[tyre]

It was also a bad idea then. They could never have effected regime change. That’s a fantasy that Israel included in its pressure on the US, but which US intelligence deemed highly implausible.

There was never a world where this was a good idea. We had a diplomatic agreement that worked, nuked it for no gain, and now there isn’t a viable way to influence Iran.

Diplomacy can’t function again because they don’t trust the US (fair, correct.)

The IRGC cannot be replaced without a ground invasion, which the US won’t do (fair, correct.)

The US can’t unilaterally remove one ton of buried nuclear material from the middle of a hostile state.

This was always stupid.

[logicchains]

>It was also a bad idea then. They could never have effected regime change

They could have if they'd done what Israel wanted and destroyed all the oil infrastructure. The IRGC is heavily dependent on oil revenue for funding its oppressive apparatus; without it hundreds of thousands of militia would go without pay and eventually desert. For whatever reason Trump didn't want to do this; likely not for humanitarian reasons given his nature, but for some reason he seemed to really care what Turkey and Pakistan think, both of whom don't want to be flooded with refugees.

[thisislife2]

> if they'd done what Israel wanted and destroyed all the oil infrastructure.

That would have worked. But it is still a stupid idea if you don't cripple and destroy Iran's military capability first as Iran would have also retaliated and destroyed all its Arab neighbour's oil infrastructure too, plunging the world into an economic depression because of the energy crisis it would cause - The Iran War Is Destroying Something More Valuable Than Oil - https://houseofsaud.com/iran-war-refinery-crisis-saudi-aramc...

[JumpCrisscross]

> Iran would have also retaliated and destroyed all its Arab neighbour's oil infrastructure too

Iran probably couldn't have, not without being intercepted and having its launchers neutralised every time it fired. But Tehran would have kept on credibly threatening to, which would have meant America essentially taking on air defence responsibility for the entire Gulf.

[parineum]

> We had a diplomatic agreement that worked, nuked it for no gain, and now there isn’t a viable way to influence Iran.

I see this repeateded a lot but it doesn't follow to me that the facility that was bombed in midnight hammer was created and begun operating after that agreement was cancelled. It seems clear to me that Iran never stopped using that facility.

It seems to me that Iran's goal is to develop a nuclear weapon and there isn't a piece of paper that will stop them. I don't really fault them, it's a very sane thing to do to secure your border a la North Korea.

I'm not sure there is a non-military way to influence Iran to not develop a nuclear weapon.

[watwut]

Iran was entitled to have radio active materia. Pretty much everyone involved says they followed the contract.

[parineum]

Who is "everyone involved"? Iran and the Obama administration?

What was bombed in that secret mountain base? Why keep it a secret?

[manyaoman]

The audacity of Iran building a bunker and not keeping us in the loop about what's going on inside.

[orwin]

That facility was a nuclear research facility for civilian, military and medical use. Note that military doesn't mean weapons. Iran getting nuclear submarine would increase their threat level. In any case, Iran have a fatwa against developing nuclear bombs (a fatwa is a law edicted by a religious leader, and not respecting it would make you sinful and rebellious, and in a theocratic regime, often end in prison). The fatwa isn't reversed yet afaik, but the US killed the mufti who declared it, so I don't know how it applies.

But anybody saying Iran was working on a bomb is probably misinformed or lying imho.

[stale2002]

There isn't a non-military, non bomb use for the amount of Uranium that Iran was enriching up to the levels that they were doing so.

All the things that you talked about do not require doing what Iran was doing. Meaning that... the only motivation left would be the 1 single thing that does require that much enrichment to those levels.

Hitting this from another angle, it doesn't make any strategic sense as for why Iran would sacrifice all that it is throwing away, just to get some medical research benefits. That would be a poor deal, and Iran isn't stupid.

[YZF]

You might be right on the regime change being fantasy but those things are not predictable and we don't know the details.

