There is NO WAY any Iranian government would simply give up its rocket program, specially when literally every power around you has them. Specially when they don't have an Airforce.
Iran has complied and tried to work with the international system on the nuclear question. They have behaved pretty reasonably going back to early 2000s. Their demands and programs are not outrages if any other country had made them.
The US wants to destory and overthrow all of their allies and the have bases in basically every country around Iran.
In reality econoimc sanctions do not collapse a country, the evidence of that is pretty clear. And it doesn't lead to regimn change either.
I don't think it's "crazy" to go with U.S demands. it requires letting go of ego and the dream of the shiite revolution and empire I guess, or at least postponing it. It's like saying Kim from North Korea is would be crazy to let go of his crazy regime, how is that crazy?
Nobody is crazy about anybody else than themselves having ballistic missile and nuclear war head (which is not yet the case of Iran)
Every country try to build influence outside. Saudi Arabia is more responsible of the situation of Yemen than Iran is. SA supported jihadist group in Syria, support armed group in Libya and Lebanon, have bought some influence in Sudan, Egypt... Pour hundred of million to support quietist salafist... SA builds its influence and defend its interest, like any country.
What Trump is currently asking is a no go for Iranian... Each part is building force to find a new deal, to force a better deal. Sanctions is part of it. Supporting proxy is another.
That just fear mongering. Iran is neither developing missiles that can carry warheads, nor do they have the nuclear material for warheads nor do they have the technology for warheads.
The missles Iran are developing are conventional missiles for mid-range applications. They actual understand that Europe doesn't want them to be able to attack Europe.
In fact Saudi Arabia and pretty much every other country has missiles. In fact Saudi Arabia illigally bought intercontinental missles from China and were not held accountable at all, but Iran is supposed to beg to be allowed even basic missles?
Demanding that Iran can not have missles when everybody else has them is unreasonable.
> Iran is responsible for destabilising oil supplies recently
Iran has 'destabalised' oil supply far less then constant arab and US oil polices. For most of its history Iran was consistant conservative oil producers and they are still.
Its frankly laughable for the West to claim 'Iran' is destabalizing the oil market, given things like Iraq War. Multible massive embargos against countries like Iran, Iraq and so on.
> is 100% responsible for arming Hezbollah
Hezbollah is no longer a pure subsidiary as it was in the past. They are independned power that allied with Iran. They still get some of their important arms from Iran, but to think of Hezbollah as '100% reliant on Iran' is a wrong.
> and of course extends it's influence to Yemen
Iran had no interest in Yemen and had basically no relationship with Houthi. The Houthi took over Yemen before they were really supported by Iran. Only once the Saudis started a full on war against them, did Iran change its policy and started to support the Houthi in order to bleed Saudi Arabia.
Iran didn't cause anything in Yemen and the Houthi are no-where near the same relationship with them as they have with Hezbollah. The Houthis are just a group that is fighting Saudi Arabia for its own reason and Iran using Saudi Arabia bad polices against them.
Its Western and Saudi stupidity that they handed the Houthi to Iran, as the Houthi were actually more or less payed of by the Saudis for a long time and even had good relations with the West.
> Saudi Arabia is doing none of that and doesn't seem to care that much about building an empire of "influence" around the middle east.
Maybe you simply don't pay attention to Middle East politics but that is an absurd statment.
- Saudi Arabia just reasently kidnapped the prime minister of Lebanon.
- The enacted a blockade of Qatar
- The funded the Egyption Military Coup against Muslim Brothers and democracy
- They are fighting a war in Yemen (more agressive then anything Iran has done in 100 years)
- They are fighting a proxy war against UAE in Yemen as well (just for good measure)
- They activly try to change Islam to make it more like their own (Wahhabism) both in the ME and world wide
- They clearly funded very nasty groups in Syria including ISIS (early on) and later groups like Al-Nusra
The list goes on and on ...
> I don't think it's "crazy" to go with U.S demands. it requires letting go of ego and the dream of the shiite revolution and empire I guess, or at least postponing it. It's like saying Kim from North Korea is would be crazy to let go of his crazy regime, how is that crazy?
Iran has already given up pretty much everything that is reasonable yet it has absolutly no effect on the policy that persue.
They have no nuclear weapons program and that has been confirmed by all intellegence services. They don't even demand the full rights they have under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. They signed the extended treaty and then to double reassure the international community the signed the most restrictive nuclear treaty in the history of the IAEA. They observed the signed treaty and that was confirmed over and over again by IAEA. The effect, US didn't release sanction but betrayed the treaty and recreated the sanction. But yet you still demand that Iran changes the way its doing things?
