It doesn't matter where the Drone was. This is what we should be creeping out about

Or we could just realize our previous position was stupid - stop the sanctions - and Iran will not have cause to sink ships. Hopefully we can turf this administration prior to actual conflict breaking out - then cooler and more sane heads might prevail.

 

I am not into conspiracy theories. I have found generally that things are as they are portrayed.

 

Yes because Iran doesn't have a history of terrorism.

Let's hold hands with the people who would like nothing better than to destroy western civilization.

I'm sure they'll start hitting the "like" button on tweets from the WH.

 

What does Iran's support for terrorism have to do with stopping them from getting nukes ? These are two separate questions.

I realize that Trump conflated the two but, this is an act of idiocy on a global scale - arguably the most idiotic thing a human has done in the history of the world.

To break a deal which tries to prevent a nation from building a nuke - because that nation is a supporter of Hamas - and Hamas happens to been labeled a terrorist group - is idiocy on steroids. FULL STOP

Nukes and supporting terrorist groups are two different things - and one is a far greater threat to the US than the other - by orders of magnitude.

 

Yeah terrorists obtaining nuclear weapons and terrorists committing terror have links that can't be connected by the human mind.

Thanks for the fascinating glimpse though. I find it truly amazing.

Some people did something. So what.

 

Click. Ignore.

You aren't here for logical debate. You are here to push your agenda and call everybody wrong, putting your opinions on some pedestal.

I agree, not worth it.

 

You completely missing the point and misrepresenting what I said. We don't want terrorists (or anyone else for that matter) obtaining nuclear weapons. We also don't want terrorists committing acts of terror.

What we really don't want however, is a terrorist using a nuclear weapon in the act of terror.

So if the terrorist offers to make a deal that prevents them from making nuclear weapons. How is it logical to respond with NO - in order for us to agree to the deal you have to stop all acts of terror ?

Giving Hamas Guns - and making nuclear weapons are two separate issues - and only a complete moron does not realize this. Obviously Trump is not that big of a moron - Trump realizes this - as do you.

This does not change the fact that Trump citing support for terrorism as on of one of his reasons for disengaging in an effort to prevent Iran from getting nukes - is moronic nonsense on steroids.

 

Im suggesting it wasn't a smoking gun.

 

Did you forget about the Director of the CIA's "slam dunk", or are you just trying to sweep it under the rug?

 

This may surprise you, but terrorists who demand billions of dollars before they release hostages, and pinky promise they won't build nuclear weapons, will use your money to build nuclear weapons.

Please tell me at what point in history paying off the people who say they'll kill you if you don't pay them has ever worked.

Under that "agreement", we had zero access to their military facilities, and other facilities such as Parchin the IAEA could only use IRANIAN inspectors.

Where would nuclear weapons be kept if they were building them again? Oh yeah. Military bases.

Your "deal", basically said "We'll let you inspect everywhere but where we don't want you to look", and the left just nods it's head in unison.

 

You claim there were no WMDs in 2003 but admit Saddam had them in 1998. What did he do with them? Sell them on Craig's list perhaps?

 

It was never proven by anyone that Saddam had no WMDs. We just didn't find any despite Blix's and others assurance.

How exactly is a foreign power shooting down a drone over international waters "cooking the evidence?"

 

He exacerbates the problem, for sure, although public attitudes have also shifted quite a lot since Bush's adventures and in good part because of those adventures. It also does not help a lot that the case is being built on damage to a couple of tankers and one downed drone, as opposed to a massive terrorist attack on our home soil.

If we were attacked, and I mean properly attacked, by some adversarial power, then I think our allies would be more amenable to signing on to responding with force to our attacker(s). As it is, with Iran's government denying involvement and clearly having nothing to gain from the attacks at such a trying time, there just isn't much of a cause to act on.