Where you're definitely wrong is on the "diplomatic agreement that worked". Iran continued to enrich violating the agreement, the agreement was time bound and not indefinite (and would have already expired anyways), and it enabled them to sell oil and raise a lot of money to fuel their wars, missile programs, nuclear programs and other ambitions.

[throwaway534634]

> Where you're definitely wrong is on the "diplomatic agreement that worked". Iran continued to enrich violating the agreement...

No, actually it is you who is wrong. Iran absolutely complied with the JCPOA. It is after US withdrew from the agreement that they pursued enrichment further.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Iran absolutely complied with the JCPOA

Yup. "The U.S. certified in April 2017 and in July 2017 that Iran was complying with the deal. On 13 October 2017, President Trump announced that he would not make the certification required under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, accusing Iran of violating the spirit of the deal..." [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_nuclear_deal#Trump_admini...

[YZF]

Wrong. That is not the question. It came to light later that Iran hid sites, activities and materials. The 2017 certification is not relevant. They were still violating it either in letter or in spirit, they had no intent of stopping the pursuit of nuclear weapons, and at the most charitable interpretation (and no way the Iranian regime deserves that) the agreement was time bound and would have expired already.

Why was Iran under sanctions in the first place? Sponsor of terrorism. Oppression of its own people. Messing with Yemen, Syria, Lebanon (and the list goes on). Only in Syria they helped Assad murder 100's of thousands of Syrians. The Yemen civil war. The murder and abuse of their own citizens.

Iran had an easy way of not getting sanctioned. We didn't need the JCPOA. What we needed is Iran to cease the activities for which it was getting sanctioned.

We had a "diplomatic solution for Iran" is total nonsense. Obama messed this up just like he totally messed up the entire middle east. Iran trained and supplied Hamas which led to Oct 7th. Iran trained and supplied Hezbollah. Iran developed and built their ballistic missile program to attack all their neighbors. With what money/resources? With the money Obama gave them in for cheating on this agreement. If you have western interests in mind than the Iranians are laughing at you for being a fool.

[YZF]

Since my other reply was flagged, and I'm past the edit window, and I learnt a little more about the nuance:

- Technically Iran was considered to be meeting the requirements of the JCPOA during the 2016-2018 period in reports issued at the time.

- Iran failed to declare all its sites and programs before entering the JCPOA. This is known now, after the fact.

- Technically some argue that because Iran participated in meetings and filed papers they met the PMD requirements which were the preliminary requirement for the JCPOA to take effect. The nuance here is whether they technically fulfilled the requirements despite lying and hiding and then "only" violated the NPT or whether they violated the PMD.

- That Iran hid sites, material and equipment came into light after the Mossad stole Iran's nuclear archive. This is fact and was confirmed by IAEA inspections despite Iran's attempts to prevent that.

- When the IAEA asked to inspect those sites Iran engaged in a cover up operation and delayed access. After the sites were inspected there was evidence of nuclear material made by human activities.

- That material discovered by IAEA was not farther enriched which the supporters of the agreement claim is evidence that Iran didn't enrich more material. In reality Iran lied and hid facilities and so despite the samples taken by the IAEA not finding evidence of more enrichment the basic fact is that Iran acted in bad faith and so we just don't know. Maybe they only hid sites, equipment, and nuclear material but did not pursue further enrichment during this period. Maybe they did in other sites.

- Officially Iran was never found to be in violation of the JCPOA.

- The JCPOA was set to expire in October 18, 2025 after which there would have been no restriction on Iran anyways. That's another part of the argument that this was a bad agreement.

[tyre]

I appreciate that you dug further into it.

While it’s difficult to say to what extent they were going beyond there agreement, it’s clear that they were. I’m not aware of any evidence that it was to the level of, “they’re continuing to make quick progress towards a bomb.” Which is what happened when the US decided to reneg.

There were another seven years to negotiate what’s next and real progress made from both sides trusting each other. That’s the type of momentum needed for further diplomacy (e.g. counteracting more bellicose members of the IRGC.) Instead, we got the opposite. And for what?