[blackjack21]

Why is Saudi hegemony preferable to Iranian one?

It isn't. US strategy would be to prevent the rise of a regional hegemon.

Trump and his team are neocons.

Generally, Trump is highly critical of neoconservatives. He defeated neoconservatives Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio in the 2016 primaries. John Bolton is a neocon. Pompeo was part of the Tea Party movement. Trump's team is not primarily neoconservatives. Mike Esper is currently the acting SecDef and he's allied with the Heritage Foundation--paleo conservative not neoconservative.

They needed excuses to hide their racist motives for electing a racist and that is why people kept claiming that they were voting for Trump to allegedly prevent "Killary" from escalating issues with countries in the Middle-East while those very same people have been cheerleading Trump's policy in the Middle-East making things 10 times worse with Jerusalem and Iran.

The US has the first amendment. Nobody needs to hide racist motives. It's perfectly legal for an American to join a neo-nazi party here. It's just not a popular sentiment in America. Bush and Obama said they would move the embassy too. Trump just did it. That's hardly a meaningful reason to start a war. As for Iran, Trump ran on cancelling the Iran nuclear deal. It was not some sort of thing he said he was going to uphold and then somehow changed his mind once he got elected. Racists would be looking for someone who is serious about racism. Trump isn't a racist. He has a long history of working with and hiring people of all races, and maintaining personal relationships with people of all races too. For example, he is a friend of Kanye West, which led among other things to prison sentencing reform.

These cheerleaders make it transparent therefore that "Killary's" supposed warmongering was just an excuse and not an actual reason.

Who is cheerleading war with Iran?

He does not appear to be interested in fighting/sanctioning Turkey, despite the fact that Turkey is threatening US and western interests directly by betraying NATO's rules and by openly harassing American, French and Italian drilling operations in Cyprus but he does seem interested in fighting Iran who is not affecting western interests in any way and who was abiding with the deal it made with the west.

U.S. Imposes Sanctions on Turkish Officials Over Detained American Pastor
U.S. threatens to cut Turkey from F-35 program over deal with Russia

Trump is the only US or western President that has given Israel 2 major concessions by recognising Jerusalem and abandoning the Iran nuclear deal without even taking a concession from Israel for the Palestinians or the Iranians.

Trump considers something like that a fig leaf. Congress called for it ages ago, and Obama and Bush promised to do that but didn't. Again, Trump ran for president in opposition to the nuclear deal. It wasn't something that could be construed as a position he decided on after a bunch of Israeli lobbying.

It has never happened before for a major power to make concessions to another country without asking that country to make similar concessions to the other parties in the dispute.

If you are talking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, perhaps. However, that type of analysis only applies to someone trying to operate as a peace broker and trying to appear indifferent. The US is not indifferent. It takes Israel's side for the most part. Every now and then, you get a US president like Obama that will be harshly critical of Israel, but it's not the norm in US politics.

If what you claim were really true, that Israel has fear instead of outright hatred, then Israel would support the normalisation of relations with Iran instead of supporting the escalation of tensions.

This is a reality that exist inside of your head. Preventing a regional hegemon is US policy. Israel is not going to support normalizing relations with a country that calls for pushing Israel into the sea.

Warmongers like Trump do not honour pieces of paper indeed.

What war has Trump started?

The alliance with Saudi shows this argument to be rather ridiculous and yet another excuse to underplay the fact that Trump is just a warmongering Israeli puppet.

The alliance with Saudi Arabia is clearly about oil security for Western Europe. It used to play a significant role in the US too as we used to import about 15% of our oil from Saudi Arabia. There are significant factions in the US who don't want to be allied with Saudi Arabia.

It was US money and weapons that bankrolled the invasion of Iran by Iraq and once again it is the US that has withdrawn from the Iranian deal.

Iraq had a French and Soviet military footprint. SCUD missiles are Soviet. MiGs are Soviet. Mirage F1s are French. AMX-30s are French. T-60s and T-72s are Soviet. Mi-24s are Soviet. AK-47s are Soviet. Iraq produced its own artillery. On the contrary, it was Iran that had an American-made air force consisting of F-4 Phantoms and F-14 Tomcats, which were sold to the Shah's government. The Gulf Arab states provided most of the funding. The US provided loans for non-military uses, mostly agriculture.

I resent the fact that people like you seem to always attribute racism as the motive for disagreeing with the left-wing radicals or voting for a Republican candidate instead of someone like crooked Hillary. Racism has nothing to do with the fact that I prefer to vote for someone that is against open borders and unlimited abortions.

