US Politics Mega-thread - Page 179

On May 09 2018 17:59 Acrofales wrote:

If that's your endgame, why bother invading at all? Just drop a nuke on Teheran and hang out the mission accomplished banner...

On May 09 2018 18:10 iamthedave wrote:


Out of curiousity, what exactly do you think 'the endgame' of an invasion actually would be?

It might be my european sensibilities talking, but I don't think a military invasion is undertaken with the express purpose of delivering tea and biscuits to our enemies and laying them down into feather beds with goosedown pillows.

On May 09 2018 17:17 GreenHorizons wrote:
But as to the 'funding' part, my understanding is pretty basic, but it boils down to what appears to be huge cash transfers (maybe gold as well) to Iran that would allow them to fund their military exploits without having to go through European banks or whatever to access the money. Essentially giving them invisible money to continue conflicts relatively untracked.

The US's excuses don't pass the smell test as to why they had no choice but to pay in cash instead of wiring money to accounts where they would have to account for what the money was being spent on. Couldn't just cut a check from the account for 10 suicide bombers or something, but you can do that with a pile of cash and/or gold.

Then you get to the part from mozu about it certainly looking like that cash got used the way it wasn't supposed to be.

That's how 'removing sanctions' becomes 'funding their conflicts' basically.

On May 09 2018 18:10 iamthedave wrote:


Out of curiousity, what exactly do you think 'the endgame' of an invasion actually would be?

It might be my european sensibilities talking, but I don't think a military invasion is undertaken with the express purpose of delivering tea and biscuits to our enemies and laying them down into feather beds with goosedown pillows.

On May 09 2018 18:36 WolfintheSheep wrote:

I'm not sure how European sensibilities leads to "blow shit up, run away and pretend we accomplished something". Not many European invasions that fit that description.

Nations are actually really good at rebuilding after wars, in a general sense. If the endgame is to prevent nuclear development, then you probably picked the most expensive and least effective method of trying.

On May 09 2018 18:30 Acrofales wrote:

Well, the game plan for Afghanistan and Iraq, however misguided it turned out to be, was a gradual trajectory towards a stable democracy. That requires the invader's presence to provide that stability and not turn it into Libya, where any two-bit warlord bumped into the power vacuum to rule over his corner of the country. Iran is a lot more homogeneous than Iraq or Libya, but even so, the only thing that you'll accomplish by swooping in, murdering the Ayatollah and calling it a day, is to plunge Iran into chaos, destabilize the region even further and cause world-wide resentment of the US' warmongering. So if that's your goal, you might as well nuke Tehran and save yourself a load of money and loss of your own soldiers' lives.

E: invading Iran now sends a very clear signal that what they did wrong wasn't to pursue a nuclear program. It was to trust that the US wouldn't invade upon halting their nuclear program. Add that to the Ukraine, and I am willing to bet that half a dozen previously peaceful nations, such as Brazil or Nigeria will start researching how to build their own nuclear missiles...

E2: not to mention that if you think that whoever consolidates power eventually in Iran is going to be more friendly to the western "invaders", then I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

Sean Illing
You don’t want Iran to have nukes. I don’t want Iran to have nukes. Tell me how pulling out of this deal makes Iran having nukes less likely.

Richard Goldberg
Let’s remember that the stated policy under the Obama doctrine, which has continued under Trump, was to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, with all options on the table. So let’s stipulate that Obama claimed he was willing to use military force, if necessary, to stop Iran from acquiring nukes.

Put aside the idea that Iran is going to race to the bomb now; that fear has existed for a very long time, and both Republican and Democratic administrations have agreed that they would use military action to prevent that scenario, and the Iranians know that and are therefore unlikely to provoke that response.

Iran also doesn’t want to become politically isolated, and if they were to race to the bomb, they would lose the support they still have right now in Europe and elsewhere. In other words, President Trump has some time here to ratchet up the pressure again, to unlock the lockbox where all our sanctions have been the last few years, and to use any other means of state power possible to coerce the regime to change its behavior.

