[yyyk]

>Try imposing harsh sanctions on them, murdering their generals etc., organizing illegal coups & we'll see then.

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-...

[mullingitover]

> The first is after a nuclear program and Iran killing hundreds of American soldiers.

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...

[yyyk]

Actually, Iran was happy to take American support during that war[1], and the Iraqi program was not supported by the US - the program was mainly supported by French and Germany, which Iran is weirdly not pissed at.

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

[stretchcat]

> and the Iraqi program was not supported by the US

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]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran–Iraq_War

[mullingitover]

I agree realpolitik is certainly a thing, and as long as we can see that with clear eyes and not settle on one side or another being 'the good guys' or 'the bad guys' we're all much better off. The best outcome for everyone is for de-escalation and peacemaking efforts that reduce the suffering of the regular people in the region.

[yyyk]

Realpolitik is not an excuse to look away from the moral results of policy. So long as the Iranian regime keeps trying to expand its hold or to attack Israel the ME won't be stable or peaceful. We saw the results of that in Syria. Stability would require a change in Iranian policies, right now the regime is unwilling to do that.

[mullingitover]

> Realpolitik is not an excuse to look away from the moral results of policy

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.

[yyyk]

>Realpolitik is pretty much the act of never caring about the moral results of policy

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.

[adventured]

Correction, Germany did more than anyone to help Iraq with chemical weapons. 52% of their chemical weapons equipment derived from Germany for example. The Germans knew exactly what they were doing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_chemical_weapons_program

[mullingitover]

I'd call it a team effort. The US was certainly selling dual use equipment in the war, and not only did it not lift a finger to stop the use of chemical weapons, it blocked the UN Security Council from even passing a resolution saying that using them was a bad thing.

[stretchcat]

America also provided rhetorical cover for Iraq by accusing Iran of using chemical weapons as well. Allegations which were never substantiated, probably because it never actually happened.

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.

[pushswap]

Civilians, not only soldiers, were gassed by the German's munitions resulting in long term injuries and deaths. It's surprising this isn't more well known, and that Germany was not internationally censured, tried, & made to pay compensation to the victims of these disgusting actions following their conduct in the Holocaust.

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...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_chemical_attack

[phobosanomaly]

> nuclear program

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...

[yyyk]

>Objectively, why can't Iran have a nuclear program while Israel, India, and Pakistan can?

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.

[phobosanomaly]

> "Because Iran signed the NPT"

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.

[yyyk]

>> "Because Iran signed the NPT"

>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.

[phobosanomaly]

I'm not arguing that Iran is the best country ever, who does only nice things and only hugs their neighbors.

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.

[yyyk]

Despite having far less power, the Iranian regime's ME body count is higher than any other country - even if we blame Iraq solely on US. Letting those fanatics have nukes would be a mistake. But lets put that aside.

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.