It's this sort of ideological blindness that makes noemon's analysis so weak.

Trump had already stated that the Iran nuclear deal was a bad deal while running for president. Recognizing the Golan heights as Israeli territory was a common sense action that was not even request by Israel.

For people who constantly claim that Trump is a liar, etc., he's actually very transparent about what he believes. He's pro-Israel and unashamedly so.

No, it's based on IAEA inspections Iran had to subject to.

Inspections only involve monitoring stated sites. Countries that want to build nuclear weapons won't be stopped by the IAEA.

That's beside the point.

If you are analyzing whether or not the US is going to go to war with Iran, it's a very relevant point of analysis. Iran is huge and clearly on the other side of the planet. It's also mountainous. It's very difficult to fight in mountainous terrain. @anasawad is quite correct about that.

The question is whether a) air strikes could reliably destroy an Iranian nuclear program, the answer to that is no, according to military experts*

They could take out reactors for sure. Reactors require cooling. So hitting cooling towers is an easy military strike. They just don't want to cause a meltdown if they can avoid it, so they proceed with caution.

b) whether air strikes/economic sanctions could lead to the toppling of the current regime, the answer to that is no as well.

Iran is not as cohesive a country as you think it is. One aspect of mountainous countries is that the tribal systems will create lots of small factions. Additionally, it would not be as hard as you think to foment civil strife in Iran. Again, Western powers have not done so, because they had other plans in place--like for example, keeping the Kurds divided since WWI. The US doesn't want to do something like that right now, because it could destabilize Iraq and Turkey.

Sanctions against Turkey appear to be producing political change. Erdogan Loses Istanbul to Opposition Candidate — Again If Turkey were to drop NATO and become hostile to the West, it wouldn't be long before the West was considering a push for a Kurdish state to deprive Turkey and Iran of some territory.

[Beren]

Of speculating.

Praise the Lord for the Trump of God.

I'm sure he hadn't been speculating much before he decided to strike Iran hard, that's why he called off the whole thing right before it was too late. God bless him for changing his mind just in time!

[noemon]

It isn't. US strategy would be to prevent the rise of a regional hegemon.

The US's strategy regarding Iran is to do what Israel wants, it has been so for decades but Trump has upped the ante and become the most pro-Israeli US President in history.

The US has the first amendment. Nobody needs to hide racist motives. It's perfectly legal for an American to join a neo-nazi party here. It's just not a popular sentiment in America. Bush and Obama said they would move the embassy too. Trump just did it. That's hardly a meaningful reason to start a war. As for Iran, Trump ran on cancelling the Iran nuclear deal. It was not some sort of thing he said he was going to uphold and then somehow changed his mind once he got elected. Racists would be looking for someone who is serious about racism. Trump isn't a racist. He has a long history of working with and hiring people of all races, and maintaining personal relationships with people of all races too. For example, he is a friend of Kanye West, which led among other things to prison sentencing reform.

It's cute trying to create more fig-leafs to hide the obvious reality but we both know all this is non-sense. First of all you have no free-speech in America, neither now under Trump nor before under anybody and certainly not anywhere near the free-speech we have in Europe and even more especially in my necks of the woods in Greece. Free-speech is not just about your privilege to say racist things with impunity which is what you believe free-speech should be about, it is about having a diversity of media, political opinions and honest debate, in the US you have never had any of that, you have never had either far-right or far-left or anything in between them either, no communist media, no socialist media and no fascist media, in Europe we do have that, in Greece we have both communist and fascist elected representatives in our parliament, you do not even have social democrats in your political landscape. Your entire speech operates within the confines of the liberal-conservative constraints, you are in a politico-economic cage as you have been for the past century. Your guns and constitutional platitudes have not done anything to alter this reality of the mental cage you live under. The funny thing is that you believe that anti-immigrant rhetoric and racism is the important idea that is allegedly being censored by your establishment and you take issue with that instead of taking issue with the censoring and ridiculing of ideas such as a universal healthcare and education. As if your culture and civilisation will increase if people can be openly racist but it will reduce if people get equal access to education and healthcare.

Second, racism in your multi-racial society has been anathema in the past couple of decades only because your elites realised that inciting/permitting racial hatred will lead to the fragmentation of the USA due to the sheer size of non-white American community. And lastly we can clearly see in here that racist people with extremely racist views against other people and countries are still bothered being called out "racists" and are openly calling for the silencing of those who are calling them out as such as if free-speech only applies to them saying racist stuff but not to those calling them out. These people are neither free-speech advocates as they pretend nor are they not-racists. They are simply racists who demand the privilege of a safe space for racism.

But all this is besides the point, the fact of the matter that I said earlier:

They needed excuses to hide their racist motives for electing a racist and that is why people kept claiming that they were voting for Trump to allegedly prevent "Killary" from escalating issues with countries in the Middle-East while those very same people have been cheerleading Trump's policy in the Middle-East making things 10 times worse with Jerusalem and Iran. These cheerleaders make it transparent therefore that "Killary's" supposed warmongering was just an excuse and not an actual reason.

These were the reasons our resident Trump supporters were using to legitimise their support for Trump, I know it, you know it. We all witnessed it in here. Now we can put it to rest that "Killary's warmongering" was a real reason at least for those who are cheerleading the warmongering with Iran. Don't you agree?

Who is cheerleading war with Iran?

Lots of our resident conservatives as well as loads in the Trump administration and beyond.

Do you support the argument that the US should attack and or sanction Iran? Or do you support the argument that calls for normalisation of relations with Iran?

U.S. Imposes Sanctions on Turkish Officials Over Detained American Pastor
U.S. threatens to cut Turkey from F-35 program over deal with Russia

Right, the US imposed sanctions on 2 Turkish individuals, 2 years after Turkey imprisoned an American pastor under false charges and without trial and has done absolutely nothing to Turkey who was pointing her warships on American drills and successfully forced them out eventually. Turkey has humbled and ridiculed both US and EU and the only thing Trump, the US and Europe(for that matter) has done about it is to keep quiet along with some token and meaningless threats.

Trump considers something like that a fig leaf. Congress called for it ages ago, and Obama and Bush promised to do that but didn't. Again, Trump ran for president in opposition to the nuclear deal. It wasn't something that could be construed as a position he decided on after a bunch of Israeli lobbying.
If you are talking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, perhaps. However, that type of analysis only applies to someone trying to operate as a peace broker and trying to appear indifferent. The US is not indifferent. It takes Israel's side for the most part. Every now and then, you get a US president like Obama that will be harshly critical of Israel, but it's not the norm in US politics.

Not at all, there has never been a concession made in modern history during any event where one country has received something for nothing at all. Your allies help you secure a better deal but they always request from you to conceded a token something, so that they can also pretend to be slightly unbiased and there is always the case of a major power supporting one state over another during a dispute, but the case of giving something to one state for absolutely nothing in return is a historical first. Trump is the one and only leader in modern history(that I'm aware of) that has given something to one state in a dispute without receiving anything at all in return. And Trump does not just represent any country, but the US who is supposedly the Arbiter of International Relations in the planet and as such has a duty to maintain a facade as a bare minimum. Don't you think?

This is a reality that exist inside of your head. Preventing a regional hegemon is US policy. Israel is not going to support normalizing relations with a country that calls for pushing Israel into the sea.

First of all, Israel has normalised relations with Saudi who have been calling for Israel to be pushed to the sea for decades so that nonsense can be put to rest. Second, as we can clearly witness US and Trump's policy particularly is to only do what Israel wants without any questions asked and without any concessions from Israel in return for this support. There is no point in pretending that the US is supposedly trying to keep some kind of balance in one sentence while evidently recognising this unbalance in the next sentence, as you do.

What war has Trump started?

Are you suggesting that the etiquette "warmonger" applies only to those who have started wars? Trump is evidently warmongering against Iran the same way the American establishment was warmogering against Syria, Lybia, Yugoslavia and Iraq.

The alliance with Saudi Arabia is clearly about oil security for Western Europe. It used to play a significant role in the US too as we used to import about 15% of our oil from Saudi Arabia. There are significant factions in the US who don't want to be allied with Saudi Arabia.

Iran can easily replace Saudi as oil supplier to the west and Europe, so your argument does not stand at all. If you honestly want to know the truth, the fact is that Saudis are easy to control and manipulate because they have no culture, no civilisation and no education while the Iranians have all those things and that means that any relationship with them will have to be on respectful terms.

Iraq had a French and Soviet military footprint. SCUD missiles are Soviet. MiGs are Soviet. Mirage F1s are French. AMX-30s are French. T-60s and T-72s are Soviet. Mi-24s are Soviet. AK-47s are Soviet. Iraq produced its own artillery. On the contrary, it was Iran that had an American-made air force consisting of F-4 Phantoms and F-14 Tomcats, which were sold to the Shah's government. The Gulf Arab states provided most of the funding. The US provided loans for non-military uses, mostly agriculture.

Oh please.

It's this sort of ideological blindness that makes noemon's analysis so weak.

My analysis regarding the racist motives of people who voted for Trump is not weak mate and that is why it has bothered so many of you guys but it does not apply to all Trump supporters, only to those that advocate warmongering against Iran. Also if we are going to get technical this analysis of mine is a generalisation, there were certainly various reasons for people voting for Trump but the 2 main platforms were an anti-Muslim anti-immigrant message and an anti-war message, well if you strip the anti-war message then what is left is the racist message. It's not really rocket science and it is quite obvious.

Sanctions against Turkey appear to be producing political change. Erdogan Loses Istanbul to Opposition Candidate — Again If Turkey were to drop NATO and become hostile to the West, it wouldn't be long before the West was considering a push for a Kurdish state to deprive Turkey and Iran of some territory.

There are no sanctions against Turkey despite the fact that it has openly betrayed NATO's rules and has successfully threatened American troops in Syria and American companies drilling in Cyprus.

The token US sanctions against 2 Turkish individuals you linked above were placed for a couple of weeks until the US pastor was released from custody, not for any of these other actions.

[SolarCross]

in Greece we have both communist and fascist elected representatives in our parliament, you do not even have social democrats in your political landscape.

I don't think Greeks have anything to brag about if they choose to vote for amoral idiots. If the US electoral scene is sublimely free from that kind of filth then that is all to the credit of the yanks. It isn't illegal to vote stupid and evil but no one chooses to do it.

[noemon]

I don't think Greeks have anything to brag about if they choose to vote for amoral idiots. If the US electoral scene is sublimely free from that kind of filth then that is all to the credit of the yanks. It isn't illegal to vote stupid and evil but no one chooses to do it.

I am not the one bragging about the US' free speech to say racist things. You can call them amoral idiots if you like(I don't mind), but in Greece they do have a right to exist and they do, neither in the US or in the UK does anyone disagreeing with the establishment has a right to exist and that is why they don't. The system is designed to prevent anyone antagonistic to the casino-capitalist credo from gaining any representation and media outlet so it certainly needs to be pointed out to those bragging about their "free speech utopia". It is a heavily constrained free-speech, totally monitored and directed by the most powerful mind bending machine in history, tv, radio & internet.

It can probably even be said that the people of Iran have a larger diversity of opinion than the people of the US and the UK and that the Mullahs of Iran have less of a grip on the minds of Iranians than the tv, media, and social media establishment has in the minds of the Americans and British. And that is why as you said you find so many Iranian people opposed to the Mullahs but actually very few Americans and Brits opposed to the single-party states they live in.

[SolarCross]

I am not the one bragging about the US' free speech to say racist things. You can call them amoral idiots if you like(I don't mind), but in Greece they do have a right to exist and they do, neither in the US or in the UK does anyone disagreeing with the establishment has a right to exist and that is why they don't. The system is designed to prevent anyone antagonistic to the casino-capitalist credo from gaining any representation and media outlet so it certainly needs to be pointed out to those bragging about their "free speech utopia". It is a heavily constrained free-speech, totally monitored and directed by the most powerful mind bending machine in history, tv, radio & internet.

It can probably even be said that the people of Iran have a larger diversity of opinion than the people of the US and the UK and that the Mullahs of Iran have less of a grip on the minds of Iranians than the tv, media, and social media establishment has in the minds of the Americans and British. And that is why as you said you find so many Iranian people opposed to the Mullahs but actually very few Americans and Brits opposed to the single-party states they live in.

lol, nice tinfoil hat. You've been watching too much Alex Jones.

[noemon]

lol, nice tinfoil hat. You've been watching too much Alex Jones.

I don't get what you want to say and nor have I ever watched this person.

Was it not Alex Jones the guy that convinced people that a billionaire Hollywood character was the guy to be "anti-establishment"? and people like you and Blackjack believed?

[skinster]

Congratulations to the Iranian military that shot down the drone. I guess this is a sign that if Iran is attacked (further), there will be retaliation that'll burn down the ME - including US client states - and may spread onto the West just as it did after the wars on Iraq, Libya and Syria. Those who whine about the refugee crises of the last decade or so better get prepared too.

I'm curious about Iran's imperialism that Beren mentioned. What are you talking about?

The country that shot down our drone and targeted one of our aircraft carrying 39 people. Would you prefer that 39 people die before we act?

What about when the U.S. shot down an Iranian plane (flight 655) that didn't hypothetically kill "39 people" but in fact resulted in the murder of 290 civilians, something the U.S. refused to even apologise for. History is your frand.

This was Bush's response at the time:

But Iran is the bad guy in this story which includes the Genocidal Regime of America.

Damn I hope we don't go to war, but if we do I hope all the dumb cheerleaders for it die like pigs.

Report: Internet Users Who Call For Attacking Other Countries Will Now Be Enlisted In The Military Automatically

First of all, it is not the Iranians that have positioned themselves as enemies neither in the past or in the present. It was US money and weapons that bankrolled the invasion of Iran by Iraq and once again it is the US that has withdrawn from the Iranian deal.

Second, from what I recall it is Saudi wahhabism that has positioned itself as an enemy of the west and 9/11 was conducted by Saudi wahhabists.

None of these same people that cry about 9/11 give a fuck about Saudi Arabia. It is so bizarre.

[Nonsense]

The US's strategy regarding Iran is to do what Israel wants, it has been so for decades but Trump has upped the ante and become the most pro-Israeli US President in history.

I see little wrong with that strategy ,.

As with the Palestinians, so too with Iran, both the Iranian state & Palestinian territory are terrorist, dare I say it, 'Caliphates' .

Both would delight in eradicating Israel off the map, of course, saying it is one thing, doing it another, President TRUMP is the right president at the right time , giving Israel the proper American support that it fully deserves.


The increase in sanctions announced today are welcome news, provided that they have an immediate effect, of which the financial instrument's, the tools of which will affect Iran's capability to do business around the globe, being particularly dependent on oil sales.

Those oil tanker owners should pursue the Iranian regime for substantial damages in the American courts, along with other states for whom have felt the effects of rising oil prices that are a direct effect of Iranian actions.

The Iranian state must feel the pain of financial, as well as other sanctions, the effect, to which, should be a permament behavioural change to how it relates to both it's 'friends', or 'enemies' at home & abroad.
The alternative is a nuclear, theocratic state, that could destabilise not just the middle east, but elsewhere, far & wide.

[anasawad]

Sanctions collapsing the Iranian government is a dream at this point.
Funny enough, Obama's deal opening the economy for trade was more effective at bringing about disputes internally since the "common enemy" is no longer at the gates.
The tribes and the old dynasties are moving further to support the government, more than ever before. So don't dream about the tribes betraying Iran, that will never happen.
When the deal was on, disputes between the hardliners, clerics, reformists, and socialists were immediately brought to the forefront as there was no cause to rally everyone behind it; Now that the deal is off, and war is imminent, everyone is rallying to the aid.
I regularly follow Parliamentary sessions in Iran. Just a year ago, members routinely fought and shouted at each other discussing policy and laws, That's no longer the case.
The last time cohesion and cooperations between the disputing parties and factions in Iran was this well was in the late 70s and early 80s when they planned the revolution against the Shah and fought the war against Iraq.

Heck, Mustafa Kavakebean, Ali Mahjoub, and the national party are even siding with the government.
That's not an Iran ready to collapse, that's an Iran assembling for war.
So that whole bullshit about "the regime will collapse internally", that's only in your wet dreams, it ain't happening.
Zariff was right to say never threaten Iranians.

The only people who might turn on Iran are the Kurds, the Arabs, and to some extent the Azaris.
If they did turn on us, you won't see an "independent Kurdish dream state" or the "greater Azerbaijan", you'd see a few 100s of thousands of Kurds and Azaris lying dead in the streets of their cities as the Hazar and Roujam armies swiftly exterminate any traitorous scum and move on to the next.
The Kurds will never get the Zagros mountains, they're migrants to Iran and they sure as hell won't take a piece of it, likewise for the Azari nomads who settled within Iran during the empire.
Iran always was and will always be from mountain to mountain and from sea to sea. No more no less than that.

And @Nonsense, You can go shove those American courts up your ass. No court other than an Iranian court has authority in Iran.

[blackjack21]

It's cute trying to create more fig-leafs to hide the obvious reality but we both know all this is non-sense.

I don't share your point of view. I don't know why you think I do.

First of all you have no free-speech in America, neither now under Trump nor before under anybody and certainly not anywhere near the free-speech we have in Europe and even more especially in my necks of the woods in Greece.

You can be jailed in many parts of Europe for speech issues. Try wearing a swastika in Germany. Try making derogatory comments about migrants in France. Try making a video of your dog doing a Nazi salute in the UK.

Free-speech is not just about your privilege to say racist things with impunity which is what you believe free-speech should be about, it is about having a diversity of media, political opinions and honest debate, in the US you have never had any of that, you have never had either far-right or far-left or anything in between them either, no communist media, no socialist media and no fascist media, in Europe we do have that, in Greece we have both communist and fascist elected representatives in our parliament, you do not even have social democrats in your political landscape.

