GitHub is fully available in Iran
github.blog
github.blog
https://twitter.com/natfriedman/status/1346453242499121155
Pretty fast to get this posted...
Great work, by the way. Kudos as well for committing to a DMCA abuse fund.
However, we don't want this to be a competitive advantage for GitHub; developers should choose GitHub because it is better, not because it has a license from OFAC. So we have taken it upon ourselves to advocate for OFAC to allow developers in Iran and other sanctioned countries greater access to all platforms, and we will continue to do so.
This kind of change would likely require an update to OFAC’s regulations, the issuance of an updated general license, or the issuance of formal guidance from the agency. We hope that OFAC’s issuance of a license to GitHub will help pave the way for broader access to similar platforms.
Was there some reason to believe that mentioning you were working towards this license would have a detrimental effect on the review process for that license?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22630340
https://twitter.com/natfriedman/status/1250200008621608962?s...
Congratulations on prevailing here.
- Expectations settings. If they say they're working on a possible solution, people will expect the solution to materialize and get upset when it doesn't. Since this seems like it was a lobbying effort with OFAC, there was probably a large degree of uncertainty on whether this would happen at all.
- Like you suggested, maybe they thought any public comment about this might put at risk the conversations they were having with OFAC?
You have no control over when you get a permit from the government like this. It's nuts. Even when the open source exception to ITAR was passed in the late 90s MIT was very careful not to release kerberos V outside the USA until they had very clear guarantees that it was approved.
I am from Iran. unfortunately, we are prisoners of mullahs like peoples of other countries sanctioned by US that are prisoners of their dictatorship governments.
I'm very interested in hearing about the experience of HN people from these regions in terms of open source collabs. Since Github has such a large presence, what are you all using instead?
Why would Crimea be sanctioned? It was annexed.
That's like sanctioning the citizens of Iraq for the 2003 US invasion and occupation...
ctrl + f "Crimea", there's some interesting information there. It lists specific companies and explains why.
edit: This is a specific example: https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm889
Source: have relatives there
The ones I'm seeing on the Treasury page target specific individuals and companies. And they're coordinated with Canada and other countries, and the EU.
Now, because of sanctions, they can only work for Russian government and companies.
Trying to pretend it's business as usual is supporting the occupation.
And then the same winter Ukraine cut electricity and water supply. I remember doing homework with kids by a candle light, wearing warm jackets inside because heating didn't work. Fun times. I don't know how this all was supposed to turn people of Crimea back to Ukraine and who thought it was a good idea. I think it worked the opposite way and turned a lot of locals into supporters of the annexation.
Anyway, I'd say the most upsetting result of the sanctions is almost total absence of large international and Russian business in Crimea. It makes everything very expensive. It's like an additional tax on everything. For example, no large Russian bank has a local branch. There are only few small local banks and as a result it is really hard to get a business loan or mortgage, and the rates are bad. There are almost no stores of big food chains, and it means the food is more expensive than in mainland Russia; there are no McDonalds, no Burger King or Starbucks; you cannot receive an international delivery and you have to pay to one of the many proxy services that re-send packages if you want to receive a package from Amazon; no international flights which means you always need to buy a flight to Moscow first; etc.
But this GitHub announcement gives a hope that someone somewhere gives a shit about the problems of real people and that the sanctions will eventually end one way or another.
I think it's still possible to hold Ukrainian citizenship in Russia-occupied Crimea, but your life will be thoroughly miserable.
The blocking of GitHub accounts was unexpected and presumably took into account the usage history, so many accounts were blocked and had no further access to their private repositories and gists even if they used VPN after that.
GitLab was blocked in Iran after they migrated to GCP, but was accessible with VPN. A few month ago GitLab also started blocking some Iranian accounts, so our company moved all of its repositories to a self-hosted instance just to be safe.
Today I learned how similar to Iranians I am.
> many accounts were blocked and had no further access to their private repositories and gists even if they used VPN after that.
Can’t access with VPN? How?
Your account is unable to access _any_ private repository after being flagged as being from a sanctioned country. That's regardless of where you're actually accessing your account from.
While you could create a new account, you still couldn't grant that new account access (since you can no longer access private repositories from your primary account). Also a new account still runs the risk of getting flagged if you accidentally access the account without a VPN enabled just once.
Speaking of which [the industry], wtf? I left Tehran in 79, and I must tell you, AmirAli, that I fully expected Iran to be a software powerhouse by now (if not earlier), given the national propensities and talents, and the lack of an artificially imposed barrier to starting up an industrial/technical sector, and fairly open access to technical literature. Can you shed light on this?
Though, I recently learned that Taobao has a publicly-available mirror of npm packages.
However, I'm also noticing more and more popular repositories with Chinese language, in the past couple of years—they gather plenty of stars presumably just due to the population size (can't judge them on merit). I guess the GFW block was lifted and Github is popular for publishing software even for consumption in China.
This is one of those cases where ECH would really make sense: the censor is forced to choose whether to pass TLS connections to an IP or not.
Actually the next day after GitHub ban, I rolled out a GitLab instance on my server and opened it for free access and published it in Syrian devs groups, but it barely had a dozen active users after 6 months, and all from one company not individual contributors, so I had to turn it off.
What I can say from my experience and how we as Syrians look at open source contributions is that we see it as our ticket to get a better chance in leaving Syria to a good job that allows us to start a new life. It's not something we do as a hobby or for fun in our spare time, because we don't really have spare time.
Btw, it's quite common to have Syrians working on projects for US and Europe and avoid sanctions by VPN and registering their business in Dubai. I know a Syrian company that is a GitHub and AWS partner.
I honestly think that they're trying their hardest to keep it open for everyone - they can't ignore U.S. law as an organization of their scale, regardless of their views on issues like this and DMCA.
Nat also stays constantly in the public eye and really makes it seem like he cares - which is what a modern CEO should do, in my opinion.
The US has long imposed broad sanctions on multiple countries, including Iran. These sanctions prohibit any US company from doing business with anyone in a sanctioned country. (These sanctions can also apply to non-US companies whose activities directly or indirectly involve the US, including merely having payments that flow through US banks or payment mechanisms like Visa.)
One could interpret this as "this repo support 996" which is the opposite of reality, without that context.
Nat deserves praise for his leadership.
I started my career doing iOS development while in Syria and had to jump through hoops and loops so I can submit my apps to the App Store. I had to open accounts in Lebanon, use VPNs to log in to the connect portal and one point even being on the VPN wouldn't work.
I think more companies need to follow suit here, there are a lot of independent developers in these countries that would benefit from this.
And any frivolity aside, well done to github, both for this and also with their developer defense fund against take downs. Whether you like them or not, these are very positive outcomes for devs.
Edit: apparently this was a coincidence
Now for Iran it was control theory, FPGA design, chemical engineering, etc.. I suspect only weapons designers had internet access. Maybe universities, but no porn? Not likely..
So Google trends no longer shows porn or Iran.
As soon as Goodreads was launched in 2007, it swiftly attracted an enormous number of Iranian university students: they are one of the most active demographics on the site and they review all kinds of books since (with lax copyright laws and high literacy) translation of foreign literature flourishes in Iran. Does that sound like a people bereft of web access?
They were are/are prolific Iranian hacking groups too. I had the misfortune of having my small site defaced (in a drive-by) and Googled a string from the usual shout-out and found a lot of matches on similarly defaced sites. I counted that as evidence towards a robust Iranian underground hacking scene. This was way before APT & state-level actors were in the public consciousness.
Well done sir.
The cause: Iran has free government run universities, so education is a big thing here. Go to Stanford EE department, you would be surprised by seeing that many Iranians.
They also mention that "While ICE does manage immigration law enforcement, ... they are also on the front lines of fighting human trafficking [and] child exploitation" and that "GitHub has no visibility into how this software is being used, other than presumably for software development and version control."
If gh were to revoke their licenses, they would probably (a) just switch to gitlab or something similar, (b) be harming the anti-trafficking and anti-child exploitation efforts just as much as their anti immigration, and (c) not have an incentive to donate all this money to support groups.
https://github.blog/2019-10-09-github-and-us-government-deve...
(b) that's quite a stretch. there are organizations who fight human trafficking without putting children in cages
(c) you cannot offset working with the morally reprehensible as if you're adding carbon to the atmosphere
But I personally agree with your thrust. i donate non-trivial amounts of MY money to organizations that support immigrant (including undocumented) communities, as well as my time, as well as participating in campaigns to eg get universities to not accept contracts to train ICE and CBP.
But I'm still not personally inclined to boycott github over relatively small ICE contracts. I assume almost any company is going to have contracts with entities I consider immoral. That's just living in society. You have to pick your battles, and to me this one isn't it, although I respect those who want to make it such. Doing software development without interacting with any companies who have contracts with entities I consider immoral is probably impossible. I personally consider any contract with US DoD equally indefensible morally, and it's just not realistic to avoid business with companies with DoD contracts. But I assume I could find such contracts among github competitors too.
I/my employer currently only use free github though.
Although if I worked for a company, I'd be trying to figure out how to advocate internally to get them to stop -- avoiding working for a company with DoD contracts has been part of my own personal career choices.
I assume Apple, Google, and Amazon definitely have contracts with morally indefensible entities, especially government agencies, including ICE/CBP/DHS -- I still use AWS, and most of y'all do too right? If people boycotting github over ICE contracts are not boycotting AWS, have you thought about why or why not? I'm not assuming you can't have a good reason, just curious if you've thought about it and what it is. i don't totally understand why github has become the posterboy for this, when they seem pretty typical and probably far from worst, when compared with say AWS.
While the company I work for uses github, we don't pay for it; we DO pay for AWS, which also has ICE contracts...
Exactly what about managing immigration law is something worth rallying against?
Nowadays they're disguised under the euphemism "collateral damage"[1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collateral_damage#Internationa...
Can you imagine your license of Microsoft Windows being de-activated because of a social justice campaign?
While it certainly makes lives of Iranian developers easier, it does not make it a good idea to put their code there: laws change, and quickly sometimes.
It's always a risk to put IP in a bucket you may lose access to just because of politics.
That applies to everyone, not just Iranian developers: setup daily backups of all your code.
Proper backups of all repos are an answer, of course.
I think it's kinda hard to compete with the big boys with limited resources / footprint even whit / perhaps because of sanctions.
It's not advised for these Iranian developers to use any Github-specific features, such as issues, wiki, CI, because losing them will cause disruption / knowledge loss.
And then the reason to use Github specifically, instead of something else is quite low.
If it's a single repo with a single branch, sure. No need for explicit backups.
If it's tens of repos with multiple important branches in each, then it would be very dangerous to assume that developer machines have all of them.
Much easier to migrate to a Gitlab instance. And they know this! Which is why it's so fun to see Github dancing around these issues lately. Finally some healthy competition.
