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As members of a skeptics forum, how skeptical are you of current Iran policy?

?

  • Very skeptical

    Votes: 30 85.7%

  • Somewhat skeptical

    Votes: 3 8.6%

  • Not skeptical

    Votes: 2 5.7%
  • Total voters
    35
"Iran policy"? Do you mean the policies of Iran, or the policies of other nations towards Iran?
 
i’m not convinced that saying whatever happens to come into one’s head counts as an actual policy.
 
If it's US policy toward Iran, I can only excoriate Trump for unilaterally, without consulting nor coordinating with other partners, pulling out of the nuclear deal. Iran was abiding by the treaty. The US is significantly to blame for the *current* state of affairs. (Leaving out for the moment the underlying long-standing issues.) The dastardly and perfidious abrogating of treaties is the kind of stuff a certain Austrian cum Bavarian corporal was famous for.

With Trump and his cabal of boot-lickers, the US cannot now be trusted as it formerly was. A kind of rogue state, or at least a state helmed by rogues, it seems to me.
 
Assuming we are talking about current US policy towards Iran, skeptical but not much more skeptical than I have been of the previous 10 or 15 years of Iran Policy.

US policy in the middle east has largely been a disaster and seems to have had little impact on Iran's actions or leadership. Oddly, Trump talks tough but he actually does seem less willing to use military force than just about any president Since Carter.
 
ahhell said:
Assuming we are talking about current US policy towards Iran, skeptical but not much more skeptical than I have been of the previous 10 or 15 years of Iran Policy.

US policy in the middle east has largely been a disaster and seems to have had little impact on Iran's actions or leadership. Oddly, Trump talks tough but he actually does seem less willing to use military force than just about any president Since Carter.
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Speak loudly and carry a small stick?
 
Lurch said:
If it's US policy toward Iran, I can only excoriate Trump for unilaterally, without consulting nor coordinating with other partners, pulling out of the nuclear deal. Iran was abiding by the treaty. The US is significantly to blame for the *current* state of affairs. (Leaving out for the moment the underlying long-standing issues.) The dastardly and perfidious abrogating of treaties is the kind of stuff a certain Austrian cum Bavarian corporal was famous for.

With Trump and his cabal of boot-lickers, the US cannot now be trusted as it formerly was. A kind of rogue state, or at least a state helmed by rogues, it seems to me.
Click to expand...
No, the US is absolutely, completely to blame for the current state of affairs. Not only do we inexplicably keep providing virtually unconditional support to the Saudi royal family, but Trump personally saw to it that the US relationship with Iran was in a heartbeat set back 30+ years. His continued violent posturing seems almost certain to result in military action which will be all but impossible to reasonably justify to anyone but like-minded dictators who love to watch the United States in chaos and don't care how many innocent people die in the process.
 
Babbylonian said:
No, the US is absolutely, completely to blame for the current state of affairs. Not only do we inexplicably keep providing virtually unconditional support to the Saudi royal family, but Trump personally saw to it that the US relationship with Iran was in a heartbeat set back 30+ years. His continued violent posturing seems almost certain to result in military action which will be all but impossible to reasonably justify to anyone but like-minded dictators who love to watch the United States in chaos and don't care how many innocent people die in the process.
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That's rather reductionist, short sited, and naive. It assumes no other actors have any impact on the region for one. It ignores the long standing Shia/Sunni rivalry and ignores the complete hash the Brits and French made of the region when they lost control.

Granted, US policy in the region has been remarkably bad for generations we are not the only agents in the regions.
 
ahhell said:
That's rather reductionist, short sited, and naive. It assumes no other actors have any impact on the region for one. It ignores the long standing Shia/Sunni rivalry and ignores the complete hash the Brits and French made of the region when they lost control.

Granted, US policy in the region has been remarkably bad for generations we are not the only agents in the regions.
Click to expand...
No, it's at worst simple: We had the best chance in decades for at least detente, if not full normalization of diplomatic relations, with Iran and Trump flushed that chance because his people hate Iran. On the other hand, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia brutally murdered a journalist who had been living in the US and Trump shrugged it off because of Saudi money and oil. I'd leave out the fact that we laid waste to two nations for what happened on September 11, 2001, and neither of those nations was one from which the perpetrators came, but in good conscience I can't.

But we should definitely go to war if Iran shoots down unmanned drones. Totally. Why wouldn't we?
 
Iran has always been a bad actor in the region. They have attacked oil tankers for many years and have supported terrorism. However, they WERE complying with the JCPOA until Trump took it into his head to cancel that agreement (presumably as a part of his fit of pique to expunge anything Obama did merely because it was him who did it).

Now the US, having canned the JCPOA, have done little more than provoke, and continue to try to provoke Iran into a conflict. For many years, John Bolton has held on to his dream of forcing regime change in Iran. He's a warhawk, and he is either too stupid or simply fails to understand that if he tries to go to war with Iran, he will create another generation of Islamic terrorists that our kids will have to deal with.

Make no mistake, the USA had a lot of trouble dispensing with Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq (and look what happened when they finally did, ISIS filled the power vacuum). If Bolton and his offsider, Pompous think Iran will be present a similar threat that Iraq did to US forces, they are living in LaLa Land. Iraq had a huge level of dissent among its population, Saddam was at war with his own people; outside of their 50,000 or so professional soldiers, the Iraqi army were mostly unmotivated conscripts.

Iran presents no such advantage; they are far better organised, several times better armed and a hundred times more committed. The population would be 100% committed to fight. It would be a real mistake for the US to go to war with Iran - they might eventually win, they probably would, but many tens of thousands of young US men and women will come home in body bags before they do.
 
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smartcooky said:
Iran has always been a bad actor in the region. They have attacked oil tankers for many years and have supported terrorism. However, they WERE complying with the JCPOA until Trump took it into his head to cancel that agreement (presumably as a part of his fit of pique to expunge anything Obama did merely because it was him who did it).

Now the US, having canned the JCPOA, have done little more than provoke, and continue to try to provoke Iran into a conflict. For many years, John Bolton has held on to his dream of forcing regime change in Iran. He's a warhawk, and he is either too stupid or simply fails to understand that if he tries to go to war with Iran, he will create another generation of Islamic terrorists that our kids will have to deal with.

Make no mistake, the USA had a lot of trouble dispensing with Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq (and look what happened when they finally did, ISIS filled the power vacuum). If Bolton and his offsider, Pompous think Iran will be present a similar threat that Iraq did to US forces, they are living in LaLa Land. Iraq had a huge level of dissent among its population, Saddam was at war with his own people; outside of their 50,000 or so professional soldiers, the Iraqi army were mostly unmotivated conscripts.

Iran presents no such advantage; they are far better organised, several times better armed and a hundred times more committed. The population would be 100% committed to fight. It would be a real mistake for the US to go to war with Iran - they might eventually win, they probably would, but many tens of thousands of young US men and women will come home in body bags before they do.
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Also Iran is how it is today because the US decided to force a regime change there. It didn't work out well for us. There's no reason to suppose repeating the same mistake will cause different, much less better, results.
 
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