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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 7, 2023

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That is partly because Iran consistently goes out of its ways to not only be bad by generally neutral standards, but especially the standards the Obama administration claimed to care about.

Rapproachment with Iran wasn't something that could be neatly simplified as 'de-escalating American hawkishness in the Middle East.' It involved things as over-the-top as flying literal planeloads of cash to a known state-sponsor of terrorism, who was involved in killing American soldiers in Iraq and made no promises to stop, for a deal even its adherents claimed would only result in Iran reaching breakout capability, i.e. what it would reach without it. You don't need to be 'hawkish' to think that that's not a particularly good play, and that was even as Iran was one of the most extreme global examples of the institutionalized homophobia (as in, literal stoning the gays) and gender discrimination. Not only was the later a flaw on the human rights front, Iran's sins were the sort of accusations that the Obama administration and the progressive-millenials were using as political cudgels in the domestic culture war at the same time.

Obama seeking rapproachment with Iran by fiat and trying to avoid Congressional scrutiny didn't come across as 'at last, reason will give peace a chance!'- it came across as a really short-sighted stupid bit of political hypocrisy, for which the primary beneficiary on the American side was Obama himself in terms of international laurels for giving the Europeans endorsement to trade with someone who at the time was helping blow up American soldiers and was in no way required to stop doing so.

It involved things as over-the-top as flying literal planeloads of cash to a known state-sponsor of terrorism, who was involved in killing American soldiers in Iraq and made no promises to stop

I mean, take out the very subjective word "terrorism" and this is the same thing that the US is currently doing in Ukraine. It's not like the Iranians were blowing up Americans who were peacefully sitting on bases in the US. For true rapprochement to happen, generally both sides have to make compromises, not just one.

As for breakout capacity, I don't see why the US should try to stop Iran from building a nuke to begin with. Why should I care if they have a nuke?

Also, being belligerent towards Iran is pretty unlikely to get them to treat homosexuals better. Soft power could potentially do it. A full-on invasion could also do it, but that was not an option in 2008 and even if it was, it would have killed probably hundreds of thousands of people, so the tradeoff is questionable.

Why should I care if they have a nuke?

If Iran gets a nuke then all of their rivals in the region will also want nukes. That's a really bad trend to start because the more nuclear powers exist the more likely it is for someone to use them. A world with 100 nuclear powers is much more dangerous than a world with 10.

The United States specifically has an additional interest in stopping nuclear proliferation because it nullifies our overwhelming advantage in conventional forces.

I mean, take out the very subjective word "terrorism"

If you disagree that Iran supports groups that are broadly and internationally recognized as terrorist groups, feel free to disagree with the object level claim, but you haven't actually said you disagree.

and this is the same thing that the US is currently doing in Ukraine.

And if a Russian politician tried to make a series of major concessions to the US without the US reciprocating with major policy changes, and without convincing their political base of the appropriateness or necessity or usefulness of doing so for even marginal effects, their efforts would probably not last very long.

If you want to make a deal with an adversary, you need to sell it to your political base. The saying 'only Nixon could go to China' reflects the belief that only Nixon had the political capital and credibility to sell a deal as a valid thing, as opposed to being seen as a sell out. Without the popular legitimacy that requires buy-in, the deal itself means nothing. This is why weak leaders can rarely make enduring changes, as the changes they can implement through their formal power rarely outlive their terms in office. By contrast, strong leaders can make changes to public perception that even their political opponents accept the reframings on some level.

It's not like the Iranians were blowing up Americans who were peacefully sitting on bases in the US.

Why would a reasonable American political establishment or voting base would only care about Americans blown up in the US?

Your claimed confusion why Americans would dislike the Iranians. Part of this is because, regardless of whether people supported the Iraq War or not, only a relative minority are indifferent about the Americans who were there being blown up, or indifferent about who helped blow them up. The US government- even the Democratic parts of it- has long memories of people they have spent in some cases literal decades in conflict with. It only required a short-term memory- contemporary even- to find personal and living grievances with Iran.