I'd love to know how many times MS have tried to buy Gitlab. :D
It says it's a two year effort. It's a great length for a company to go for, specially when they could very much default to what other companies are doing and simply block access.
As someone who comes from an underprivileged country, and just paid extra to renew a visa just because I come from an underprivileged country, I can see at least part of the daily trouble that we have nothing to do, apart from being born in the "wrong country".
This is a very wholesome news and made my day.
Take cryptocurrency for example. Yes it's decentralized and the government can't seize from the blockchain. Instead, all they have to do is ask "Do you have crypto?" and you answer truthfully or perjure yourself or risk worse consequences.
Your government doesn't need control over your technology. They have control over you. Technical and policy changes must go hand in hand. You can't use one to solve the other.
PS: I'm trailing the comments and it is very interesting to see how this post is turned into a competition about GitLab vs. GitHub vs. BitBucket. But fellas, this is not about tech, it's about the people who use it. In particular about a thriving community of talented and young developers who have been ignored, sanctioned, and betrayed over and over both domestically and internationally.
PS: I agree this post should be about GitHub and what they achieved for the thriving community of developers in Iran who are making things work despite their circumstances.
Just in case you misread. He is the CEO of GitLab.
https://i.reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/8pc8mf/im_nat_friedman_f...
Now that you guys have had some time to formulate policy do you have any comment?
The latest news says he is just laying low, but that of course doesn’t make for a good story.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/05/alibaba-founder-jack-ma-is-l...
Among other things, the policy requires that governments that want content removed from GitHub issue a lawful request to us, which we then push to a public repo: https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns
So you are able to see all of the government takedown requests that we have processed, there. You'll notice that there are only 3 directories in that repo: Russia, China, and Spain. When we do (reluctantly) take down content at the request of a government, we try to limit the takedown only to viewers in the country that made the request, rather than doing a global takedown.
"Oh, we need to know all the programmers that reside in Iran."
"Let's look at github!"
Or Maybe it's as insidious as hoping some state orgs\Iran based enterprises would use github actively to host and commit code into their infrastructure.
It reminds me when I first became aware of how social media companies allow "terrorist" pages up - while there is some chance of recruitment, the intelligence gathered from metadata, who browses, time of engagement and such is much, much more valuable.
Super curious, and interesting, how "nice/good" gestures can be all part of a game.
> Over the course of two years, we were able to demonstrate how developer use of GitHub advances human progress, international communication, and the enduring US foreign policy of promoting free speech and the free flow of information.
What about orgnanizations and individuals working to hpromote the free flow of information, but aren't on the top-5 market cap coporations? Are they also exempt from sanctions?
Establish the the network doesn't support sanctions like this and diplomatic channels will find other venues. But free net accessibility only helps against regimes like we can find in Iran anyway.
(Now the next challenge is how to get GitHub paid services. As I understand they can now have full services - except that probably no payment processor that handles Iran.)
Of course citizens shouldn't suffer the pangs of incompetent, lazy, or evil governments. That's why virtuous imperialism was a thing.
But aside from sounding good, how do you suppose these government sanctions should be instituted in order to be effective?
Can they stop? Hardly. As soon as one stops paying taxes and gets caught he is officially a criminal. No he can't even emigrate because foreign countries won't give him a visa: you usually are required to provide a certificate of having no criminal records at your home country to the embassy when you apply and they don't take "I just didn't want to support our wicked government" as an excuse.
If the current military gulf presence escalates to armed conflict having software open to the Iranian population keeps communication tools available until the internet gets cut.
The US sanctions are part of a "maximum pressure" campaign on the Iranian government. The US government has banned the rest of the world from dealing with Iran. Therefore, Iran has no exports anymore.
As a result, Iran's currency lost it's value ~10 times in the past decade (When the original sanctions where started by the Obama administration).
The goal of the sanctions are to make people of Iran so miserable that they would go in streets and start a revolution. Now, Iranian people hate the Islamic Republic and would get rid of them if they could. But the Islamic Republic has no limits. They would shoot and kill and many as it takes.
Another challenge for Iranian people and a revolution, except for Islamic regime's cruelty is an unknown future. Iran shares a lot of border with Afghanistan and Pakistan. Iran also has many terrorist groups activated inside it already. That means there are real fears of Isis/Taliban/Other groups rushing to Iran if the central government is weakened.
So people are scared of Islamic Republic, and also scare of what can come next.
Therefore, basically, Maximum Pressure campaign's goal is to make people so miserable, they'd rather face bullets/wars.
This has lead to some really devastating results. Middle class doesn't exist anymore. Some rural cities are reporting that people cannot pay for bread anymore. Most people cannot pay for chicken/meat anymore. Add Covid 19 to this, and a very incompetent and cruel government which has been rendered completely useless by the sanctions, and you get a complete disaster on your hand.
The government is also quite scared, and to make sure there wont be uprisings, is spreading fear. They execute people and hand cruel sentences to everyone. Last weeks they gave a 10 years sentence to an 18 years makeup artist who had a famous Instagram account. Journalists are executed, etc. People's morale are completely shattered.
So the bottom line is, the maximum pressure campaign has rendered Iranian people completely miserable. Even if it were to succeed wit topping Islamic Republic, there is no guarantee that it wont make Iran another Syria situation. Please, as a U.S. voter, I urge you to consider your support for stopping the sanctions.
How can a US voter actually affect change? What options are available for us to vote for?
Someone who aligns with your views - like yourself.
Not to mention that the United States itself wasn't formed overnight; it was the product of many compromises. There's even a whole Broadway play about it: Hamilton[b].
[a]: Yes, these are actual "names" I've read online.
[b]: Sure, it's exaggerated, but it's pretty accurate
You forgot Muslims, Mexicans, poor people and the non-white people of the US. They are just as much an enemy as the opposing political party (and the Russians and the Chinese....)
So, essentially this would be about advocating for change by the Biden administration. It wouldn't be by voting (since the election is already done), but writing to your representative could help. Maybe there are advocacy groups that could use support?
Advocating for changes is more likely to be effective with an administration that isn't fundamentally opposed to them.
What makes you think he will do any of that besides a belief?
It seems the the US law was originally the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act [1] and there have been various laws extending it. Apparently they allow the President to waive sanctions on a case-by-case bases.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_and_Libya_Sanctions_Act
[0]: https://twitter.com/StuffFromSam/status/1344313566254477313?...
Here's my cynical take: the most effective way to lift the sanctions would be lobbying from US corporations. Lifting sanctions is probably profitable for every US business with a market in Iran, so if you work at a US corporation, lobby your boss!
You voted for the right wing last time you voted (I know because there are no one else to vote for). The Democrats are also right-wing, anti-Iran, pro-Israel, etc.
What does this mean? Who should I vote for?
Other than that, I'm not sure.
And unless you're in Georgia this obviously has no bearing on current candidates.
In general, the GOP, especially under Trump, have pursued the policy of sanctions against Iran at all costs. The Democrats have not.
So the answer to your question is pretty obvious, don't you think?
(so have the Republicans)
That's the problem with dictatorships. The only way to purchase a democracy again is with a lot of blood. Hopefully you had some sort of 2A rights (probably not since they are first to go under dictatorship) or else you'll be relying a lot on foreign provided weapons to break free in the future. Good luck, bad governments almost never "natually" become better over time. Power will continue to be consolidated.
Basically your whole comment amounts to "yes our government is evil, but we can't do anything to change it without people dying, and we aren't willing to do that so... just remove all the sanctions because people are suffering and it's better to have an evil government prosper than to prevent it from prospering by making its citizens suffer"
That said, I don't think Iranians should be barred from GitHub. Free exchange of ideas and code should be available universally.
Every country that has the ability to enrich uranium is 99% of the way there towards developing nuclear weapons.
Iran feels threatened. Countries that have felt threatened (North Korea, India, Pakistan, Israel) have developed nuclear weapons.
The sanctions are there as a deterrent to Iran having a Nuclear weapons program.
Anyone who thinks it is possible for a country to have Nuclear power but not nuclear weapons is a fool.
And they achieved it. All European countries and united nations and Obama administration confirmed that Iran was committed to the nuclear deal.Even current and former Israel generals wrote letters to show support for Obama's deal with Iran which stopped Iranian nuclear program.
What the current administration wants is much much more than that [0]. They are basically telling the Islamic Republic to shoot itself in the head. Or face sanctions.
Of course they pick sanctions.
[0] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/5/21/mike-pompeo-speech-...
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/kennedy-letter-to-ben-g...
South Africa hastily dismantled its nuclear weapons program ahead of majority rule - becoming the only country to voluntarily give up nuclear weapons. Though it still stocks the weapons-grade nuclear material in storage.
What evidence is there for this? At the time, Israel claimed that Egypt was trying to develop a nuclear bomb. However in his 1963 letter to Ben-Gurion, JFK says that American intelligence agencies had found no evidence of this and believed Egypt did not have facilities capable of it (unlike Israel.) To ny knowledge, in the decades since then, evidence of the alleged Egyptian bomb program has never surfaced.
> "I can well appreciate your concern for developments in the UAR. But I see no present or imminent nuclear threat to Israel from there. I am assured that our intelligence on this question is good and that the Egyptians do not presently have any installation comparable to Dimona, nor any facilities potentially capable of nuclear weapons production. But, of course, if you have information that would support a contrary conclusion, I should like to receive it from you through Ambassador Barbour. We have the capacity to check it."
-JFK, 1963
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/kennedy-letter-to-ben-g...
It's neighbours continued to make public proclamations that they wanted to 'wipe it out'.
If that is not 'threatening' then what is?
Iran, in contrast, faces no real existential threat. Not Russia, Turkey. Saudis couldn't really if they wanted to. Iraq is weak and they control most of it.
Israel did not need an atomic bomb. In developing nuclear weapons (in cooperation with the white supremacist state of South Africa, it should be noted) Israel ensured that other middle east countries would eventually seek them. They deliberately threw water onto an oil fire.
'David Ben-Gurion: Message to US President Kennedy Regarding UAR Threats' (https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/ben-gurion-message-to-u...)
> 2. Israel is not helpless: in a test of strength it can defeat all three but it is not eager for such a victory.
> 3. Israel finds it difficult to believe that the United States and the civilized world would acquiesce in such an attempt at "liberation".
In other words, Ben-Gurion admitted Israel could protect itself alone if needed, but doubted it would even need to.
Of all non-superpower nations, Israel's quest for Nukes is probably the most rational.
They have zero will or capability to wage any material war of conquest (beyond East Bank/Golan), there is zero chance that they could feasibly use those weapons to 'invade' Jordan, Syria, Saudi etc.. They couldn't hope to occupy any such territory. Ergo - they can only materially be used for defence. Besides - anything else and the entire world (including the US) would turn on them.
Israel's nukes has not caused others to seek nukes really - that's far flung. Iran is not threatened in any way by Israel.