Nothing prevents them from organizing in the US. They are just not very popular. You might not consider the Ku Klux Klan to be an extremist group, but a lot of people in America would disagree with you. They were very popular for a long time and a big part of the Democratic party machine. Ku Klux Klan rally. In the US, Bernie Sanders runs as a Democratic Socialist in the Democratic party. Most of the Democratic party's more popular candidates are well to the left of center. Joe Biden is the last mainstream centrist, but between his neo roots, gaffes and the #metoo movement trying to flush him, the Democrats are headed to the left.

Your entire speech operates within the confines of the liberal-conservative constraints, you are in a politico-economic cage as you have been for the past century.

We have a first past the post, winner-takes-all political system. Nobody is going to stop you from proposing a Nazi government. You just won't get enough adherents to be politically relevant. So people will just see you as some sort of crank if you do that.

The funny thing is that you believe that anti-immigrant rhetoric and racism is the important idea that is allegedly being censored by your establishment and you take issue with that instead of taking issue with the censoring and ridiculing of ideas such as a universal healthcare and education.

Universal healthcare discussions are not prohibited in the United States by a long shot. Americans just look at the roads and say to themselves, "do we want the people responsible for our roads to be responsible for our healthcare too"? The answer is usually "no." Americans want more affordable health care, not socialist health care. American health care is shielded from true capitalist competition. That's why it's so expensive.

Second, racism in your multi-racial society has been anathema in the past couple of decades only because your elites realised that inciting/permitting racial hatred will lead to the fragmentation of the USA due to the sheer size of non-white American community.

The elites are the ones fragmenting the USA.

And lastly we can clearly see in here that racist people with extremely racist views against other people and countries are still bothered being called out "racists" and are openly calling for the silencing of those who are calling them out as such as if free-speech only applies to them saying racist stuff but not to those calling them out.

Well, that has changed in the United States. "Racist" means "not a Democrat".

These were the reasons our resident Trump supporters were using to legitimise their support for Trump, I know it, you know it.

I don't need to legitimize my support for Trump. I supported Trump because of his positions on immigration, trade, corporate tax cuts and his absolutely outrageous behavior upending political correctness. As I have said openly, I would choose Hitler over Hillary. We had a fascist thread going here on PoFo at one point, and you were the most vocal opponent of it. How you claim to have free speech when you routinely use your moderators powers to suppress speech you don't like here on PoFo is absolutely bewildering.

Now we can put it to rest that "Killary's warmongering" was a real reason at least for those who are cheerleading the warmongering with Iran. Don't you agree?

A lot of people were utterly appalled by what they did in Libya and Syria--especially the Syria refugee crisis they spawned. So there are plenty of people who would have voted against Hillary for that reason. A lot of evangelicals for example would have voted against her for her position on late-term and partial birth abortion. You can chalk everything up to racism if you wish, but Trump even got more of the Hispanic vote than Romney did.

Do you support the argument that the US should attack and or sanction Iran? Or do you support the argument that calls for normalisation of relations with Iran?

I don't think the US should invade Iran. I think the US Navy should demand more space around our warships. If Iran did shoot down a US drone, the US should have a meaningful response.

Right, the US imposed sanctions on 2 Turkish individuals, 2 years after Turkey imprisoned an American pastor under false charges and without trial and has done absolutely nothing to Turkey who was pointing her warships on American drills and successfully forced them out eventually.

The US also raised tariffs on Turkish steel and aluminium to points where they are effectively not competitive in the US market. The Lira has lost considerable value. The Turkish stock market is well off its highs too.

Turkey has humbled and ridiculed both US and EU and the only thing Trump, the US and Europe(for that matter) has done about it is to keep quiet along with some token and meaningless threats.

They want to rid Turkey of Erdogan. They don't want to lose a once vigorous NATO ally.

Not at all, there has never been a concession made in modern history during any event where one country has received something for nothing at all.

Ok. So moving the US embassy to Jerusalem is an absolutely unprecedented event in modern history in your mind, and in mine it doesn't even warrant a shrug of my shoulders. I don't care.

...so that they can also pretend to be slightly unbiased...

I like that Trump doesn't pretend.

Trump is the one and only leader in modern history(that I'm aware of) that has given something to one state in a dispute without receiving anything at all in return.

American Zionists and evangelicals love him for it. He's just not extracting a pound of flesh from Israel, which you somehow think is wrong.