When that pressure becomes so severe, the leaders of Iran must once again choose between regime survival economically or negotiating over all their malign activities, and I think they’ll have to negotiate.

On May 09 2018 23:06 iamthedave wrote:


For the record, the initial question - which everyone seems to have forgotten - was centred on the US military projection against Iran supposedly being negative, which seems very odd to me. This lot is a tangent as far as I'm concerned.

Also, I'm sensing that you missed the sarcasm.

My guess would be the US 'objective' in going into Iran would be the usual two: 1) prevent/slow down nuclear development 2) regime change, because 2) is why we do wars these days, apparently.

But on a purely military level, I don't see what Iran could do to stop the US from making it happen.



Oh yes, it's a stupid idea. That isn't what I'm saying. It's hardly a newfangled observation that American foreign policy is a bit short sighted, and that was when Trump wasn't the guy steering the ship, when he hadn't gutted the foreign office to being a shadow of its former self.

But given that the US took... what, less than 500 casualties in the initial invasion? it seems quite feasible to me that an invasion of Iran would go the same way. But I don't know. I know very little about Iran's military, save that it isn't the US, and there are very few western nations that would last longer than a long weekend if the US chose to actually invade them. The only powers likely to stand up for any length of time - and they'd still probably lose in shortish order - are Russia and China.

And I can see the American public eating up a quick in-and-out, handful of war hero casualties, victory accomplished, everyone's home and we are winners affair while those middle eastern losers can suck it.

So my musings aren't on whether it's a good idea, it's the initial observation that the US military thought it would be a bad idea on a military level. Unless I misread his post, which is entirely possible.

Secondarily, how to you feel the Ukraine fits into this? The problem there, from what I've read and seen, is more that Russia dared us to actually follow through on the rhetoric, and nobody had the guts to do it and go with all the implications that would come from a de facto ground war against the Russians, in Ukraine.

Even if we allow ourselves to assume a swift defeat of Iran’s conventional forces, keep in mind that Iran has been deeply linked to anti-US insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. If there is any country in the world that is prepared to take on the US in a post-invasion, asymmetrical fight, it’s Iran; and I’m not sure the US, with all the lessons it’s learned from its recent conflicts, would be prepared for the vehemence of Iranian resistance.

On May 09 2018 15:04 mozoku wrote:
Well the money certainly isn't reaching the people.

And the president is bragging about increasing military spending by 145% during his term.

And they're stepping up support for the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

And they're building a military base in Syria.

It's well-documented that Iran is working to develop its ballistic missile program as well.
---------------------------------
I mean, sure, they could be funneling that sanctions money into hookers for Khamenei and funding the new military investment from the savings they built up from the years of recession caused by the previous sanctions, but I think my understanding of events is a little easier to believe.

On May 10 2018 01:01 Plansix wrote:
I will be surprised and disappointed if that happens down the line. She was ready to withdraw less than a week ago, so I’m not convinced it is a sure thing yet. McCain isn’t there to vote and he wouldn’t vote for her anyways, so the margin is super thin.

On May 10 2018 01:10 GreenHorizons wrote:


If the glad handing she was doing after the questions was any indication she's definitely getting in. All the CIA folks on MSNBC have been caping for her and she's got bipartisan support throughout the intelligence community. Democrats could stop this if they wanted, but if they were we'd already know. They aren't/we don't, so she's getting in.

Democrats are going to give Donald Trump a known torturer to lead his CIA and they already gave him a CIA ran state department by a guy who thinks he's in a holy war. Democrats need to stop punching left and start putting more pressure on the right flank of their party.

One of the world's largest pharmaceutical corporations acknowledged Wednesday morning that it paid a company set up by Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's longtime personal lawyer, for consulting services and that it was contacted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office regarding those payments this past fall and "cooperated fully."