Besides Trump's constant and blaring obvious dishonesty and lack of trustworthiness, we are likely also harmed by our bold, belligerent posture abroad. It was our drone flying at best very near Iranian airspace if not in it, and thanks to our support of Saudi Arabia, we are involved in yet another ugly military conflict in the region already. Our forces are all over the world, challenging other powers large and small. How are our allies supposed to react when there is a minor slip and something of ours gets attacked? It would not have happened if our forces had not been thousands of miles away from home, in or near hostile lands. Add in how this fake president and his swamp are treating Iran, and they become much more sympathetic, and we look more like an overbearing imperial power. We run the risk of becoming the bad guys.

 

Not finding WMDs, as Blix assured, is completely different from not having WMDs. Bush pulled (not "kicked") the inspectors out because he didn't want to bomb them.

 

This above is gibberish. Seriously. Iran already had that money prior to Trump backing out of the deal. Iran was complying with the terms of the deal. Complaining about Iran getting its own money back - as justification for backing out of the deal which was preventing Iran from building nuclear weapons - is nonsense.

You then go on to further move the goalposts. We are discussing the use of terrorism as an excuse to back out of the deal - not whether or not Iran was in compliance with the deal or getting their money unfrozen to get the deal done to begin with.

 

Yes, Iran was complying with letting us look in the places they wanted us to look.

I mean that worked out great in North Korea.

That money didn't belong to the Islamic terrorists who overthrew the legitimate government of Iran, and no matter how many times you say it, it doesn't make it reality.

Did Iran stop terrorism after Obama funded it's terrorist operations?

 

A majority of conservative populists do not support engagement with Iran. Ben Shapiro got ratioed pretty badly on youtube when he pimped an engagement with Iran (by a 2 to 1 margin).

Conservative populists in general support disengagement from the Middle East. They now recognize the real threat from the Middle East.... immigration. Every one of these engagements result in mass waves of Muslim immigrants to the West, immigrants that do little to assimilate and much to alter the culture they immigrate to. They can't be an existential threat where they are. They certainly can be if they are in your country and their birth rate is 4 times that of the indigenous country and they loathe the values of the indigenous country. France is finding out about that as we speak.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34193762

 

The Director of the CIA is not an "intelligence Agency". Tenet made a false statement not supported by the Assessment of the Intelligence Agency he directed. No Intelligence Agency "affirmed and avowed" that there were WMDs in Iraq.

 

You keep avoiding the topic = that support for terrorism was not a valid excuse for Trump to pull out of the deal. If you wish to move on to other issues - that is fine but nothing you have said changed the fact that Trump using this excuse to pull out of the deal was moronic.

 

Maybe we should just send them pallets of cash to skirt the banking sanctions like Obama did.

 

So the Central Intelligence Agency is not an intelligence agency. Fascinating.

 

I haven't "admitted" to that. I don't know. Maybe they did. Or, at least, a WMD development program in 1998. We know they didn't (not even development) in 2003.

What happened in between? Well, we do know that Clinton systematically bombed every single site that was suspect of having or being used to develop WMDs. Maybe he was successful. Maybe Saddam shipped them out of the country secretly ahead of the UN weapons inspectors coming in. That I don't know. But what we do know is clear..

Why are you focusing on that? Point was that our allies were standing behind us. Even though we were lying. And most probably knew we were lying. We're having a hard time getting them to believe us this time. At what point did we lose all our credibility? And, more importantly, their willingness to stand behind us?

Regardless of the Iran situation, do you think that is a good or a bad thing for our national security?

 

True. Trump has put our allies into a position in which they must defend Iran against us. That can't be a good thing.

 

Maybe returning their own cash for a commitment to cease their efforts to develop an nuclear weapon was a good idea.
It wasn't your money to begin with.

Nah, way better to demand complete capitulation on all perceived grievances before even sitting down to discuss relieving sanctions. Better to keep putting the pressure on and expect them to not react in any way other than whimper in the corner.

Then when they do you can threaten them with annihilation, which for sure will make them much more agreeable to deal.

Trump's foreign policy - inflict blunt force trauma and then demand an apology.

 

The Central Intelligence Agency did not assess that there were Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq.