How Iran outfoxes U.S.

[spursncowboys]

http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/21/opinions/miller-iran-chess-game/index.html

[m>s]

Obama ain't even playing checkers. Tic tac toe maybe

[Winehole23]

US forces surround Iran. meanwhile you guys are talking about checkers and tic tac toe.

the OP isn't much better. it's a farrago of overacted grievances, in slightly twistified emotive prose. it's what "omni-directional belligerence" looks like when it sulks.

[Nbadan]

By Aaron David Miller

Neo-con shill

[MultiTroll]

Neo-con shill
Ya whats with CNN becoming more and more Publike?

[Warlord23]

SnC, what I gather from your posting is that you scour the internet for opinion pieces that fit your worldview and take them at face value without questioning the underlying assumptions. If you look at the article you posted, the author makes 4 points:

1. Human rights abuses and the Shia militia: Why does the US not behave in a hostile manner with Saudi Arabia whose human rights abuses are arguably worse than Iran? The Saudis have sponsored Sunni terrorism worldwide by pushing their Wahai-Salafist ideology. Read up on the history of Pakistan and how Saudi-sponsored madrassas (religious schools) and mosques in the Zia-ul-haq regime of the 70s and 80s contributed to religious extremism there. The same thing happened in Afghanistan with the Saudis setting up religious schools during their war with the Soviets. If human rights abuses are an important criterion for foreign policy and trade, why not stop trade with China? Why did the US ally with Saddam, Gaddafi and Mubarak before turning on them eventually? The "human rights" angle has no consistent precedent.

2. Our relationship with allies: Curiously the author only touches upon Saudi Arabia and Israel. What about allies who have a longer history of allying with the US, not to mention a shared culture ... countries like the UK, France and Germany? Obama isn't taking decisions unilaterally regarding Iran. There are 5 countries working here, and while Russia and China might have different motives, the author needs to explain any motives that the other European nations would have to sign up to a raw deal. Also, isolation and sanctions haven't slowed down Iran, just like they didn't stop North Korea. Bombing (a tactic advocated by Israel and Saudi Arabia) will not eliminate Iran's underground nuclear facilities and almost certainly spark another long, draining military conflict with a country much stronger than Iraq. With Sunni ISIS waiting in the wings to expand their presence, the last thing we need is destabilisation of Shia Iraq.

3. Syria and Iraq: The author correctly portrays the Shia-Sunni faultlines but draws out the wrong conclusions. The destabilisation of Shia Iraq and degradation of Assad directly contributed to the rise of Sunni ISIS. Similar degradation of Shia Iran would simply strengthen ISIS and throw the Middle East into further turmoil. I know many don't like to hear this, but a stable Iran is an important bulwark against the rise of Sunni terrorism. Take a look at how an unstable Pakistan emboldened and enabled Al Qaeda and Taliban in Afghanistan.

4. The nuclear deal: Since bombing Iran won't eliminate their capability, and sanctions haven't worked, this deal is the best option to reverse and slow down Iran's nuclear ambitions for a generation. Yes, this solution is not a permanent one - but stopping a good solution for an ideal (and unrealistic) one is simply not a smart thing to do.

TLDR - some of the author's underlying assumptions are either incomplete or unrealistic. Would love to hear your feedback, SnC

[Warlord23]

Also, let's be honest about the incentives/objectives of the players here before deciding which narrative to trust.

One the one hand you have:
1. US, UK, France, Germany: An alliance representing most of the West/developed world who want to bring Iran into mainstream trade/commerce and engage them in a mature way despite Iran's inherent flaws. Why do they want to do this? Because it worked with China (trade has blunted China's communist/authoritatrian policies and made them more integrated into the world economy), it worked when Reagan engaged Gorbachev (despite the failure of the Reykjavik talks, dialogue paved the way for the eventual Nuclear Force treaty). Therefore there is ample precedent to draw upon.

2. Russia: They want to trade more with Iran and sell them weapons.

3. China: Interested in more oil trade with Iran.

On the other hand, you have:

1. Saudi Arabia: They see themselves as the face of Sunni Islam, and believe Shia Islam to be their mortal enemy. Their motives in opposing Iran are purely religious. They would like nothing more than ISIS and other Sunni groups to destabilise and take over as much of the Middle East as possible.

2. Israel: Netanyahu's politics is based on projecting himself as the only leader taking on various threats in the Middle East that threaten Israel. His motive is to trump up and overstate these threats. Since 1992, Netanyahu has said about a dozen times that "Iran is 2/3/4 years away from the bomb". He has clamored for military action against Iran for years, despite his statements being contradicted by reality and by past Mossad leadership.

3. Republicans: Their core objective is to brand the Obama administration as a failure and anti-American. They don't mind performing U-turns on their own ideas to oppose the administration (e.g. the individual mandate in Obamacare/Romneycare). Secondly, the cheerleaders of the Iraq war (Bolton et al) are back promoting an Iran war. In my view, these people have zero credibility after dragging the US and her allies through a trillion-dollar war on the wrong country, costing thousands of allied soldiers' lives not to mention 100,000+ Iraqi lives, all based on uncertain, low-quality intelligence - gleefully backed by weapons manufacturers and other crony capitalist firms. And here they are beating the drums of war with similarly uncertain, low-quality hypothetical projections while accepting large donations from the same weapons manufacturers.

You can choose to believe the latter group, but do so while understanding their motives and incentives (Sunni Islam, Likud's politics, the military-industrial complex) which are not aligned with the interests of a majority of Americans and other developed countries.