Ironically - the opposite is true: Iran's nukes will destabilize the entire region and cause major problems. Saudi has access to nuke tech from Pakistan, and if Iran ever for a moment brandishes such a weapon, they will magically appear in Saudi very quickly.
Other players are likely to be able to overcome the geopolitical pressure to avoid them, but the fact is 'they would want to have them'.
Nobody is afraid of Israel, but almost everyone around Iran is afraid of Iran.
The 'conflict' in the ME is no longer Israel vs. Egypt an everyone else, now, it's Iran vs. Saudi and everyone else.
This just isn't true, America was offering to ensure their safety and Israel believed that if they were attacked, America and other first world countries would come to their defense. They acquired nuclear weapons anyway. This is all spelled out in the correspondence you can read here: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/john-f-kennedy-administ...
What's more, those documents reveal the Israeli government was exaggerating the military competence and ability of the UAR in PR campaigns directed at the Israeli and American publics.
Iran wants nuclear weapons to swing a heavier stick and threaten it's neighbours.
It's not the only or even the main goal. The main goal of such sanctions is to Iranian government to not have resources for war and terrorism. And it seems that in this regard, these sanctions work just fine.
I don't know what else could be reasonably expected from US by all the other ME countries.
Beside leaving them alone and let them live in peace without American influence? Hm hard to say.
That is not possible when Iran threatens our allies and provides material support to organizations with the stated goal of causing mayhem to Americans and their allies.
Let’s be realistic: Iran and America are enemies. Keep that in mind when offering solutions.
Today we are enemies. It was different when the Shah was in power. I’m not talking about History. I’m talking about now.
Iran threatens your 'allies' in a minimal way as they have basically no real military. Iran supports material support to some organizations that the US but mostly its allies don't like. The US supports about 100x more people Iran doesn't like and are just as hostile to Iran as Iranian allies are to the US.
And this is outside of arguments if the US should even be such strong allies with Saudi and co (including Israel).
And to simply say 'we are enemies therefore we can no change policy' is idiotic. The US and the Soviet Union were enemies, until in series of diplomatic talks many of the issues were resolved. The same goes for China.
The US has totally fucked up its relationship with Iran and its broader middle east politics in the last 50 years that is is hard to even comprehend the amount of utter and complete stupidity that went on.
Unfortunately HN post are not conductive to explaining all these issues. What I will point out is that we have lots of evidence from Political Science that sanctions are not effective to achieving political goals. We also have very good knowledge that the sanctions are not actually effective at what they are targeting.
Neither the missile sanctions nor the nuclear sanctions have actually achieved their goals. Democrats will of course argue that Obama nuclear sanctions were effective at 'forcing Iran to the table' but this is basically just putting on rose colored glasses if you actually understand the negotiations. Iran actually forced the US to give up on its some of its central demand, since despite sanctions the Iranian nuclear enrichment program (note, not weapons program) was not slowed down (in fact it went faster).
And what is even worse is that the US spent all this massive amount of effort on preventing Iran from doing and having all these things, while the US completely ignored things other nations did that are 100x worse violations. Israels nuclear nuclear weapons program, Pakistans nuclear weapons program, Saudi ICBMs are all far more dangerous then anything Iran had or was even aiming for and yet the US didn't lift a finger or in some cases closed it eyes to it.
All of UAE, Saudi, Qatar (and arguably Israel as well) support groups that are far worse and ideologically more opposed to what the US stands for compared to the groups Iran allies with. Yet, those are allies and not enemies.
Not trying to destroy the live of avg Iranians with sanctions and 'leaving them alone' is actually very reasonable and would help both the US, Iran and the middle east in general. That does not mean you can not still be opposed to each other on major issues.
Your statement is also not actually correct. And in so far it is correct, part of is that if they wouldn't support it, the US would consider them enemies as well.
Iran has no intentions of 'living in peace' and that's the whole point.
They are concerned with overthrowing House of Saud, controlling Yemen and Bahrain, antagonizing/surrounding Israel, being a controlling force in Syria and Lebanon, and of course, making Iraq a vassal state and controlling the Gulf.
That's just for starters.
The world would be delighted for Iran to get along with it's neighbours, after all, nobody is powerful enough to do them material harm anyhow.
The only special interest the US has is to hold the House of Saud stable so their Oil can be sold freely on global markets.
Other than that, they just want stability, as does everyone.
The US wouldn't even need to have ships in the Gulf if it were not for Iran. The 5th fleet is there to protect cargo from Iranian aggression.
Particularly between Egypt and Israel both for the defence of Israel and of course, that the Suez Canal stays open (open to everyone, by the way).
The US did not have anything other than a basic presence over there (5th Fleet in the Gulf) before 9/11 and that was after a major war in Iraq.
The US wants to take a 'hard position' in the ME about as they want to in South Asia. Or South America. Or Western Europe i.e. they don't. They don't really even want to be there.
Iran is super chauvinist antagonizing state - they don't simply want to 'live in peace' with their neighbours, far from it, they want to be the 'regional superpower' and take their historic position as dominating the Arabs, who they hate.
Right now, the Arab/Persian hate war is much worse than the traditional Muslim/Jewish hate war and it's causing problems.
The bulk of instability in the Middle East right now can be traced to Iran.
If Iran would just shut up and stay home, then there'd be some mopping up in Syria, Yemen might very well stabilize and then there would be peace in the ME like there has not been in centuries.
To see Saudi Arabia, UAE and Israel getting along like buddies is basically shocking to everyone who remembers how bad it was, and they are 'besties' specifically because the mutual threat they face in Iran.
The fact is: regional superpower cannot compete with the world superpower, right? The Saudis have always seen themselves as the exclusive outside power in Yemen, for example. They called US when when Iranian-backed Houthi rebels marched on Yemen’s capital city and overthrew the transitional government that came into power during the Arab Spring of 2011. So it's not just about Iran, but to assure the geopolitical control in the region (through Allies and Proxy wars), control the global price of Oil, and to avoid that - in case of War - nobody does to US, what US did to Japan in the WWII (stop fuel provision)
The new episode from "Intelligence Matters"[1] talks a lot of about that. It's not just because of Iran.
Reference: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/american-withdrawal-in...
It's a positive view because the US, despite it's failings, is a positive and pragmatic actor.
It's not simplistic because I'm respecting the fact that 'geostability' is a primary concern, even as that might run counter to other objectives such as democracy, free markets etc.
"regional superpower cannot compete with the world superpower" of course they can and do.
It costs the US tremendously to project it's power in Iran obviously a 'full on war' between parties would be mostly decisive in the short run but that's besides the point.
You are failing to differentiate between the kind of power that the US projects vs Iran.
The US actually supports, and helps hold together the House of Saud and therefore stability in Saudi Arabia.
They otherwise don't interfere internally. They put some pressure on Saudis for social progress but that's that.
The US is trying to help 'hold things together'.
The result of this, is that Saudi can provide oil - not to America, but to the world, at market prices.
The only special provision that comes along with US protection of the Gulf is that the Saudis cannot for example sell their Oil exclusively to China or Russia or do some kind of big strategic deal with them.
Put another way - US presence there is to stop Russia/China or some other power from taking hold.
Saudi has an interest in Yemen because it's right on the border, and full of rebels who'd like to overthrow it, ultimately, they also want peace and stability.
Iran wants to cajole, control and antagonize the Arab states and Israel and not in a nice way. They now have Iraq as a vassal state, and they'd prefer the Arabs to be their vassals as well.
If Iran did not exist, there would be almost zero ongoing fighting right now in the ME. Syria, yes, but outside of that no.
Maybe against other countries, but they just end up using the resources they have to do that anyways... just against their own citizens. Sanctions are nothing more than using civilians with no choice as a pawn to force a revolution because we couldn't do it ourselves. It's kindof disgusting considering how many uninvolved bystanders turn into "collateral damage" in these situations.
Why would a government who doesn't care about its population look at the suffering of those people and change course? Are we naive enough to believe that the Iranian elite aren't circumventing these sanctions personally?
Finally, why? Like, after hundreds of years of imperialism and political interference, I've yet to hear a compelling case to continue doing these things given they've done nothing but push us further away from each other and closer to a climate-crisis, dystopian nightmare.
We need cooperation not blackmail.
I agree, cooperation is what is needed not blackmail. That's what the sanctions are doing: if Iran wants to cooperate economically with other countries, it needs to stop trying to blackmail other countries with threats of nuclear strikes.
As far as why, Iran regularly threatens to wipe other Middle Eastern countries off the map - including the nuclear armed Israel, which would easily trigger a nuclear war in the middle east. The simple reality is that there is not an equivalency between the possession of nuclear weapons by China, Russia, NATO, versus North Korea and Iran. The former don't go around threatening to wipe other countries off the map on a regular basis. Nor does Israel, they don't even officially acknowledge nuclear capacities. The latter do, and in North Korea's case it has created one of the most infamous geopolitical catastrophes of the 20th century. And Iran stands to become a much larger North Korea in a much more volatile part of the world.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Israel_conflict_d...
Then there's all the hits on people by Mossad.
And they achieved it. All European countries and united nations and Obama administration confirmed that Iran was committed to the nuclear deal.Even current and former Israel generals wrote letters to show support for Obama's deal with Iran which stopped Iranian nuclear program.
What the current administration wants is much much more than nuclear concerns [0]. They are basically telling the Islamic Republic to shoot itself in the head. Or face sanctions.
Of course they pick sanctions.
[0] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/5/21/mike-pompeo-speech-...
> Declare to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) a full account of the prior military dimensions of its nuclear programme and permanently and verifiably abandon such work in perpetuity.
> Stop enrichment and never pursue plutonium reprocessing, including closing its heavy water reactor.
> Provide the IAEA with unqualified access to all sites throughout the entire country.
> End its proliferation of ballistic missiles and halt further launching or development of nuclear-capable missile systems.
> Release all US citizens as well as citizens of US partners and allies.
> End support to Middle East “terrorist” groups, including Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
> Respect the sovereignty of the Iraqi government and permit the disarming, demobilisation and reintegration of Shia militias.
> End its military support for the Houthi rebels and work towards a peaceful, political settlement in Yemen.
> Withdraw all forces under Iran’s command throughout the entirety of Syria.
> End support for the Taliban and other “terrorists” in Afghanistan and the region and cease harbouring senior al-Qaeda leaders.
> End the Islamic Revolutionary Guard corps-linked Quds Force’s support for “terrorists” and “militant” partners around the world.
> End its threatening behaviour against its neighbours, many of whom are US allies, including its threats to destroy Israel and its firing of missiles at Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and threats to international shipping and destructive cyberattacks.
This really amounts to 3 things:
1. Stop pursuing nuclear weapons development, and actually give inspectors the ability to verify that Iran is staying true to it's word.