Novartis, which is based in Switzerland, said in a Wednesday statement to BuzzFeed News that "Novartis was contacted in November 2017 by lawyers from the Special Counsel’s office regarding the company’s agreement with Essential Consultants. Novartis cooperated fully with the Special Counsel’s office and provided all the information requested. Novartis considers this matter closed as to itself and is not aware of any outstanding questions regarding the agreement."

In the statement, Novartis said it entered into a one-year contract with Essential Consultants LLC, a company set up by Cohen in 2016 to facilitate the payment to Stormy Daniels.

"In February 2017, Novartis entered into a one-year agreement with Essential Consultants shortly after the election of President Trump focused on US healthcare policy matters. The terms were consistent with the market. The agreement expired in February 2018," Novartis said.

The revelation means that the special counsel's office has been looking into payments to Cohen's company for some time — months before the Wall Street Journal broke the news of the payment to Daniels in January.

The special counsel's office declined to comment on the Novartis statement.

It was revealed on Tuesday that another company that paid Cohen was Columbus Nova LLC, an investment firm run by Andrew Intrater that is linked to Renova Group, a company owned by Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg. Vekselberg, a one-time business associate of Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, was sanctioned last month by the Trump administration as retaliation for Russian election meddling.

Novartis added, "As already stated, the engagement of Essential Consultants predated Vas Narasimhan becoming Novartis CEO. Dr. Narasimhan had no involvement whatsoever with this arrangement."

Narasimhan took over as CEO of Novartis in February, replacing Joseph Jimenez, who planned to retire after leading the Swiss company for eight years.

Narasimhan was among other executives who reportedly had dinner with Trump when the president attended Davos earlier this year.

On May 10 2018 01:47 ticklishmusic wrote:
Disregarding the unethical (and possibly illegal) nature of these payments, the I'm kinda curious what all these companies actually got, or what they think they were going to get, for those payments.

I have a friend at AT&T's compliance department, I'm gonna give her a bunch of shit.

On May 09 2018 23:41 Mercy13 wrote:
Vox seems to get a lot of hate in this forum which I think is a bit unfair. They publish a lot of crappy hot takes, but also do some good analysis and I think their healthcare reporting is top notch.

Anyway, this article has a discussion one of their writers had with Richard Goldberg, one of the biggest proponents of pulling out of the Iran deal:


Source

Goldberg makes some good points, but I think he overestimates how quickly Europe will be willing to reimpose sanctions if Iran decides to race for a bomb. The nightmare scenario is that Iran decides (due to Trump's tweeting or whatever) that an invasion by the US is imminent, which makes getting nukes as quickly as possible a rational decision. The rational decision by Israel would then be to invade Iran, which could draw the US into a war involving Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Russia, Turkey, and Israel. Withdrawing from the deal makes this potential doomsday scenario more likely.

Also I am very skeptical that unilateral sanctions from the US will be enough to force Iran to renegotiate their whole foreign policy, so withdrawing from the deal makes war more likely and hurts our credibility with allies for what's likely to be no return.

Finally I think it's important to note that Iran has not been a totally benign actor in all this. If they had cut back on their support for international terrorism and conflicts in Syria and Yemen it would have provided political cover for the supporters of staying in the deal. Instead they have done the opposite.

On balance I think withdrawing from the deal is a blunder, but the case for pulling out isn't totally nonsensical.

On May 10 2018 01:49 Plansix wrote:


This is another issue. One cannot be the president's lawyer and consult for companies seeking the president's favor at teh same time. Even if he wasn't Trump's lawyer, his constant contact with Trump could make this lobbying? And I have no idea why these companies thought this was a good idea. Lets pay the president's attorney money and hope no one notices.

On May 10 2018 02:06 Mohdoo wrote:


This is part of what is weird to me as well. This seems so blatant that I am having a hard time seeing what AT&T thought people would think about this whole ordeal. Reading the article, I am realizing I don't have a good idea as to how secret certain types of payments and whatnot are. Was this a really secret payment? Seems probably not. Just so strange.

These payments also support the core idea that Trump's wealth is likely much, much lower than he claims.