In terms of rocket development they have already, without even a treaty, stopped the program to develop intercontinental missiles.
So yes, Iran is treated incredibly unfairly in the international system specially considering their historical role, practical power and ability to work with the West if their is mutual interst (such as nuclear treaty, fighting ISIS, fighting Taliban and so on) this is incredibly unreasonable and totally hypocritical.
And yes, for the leaders of those countries, simply giving up would be crazy. As most likly they and their famillies would be killed.
That the US is opposed to Iran has nothing today with human rights or gays or anything like that.
> which I doubt, since as I said it cooperates with Western interests
Again, you seem to suffer under the delusion that the West interest have something to do with human rights.
Its really not up for debate, SA is less Western in pretty much every single way. Both win the governemnt and far more so when you consider the population.
> If they wanna commit financial suicide that's on them.
So being stranggled against the your will or the will of your population is now 'commiting suicide'?
These sanction make the Revolutionary Guard stronger, not weaker. Pure sanctions have proven again and again that they do not lead to regimn or even policy change.
But lets just continue to hurt the population for no reason because it feels good to do something about some PR stories that have nothing to do with the actual conflict.
If your analyisis of US forign policy includes "US does X because country Y is against gay rights" or "because its a totalitarian regime" then you are already totally deluded yourself about what is happening in international politics.
Half the countries that are allied with the US would be opponents if they cared about thise things thus analysis of issues with that premis are non-starter.
The US has supported groups and countries that are far, far worse in each of those aspects, that makes the US position totally clear. It simply doesn't care.
Thus its utter hypocracy to claim its hostility with Iran is based on those things are simply lies to confuse the uninformed US population.
> it's a destabilising element in the region
I would argue that's not actually true. That is, the US media likes to talk about it, because everything that the US doesn't like 'is destabalizing' but is it destabalizing to what? The US interest, not the region itself.
In reality of course the main destabalizing force in the ME is the US itself. The Iraq war is and was the most destabalizing event in modern ME history. Afganistan, Lebanon, trying to overthrow Assad and the list goes on.
Iran supports Assad against Rebelion. The US calles that 'destabalizing', well that regmin has existed for 40 years and the US policy of overthrowing it was actually the destabalizing factor. If the Assad regmin would fall, anybody knowlagable about Syria will tell you that the possible replacments are far, far worse then Assad. The US knew this and thus never went all-in against Assad, they got smarter after Iraq.
Iran supports Hezbollah, who are a part of the Lebanese government and whatever you want to say about them, they are not a destabalizing force. In fact Hezbollah was primarly responsable for defeating ISIS on the boarder to Lebanon and preventing ISIS to spread into Lebanon.
Iran fought ISIS in Iraqi-Kurdistan and in Iraq. In fact Iran was vital to those battles (even while the US takes all the credit). Is fighting the most evil terrorist regmin that has existed in 100s of years destablizing? Or the opposite?
Iran has allowed Qatar to use its airspace when Saudi Arabia started to blockade them. They also traded with Qatar, even when they were not really friendly with each other.
So please tell me, is fighting ISIS and opposing Saudi Arabian aggression in Qatar and Yemen 'destabalizing'? No it is not. Its simply against the US interest.
No compare this to US allies. Is it destabalizing to send a massive air and land army into Yemen as Saudis and UAE have done? Is it destabalizing to blockade another country? Is it destabalizing to support Whabi radicals in Syria rather then fight them? Is it destbalizing to destroy a democracy threw a military coup?
> Russia and North Korea got sanctions for their behavior, I don' see why Iran shouldn't. Their population is far from starving. I tend to agree the sanctions have yet to prove themselves, but it's a much better tool than full blown war which nobody wants.
I don't think sanction in some cases are totally unreasonable. If Iran invaded Basra (equivalent of taking Crima) then sanction would make sense. But the sanctions are not for any of these things mentioned above.
They are because of a missile program that doesn't even get them up to parity with Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, India, Israel. And are thus unreasonable against a country with 90 million people and legit security questions on its boarders.
The other set of sanctions are because of their nuclear program that they have addressed with a internationally binding treaty. They reassured and rereassured everybody about that program. However the US, despite all the evidence of both their own security services, the IAEA and international pressure have gone back on the deal.
So, once Iran invades Basra, or once Iran actually tries to build nuclear weapons, I will argue with you if sanction them makes sense. Currently they simple don't.