2. Stop supporting terrorist organizations, and other proxy wars.
3. Stop threatening to destroy Saudi Arabia, Israel, and other countries.
Sure, demanding the release of US citizens is superfluous and unnecessary. But how does this amount to telling Iran to "shoot itself in the head"? How would fulfilling these 12 points kill Iran? How does Iran somehow end up dying if it stops fighting proxy wars in Yemen and Iraq?
This thread is being rate limited. The commenter below is incorrect. The post deal demands included restrictions on nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, too, but they also included changes to increase the access of inspectors. This was a substantial part of why the original deal was rejected, the new administration believed the original restricted inspectors to the extent that Iran could still develop nuclear weapons in secrecy.
And there is no guarantee that meeting the new demands would result in sanctions stopping, rather than in more sanctions and demands.
The sanctions are to weaken its non nuclear aspirations, their push to create an Iranian crescent from Iran to Lebanon making many people life miserable on the way, people who don't want them in the region.
It's a country that clearly state their will to destroy Israel and their militias in Lebanon actively attacked Israel even though there is no border conflict there right now and the two countries could set up a peace agreement easily. But it is not only the Israelis that don't want them there, the majority Sunni and Christians in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq also not happy with the Iranian push, hence the joy everybody had when Trump killed Sulemeini.
Obama was an idiot who bought into the meme of "preventing nuclear", he didn't understand the middle east at all and during his time the middle east was in flames with millions of deaths and refugees. He didn't support the demonstrations in Iran when they happened, just stood there looking like a the lame useless president that he was with his useless speeches.
Trump brought quiet and peace and he did it with almost no cost of life, just by having a knack to dealing with crazy leaders of the region which is more aligned with his natural craziness and line of thinking, and with a bit of Kushner brilliance behind the scenes.
I just hope Biden is not as stupid as Obama and will keep the pressure on Iran, got a feeling he is a bit more experienced and realist so I am hopeful he will understand what's going on.
The Iran deal is actually rather simple in concept. Iran temporarily suspends certain nuclear activities (not all of them - for example, researching enrichment is fine). In return, Iran gets an economic boost and a permit to do whatever it wants, like supporting terrorists or mass murdering Syrians or trying to destroy Israel.
The latter part may surprise you, but it's obvious when one thinks about it. What is the West allowed to do when Iran commits those things? It's not economic sanctions, since removing sanctions and then placing them on again for different reasons would leave Iran no reason to comply with the nuclear deal. And of course, war is undesireable (the entire point of the deal was to avoid war). So Iran can do whatever, and if the West does anything serious, well, nukes.
The rest of the ME isn't going to meekly submit to Iran. Worse, Iran can't finance its holdings (Iran requires weak governments in order to hold Iraq and Lebanon, but that means no investments). That means things get done in the ME way, which already leads to mass amounts of refugees.
Iran's involvement in Syria directly led to Brexit (Leave would have lost without an immigration crisis on) and played a key role in Trump getting elected (Is it a surprise the most anti-immigration R candidate won the primary given that background? Didn't Trump end up hiring Cambridge Analytica, which would have never happened absent Brexit?). If it weren't for the deal, maybe the US would have done something about Syria and we'd have avoided all that. If Iranian destablization of ME restarts under Biden, the result may well be Trump mk2.
I do not believe this is an acceptable price for temporary restrictions.
It's appalling how you (even partially(?)) blame Iran for Brexit. The US decided to support Syrian rebels (of whom mostly turned out to become or move to ISIS). Syria is a secular state, whether you like to believe this or not. The Russians and Iranians were legitimately asked by its officials to help support the Syrian army to tackle the terrorists. Yet, the US and its allies financed/armed so called rebels that made a disaster of the country. Remember McCain's visits and photographs back in 2011? Why is the US even STILL there?! I can not think of a single country in the ME that turned out to become better after the US started meddling in its elections/government - ironically, including the one which you are currently blaming.
Blame the incompetence of Brexit on the people who advocated for it and who like to ignore/dismiss facts.
If the US was ever serious about not letting Assad and Iran get away with it all that wouldn't have happened, and there wouldn't have been Brexit. The US's decision to not get involved against Assad (they're there for ISIS I remind you) had a far worse result in human lives and geopolitical impact than any of the US's 'meddling'.
So is Iran? Mind you: the weapons these rebels aka ISIS had were mostly/directly provided by the US and its allies! No official from Syria asked the US to be there! Imagine if Iran would deploy troops tomorrow in Washington to endorse groups to tackle the existing government. The real danger is supporting regimes that endorse Salafist/Wahabist Islam, which the West likes to do. This hypocrisy of the West is fascinating. I think that could have somehow played a role in Brexit...
Iran supports Assad for a link with Lebanon and threatening Israel, and if a lot of Sunnis are forced by Assad to migrate, well, that's more like a bonus for them, since it destablizes the West.
US is a global superpower and they are the creators of the modern global order of free trade and democracy (it isn't a coincidence that there has been meteoric rise in the number of democracies since WW2, and end of Cold War). If that's 'world domination' then OK. But to be clear, if it wasn't them, another global superpower would fill the vacuum. In the 20th century, that would have been the Soviets. In the 21st, it may be China. Is that better?
Another possibility is that the US simply wants to isolate its geopolitical enemies and impoverish them. As it has been doing with Cuba since Batista was overthrown.
I'm not convinced US foreign policy were rational, but a possible rational explanation for US sanctions is to make an example of countries that refuse US dominance. Similar to how a gang running a protection racket punishes those who refuse to pay protection money.
Regardless of why US foreign policy has deemed it necessary to starve the Iranian people, it will not lead to a revolution in America's favour. The Shah is not coming back. It will just lead to more death of Iranians.
2. The people "really" punished are the same normal people. They are punished once by US economically and once punished by the regime morally/politically.
Rather, I would suspect that the real aim of America’s Cuba policy is to appeal to the Cuban-exile demographic, which has a powerful lobby and can deliver votes to politicians in favor of the status quo.
? US sanctions against Iran actually did lead to a 'win' for the US in the first round.
It's the expansion of those sanctions that has caused problems.
Sanctions on Russia have definitely had an effect [1]. It's hard to say exactly, only Putin knows, it's not like he'd admit it, but there's no doubt it affects his calculus.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_sanctions_during...
The US currently has a largely non-functioning government. Voting enacts little, if any, change. The two-party system currently in place has such ingrained lockstep change won't happen because everyone is worried about not getting re-elected or seeing diversity of opinion.
This is not the right place to complain about political gridlock in the US.
Granted the post is a bit thin and doesn't go beyond the surface level of the issue, but its is relevant information for an outsider.
Given this is the US we are talking about most people probably know about the two party system and so on, but foreign relations is a special case even within that. My responds provides some more context to the problem pointed out.
Unlike Saudi, Qatar, Israel, UAE and others Iran has no lobby in the US. Because there is are no commercial ties, US buissness don't have existing relationships with Iran anymore.
While US companies like Boeing certainty would like to establish such commercial relation with Iran. Their far bigger intensive is to continue to support the Saudi/Israel vs Iran conflict and to sell massive amounts of weapons both to the US government and the governments of Saudi/Israel and allies.
Since there are no large factor to push the US a different direction the status quo has basically been established in the post 1979 world and things only changed minimally.
There is not genuine democratic support for these changes, mostly because most people simply have no idea of middle east politics and don't know the difference between Iran and Iraq or anything like that.
There is a broad based anti-war movement from both the left and the right, but it has very little politician influence outside of the presidential elections. In the presidential elections generally the more anti-war presidents wins, but usually once in office, everybody around is not of that opinion. In congress election foreign policy is usually not important enough of a factor.
Just considering that it was most Saudi bombers at the WW2 and the waste majority of issues and terror bombings have been by Sunnis has not changed the US political output in the least. Despite Iran actually reaching out to the US post-911 (threw the Swiss Embassy) putting a lot of issues up for debate but Bush categorically refused to even consider any engagement.
Its really hard to see what strategically could change so this policy direction could change anytime soon.
Our best bet is coalesce around each other, the working class, and build a better system of world governance.
This will get downvoted but the truth is the US doesn't treat us any better. Plenty of people are given harsh sentences for victimless-crimes. Property is protected at all costs. The system is pay-to-play. You either get in line or are ostracized.
The reality is that people simply don't care about Iran or know where it even is. Foreign policy issue outside of direct wars almost never dominate the political cycle.
And even if they do on a presidential level, since only the president is relevant vote for a national level it impact is minimal. Congress elections usually don't turn on foreign policy.
The parent stated "But the Islamic Republic has no limits. They would shoot and kill and many as it takes." Parent also stated "The government is also quite scared, and to make sure there wont be uprisings, is spreading fear. They execute people and hand cruel sentences to everyone. Last weeks they gave a 10 years sentence to an 18 years makeup artist who had a famous Instagram account. Journalists are executed, etc. People's morale are completely shattered."
You, and others, don't have it better in the US? Really?
I think you are trying to show empathy and I agree with most of your comment, but to me, you can't empathize unless you've experienced it.
And I don't wish to demean experiences of some oppressed people in the US and their experiences (certainly the wrongfully convicted come to mind as a huge injustice), but your comment is not objectively accurate.
It works on some level.
Also, it's definitely the job of the US diplomatic corps to set out the strategy there because most plebes couldn't find Iran on a map.
It'd be nice to try to explain the policy better, but as I check in with TikTok for a few minutes now and again, I don't think there's much hope there.
Sanctions to produce "maximum pressure" as you said is still against human rights but oh well guess how UN thinks about that. Putting citizens in misery is not how you treat a government, specially an Iranian one. You are just going against basic human rights, like not being able to import medicines or basic needs of people.
The only miserable person here is you, someone who claims to be Iranian and yet thinks giving access to private repositories on a platform is against his beliefs, let alone the way you talk about Iranian people also makes you disrespectful human being.
Your hatred against the government has nothing to do with Iranian people, so please, think twice before you post anything on the internet again, if you can't handle a simple thing like this, aka human rights, then you must have issues on giving opinions on other topics as well.
Off-topic: seems like you're one of those iranis who escaped the country for whatever the situation you were in and now you've got the tongue to speak out, so you start attacking on normal citizens because YOU think that YOU are better than them, there's just too many of you, you're not the only one.
Ever since the revolution they took a purposefully antagonistic stance towards the US for their own ideological reasons. The sad reality (for Iran) is that the present global order has been created and maintained by US - so if you can't get along with US, you are going to be a pariah. Many non-democratic nations can get along with US just fine - why can't Iran?
Without excusing the actions of US, could you honestly say that the present circumstances Iran finds themselves in is not a result of their decisions and choices since the revolution? And like I said, it isn't even about regime change. US is friendly with plenty of non-democratic regimes, even ones they were at war with (like Vietnam). On the other side, nations that set an explicit policy of antagonism, like Cuba, North Korea and Iran, tend to not fare well. There's a lesson in there somewhere.
