Althouse: Thanks, Iran!

November 8, 2013

Thanks, Iran!

At least Iran is coming to distract us from the domestic clusterfuck.

18 comments:

Greg said...: The cynic in me says Kerry and Obama are willing to sign anything as a distraction, also the realist in me; 11/8/13, 9:39 AM
PB said...: Oh good.

Obama has been gutting military leadership and replacing them with more sycophants. This will turn out well.

I worry for the young men and women like my nephew in the military who are likely to face the brunt of Obama's failed foreign policy.; 11/8/13, 9:44 AM
mccullough said...: North Korea pulled the same stunt on the US almost 20 years ago.; 11/8/13, 9:44 AM
traditionalguy said...: Iraq is as good as gone to the Iranians. Afghanistan is gone to the Taliban. Egypt was gone until Saudi Arabia, of all people, stepped in and supported the secular Egyptian Army over the Muslim Jihadists. Obama has stopped aid to Egypt in retaliation. Saudi Arabia has announced that the USA can never be trusted as an ally again.

But Obama has supported the Iranians for 5 years now.

Obama has traded a strong alliance with Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt for a secret surrender to the only country pledged to kill us all after they have finished off killing the rest of the Jews.; 11/8/13, 9:52 AM
Bill, Republic of Texas said...: He has more flexibility now the election is over.

Now we need to be more flexible too. We need to grab our ankles and try not to flinch.; 11/8/13, 9:57 AM
Patrick Henry was right! said...: A war between Iran and Israel will not be good for anybody. Surely Obama knows this. Well, maybe not........; 11/8/13, 10:07 AM
Wince said...: For Iran to be a distraction from Obamacare, there has to be a certain level of trust on the part of a majority that Obama knows, and can do competently, the right thing.

I think that trust is gone with Obamacare, just in time.

Immigration would have been a better distraction, because at least there's a constituency for it, but that distrust overhangs any assurance made to the rest of the electorate.

Likewise, that concise list of foreign policy particulars from tradguy is likely to be put in starker relief by Obama's appeasement of Iran.

Hopefully the "death spiral" we've entered is the Obama administration's own.; 11/8/13, 10:13 AM
Anonymous said...: o dear god we really didn't agree to this did we?

first putin, now iran.; 11/8/13, 10:13 AM
Hagar said...: A war between Iran and Saudi Arabia and Turkey will not be good either.
Israel may be just collateral damage.; 11/8/13, 10:15 AM
Anonymous said...: I don't think many people realized the last election was also a vote for a power vacuum in the Middle East.

The Iranians have always pretended to adhere to min standards in public, while doing all their dirty work in private. They send militias and guns over to Iraq, they fund terrorism all around the globe, but mostly to become the big dog in the region (it's their destiny!) and to secure their interests.

The regime has shown time severe untrustowrthiness and while not as deranged and secretly obsessed with America as North Korea, they have serious issues going back to 1951 at least.

They will use the nukes to gain leverage for all the wrong reasons and the Saudis may nuke-up, Israelis take matters into their own hands, etc. There are many options if Iran gets nukes, few of them good.

We can hope things don't get as hot as with Pakistan, which keeps everyone up at night.

We pulled out, creating a power vacuum. We may not like what we get at all.; 11/8/13, 10:15 AM
Anonymous said...: And Andrew Sullivan did a much better job of potentially increasing our fortunes in the region by supporting Neda and the green revolution than our government.; 11/8/13, 10:22 AM
cubanbob said...: The Saudi's apparently are in the process of acquiring nuclear warheads from the Pakistani's for the missiles they bought from China over 20 years ago. Up to now notice that for all of these years the Saudi's never felt sufficiently threatened by Israeli nukes to nuke up. Wonder what made them change their mind and decide to nuke up.; 11/8/13, 10:27 AM
Larry J said...: Basil said...
A war between Iran and Israel will not be good for anybody. Surely Obama knows this. Well, maybe not........

At this point, I'm not certain knows very much about anything. And don't call him Shirley.; 11/8/13, 10:32 AM
Shouting Thomas said...: Fortunately, the first male gay marriage just took place at West Point!

Another step toward full preparedness for the upcoming conflict!

Congratulations, Althouse!; 11/8/13, 10:34 AM
President-Mom-Jeans said...: Israel isn't going to sit back and let their future be threatened by Obama. A nuclear Iran is not an option if you want the survival of the state of Israel, and the highest concentration of jews left in the world.

I support them in whatever they feel necessary to ensure their existence. If they launch pre-emptive strikes, what the fuck is Obama going to do about it?; 11/8/13, 12:36 PM
Cedarford said...: We can't frack fast enough and get off Arab oil fast enough, and tell other countries to pay for their own ME oil supply security problems fast enough for me.

And then we cannot disentangle the US from ME politics and commitments and elective nation-building wars against Muslims fast enough to suit me.

Of course Netanyahu is mad. He pushed for years for a US-Iran war, wanted to sit back and have the US fight a full blown war with Iran for him. While Israel sat back and paid not a shekel or drop of blood for it. Now Israel is treated as the intransigient nation making nothing but noise and shoved off to the side. Which means warmonger McCain and the neocons are also mad.

"Tehran's chief nuclear negotiator, Abbas Araghchi, told Iranian state TV that the six — the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany — "clearly said that they accept the proposed framework by Iran." He later told CNN that he thinks negotiators at the table are now "ready to start drafting" an accord that outlines specific steps to be taken."

Of course Iran still is an enemy, but getting the nuke situation dealt with 1st is a necessity, just as it was with the Soviet Union before more overall detente, glasnost, peristroika and what not could develop.

I am waiting to hear if Turkey and the Saudis and Gulf States accept this as well. And that IAEA inspectors have access everywhere and a framework to evaluate Iran deconstructing facilities. And somewhere in this, discussion of who will act as Iran's guarantor under their nuclear umbrella if Iran goes WMD-free and is threatened or attacked with nukes..; 11/8/13, 12:54 PM
Cheryl said...: I thought the "domestic clusterfuck" was to distract us from Iran and Syria. So far it's working.; 11/8/13, 1:09 PM
Tom said...: I hope Obama doesn't bomb this final exam. Obamacare may suck, but it can and may eventually be fixed. Let Iran get the Bomb and it's changes the world.; 11/8/13, 3:58 PM

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