And Trump does not just represent any country, but the US who is supposedly the Arbiter of International Relations in the planet and as such has a duty to maintain a facade as a bare minimum. Don't you think?

I think pretending that Israel is not a US ally hasn't helped us in decades of trying to bring peace to that region, so I see little point in maintaining a facade that fools nobody.

First of all, Israel has normalised relations with Saudi who have been calling for Israel to be pushed to the sea for decades so that nonsense can be put to rest.

They normalized relations with Egypt too. Saudi Arabia fears Iran. So does Israel. The enemy of my enemy is my friend--as the foreign policy adage goes.

There is no point in pretending that the US is supposedly trying to keep some kind of balance in one sentence while evidently recognising this unbalance in the next sentence, as you do.

I don't think the US should treat the Palestinians in an unbiased manner. They're sore losers in my view.

Oh please.

You can continue to believe that all things that happen somehow start in the US. It just isn't the case.

My analysis regarding the racist motives of people who voted for Trump is not weak mate and that is why it has bothered so many of you guys but it does not apply to all Trump supporters, only to those that advocate warmongering against Iran.

What would racism have to do with Iran? They're aryan. R1 haplogroup. Maybe Arabs feel that way about Iranians, but it's not clear why you think Trump supporters would dislike Iran on some sort of racial basis. You seem race obsessed.

Also if we are going to get technical this analysis of mine is a generalisation, there were certainly various reasons for people voting for Trump but the 2 main platforms were an anti-Muslim anti-immigrant message and an anti-war message, well if you strip the anti-war message then what is left is the racist message.

Anti-immigrant isn't all about race either. It's significantly about wages. That's why Trump's tariff threats should have been taken seriously, but weren't by his detractors. I had a many hundred page thread on Trump that got shut down by the moderators. free speech

Trump Hits Turkey When It's Down, Doubling Tariffs

I am not the one bragging about the US' free speech to say racist things.

You argue that we don't have free speech in the US, ignore the fact that you can be criminally sanctioned for speech in Europe, claim to be for some sort of "real free speech", and simultaneously use your moderator powers to take down speech you don't like.

The system is designed to prevent anyone antagonistic to the casino-capitalist credo from gaining any representation and media outlet so it certainly needs to be pointed out to those bragging about their "free speech utopia".

That sort of thing happens on PoFo right here too by you, way the hell over in Greece. You try to prevent anyone from espousing racist opinions here. You can certainly do that, but it's quite hypocritical to say there is more free speech in Europe of that you are somehow a champion of free speech.

It can probably even be said that the people of Iran have a larger diversity of opinion than the people of the US and the UK

Well, if the mainstream media in the US and UK don't allow racist views, and Donald Trump got elected because of racism in your view, clearly your statement, "It is a heavily constrained free-speech, totally monitored and directed by the most powerful mind bending machine in history, tv, radio & internet." is manifestly false by your own arguments.

And that is why as you said you find so many Iranian people opposed to the Mullahs but actually very few Americans and Brits opposed to the single-party states they live in.

Brexit and Donald Trump alone would toss that on its head, and yet you embrace the US establishment's argument that anyone who opposes them does so because they are racist.

[Nonsense]

Sorry, double-post.

[Nonsense]

Sanctions collapsing the Iranian government is a dream at this point.
Funny enough, Obama's deal opening the economy for trade was more effective at bringing about disputes internally since the "common enemy" is no longer at the gates.
The tribes and the old dynasties are moving further to support the government, more than ever before. So don't dream about the tribes betraying Iran, that will never happen.
When the deal was on, disputes between the hardliners, clerics, reformists, and socialists were immediately brought to the forefront as there was no cause to rally everyone behind it; Now that the deal is off, and war is imminent, everyone is rallying to the aid.
I regularly follow Parliamentary sessions in Iran. Just a year ago, members routinely fought and shouted at each other discussing policy and laws, That's no longer the case.
The last time cohesion and cooperations between the disputing parties and factions in Iran was this well was in the late 70s and early 80s when they planned the revolution against the Shah and fought the war against Iraq.

Heck, Mustafa Kavakebean, Ali Mahjoub, and the national party are even siding with the government.
That's not an Iran ready to collapse, that's an Iran assembling for war.
So that whole bullshit about "the regime will collapse internally", that's only in your wet dreams, it ain't happening.
Zariff was right to say never threaten Iranians.