The people of Iran and North Korea are not doing so well. But if you were an Iranian citizen hoping for a better future, would you really pin your hopes on a US-backed regime change, after seeing the aftermath of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria?
So your contention is that nation-states shouldn't interact with each other at the nation-state level? That is, if a nation-state proceeds with antagonistic policies, like funding regional militant and terrorist groups against your allies, you cannot hold that nation-state to account lest it hurt their populations? This is not an easy ethical question. At the nation-state level there is no rule of law, it is anarchy. It seems like there may be 'international law' in the modern world, but that's only for those that live within the sphere of influence of the relevant superpower who can enforce it (USA plays that role in much of the globe, soon to be replaced wholly or in part by Chinese influence).
Policies like sanctions have many goals. In the specific case of Iran, sanctions have a goal of curbing Iranian regional antagonism and not necessarily regime change (we're much too cynical for that).
>But if you were an Iranian citizen hoping for a better future, would you really pin your hopes on a US-backed regime change
There is no easy answer. Ultimately, it is the Iranian government that is responsible for the well-being of their citizens. Their citizens could have their lives drastically improved TODAY if their governments chose to do so. I don't know why you put that responsibility on the US because US cannot do this job. US needs to balance the well-being of their people as well as the well-being of the people of their regional allies as well, in addition to basic rights of all humans.
I posed a question to you in my previous message and you refused to answer it. But I'll rephrase: Why do you bend over backwards to remove all agency from Iranian government for actions they chose to get themselves and the people they are responsible for, into the present situation. This includes their absolute refusal for making decisions that would get them to stop being a regional and global pariah.
No, Iran, including the 'Regime' would actually be doing just fine if they dropped nuclear ambitions and stopped supporting the overthrow of Saudi Arabia.
It's an odd paradox, because even the Islamic Revolutionaries could be a quasi-ally of the US if they really wanted to. The US cares about security, predictability, trade and cooperation between state actors first, internal issues second.
" the maximum pressure campaign has rendered Iranian people completely miserable" - the Iranian government has rendered people miserable. Stop blaming the US for the bad behaviour of the regime.
Maybe we can have 'GitHub Diplomacy' ...
Worth noting that this is entirely the U.S. not wanting peace, not Iran, hence the EU disagrees with the sanctions regime.
Back when it looked like relations might thaw during Obama every big business was foaming at the mouth over the opportunity to make a buck selling things in a new market. There's a lot of very powerful people who's ideal vision of places like Iran, Cuba, North Korea, etc involves everyday citizens using their iPhones to daytrade on the American stock exchanges over a Verizon tower while driving their Chevrolet trucks, smoking Marlboros and wearing Nikes
...except it didn't really work all that well for the French in 1789, or the Chinese in 1911, or the Russians in 1917. Executing their corrupt leaders just led to more dictatorial ones taking their place. Maybe it's more power corrupts than corrupt people seeking power.
It sort of, kind of worked with Romania in 1989, though. But in spite of massive popular discontent with the dictator, the actual overthrow of Ceausescu was largely the regime’s elites seeking to get rid of the boss so that they could rule the roost themselves. That Romania eventually became a democratic European nation feels like a happy accident.
Unfortunately, in several European countries today ethnic minorities fail to get the recognition and treatment they seek, so Romania’s actions towards the Hungarian minority don’t hinder it from being called today a "modern European state" or whatever.
Then to be really honest, see how well that fared against other options.
Then you may reach a different, but demonstrably more accurate, conclusion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_revolutions_and_rebell...
Results from the period of 1900-1910 (19 revolutions; I don't have time to do more) is that 12 were outright failures: the revolution was crushed, the leaders executed, oftentimes with significant loss of life for the revolutionaries and nearby civilians. 5 were temporary successes: they led to some reforms or a new government, but the government collapsed within 15 years anyway, leading to either anarchy, dictatorship, or conquest by a foreign power. 2 were an "eventual success" (Young Turk revolution, and revolution in the Kingdom of Poland), where the revolution had modest success but later events achieved "peaceful" (if you can count WW1 & WW2 as peaceful) independence. 1 was a success, the Theriso Revolt that broke Crete away from the Ottoman empire and led to its eventual union with Greece.
I'd come to a bleaker conclusion: most revolutions fail, and lead to the deaths of their leaders and most of the people who support them. Then of the subset that "succeed" (in the sense of not being crushed), a majority lead to government or lack thereof that is just as bad or worse than what came before.
For that to have much weight, you'd need to list somewhere that a government overthrow actually went well. History suggests that it rarely ever does.
Of course, afterwards, the new elected president was a former communist party member who tricked everyone that he had changed, and of course his anti-west (and east) propaganda helped secure him his win (because "we should not listen to anybody anymore, so vote for me"), and of course, because of his win, the pseudo-communists still ruled/destroyed the country for the majority of the next 32 years but, anyway, I still say it was a win and I am very proud of our revolution.
Sure, there are those who say that most people died in vein for the revolution but such transitions take a lot of time and it would have taken even more if we waited another 5-10-15 years. It did not help that we were right between east and west either.
Now we celebrate 14 years of being in the E.U., which helped a lot, although we mismanaged tens of billions (sorry E.U.), while we are still many years away from managing so much money correctly and without illegal shenanigans... Also around 17 years in the NATO, which helped a lot I'd say (see our neighbor Ukraine for the contrary; Moldova is also behind us by some 15 years, at least).
But, technologically, the new freedom brought us some very interesting 90's and 2000's, catapulting our internet speeds to number one (sometimes two) in Europe [1] due to our giant nation-wide interconnected LAN-party networks, fueled mainly by piracy (or lets call it "hunger for information and everything that we missed before"). But there is a long reddit post which explains those years much better: [2]. Today everybody and their parents have at least 100 Mbps. Our main ISP doesn't include a 100 Mbps plan anymore anyway. Only 300 Mbps up. Even my parents in a small poor city have fiber since 5 years. Welcome to Romania.
These generated a lot of English speaking young people, me included. Lots of us becoming very good at electronics or IT. Sadly, many self-educated IT engineers left for other countries. We even had a running joke (urban legend mainly) that the second language at Microsoft was Romanian, which of course is said by other countries too (e.g. India) but somehow everybody knows somebody at Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, etc. While many of us are still (thinking about) leaving, placing us 2nd after Syria when it comes to mass emigration, still... executing those two bastards was for the best.
[1] https://i.redd.it/79y3efbig4551.png [2] https://np.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/2ct58s/average_inter...
Just like the KSA does, who are apparently fine with the U.S. It's almost as if it's not really about that.
I remind you to "Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community. Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
In relation to the sanctions that were imposed as part of the U.S. pulling out of the nuclear deal despite Iran complying. But of course you left that part out.
Remember that the nuclear deal only dealt with nuclear matters* , all the other regime behaviours (hostage taking, supporting terrorists, missile development, etc.) remained. Stable relations between US and Iran are impossible without the regime changing its ways, the regime has no reason to change so long as the deal exists, ergo there won't be stable relations.
* Even the nuclear terms expire in about a decade, leaving Iran free to do whatever. There used to be a similar deal with North Korea, and we saw how that ended up.
We live in an Anocratic[1] world. You have to judge Iran in that context.
The United States does all these things too, it just has nobody big enough to sanction it.
For the record, I am not a fan of the Islamist Republic, but banning access to GitHub does not punish the government, it puishes civilians. It also doesn't change the fact that it's the U.S. who pulled out of the Iran Deal or that medicine is impacted by the sanctions too.
I mean the U.S. is buddy buddy with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt etc. etc. the behavior you're describing is clearly not the problem here.
Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Egypt don't have nuclear weapons programs, which is one of the behaviors described.
The fact that ISIS celebrated his death does indicate that perhaps we acted as their air force.
One could 's/Islamic Republic/KSA' here and it'd be pretty much the same stories. None of these bad behaviors would stop you from being tight allies with the US as long as your oppressive theocratic dictatorship was in the US sphere of influence.
Heck, Iran is objectively far more democratic than KSA, not that it gets them any credit.
> e.g., they just confiscated a Korean ship on free waters
The rest of the story: Because South Korea is effectively stealing $7B worth of oil from Iran. They're following the sanctions that the US unilaterally imposed after breaking its deal with Iran over nuclear enrichment, which Iran had been following.
KSA is smart enough not to openly shout 'Death to America'. Nor does it have a nuclear program or keeps hostages or refuses to join anti-terrorist transparency treaties.
>The rest of the story: Because South Korea is effectively stealing $7B worth of oil from Iran.
OK, lets have any country which has a financial dispute with some other country takes hostages. That would be a nice world, right? That's the world we'll be at if Iran keeps being rewarded for its behaviour.
Try imposing harsh sanctions on them, murdering their generals etc., organizing illegal coups & we'll see then.
> Nor does it have a nuclear program
That's false[1].
There's little credible evidence Iran is trying to actually build a bomb.
1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_program_of_Saudi_Arabi...
> refuses to join anti-terrorist transparency treaties
It only funds terrorists in Syria, Yemen etc. and constructs radical schools all over, being dubbed fatwa valley but nothing to see here.
> That's the world we'll be at if Iran keeps being rewarded for its behaviour.
It seems to me like they tried to be constructive with the Iran Deal and got betrayed by the U.S. again. They have plenty of reason not to trust the U.S. Iran has not staged a coup in the U.S. as far as I know.
The first is after a nuclear program and Iran killing hundreds of American soldiers. The coup is unrelated (would you support bombing a different country over something that happened 60 years ago when both countries had very different governments?), and quite funny when one remembers the Islamists also supported the coup.
>It seems to me like they tried to be constructive with the Iran Deal
If you define being constructive as taking hostages over and over than yes they were.
>There's little credible evidence Iran is trying to actually build a bomb.
Apart from weapon drawings, direct recordings of one the key architects discussing weapons[1], mass uranium enrichment.... SA has nothing remotely comparable.
[1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-has-tape-of-slain-iran-...
How far back should we go with the tit for tat calculations? I recall a war where US sold Iraq chemical weapons to kill Iranian soldiers[1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_chemical_attacks_against...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_chemical_weapons_program
And when the Reagan administration learned that Iraq was targetting their own Kurdish population with chemical weapons, they still didn't give a shit. But two decades later, when Bush the Younger decided to emulate his father, the American government invoked those gas attacks against civilians as a justification to dismantle Iraq. Two decades late for the Kurds that got gassed by Iraq while the American government pretended not to notice. American foreign policy is depraved.
Why's it so necessary for Germany to sell chemical weapons to be used in a warzone anyway? I wouldn't be surprised to see these were the same companies or individuals that acted 40 years earlier.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_chemical_attacks_again...