[velik_m]

Washington doesn't play this kind of game well. It is tripping all over itself trying to figure out how to combat ISIS in Syria and yet not empower al-Assad (no answer), how to combat ISIS in Iraq without favoring the Shia-dominated government and alienating Iraqi Sunnis (no answer)and how to backstop the Saudis in Yemen without enabling them to make matters worse through their airstrikes (no answer).

Iran has a much easier time managing contradictions.

This is i think the central point of the article, but the author misses the obvious - Iran has no contradictions, they support groups that have shared values with them. Meanwhile USA is all over the map, says they want democracy in middle east, but has no problem with army removing democratically elected president in Egypt, wants to stop human right violations, but they let Israel do whatever they want, want better women's rights but support the Saudis, they want peace in the middle east while they ship more and more weapons there...

The whole USA middle east policy is: lets deal with the today's issue any way we can and we'll worry about tomorrow's problems that today's "solution" will bring us, tomorrow. I'm sure armed Kurds will not be a future problem and people of Yemen surely don't mind Saudis dropping american bombs on their homes and will not support any anti-USA terrorist organisations in the future. The biggest enemy of the USA in the middle east is USA's past policy and the biggest enemy of USA in the middle east in the future will be today's USA policy.

[Winehole23]

^^^what he said

[Th'Pusher]

The whole USA middle east policy is: lets deal with the today's issue any way we can and we'll worry about tomorrow's problems that today's "solution" will bring us, tomorrow. I'm sure armed Kurds will not be a future problem and people of Yemen surely don't mind Saudis dropping american bombs on their homes and will not support any anti-USA terrorist organisations in the future. The biggest enemy of the USA in the middle east is USA's past policy and the biggest enemy of USA in the middle east in the future will be today's USA policy.

i don't mean to oversimplify this, but I think you can follow the money to understand all of the U.S. contradictions. Capital drives foreign policy. Scary, ineffective and wildly inconsistent, but that's been the reality for the last 30+ years.

[spursncowboys]

SnC, what I gather from your posting is that you scour the internet for opinion pieces that fit your worldview and take them at face value without questioning the underlying assumptions. If you look at the article you posted, the author makes 4 points: I definitely don't scour the internet. I don't have time. Also if CNN ever has a story or article that has my opinion or worldview, then hell has frozen over and DoK is a man of honor. My basic idea of what I post are: Is it interesting; will the trolls not derail any discussion; and is a view I think doesn't get discussed it this majority liberal forum.

[lefty]

:lol Murica is scared of a lot of countries
:lol Bama shitting in his pants

[pgardn]

The whole USA middle east policy is: lets deal with the today's issue any way we can and we'll worry about tomorrow's problems that today's "solution" will bring us, tomorrow. I'm sure armed Kurds will not be a future problem and people of Yemen surely don't mind Saudis dropping american bombs on their homes and will not support any anti-USA terrorist organisations in the future. The biggest enemy of the USA in the middle east is USA's past policy and the biggest enemy of USA in the middle east in the future will be today's USA policy.

I want to claim I wrote this.

But I still have no clean solutions.
Other than needless death and dying is happening somewhere else. And this is not very satisfying.

[spursncowboys]

Also, let's be honest about the incentives/objectives of the players here before deciding which narrative to trust.

One the one hand you have:
1. US, UK, France, Germany: An alliance representing most of the West/developed world who want to bring Iran into mainstream trade/commerce and engage them in a mature way despite Iran's inherent flaws. Why do they want to do this? Because it worked with China (trade has blunted China's communist/authoritatrian policies and made them more integrated into the world economy), it worked when Reagan engaged Gorbachev (despite the failure of the Reykjavik talks, dialogue paved the way for the eventual Nuclear Force treaty). Therefore there is ample precedent to draw upon.

2. Russia: They want to trade more with Iran and sell them weapons.

3. China: Interested in more oil trade with Iran.

On the other hand, you have:

1. Saudi Arabia: They see themselves as the face of Sunni Islam, and believe Shia Islam to be their mortal enemy. Their motives in opposing Iran are purely religious. They would like nothing more than ISIS and other Sunni groups to destabilise and take over as much of the Middle East as possible.

2. Israel: Netanyahu's politics is based on projecting himself as the only leader taking on various threats in the Middle East that threaten Israel. His motive is to trump up and overstate these threats. Since 1992, Netanyahu has said about a dozen times that "Iran is 2/3/4 years away from the bomb". He has clamored for military action against Iran for years, despite his statements being contradicted by reality and by past Mossad leadership.

3. Republicans: Their core objective is to brand the Obama administration as a failure and anti-American. They don't mind performing U-turns on their own ideas to oppose the administration (e.g. the individual mandate in Obamacare/Romneycare). Secondly, the cheerleaders of the Iraq war (Bolton et al) are back promoting an Iran war. In my view, these people have zero credibility after dragging the US and her allies through a trillion-dollar war on the wrong country, costing thousands of allied soldiers' lives not to mention 100,000+ Iraqi lives, all based on uncertain, low-quality intelligence - gleefully backed by weapons manufacturers and other crony capitalist firms. And here they are beating the drums of war with similarly uncertain, low-quality hypothetical projections while accepting large donations from the same weapons manufacturers.

You can choose to believe the latter group, but do so while understanding their motives and incentives (Sunni Islam, Likud's politics, the military-industrial complex) which are not aligned with the interests of a majority of Americans and other developed countries.

The military industrial complex aren't killing the Christians in a genocide f fashion. Also this military for profit companies are the reason thousands of Americans and hundred of thousand middle easterners are alive-myself included.