Iran Nuke deal reached with 6 major powers

One of the concerns about the potential sidelining of the Iranian hardliners is that the moderates are just as bad, just not as wacko-religious. Regarding Iranian expansion and terrrorism, they may even be worse. Basically there's a good chance that their religious supreme leader will end up giving way to a military supreme leader along the lines of Saddam Hussein.

You literally don't have a clue do you?

I believe that analysis was from Foreign Policy magazine citing military officials.

No offense El Chup, but just because an Iranian woman once agreed to have sex with you doesn't mean the country is run by pro American moderates.

And Foreign Policy magazine IIRC has won major awards in the past and is considered nonpartisan.

Yeah, meanwhile I've known Iranians for 20 years, have been there, have had obvious intimate connections with the place, and well read on the country and can run circles around you and gtrado from your insular little lives.

Oh, but a magazine says X, so that must be the truth....

Have you been to Iran George?

Do you no many Iranians?

You're already bigoted against Muslims, so my bet is no........

Unlikely. Iran actually has a good experience with responsive government. It wasn't until the days of the Shah, and then the crusty old Ayatollahs, that things went to shit. I see them climbing out of that pit and becoming what they used to be.

A few weeks ago I spent a couple of hours talking to an Iranian who is running for mayor of Frankfort (our state capital). She still had a very interesting accent. Unfortunately, like most Iranian expats, she's not representative of the Iranian powers-that-be. That's why she an expat.

The worry about the Iranian military is valid. Their generals have been amassing more power and prestige within Iranian society, and can easily represent a far more Persian and expansionist outlook. Or just look at other Muslim countries. Pakistan - often ruled by a military junta. Egypt, ruled by the military directly when it's not ruled by the military indirectly. Iraq under Saddam. Syria under Assad. the Stans under a variety of strongmen.

IIRC, Foreign Policy has multiple researchers and experts on Iran.

That pretty much trumps your anecdotal "knowledge" about Iran and Iranians.

Unless there's a powerful, well-established, well-disciplined, very well-funded, organized group ready to step in and run the country, either directly or a bit more behind the scenes.

I do believe most Iranians do like Americans though there is a ton of anti-American and general anti-western propaganda spewed by the government. In General, Persians are more civilized and more moderate than Arabs, Shiia Islam is generally less saturated in the barbaric shit compared to Sunni Islam (though it is still a version of Islam and so just as fundamentally fucked up, though people thankfully generally don't carry out the fucked up parts as strictly), but it is a mistake to believe that just becomes the less extreme branch of the extremists got elected that they are not still extremists. They still have to pass through the filter of getting approved by the Supreme Leader and that means only the far right even got on the ballot.

Those "moderate" far right people want to accomplish the same thing as the other far right people but just want to go about it a different way. It would be nice if this is part of a trend towards moderation but again the Supreme Leader and the far right council of mullahs controls everything so that is not likely to happen.

"Like" may be too strong of a word. But a lot of the younger crowd in Iran gets their view of America however they get it - internet, media, whatever - and they see our Disneylands and Taco Bells and they want to know why they don't have that too.

https://www.google.com/amp/www.wsj....ms-work-1466380760?client=ms-android-verizon#

The IAEA has said the results of their inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities last year confirm that trace amounts of refined uranium were present. This provides a new line of evidence that Iran's past nuclear program was actually aimed towards nuclear weapons despite the denials by the Iranian government.

It also demonstrates why the agreement matters. This kind of access is crucial.

Hey, Demi, remember when you rage quit over a pic from South Park twice?
That was hilarious.

What was the pic again. I forgot what it looks like.

Well no shit.

It also demonstrates that they're going to continue to lie.

As Gul said, all the more reason the access in the agreement is critical.

Of course they will, but the agreement provides for independent verfication, so we'll continue to catch them in such lies.

Yeah, but we're not allowed in there to inspect.

And, of course, no one in power ever thought Iran never had any sort of nuclear weapons program. And, of course, there's nothing about this discovery that changes the long-standing assessment that that program was put to bed over a decade ago. Hyping this as some sort of big find is like hyping degraded, empty, mustard gas canisters as proof of Iraq having an ongoing chemical weapons program. In other words, this isn't news, except if you think that Iran lying and the Obama Administration being right about everything is news.

Except that under the agreement we require Iran to continue to upgrade their nuclear weapons production capabilities. They have to or they'll be in violation.

This thread is all about how we got in there to inspect because of the agreement. So how is it you claim we can't inspect?

Under the agreement, no Americans are allowed to inspect any Iranian nuclear sites. Under the annex to the agreement, no international inspectors are allowed access to any of the sensitive Iranian nuclear sites.

All inspections are carried out by Iranians.

No, they were carried out by the IAEA.

Probably not, as Iran wasn't going to allow the IAEA to actually inspect anything. Instead Iran was going to provide the IAEA with video of each site, along with pictures, and the IAEA was then going to direct the Iranians where to take samples. The Iranians would then make a video of them collecting the samples and labeling them for the IAEA. The text of that annex was posted much earlier in this thread.

Meanwhile, Thomas Pickering, one of the Clinton Administration diplomats who did tremendous amounts of work to push the Iran agreement, turns out to have been on Boeing's payroll. (Daily Beast story)

Boeing is set to close a $25 billion dollar deal with Iran thanks to Pickering's support, for which they paid him a lot of money.

More bold faced lying. From the article in Dinner's link:

It couldn't be more clear.