Almost like there's no tit-for-tat. Maybe the real reason for the enmity is the Iranian regime being theocratic revolutionaries and the US not allowing them to 'export their revolution' (that is, take over the ME) as much as they'd like.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Contra_affair
Realpolitik is pretty much the act of never caring about the moral results of policy, and every power in the middle east practices it. I'm not convinced that KSA would be doing anything morally superior to what Iran is doing if they were in Iran's shoes. Stability would be what changes Iranian policies, and there are a lot of parties dedicated to ensuring that stability never breaks out in the middle east.
Yea, and it's not a good idea in the long term.
>I'm not convinced that KSA would be doing anything morally superior to what Iran is doing if they were in Iran's shoes.
What matters is what countries do now and not what some countries might have done if history were entirely different.
>Stability would be what changes Iranian policies
Many years ago, Kissinger said the Iranian regime has to choose whether whether Iran is country or a cause. They chose to make Iran a cause. Stability is incompatible with the cause's ideology.
KSA exports the same toxic religious fundamentalism, the same if not more radical than anything Iran espouses. The difference is they have the fig leaf of support from first world countries as they do it.
Citing Kissinger does not mean endorsing him.
>KSA exports the same toxic religious fundamentalism...
Iranian-supported fundamentalism controls 4 ME captials, KSA controls only 1 capital. Iran is a explicitly anti-American revisionist power with a serious nuclear program while KSA isn't.
Unsurprisingly, I focus on the bigger more toxic power (that wasn't always the case - two decades ago KSA was the bigger issue). Isn't that more like realpolitiks rather than talking about what would some fictional KSA have done?
Yes it was. The CIA knowingly helped Iraq kill Iranians with nerve gas:
> Declassified CIA documents show that the United States was providing reconnaissance intelligence to Iraq around 1987–88 which was then used to launch chemical weapon attacks on Iranian troops and that the CIA fully knew that chemical weapons would be deployed and sarin and cyclosarin attacks followed.[255]
Objectively, why can't Iran have a nuclear program while Israel, India, and Pakistan can?
> Iran killing hundreds of American soldiers
They are a regional superpower and the United States invaded and destabilized their neighbor causing widespread chaos throughout the region. Civilian casualties from violence in Iraq following the destabilization of the '03 war have been estimated at around 200,000.
> would you support bombing a different country over something that happened 60 years ago
The US did shoot down an Irainian civilian airliner in 1988 and refuse to apologize about it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655
And then assassinated one of their generals earlier this year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Qasem_Soleima...
> SA has nothing remotely comparable
They don't need them. They can do whatever they want in the region while the U.S. looks away and sells them the weapons to do it.
"The bomb dropped on a school bus in Yemen by a Saudi-led coalition warplane was sold to Riyadh by the US, according to reports based on analysis of the debris.
The 9 August attack killed 40 boys aged from six to 11 who were being taken on a school trip. Eleven adults also died. Local authorities said that 79 people were wounded, 56 of them children. CNN reported that the weapon used was a 227kg laser-guided bomb made by Lockheed Martin, one of many thousands sold to Saudi Arabia as part of billions of dollars of weapons exports.
Saudi Arabia is the biggest single customer for both the US and UK arms industries. The US also supports the coalition with refuelling and intelligence."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/19/us-supplied-bo...
Because Iran signed the NPT unlike the others and should abide by its commitments? Because Iran is the country which threatens other countries publicly? Because the Pakistani bomb is enough of a problem and nobody really needs another such problem?
>They are a regional superpower and the United States invaded and destabilized their neighbor causing widespread chaos throughout the region. Civilian casualties from violence in Iraq following the destabilization of the '03 war have been estimated at around 200,000.
How many of those are the result of Iranian involvement? For that matter, how many civilian casualties are the result of Iranian 'stabilization' in Syria?
>The US did shoot down an Irainian civilian airliner in 1988 and refuse to apologize about it.
Read your own cite, there was an agreement and compensation.
>And then assassinated one of their generals earlier this year.
Who had been involved in attacking American soldiers.
>They [SA] don't need them. They can do whatever they want in the region while the U.S. looks away and sells them the weapons to do it.
SA couldn't even respond to the attack on their oil facilities. I was talking about the Iranian nuclear problem though.
They signed in 1968. In your words, "something that happened 60 years ago when both countries had very different governments" But, perhaps after watching the US performance in Iraq, maybe Iran wanted a credible deterrent to prevent the same thing from happening to them.
If the issue with the nuclear program was really about proliferation, the US would have active sanctions against Pakistan. AQ Khan wasn't an Iranian!
> "How many of those are the result of Iranian involvement?"
They didn't invade the country, overthrow the government, and disband the army. If Iran invaded Mexico, overthrew the government, and disbanded the army plunging the country into chaos, do you think the US would stand by and do nothing? No way!
Do you feel that the ISI is any more odious of an institution that Iranian military intelligence in that respect? Why does the US treat them so differently?
> "agreement and compensation"
That's blood money, not an apology. The US screwed up big time in shooting down that plane, and the best they could muster was that it was a "...proper defensive action by the U.S.S. Vincennes." (rolls eyes) When Iran shot down the Ukrainian airliner, at least they had the decency to label it a "disastrous mistake."
> "Who had been involved in attacking American soldiers."
Why were the American soldiers there halfway across the planet in a country where they aren't welcome and don't speak the language? Maybe they wanted the Americans out so that the region could achieve some stability?
My point with the Saudi-Yemen thing is that KSA doesn't need nukes as an insurance policy because the US has their back. No nuclear-armed superpower has Iran's back, so they're probably looking for the security of a nuclear deterrent.
The US-Irainian conflict, like the US conflict with Cuba, is something that should have ended decades ago. It's a legacy of old political hostilities that happened when my parents were teenagers. It's 2021, we have better things to worry about. It's all so petty.
>In 1968.
So old agreements don't mean anything? I support laying down old grievances, but going back on old agreements is usually undesirable, especially after having no objections all this time. Half the international treaties are older than that, which ones are 'safe'?
>> "How many of those are the result of Iranian involvement?" >They didn't invade the country.. plunging the country into chaos
Iran sure tried to between 1982 and 1988. And quite a lot of the Iraqi chaos is their doing. They need a weak Iraqi government so their militia can create a state within the state.
>That's blood money, not an apology.
Iran agreed to it. When Iran shot down its own citizens, it lied about the event until footage leaked out making the lie unsustainable.
>Maybe they wanted the Americans out so that the region could achieve some stability?
Right. The guys building substate militias everywhere, undermining half the states in ME really care about stability.
>the US has their [SA] back Which is why the US really helped them after Iran attacked their oil facilities. Not.
>they're probably looking for the security of a nuclear deterrent.
They are the one openly calling for the elimination of one ME state, and the overthrow of a half dozen regimes on the other. If they want security they should look at their own actions. Or perhaps the 'security' the Iranian regime is looking for is being able to attack others without fear of interference from the West.
I'm arguing that when you weigh Iran's activities in the Middle East alongside U.S. activities in the region over the last 30 years or-so, Iran really doesn't look like the boogeyman it's made out to be.
As a result, when viewing each other as perhaps within the same order of magnitude on the morally outrageous activities scale, the two countries could maybe leave behind the tired old mutual hatred routine that has played itself out since 1979.
A big part of that could be the United States extending an olive branch, apologizing for a few things, letting a few things go, and not simply pointing fingers and rattling sabers at them for cheap political points. The U.S. should be able to look around, realize that they have more important stuff to worry about, and embrace Iran as an economic partner like Europe and China have done.
It's ok for the U.S. to take the first step and extend an open hand. Go to the Wikipedia page on the 'Reactions to the September 11 attacks.' The Iranians deserve it on the basis of their behavior in the early days after 9/11, and the help they gave the U.S. in the early days of the Afghan War. They're not bad people, and have expressed a great deal of kindness to the United States in times of vulnerability.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactions_to_the_September_11_...
Push soft power aggressively, offer a more prosperous alternative, and you'll pull the damn rug right out from under the hard-liner's justification for their hold on power.
If the U.S. has learned anything from Cuba, it should be that the stupid 60-year embargo didn't do anything but keep the Cuban people poor and bitter, and the Castro brothers in power.
Our current policy is something dragged up from the Carter administration. It's not the seventies anymore.
More GitHub. Less John Bolton.
How did the 'engage economically to change the regime' policy work with China and Russia? For that matter, did Cuba change at all after Obama's attempt? These policies were a complete failure - the regimes got stronger, yet the drivers of conflict remained. Eventually the same old frosty relations returned.
Engagement fails when it is not reciprocal. The economics did not encourage the regimes to get more moderate - rather the reverse. In order for true change in relations to happen, the other side has to commit themselves to some change too. Unfortunately, the Iranian regime is ideologically committed to its current policies, and refusing to discuss any matters except maybe nuclear. They are definitely not willing to apologize or let things go. I see no real prospects for engagement until this changes.
China and Russia didn't engage economically to change the regime. They did it to make money.
> "For that matter, did Cuba change at all after Obama's attempt?"
YES! When Obama engaged Cuba, the entire political calculus of the country changed almost overnight.
"As Obama began softening U.S. policy toward Cuba, the island signaled openness to reform under the new leadership of Fidel’s brother, Raul. Facing an aging population, a heavy foreign debt load, and economic hardship amid the global downturn, Raul Castro began liberalizing Cuba’s state-controlled economy in 2009. Reforms included decentralizing the agricultural sector, relaxing restrictions on small businesses, opening up real estate markets, allowing Cubans to travel abroad more freely, and expanding access to consumer goods. Cuba’s private sector swelled as a result, and the number of self-employed workers nearly tripled between 2009 and 2013.
Obama and Raul Castro surprised the world in late 2014 by announcing that their governments would restore full diplomatic ties and begin to ease more than fifty years of bilateral tensions. The historic moment marked the culmination of eighteen months of secret diplomacy brokered by Pope Francis in which the parties agreed to an exchange of prisoners, including Cuban intelligence officers and an American development contractor, among other concessions."
U.S. policy towards Cuba was turned 180 degrees in 2016 in a unilateral move by the U.S., so that ended any hopes of progress.
"As a candidate, Trump was fiercely critical of the Obama administration’s thaw with Cuba and he pledged to reverse course once in office. Despite maintaining diplomatic relations, Trump has largely delivered on his promise through policies that curtail trade and tourism, and target Havana’s purse strings."
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-cuba-relations
> "Engagement fails when it is not reciprocal"
Iran was very open to cooperation with the United States following 9/11, right up until they were included in the 'Axis of Evil.'
"In the aftermath of the attacks, the Iranian public responded with sympathy and their government with something resembling prudence. Tehran was the scene of spontaneous candlelight vigils by ordinary Iranians and a temporary suspension of the weekly chants of “death to America” by its official clergy. An array of Iranian officials, many with reformist political leanings, offered seemingly heartfelt condolences to the American people, and even the hardest-line elements of Iran’s leadership briefly summoned the moral decency to denounce Al Qaeda and the use of terrorism against Americans."
