Yawn... The continuation of right wing rhetoric as a defense of unprecedented partisan action. Shameful.
They're so adept at doubling down on stupid that they don't know when to stop. Not only is this rhetoric stupid and dangerous, as usual they have no plan to do anything about Iran. These clowns spent ten years in Iraq, wasted a trillion dollars, and got a bunch of people killed for nothing. Now they want to duplicate the effort in Iran? Wow.
Do I need to go Socrates on you? Why is one more morally reprehensible than the other? What makes one an "emery" and one not?
Seriously, do you contribute any unique perspectives to the discussion besides stating that someone else is wrong without a follow up on why?
Oh Bobby, you're... "great". I love the alienation rhetoric. It's like you people literally forget history five minutes after something happens then you create your own weirdo history to fit whatever agenda you have today. BOEHNER: I made it clear I am not going to compromise on my principles, nor am I going to compromise the will of the American people. Stahl noted that Boehner compromised his position on the Bush tax cuts to get a deal with Obama last week, noting that he had wanted the all the Bush-era tax cuts extended permanently but only got a two-year extension. Boehner again said it wasn’t a compromise. “Why won’t you say you’re afraid of the word,” Stahl asked. “I reject the word,” Boehner said. http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2010/12/13/134669/boehner-reject-compromise/ Here’s John Boehner, the likely speaker if Republicans take the House, offering his plans for Obama’s agenda: “We're going to do everything — and I mean everything we can do — to kill it, stop it, slow it down, whatever we can.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell summed up his plan to National Journal: “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/44311.html#ixzz3TxSEpNv2
You don't pander to a regime fueled by a deep-seated, religious hatred of the US and Israel. They aren't going to listen to diplomacy; their dislike of us is way past diplomacy. Radical Islam should not be underestimated - these people are crazy, and they will stop at nothing to achieve their goals. According to the Pew Research Center, more than half or more of Muslims believe they will live to see the return of the Mahdi. In (some theories of) Islamic eschatology, scholars believe the Mahdi will return with Jesus and bring judgment on believers and infidels. This is what Iran is preparing for. This isn't a worldly fight for them. Giving Iran the ability to enrich uranium after a 10 year period is ludicrous. Do we really expect them to simply give up any ambition of creating a nuke? I'm all for diplomacy; I don't want to see a war between Israel and Iran (and possibly others). But Obama's plan for diplomacy is inherently misguided. It fails to account for what Iran actually believes. Important note: I say all of this not to simply antagonize the president. In fact, I pray for the president daily and hope that God will give him wisdom to make the best decisions possible for this country. Although I didn't vote for him, I'm on his side. I just don't think this plan is a good one, and I am grateful to live in a country where I can disagree with the president and his administration and voice my own view.
If you don't want war and you don't want diplomacy, what are you asking for? And stop with your rhetoric about the Islamic nature of Iran's regime as a justification to be hostile towards them. Your rhetoric entails genuine cognitive dissonance as Saudi Arabia has violated far more human rights in the name of religion than Iran has towards it's people. Saudi's Whabbiasm mirrors ISIS. Iran is a natural enemy of ISIS. Yet...GASP we are still butt buddies with Saudi. I wonder why?
I would go to war if it came to that. I would be more likely to support economic sanctions over normal diplomacy. I don't know why we are close allies with Saudi Arabia; that relationship is long and complicated. My understanding is that the Saudis supported our fight against Communism after WWII, and now they support us because they want our economy to be stable so they can sell oil. However, I don't think Saudi Arabia supported the Iraq War, nor do they support Israel at all. So again, I don't know. I'm not an expert on US-Saudi relations. As far as cognitive dissonance goes, I don't hold Saudi Arabia in high esteem. They have supported us in a few ways, which makes them better than most in that region. Your ignorance of radical Islam seems to be your greatest misunderstanding of the region. It's a real threat. It is not some made up story by Bush. If anything, your cognitive dissonance is greatly clouding your understanding.
I don't think you understand what cognitive dissonance entails? I believe the term you were looking for in your context was "ignorance". Anyways, it's hard to take you seriously when you cannot understand the difference between Sunni based extremism and Shia based extremism. The Taliban, Al-Qaeda, ISIS etc... entities we actually fought against are all Sunni based. If you want to argue my merits of understanding Islam and the region over yours by all means we can start with the notion that I was once actually Muslim.
Unless you're ready to go to war, you have no ability to stop their ambition to create a nuke. Iran knows this full well. You act as if we're the adult negotiating with a toddler. The GOP has no plan other than to try to sabotage whatever trust has been built thus far in this negotiation. What is their plan?
The sticking point here is that we obviously disagree on Shia-based extremism (I do know the difference between Sunnis and Shias btw). Based on the limited research I have done (books, lectures from experts, etc), I have concluded that Shia Islam, and specifically Iran, is a threat. I'm honestly confused as to why that's such a shocking conclusion to you. Iran certainly doesn't seem tame. I would love to hear why you don't think Iran or Shia extremism is a threat.
The GOP has made it clear that they do not want anything other than (I think) regime change. You might have forgotten or not realize at all that Iran wanted a nuclear deal back in 03-04-05 (around that time i can't recall) and EU was ready to negotiate but the Bush admin would have none of it. The US was in a much stronger position than (Iran had less nuclear capability at the time and they just witnessed the US military destroyed Iraq military in a matter of weeks). I think it's quite clear that Obama can't get the GOP controlled Senate to agree to any deal so he probably calculated correctly that his only option is to exercise a deal without the GOP. What possible good? A deal that end Iranian nuclear weapon programs, with international support and where if Iran decided to continue with a weapon anyway, we have the international community much more likely to act together to destroy Iran nuclear capability. Or, we can continue to do no deal, and risk war as the only option where we are likely the only player involved ---- a repeat of Iraq.
The plan is for continued economic sanctions and to go to war if necessary. The problem here is that we are basically handing Iran nukes. Best case? We wait 10 years. Worst case? They keep enriching uranium even under this new agreement. They haven't been stopped by inspections before. Why would this new deal stop them now?
Why? Because Iran is not a unstable entity. Its a stable nation state with a stable regime and it would like to keep that stability. Self-preservation is the number one desire of a state and Iran knows full well that an unprovoked attack on Israel would unleash the full force of NATO on their asses. ISIS is a roque entity that does not abide by conventional restraints which allows self-preservation. They are a much larger threat to the region. Iran on the other hand would not dare challenge the sovereignty of the current hegemony's ally Israel.
Depends on how you define stable, I guess. You need to read up on the human rights issues and corruption in Iran. There's a reason theocracies don't work.
A regime's stability is dependent on how much they control the monopoly of force on a region and in those terms Iran's regime is very stable.
Sure it's stable in that sense. Throwing people in hell holes at the drop of a hat will do that, as will oppressive Sharia law. I guess threatening genocide against Israel is also something a stable country would do.