Originally posted by Bigfella
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In addition, while Iran can crush dissent on a temporary basis, but NK has crushed even the thought of dissent on a long term basis in the population.
Originally posted by Astralis
the ultimate calculus is that while the US does not want iran to have nuclear weapons, she is also extremely, extremely loath to fight a war over the issue. even the most hawkish republicans aren't advocating that at this time. all they want is a continuation of the sanctions, which 1.) wouldn't happen if Russia/China didn't think the US was trying to do a deal, and 2.) were ultimately ineffectual to their stated goal, which is to deter Iran from getting nuclear capability.
Furthermore:
A. Sanctions would continue in significant ways without Russian and Chinese participation.
B. China and Russia would not dare disassemble the sanctions regime if they believed that it was the only thing holding back a US attack.
C. Iran has not gone nuclear. Therefore, the combination of sanctions, covert sabotage, and constant threat of overt attack have been effective.
These should have been leveraged to attain a much more favorable deal.
Instead, the administration chose to trade these significant leverage for a poor deal while disingenuously pushing the false notion that the combination in C was failing in a way that necessitated a bad deal. This then became a self-fulling prophecy of their own making.
This collection of arguments, which they have made and you are repeating, are a poor fig leaf for the failure of Obama's weak foreign policy. Obama's only "hope" of "salvaging" this deal is that he has created such poor choices for us now at this point that his failed deal may actually be the least bad option.... or so he argues. Even then, this deal is so unpalatable, for even Democrats, that Obama is really just counting on the convincing just 1/3rd of the votes in the House or the Senate to side with him.
I think he will probably get his 1/3, and probably more, but, what a shameful, shoddy performance. Worse yet, this could be the seed for terrible problems down the line.
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