...
"The initial willingness to cooperate with the U.S. military campaign against the Taliban eventually bloomed into a wide-ranging, historic cooperation between the two old adversaries that included the only sustained, officially sanctioned dialogue since the negotiations of the hostage release in 1981. Logistical cooperation from Tehran facilitated use of Iranian airspace as well as tactical assistance in establishing supply lines. Equally vital was Tehran’s political collaboration, as the Iranians had close and long-standing relations with the Taliban’s primary domestic opponent, the Northern Alliance."
...
"The “Axis of Evil” speech produced a furious response from Iranian leaders across the political spectrum, and incited a similarly fierce debate in Washington. It did not, however, result in the termination of the bilateral dialogue over Afghanistan, as Tehran demonstrated its capacity to prioritize interests over outrage or ideology. But it marked an across-the board American repudiation of Iran’s ruling elites, one that would become more pronounced over the course of the subsequent year, and a deliberate U.S. embrace of the idea of galvanizing popular opposition against the Iranian regime. In the months that followed the speech, the Bush White House strove to align themselves with regime opponents through public statements and other efforts to expedite political change inside the country."
https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/11_iran...
(It's from a Brookings whitepaper, but it jives with the gist of The Twilight War by David Crist)
The U.S. keeps turning its back on both countries when progress begins to be made, based on old animosities left over from the Cold War. It's ridiculous. Why does the wealthiest country on the planet need to be in a pissing contest with a small Caribbean island nation over something that happened under the Kennedy administration? Or a theocracy on the other side of the planet over something that happened under Jimmy Carter? My god, what's the point?
The West engaged Russia and China to make the regimes liberalize. It was really common to hear that a Chinese middle class will bring in democracy. The West got nothing, and the regimes only became stronger and more oppressive.
>YES! When Obama engaged Cuba, the entire political calculus of the country changed almost overnight.
Your long quotes are actions before agreement or negotiation, and it was done as a result of economic hardship (as they themselves acknowledge). Alleviating these hardships did not lead to liberalization, but seemed to have removed the impetus to make more changes.
>Iran was very open to cooperation with the United States following 9/11, right up until they were included in the 'Axis of Evil.'
Right, people who scream worse on a weekly basis and are proudly calling themselves enemies of the US were really offended.
They were willing to tactically let the US off their enemy. But friendly relations require a firmer basis then temporary cynical cooperation - they require the regime to change a few of the policies that the US finds abhorrent, and for that there was zero willingness (They even kept their nuclear program running until the Iraq war spooked them to temporarily shut it off)
> Why does the wealthiest country on the planet need to be in a pissing contest with a small Caribbean island nation over something that happened under the Kennedy administration? Or a theocracy on the other side of the planet over something that happened under Jimmy Carter?
The US got over all that long ago. As early as the 80s the US sold weapons to Iran! It's that the US has a problem being friendly to totalitarian murderous regimes which also have an aggressive foreign policy and officially declare themselves anti-US.
The first makes engagement difficult to square with US values, and leads domestic voter blocks to really oppose engagement. The second makes engagement difficult to square with US interests. The third is just an extra insult.
Friendly relations require the regimes to change policy on at least one measly point. China remained oppressive, but its 'peaceable rise' was really peaceable for a short time, so the US kept friendly relations. Now that China isn't 'peaceable', Biden can't afford to go back to the way things were.
Had Cuba moderated their domestic policy, Hispanics wouldn't have been so susceptible to GOP ads this November. Now, Biden can't risk losing them, so you can forget about a new agreement with Cuba.
> They have plenty of reason not to trust the U.S.
Do you see how your goal posts have shifted from “Iran wants peace” to “Of course Iran doesn’t want peace, look at how bad the US is?”
Well, I'd have to point out, when the US told South Korea (and the rest of the world) to cut trades with Iran (or else), it was engaging in this very kind of behavior.
As a South Korean, I'd appreciate if the US and Iran could talk to each other like adults and leave my country out of this, but that's not the kind of world we're living in. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The US is taking South Korean hostages?
I don't want to complain too much, because the arrangement is usually mutually beneficial (after all, if you have to keep thousands of foreign soldiers on your own soil, better to be a part of team America than team Iran or team China) - I just think it would be better if we talk about practicality instead of moral outrages.
Exactly, because without US Navy, China would be taking Korean ships and you wouldn't be able to do anything about it.
The only reason I don't mean that literally is because a: I'm fairly sure Hell doesn't exist, and b: if it did, I support and endorse most of the people there (eg blasphemers, scientists and other heretics, homosexuals and other deviants, and of course heathens, infidels, and apostates) and would not wish to inflict Kubernetes on them, even if the resulting increase in suffering would only be a rounding error.
I think you have a valid point in general, but in this case I would, in fact, prefer for Kubernetes to be gone from the world entirely, and I don't think this is by any means a unique position, either regarding Kubernetes, or in the general case of "damn X".
In Persian, "Death to America" is "marg bar Amrika"
Common Persian phrases, and these are everyday phrases in Iran include:
1) Marg! Literally, Death!, closest we have in English: Shut up!
2) Khabare margesh! Literally, the news of his/her death! This is used with someone you don't like, as in, you're only interested in the news of that persons death (perhaps a politician is a typical example).
3) Boro bemir! Literally, Go die! Again, in English, the equivalent is along the lines of Shut Up!
4) Che margeshe? Literally, what's his death? Used mostly for objects, such as when your car won't start.
5) Marge man, literally, my death. Used when you are swearing you are telling the truth.
Iranians have so many expressions/figures-of-speech related to Death.
That’s stark when most cultures draw on disgust (excrement etc) or some kind of power/possession dynamic (fucking, owning, etc).
Also when the concept is paired with imagery of a Nuclear Iran, you can’t help but feel attacked.
My country has done a lot of stupid stuff in the Middle East. I get why they're upset. They should be. Fair enough.
It would be nice for us to move past the petty hatred over things that happened 50 years ago.
In Persian, "Death to America" is "marg bar Amrika"
Common Persian phrases, and these are everyday phrases in Iran include:
1) Marg! Literally, Death!, closest we have in English: Shut up!
2) Khabare margesh! Literally, the news of his/her death! This is used with someone you don't like, as in, you're only interested in the news of that persons death (perhaps a politician is a typical example).
3) Boro bemir! Literally, Go die! Again, in English, the equivalent is along the lines of Shut Up!
4) Che margeshe? Literally, what's his death? Used mostly for objects, such as when your car won't start.
5) Marge man, literally, my death. Used when you are swearing you are telling the truth.
Iranians have so many idioms/expressions/figures-of-speech related to Death, this is just a small sample.
If only there was some international agency that could have people on the ground that could walk into any place in Iran under any suspicion that they might be enriching uranium beyond the levels needed for nuclear power plants, overriding basically any local laws that might prevent them access. We could call it International Atomic Energy Agency or something.
Now seriously, this was in the deal that the US pulled out of, as well as an agreement that Iran will not enrich uranium beyond like 4% (enough for nuclear power plants, not bombs), reducing their stockpiles of uranium by 97% and much, much more. Now just days ago Iran let IAEA know that they're going to enrich it up to 20%.
If only there was a deal that wrote down that the international agency needed to ask permission from Iran in advance for inspections of 'military sites'. Also explicitly allow Iran to keep researching enrichment so breakout time would be small. And make that any extra restrictions are temporary. After all, there was that deal with North Korea, and we see how it worked so well - for North Korea.
Nothing like the situation was with North Korea, where North Korea was uncooperative with the IAEA, mostly disagreeing on which parts of the plants IAEA can access. Not to mention IAEA had 20 years in between to improve their methods.
US absolutely shot themselves in the foot by withdrawing from the deal no matter how you look at it.
The problem here is that Iran was allowed to not tell all on previous existing program. Lets pretend they cheat and IAEA finds out traces of Uranium. What happens when they argue that the Uranium signature is pre-2015 and not from a new installation? There's not enough time passed to prove either way.
> US absolutely shot themselves in the foot by withdrawing from the deal no matter how you look at it.
US had to look for improvements, even if Clinton had been elected, since the agreement was designed to be temporary. The tactics involved are a different matter. I guess Trump could have been more devious and unofficially sanction Iran while officially staying part of the deal. Would that have been better? Hmm.. difficult to say.
Is this even possible? Doesn't the half-life of the enriched uranium reveal when it was enriched?
>>The tactics involved are a different matter. I guess Trump could have been more devious and unofficially sanction Iran while officially staying part of the deal. Would that have been better? Hmm.. difficult to say.
The US could have stayed party to the nuclear deal and coordinated any new negotiations with its European allies, and that would have been substantially better than reneging on an important nuclear arms control deal.
I am not an expert, but I believe Carbon dating is based on similar principles. Yet archeologists always give +-100 years variation in their estimates. Could IAEA really get to +-10 years or better? None of this would matter normally, except for the particular structure of the deal.
>The US could have stayed party to the nuclear deal and coordinated any new negotiations with its European allies
Support from the EU isn't the real question. We see the US can enforce unilaterally. Nor would Iran act differently if the EU had fully joined the pressure, or if the EU would also have torn up the deal. The question was whether to fix from inside or tear it up. Either way it would have to involve pressure.
>>Nor would Iran act differently if the EU had fully joined the pressure, or if the EU would also have torn up the deal.
Reneging on a deal undermines the credibility of the diplomatic process and ratchets up tensions which increases the chance of a military conflict. Having a united front is good both for cross-Atlantic ties and the chances of resolving the dispute peacefully.
The UN/IAEA process requires unanimity among the major powers. Since Iran has been left with an semi-believable out, there's enough diplomatic cover to allow Russia/China to cover for it there (see Syrian chemical weapons for comparison). For once such a position would be understandable: If seeing enriched Uranium could eventually lead to war, and there's a way to rationalize it, how much of a smoking gun would it be? Allowing that rationalization was an error in the deal.
> Having a united front is good both for cross-Atlantic ties and the chances of resolving the dispute peacefully.
The structure of the deal made some form of renegotiation inevitable (since the main restrictions were temporary). The question is how to do it.
I think your assessment of the outcome of said smoking gun is unrealistic. The scandal described would have massive political repercussions that would go far beyond any letter of the deal.
>>The structure of the deal made some form of renegotiation inevitable (since the main restrictions were temporary).
Why would it inevitably need to be renegotiated?
>>The question is how to do it.
By honoring the deal and working with other countries on a new one if/when it's needed.
The structure of the deal gave a way to rationalize not seeing, which means some people will rationalize. That was a bad policy error, hopefully it will remain only a policy error.
>Why would it inevitably need to be renegotiated?
First, because the restrictions were temporary, starting to expire in this term. If these are needed, then they will be needed in the future. After all, The regime hasn't changed. Second, because there were other issues between everyone and Iran and not resolving these will lead to the same results as in the past.
>By honoring the deal and working with other countries on a new one if/when it's needed.
The US position is the one that matter here, so lets discuss that. The US isn't going to let other countries decide its foreign policy.
We're not dealing with inert subjects in negotiating partners. There is a strong motivation to counter nuclear proliferation and hold Iran to the spirit of the deal, which again is why I find your fears to be hyperbolic.
>First, because the restrictions were temporary, starting to expire in this term.
All restrictions, or some?
>If these are needed, then they will be needed in the future. After all, The regime hasn't changed.
Regimes change all the time. It's entirely posssible the Iranian regime will moderate over time. Agreements like the Nuclear Deal make that more likely.
>The US position is the one that matter here, so lets discuss that.
I'm saying US position adopted by Trump and his allies undermined diplomacy and harmed cross-Atlantic ties.
Doesn't it, though? We have great relationships with a relatively small number of countries. Then there are the mutually beneficial relationships.
Maybe our definition of "great relationship" differs. When I think "great relationship" I think five-eyes countries plus maybe Japan. Perhaps arguably a few others.
It’s a tricky situation with both parties.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_International_Airlines...
2) In my family, the death of Qasem Soleimani was, and I don't mean to be insensitive, the death of a imperialist tyrant supporter.
Iran does not deserve the sympathy you give them.
University of Maryland conclusion to survey results of thousands of Iranians.
source: https://drive.google.com/viewerng/viewer?url=https://cissm.u...
So they made us, the civilians, their meat shield, just as they used us to clean minefields in the Iraq war. And then they were so incompetent they shot their own meat shield. After that, they launched massive media campaigns to say the plane had not been shot, but had crashed out of a "technical glitch." Even after the evidence became undeniable, and they issued public apologies, they still continued with their media campaigns, saying this was all because of a US cyber attack. And they did not let people organize proper funerals, and they imprisoned, threatened, and fucked the survivors' families, and they used tear gas and just straight opened fire when people protested at their sheer malicious incompetence, and ...
And random assholes on the internet defend them while seemingly caring for the Iranian people. I don't know, perhaps you're one the of the thousands who directly or indirectly get money/status from the IR?
The domestic affairs handling applies equally to both countries, so why should Iran get singled out here?
Pakistan already has nukes and they're dangerously unstable. Pakistan is by a large margin the most unstable nuclear power. North Korea by comparison is a stable insular kingdom ruled by a dynasty family that has held power through thick and thin for 70 years. Pakistan is a powder keg always waiting to explode. Applying North Korean style sanctions on Pakistan is a lot more likely to result in an exceptionally bad outcome. And Iran does not yet have nuclear weapons, so if they crack into revolution right now that would not risk potential nuclear war or proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Further, Iran has openly declared their intention to genocide Israel, on repeat. They say it whenever they get the chance. North Korea for decades has declared their desire to conquer South Korea and create one Korea under their rule, they repeat that at every opportunity (and when a country says for decades that they want to conquer you and they have nukes, you have to take them at their word).
Based on my understanding, that's based on a misinterpretation so what they're actually saying in Farsi. Even so, the attitude of the population and government in Pakistan towards Israel isn't that much different. Even if you consider the dynamics between Pakistan and India, the last war was 50 years ago and other than some skirmishes, nothing major happened.
If we were to substitute Iran for Pakistan and Israel for India, would the situation be really that different?
> North Korea for decades has declared their desire to conquer South Korea and create one Korea under their rule
To a certain extent, this is what happened in Vietnam and the country appears to be doing okay these days.
On Israel, there are very explicit messages around, though it's more of a "Zionist" genocide. The IR will not care if the Jews just go out of the ME, presumably.
It seems they are not using every opportunity to advocate for genocide. Definitely some mixed messaging?
On a more serious note, the notion that Iran wants to build a nuclear weapon so they can throw it on Israel is nonsense. Yes, Israel is perfectly right to be concerned about a country that would act against its security interests whenever given the chance, and would do so at least in part for ideological reasons (though this aspect is also overblown in the common narrative).
But they haven't really declared their intention "to genocide Israel". You'll find that in most quotes that circulate, a defensive posture is implied ("if they dare to attack us"). People argue about whether the original Khomeini/Ahmadinejad quote ("wiping Israel off the map") should be translated as "removed from the pages of time", but it more importantly says "the regime occupying Palestine". Again, no peaceful agenda towards the country of Israel is to be found here, but no need for comically evil holocaust-like plans either.
You don't have to look hard to find this stuff. These aren't mistranslations or misunderstandings. A lot of these translations were done by the Iranian Republic themselves in press releases!
These are less subtle than Trump's dog whistles about "when the looting starts, the shooting starts" — which was bad enough. These are obvious, repeated, consistent statements and actions.
I have zero problems with this.
Why do America (The only country to actually use a nuke) get to decided who gets national security and who gets "freedom and democracy" delivered by a predator drone.
I believe the moral principle you're looking for is "ad baculum".
Most states do, and many do much much worse, and still have great relations with their western allies (if not being directly funded to do so). Heck, they were hunky dory with Germany, merely a few years after they started a World War that killed 30+ million people, burned 6 million jews, etc., because "Cold War".
>e.g., they just confiscated a Korean ship on free waters
After Korea seized some billions of their assets in its banks.
>They also pursue nuclear weapons
That's because any state without them is toast when the big dogs decide.
Plus, they remember their history, like outsiders toppling their democratic leader, because he was getting too "socialist", and establising a lackey into power to play the king.
Or outsiders funding their neighborhood country to go into war with them, praising their leadership, and then come back a decade later, do a u-turn, to invade them, hang their leader that was their ex ally, and occupy the country (that thet turned into a civil war hell-zone).
Plus they have another country nearby with ample foreign support that's used as a proxy for foreign power in the area, and which has nuclear weapons itself.
If by "they" you mean the IR, they were and are (though nowadays they are more undecided) opposed to Mosadegh. (Check out what streets are in his name. The IR reveals who they favor quite accurately in their naming scheme.). The people mostly don't care that much about Mosadegh, as the school history books are written by the IR, and Mosadegh is not painted all that well. Most Iranians also hate communists now (communism has long since been out of the overton window).
> Or outsiders funding their neighborhood country to go into war with them, praising their leadership, and then come back a decade later, do a u-turn, to invade them, hang their leader that were their ex-allies, and occupy the country (that thet turned into a civil war hell-zone).
A war which brought a lot of power to the IR and especially the Guards. A war that the IR itself protracted for years, perhaps because they were gathering power and clueless, fungible young people were dying, which was quite cheap. Their domestic strategy ever since has been to give merits to a minority that follows their orders, and crush their opposition thoroughly by any means necessary.
I mean the Iran as people (and state with a degree with historical and cultural continuity). The IR might come and go, and leaders or fractions might be opposed to Mosadegh for religious, ideological, etc reasons, but the hummiliation and harm that was instilled in the people by the action influenced later events (and even today).
>A war which brought a lot of power to the IR and especially the Guards.
Yeah, but that's neither here nor there. It did a whole lot of harm to Iran the people - and to the Iraq the people for that matter, and it was fuelled from outside.
That always feels strange to me, why this is considered evil. If there is a strong military might with nuclear weapons on your doorstep threatening you, then also going after nuclear weapons is just logic and self-preserving.
(I mean, not that I want more idiots on this world having nuclear weapons)
Evil is indeed all the other shit they are doing, but I am not sure if collective punishment helps with that. And collectivily banning any person from iran collaborating with the rest of the software world via Github is a very strong collective punishment, which I doubt would make me see the west in a nicer view, if I would be such a developer in Iran. (and never mind all those other bans, like money transfer). Maybe I would even feel a push to close ranks with the hardcore idiots who are in control.
Iran has also failed to provide evidence for their accusation and did not provide either a warning or opportunity to remediate the claimed polution. Evidence for a crime is of course generally considered a requirement.
They also have a strong recent history of this sort of activity.
You do realize the U.S. does that on a regular basis right? So do its Gulf Wahhabi allies in the region.
In the general case, maybe a little bit, but mostly not. In the specific case, not.
Baader-Meinhof is about an illusion of high frequency. This specific case (iran + github) is direct coincidence. The general case of the poster above (topics bubble up from multiple sources) is not, because topics can be demonstrated to follow patterns of relatedness (there is a term that I forget) and :. the frequency is not illusionary.
Of course, that supposes the pattern noticed is the pattern that was genuinely in the articles. Baader-Meinhof will apply to anything the user misidentifies. I presume that the direct links between groups of articles (ie, the ones that caused them to be written or posted) are much more prominent than the "background" noise of links that the user will Baader-Meinhof.
Then, I discovered the issue being mentioned on the discussion page two weeks earlier and never before.
What makes things worse, Syria is sanctioned which means American companies cannot hire any Syrian because there's a legality issue. Meaning even Syrian refugees who fled the country cannot find a proper job.
Your country is destroyed, your life is ruined and yet you cannot restore your career. Being denied your right to work is the worst thing that can happen to anyone after war.
Yet, I think this is the right decision. Good job GitHub and congrats to our fellow Iranian developers.
> ... country cannot find a proper job.
Not true.
Basically you have no idea what is sanctions and how it works.
And it is "humanitarian cause" I am not making things up. This is the definition of humanitarian cause.
Syrians living under official refugee status can work in countries where they have this status, at the very least in the EU. If they have that status in a country outside of the EU, I'm not exactly sure about the legal situation but I'd think it's similar to other citizens of the country where they have refugee status.
Source: I'm Syrian and a refugee.
If a company wants to hire me, I don't want it to be for a humanitarian reason, I want it to be based on competence.
My understand is that "a refugee" and having residency (permanent or not) are two separate and unrelated things.
Refugee = outside your country for a specific set of reasons you can find on Wikipedia.
What I meant was that being a refugee doesn't prevent EU companies from hiring you. I'm well aware of how terrible sanctions are, but not all EU countries have the exact same set of blockade/embargo as American ones. In general, work laws and authorization between any two countries that don't have explicit agreement tend to be difficult.
I am not going to argue with you or refer you to wikipedia. Instead, you may take a look at any company that hires globally and tells me then what is Syria's status or Syrian national.
This applies to GitHub and all American companies and it's not "work laws" this how financial sector works around the globe.
Another thing quickly, no one is asking to hire on a humanitarian basis. Don't deny people their right to work and profit because of who they are.
U$: "CEO of Microsoft"
M$: "People are bad-mouthing one of my toys on Hacker News, here is a cheque"
U$: "Say no more"
GitHub still denies access to those under 13 to comply with laws.
I understand that it has to comply with laws, but it should nevertheless raise the issue and take a stance of disagreement with the law, if it truly believe that all developers should be able to contribute.
But that that which is touted as a “universal right” excludes the young, is of course nothing new.