Discussion for article #246605
Seems like good news. Let’s hope it continues.
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See? The RWNJ’s were right! We should have started carpet-bombing Iran months ago, instead of brokering a compromise. Things would have turned out so much better than this catastrophe!!!
What’s that you say?
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What’s that you say?
Thanks, Obama.
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This is NOT excellent news…
FOR JOHN MCCAIN !!!
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Incremental yet welcome progress for the Iranian people and the world.
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Welll lookie here. It seems that a bit of brains works a bunch more than bravado and chest beating. The West’s deal with Iran changed the way the Iranian people think…and that’s the only way that country is going to change. I’m happy for them. Ship in the iPhones and the Big Macs. That’s the way America wins.
I’m sure there will be no mention of a link to this good news and the efforts of Kerry and Obama.
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Isn’t it f’ing tragic when good news for the world isn’t good news for Republicans? It makes Obama look good (as in, the Nuclear deal may have had a positive influence) and thus is horrible news for them.
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It really is good news but the challenges are many. My persian friends who like Rohani are hopeful but pessmisrtic
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No, it won’t be easy but it’s a step in the right direction.
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Gee who could have guessed that if you stop hitting somebody with a two-by-four, they stop fighting you?
Reality, what a concept.
Now lets build on this. The Iranians have one of the youngest, most liberal, best educated populations in the Middle East. We need to appeal to them, not punish them (of course the Despotic rulers of Saudi Arabia will have something to say about it, and the Hard Line Zealots in Israel.)
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Well I don’t for one minute think the deal changed the way the Persian people think. But may have had some tertiary positive reinforcement for reform-minded people’s position and arguments. I posit that it is hubris on “the west’s” part to try and claim credit for this. It demeans the Iranian people who are reform minded, and not hard-liners.
I think it is prudent to keep a cautious yet hopeful hands-off approach with Iran with regards to how and in what direction the Iranian people choose, while still holding to our positions vis-è-vis its sponsorship of terrorism and its human rights abuses.
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I agree that given the demographics of a growing younger population more attuned to the West that moderation would win out. Our reaching out did serve to hasten the process. It seemed to me that in 15 years Iran will be even far less confrontational than the current regime. That’s why I never put any stock in the gloom and doom predictions for a nuclear Iran trumpeted by our home grown hard liners.
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Iran had like 60% turnout for this. It takes some near-historic wave of participation, like Obama’s election in 2008, to get us at 61% (which I believe is the modern record) - we can’t even get that for presidential elections, let alone midterms - just forget that, those are good if we can even get to 40%.
Not to put too fine a point on this, but this is not Canada, Japan, Sweden, Germany, Australia, or some country that has its shit together - this is Iran… the fuck is wrong with us? How do they take their elections more seriously than we do? Then people wonder what’s wrong with Congress.
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Yes and no. This is where the needle really needs to be threaded. We need to be receptive to Iranian moderation and progress on their terms. But if we are at all perceived as trying to interfere or guide Iranian society or affairs, we poison that well and actually work against Iranian moderation.
That is the unfortunate fruits of the poison tree we planted when we overthrew their democratically elected government in 1953 to install a puppet regime as both a bulwark against the Soviet Union and as a counter-balance to the Arabs (Saudi Arabia in particular).
Which is the true tragedy because the Persian people should actually be our most natural allies in the region if we hadn’t so royally (pun noted) fucked that relationship up at the behest of BP and our own cold-warrior/oil interest myopia and lunacy.
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You are in fine form today Lesta. You have truly cut to the heart of the matter here: History matters. What’s scary is how much of our political dialogue – and foreign policy is sadly no exception – seems to be underpinned by a general disregard for history. Or maybe I should say a disregard for honest history – and a “history” of U.S. - Iranian relations that starts the day the hostages were taken is really just as dishonest as a history of U.S. - Iranian relations that included Elvis as the Supreme Leader, and placed Iran in Micronesia.
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Well played, President Obama.
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I do. But I’ve been to Iran a few times and formed my opinions of them first hand. They are a very educated and savvy people. Although they live in a censorship state most have learned how to get a real image of the world. And they like what they see. Morality police and suffocating authority are not what they want.
This deal did more than its terms. It was a deal between the USA and Iran. They talked and they found a common ground. The Iranian people ( they don’t like to be called Persian anymore than I like being called Caucasian ) have wanted this for a long time. They are proud and will never fear the USA as a military power. But they actually love our popular culture and would like access to it. They don’t want to convert to a mini-America. They love their country. But this deal did change thinking…how else do you explain its popularity and the results of this election? They were in the streets dancing when the deal went down. They didn’t concern themselves with the Ayatollah’s frowns. They don’t give a shit about nukes…they want iPhones, Juicy Fruit gum and Marlborough ( American ) cigarettes.
This deal made that a possibility.
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Blue Jeans and Rock’N’Roll helped bring down the Soviet Union.
iPhones and Big Macs have just as good a chance in Iran.
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I agree with much of what you say, but the underlying dynamics of the Iranian people (had family that lived and worked there pre-Revolution) was there long before this deal and it’s grass-roots up from within Iranian society. As I said originally in this thread, this had tertiary positive reinforcement, but didn’t create the thinking or the reform-minded push within the country.
That was mainly grounded in, and what you correctly point out, the "soft-power’ of western culture which has been in place long before President Obama was elected to office. I don’t say that to diminish President Obama’s shift in our approach vs. the previous administration, which was indeed a huge positive change on our part. That certainly lead to the deal. The administration’s careful foreign policy which was a mix of receptiveness to positive development while holding a firm position on true regional security threats (the need for the nuclear deal in the first place) and has been the correct approach (thank you Secretaries Clinton and Kerry as well as President Obama).
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