and Iran can't get along. If the Americans can be good friends with the Saudis, well, the Iranians certainly aren't any worse than the Saudis, morally speaking. At times the Iranians have signalled willingness to cooperate as well - didn't they offer to be supportive with regard to America's invasion of Afghanistan, right up until Bush declared them 'Axis of Evil', unnecessarily making enemies?
As regards Israel, it's partly symbolic - Iran has ambitions of being (and tries to present itself as) the de facto leader of the Islamic world, and because there is incredibly strong grassroots sympathy for Palestine in the Islamic world, presenting themselves as champions of the Palestinian cause is good for that. (Meanwhile potential rivals like the Saudis undermine themselves by slowly normalising relations with Israel.) Obviously the hatred is partly sincere as well, but my point is that the conflict between Iran and Israel is largely not over material interests.
And of course for the last leg, it is pretty unclear what America gets out of its alliance with Israel. The Israelis do not seem like very good allies. I cannot blame Israel for prioritising Israeli interests first, or taking the best deal they can get, but there certainly seems to be room for America to ask for more out of the arrangement, or failing that, to scale back their support for Israel.
Iran needs to oppose Israel's existence as a state to harness Islamic street credibility, the survival of Shia theology in a Sunni dominated world may depend on it at this point.
As for America's support for Israel, it's largely due to entrenched jewish capture of US media, cultural, and financial institutions. Not as a deliberate act, but as a consequence of typical jewish high-IQ, educational attainment, and preference for high prestige, high status employment. US jewish elites are uniquely vulnerable to Israeli propaganda to support them at all costs. In turn, the US gets strongly nudged to support Israeli political ambitions.
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According to Reuters:
So it isn't comparable to the government-funded Marshall Plan.
@Catsnakes_ @sarker
Why would private companies do this out of the goodness of their cold, capitalistic hearts? Who's paying them?
I am also very curious what $300B of voluntary private contributions look like. Is this a case where the USA will pressure local governments to demand that private industry contribute to the fund, under threat of negative government treatment if certain benchmarks aren't met? I.e. a convoluted tax that will ultimately be passed on to some split of global consumers and investors?
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It's access to invest in a market that is otherwise illegal to access. It's money lying on the table.
Did investment pour into Iran after the 2015 deal? Serious question.
Iran has a couple of things going for it: large, well educated population with oil. On the other hand it's led by angry Islamists who just fought a war with the US and many of its neighbors. High-risk high-reward, perhaps.
The 2015 deal didn't lift sanctions that prevented US firms from doing business with them afaik, so no. Here the private investment ostensibly is the deal. (assuming it happens as presented, which is doubtful)
The 2015 deal would significantly had allowed European firms to do business with Iran, which many European capitals were gearing up in advance. It was one of the reasons the JCPOA's retraction under Trump was an embarassment point for the European Union- they tried to create a dummy intermediary system to shield European companies from American sanction violations, but the European companies didn't want to risk American market access regardless.
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So Iran gets $300B, no commitments to remove any mines before 30 days, and no commitments to allow toll-free passage after 60 days.
I guess $300B is cheap for foreign adventures these days. Maybe we'll be able to saddle some "allies" with part of it. I'm not sure if paying reparations was part of the plan, but perhaps some plan trusters can help me out.
Sure yeah I'd be happy to.
Sarker two months ago:
The MOU:
I'm glad that they pinkie promise no bomb. That's good.
However, there's no firm commitments here about enforcing this in the future. We just get a promise of "agree to discuss the issue of enrichment."
Also, my list of desired outcomes was necessary but not sufficient. For example, if Iran credibly committed to no bomb ever but in return each American had to pay them $1000 a year in perpetuity, this would be overall bad. I assume your list was the same way.
You responded to my comment with:
This is still on the table!
We are going to acquire Iran’s nuclear dust and destroy it. Iran will not pursue nuclear weapons. I think this is a huge victory, because it solves one of the largest problems of American foreign policy of the last 50 years.
The money and sanctions and aid are contingent on a round credibly abandoning their nuclear aims.
In fact, Iran will begin to become a normal nation. It will not happen as quickly as it did when we conquered Japan. But that is what is being advanced here. If I ran no longer seeks nuclear weapons, and is no longer pursuing war with its neighbors, why are they our enemy? We can’t exactly become allies overnight. But we can at least figure out what regional problems remain to be discussed, and solve them at the negotiating table. In peace.
This is similar to what Trump did with North Korea, and it’s similar to what Trump did with Venezuela. Neither of those countries can be understood as allies. In fact, they both still pose enormous threats. But they are now working within normal diplomatic relations that fall short of war. And if they continue to cooperate, relations will continue to develop, and then they can become rich.
This is the Trump Doctrine. You establish overwhelming force over an adversary, strike a quick blow, then negotiate.
The claim that North Korea has fewer military provocations now than before Trump's 2017-2018 negotiations is false. We've previously discussed this. I'm reposting my response below for the benefit of other readers:
My semi-insider understanding [of North Korea's provocations is that they] are far more in number and severity than before. For example:
If you are seeing less provocations in the news, I think that's just your media diet.
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Incorrect.
Funds unfrozen and exports permitted right off the bat.
Hmm. What quick blow did he strike against North Korea?
Iran will get temporary waivers until the sanctions expire. The sanctions will expire when a final deal is reached (see point 7).
We didn’t even get that far because the Norks agreed to talks after Trump threatened them.
The MOU is implemented when it's signed. Don't confuse what happens when the "deal" is reached vs MoU signing.
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The deal expires in 60 days anyway, and proposes only a plan for $300B, not an actual $300B. You can tell there were real estate people involved in this deal. Maybe even timeshare salespeople.
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It's an agreement to develop a plan for US and it's allies to spend $300B on reconstruction/economic development. The details and how to execute the plan comes later. It's not at all obvious to me that's 300B directly into their pockets vs spending 300B in some circular fashion back into our own industries or some other paper shuffling exercise.
According to Reuters, all the money is coming from private companies, not from governments.
Ah, there you have it. "The US agrees to develop a plan for its companies and those of its allies in the gulf states to privately invest 300B in Iranian industry" is not quite the transfer of 300B into their government's pockets that some are hyperventilating about, and it's a major economic incentive for further cooperation between the two nations.
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Oh my god, the administration is going to strong-arm Anthropic into financing data-centers in Iran.
With Earth's first Clay They did the Last Man knead,
And there of the Last Harvest sow'd the Seed:
And the first Morning of Creation wrote
What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read
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It's not clear to me what spending $300B on our own industries looks like. Unless we're going to loan them some dentists and barbers, it's probably going to look like Iran getting a whole bunch of capital at our expense. If we build e.g. a port for Iran, maybe this has some short run benefits for America, but Iran still gets a free port. That's one thing if Iran is our new best friend, but I'm not sure if that's the case.
Maybe we'd be better off spending $300B digging holes and filling them in again in the Mojave.
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