The only people who might turn on Iran are the Kurds, the Arabs, and to some extent the Azaris.
If they did turn on us, you won't see an "independent Kurdish dream state" or the "greater Azerbaijan", you'd see a few 100s of thousands of Kurds and Azaris lying dead in the streets of their cities as the Hazar and Roujam armies swiftly exterminate any traitorous scum and move on to the next.
The Kurds will never get the Zagros mountains, they're migrants to Iran and they sure as hell won't take a piece of it, likewise for the Azari nomads who settled within Iran during the empire.
Iran always was and will always be from mountain to mountain and from sea to sea. No more no less than that.

And @Nonsense, You can go shove those American courts up your ass. No court other than an Iranian court has authority in Iran.

And @Nonsense, You can go shove those American courts up your ass. No court other than an Iranian court has authority in Iran.


Has anyone suggested suing the Iranian government in Iran?

There is absolutely no need, or any point to what you suggested(wrongly-as usual), I did say(but your prejudices have addled you 'brain')that the tanker owners should sue the Iranian regime-state, in the American courts.
Obviously, with your limited intellect, you cannot comprehend the possibilities of such a legal action, never mind, give it time.

[anasawad]

@Nonsense
U just stated again that the tanker's owners should sue Iranians in >American courts<.
And I will, again, respond by shove those courts up your ass. The same to everyone who suggests suing Iran in American courts, which is not strange here on PoFo.

The only courts Iran will respond to are Iranian courts. American courts can keep their bullshit all day everyday, they have no authority in\on Iran.
Heck, not even international courts have authority in Iran, and will never do.

[Zionist Nationalist]

The only people who might turn on Iran are the Kurds, the Arabs, and to some extent the Azaris.
If they did turn on us, you won't see an "independent Kurdish dream state" or the "greater Azerbaijan", you'd see a few 100s of thousands of Kurds and Azaris lying dead in the streets of their cities as the Hazar and Roujam armies swiftly exterminate any traitorous scum and move on to the next.
The Kurds will never get the Zagros mountains, they're migrants to Iran and they sure as hell won't take a piece of it, likewise for the Azari nomads who settled within Iran during the empire.
Iran always was and will always be from mountain to mountain and from sea to sea. No more no less than that.

so you basically admit that the Iranian regime is cruel and ready to genocide its opponents.
sounds like Saddam scenario 2.0
just dont forget what happened to Iraq and Saddam

[anasawad]

@Zionist Nationalist
Ooh honey, they would dream and beg to deal with the clerics and the Iranian government if they betrayed us.
They'll deal with the tribes; You know, the ones who have empire building in their resume.
You're not starting a war with the Iranian government and regime, you'll be going to war against all of Iran this time.

And if migrants and refugees welcomed into Iran turned on Iran and sided with its enemies in war, they will be treated as enemy fighters.
The clerics might deport them, the tribal armies, which would make up the overwhelming majority of soldiers, wont show such mercy, rather pacify them and move on to fight the invading forces.
In all out war, there are no rules.

In Iraq, Saddam was the aggressor, the Kurds fought by his side in war, then after the war ended he turned on them.
And Iraq, when the US invaded, was a broken fractured and on the edge country.

[Beren]

So there are new sanctions against Iran and Ali Khamenei turns out to be so rich that he could put the Trump Organization in his pocket and even his business empire alone is worth being sanctioned in its own right like it's a rogue state on its own.

Donald Trump orders fresh sanctions against Iran's Ali Khamenei

Assets of the Ayatollah Part 1
Assets of the Ayatollah Part 2
Assets of the Ayatollah Part 3

How could he be an imperialist?

[anasawad]

@Beren
That "investigation" is either pure propoganda or the people doing it are total retards.
Those assets are part of Beyar program, which funds many organizations and institutions in Iran, as well as acting as a medium for the tribal leadership to invest.
Setad is one of those organizations, and many invest in it. Including Baalbek tribes.
Funny enough, they claim to "view" it's financial reports, yet they skipped the parts where it shows where it's funding and investments in it are coming from.

Also, and this is hilarious. If any bothered looking at the investors' declarations, some of the many many names to show up will be key members of my family, along with key members of the Hazar tribe which we belong to.


No wonder Iranian official looking at this "report" called it baseless and, in meaning, idiotic and far from reality.
I love how the sources are mainly this person and that person said, and everyone refuses to give names.


EDIT:
Note, I forgot how the English spelling of Beyar is, so wrote it as I pronounce it.

[Beren]

The only thing I wonder about is whether how many tens of billions of dollars Xi Jinping could have.

I guess he'd be sanctionable too.

[skinster]

America's going it alone, nobody wants to play with America (besides its client genocidal regimes Israel and Saudi Arabia who nobody loves)