For true rapprochement to happen, generally both sides have to make compromises, not just one.

That was one of the arguments against the deal, yes- a lack of equivalent Iranian policy compromise.

The functional compromise the Iranians were agreeing to in the final versions of the deal were... breakout capability, for a limited period of time, without the sort of verification systems that would prevent the Iranians to cheating and completing it unnoticed if they wanted to. This is the same capability the iranians have without a deal.

Ultimately Obama wasn't actually interested in true rapproachment, and didn't even try to sell the deal as such.

As for breakout capacity, I don't see why the US should try to stop Iran from building a nuke to begin with. Why should I care if they have a nuke?

Why should anyone care about the nuclear proliferation opinions of someone who doesn't value nuclear non-proliferation?

The answer is of course your opinion doesn't matter- the question was about why people didn't care for Obama's plan.

Whether you agree or not, most politically-engaged people are not, in fact, indifferent to nuclear proliferation. They tend to be opposed to it in fact. The deal did not stop nuclear proliferation. As a consequence, the deal's maintenance could not be credibly be argued to be needed to prevent nuclear proliferation, because by the design the deal wouldn't do that because it lacked verification and enforcement mechanisms at Iranian insistence.

Also, being belligerent towards Iran is pretty unlikely to get them to treat homosexuals better. Soft power could potentially do it. A full-on invasion could also do it, but that was not an option in 2008 and even if it was, it would have killed probably hundreds of thousands of people, so the tradeoff is questionable.

You seem to have missed the message to the domestic audience. The point isn't that the Obama administration had any hope of making the Iranians change policy (nuclear or gay). The point is that the Obama administration was willing to make major policy compromises to a major abuser, while using far lesser alleged character condmenation to justify not making domestic political compromises.

For his own base, who broadly considered the line of attack valid on a domestic front, it served as an easily co-optable tool against the Iran deal, which they would have a hard line refuting. For the opposition he used the attack against, the contradiction spoke of hypocrisy and insincerity, which undermined any political argument that the opposition should try to maintain a deal whose maintenance could be used to validate a line of political attack against them.

Why should I care if they have a nuke?

Because they can use it.

The (in my opinion, of course) tiny chance that they would use it in a first strike does not bother me. I have seen absolutely no reason to think that they are suicidal.

I guess they might use it if they get attacked first, but I wouldn't blame them for that and in any case, if they get nukes it is very unlikely that anyone will attack them.

The most important lesson of the Ukraine war is: get nukes, get nukes, get nukes. Countries that do not have nukes are not even really countries, they are just disputed zones fought over by countries that do have nukes.

they are just disputed zones fought over by countries that do have nukes.

This is why it's bad for the USA for Iran to have nukes.

Charitably, playing an M player game of thrones is easier than an M+1 player game. The USA doesn't even give nukes to it's non-nuclrar allies, and neither do the other nuclear powers.

I think that it is actually a better thing for the people of the US that the USA empire comes to an end, and a nuclear-power Iran would be a good step forward in that direction.

I'm pretty skeptical of this.

If you believe this, then there is a laundry list of less powerful nations we might theoretically swap places with. Which would you choose?

I have no idea what relevance this has to my point. Why would the US be swapping places with anybody?

It's a hypothetical. you proposed reducing the USA's global power by calling for an end to the American empire.

This is directly related to my post, where I asked you to consider what life would be like for the citizens of a nation with much diminished power relative to the USA today--- of which there are many real world examples you can choose from.

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I sort of feel this is overly complicated. There are two power in the ME the Saudis and the Iranians. Pick one. The other will hate you. Those two will compete. Any Iranian homophobia you can probably sling on Saudis. For a long time Saudi oil was more important which they had more of so we were friends with them.

Iran would say all sort of nice things about us if we quit supporting the Saudis and let Iran run Iraq etc and being the ME hegemon.

I don’t know if there’s a way where America could ever be best buds with both. Maybe we could be neutral with both.