Quote:I don't think America is truly exceptional.  Can we get there?  Absolutely.  But we still have a ways to go. America does exceptional things, but it's not truly exceptional. 


A sign of good leadership, honestly, is listening to the needs of those other than yourself.  It's a will to compromise, and to negotiate.  It's the ability to realize that you (as the old Earth song goes) can't always get what you want.


Many here dislike the deal because there are people in Iran who cry "DEATH TO AMERICA!"  Would any deal really satisfy them?  It sounds to me as if they don't want a deal at all.  Perhaps I'm wrong about that, but I suspect I'm not.  Do you think that our European Allies want Iran to get the bomb?  They don't.  They believe this deal will stop them from getting the bomb.  Our President thinks it will stop them from getting the bomb.  Many Nuclear experts think it will stop them from getting the bomb.  All of this of course hinges on them not breaking the deal -- but again, refusing to negotiate because they will break the deal means that there's no deal that would satisfy you and that you are putting negotiation off the table.  Leadership is not forcing our allies to do what we want, and trying to force Iran to do the same.  

"We want a better deal," many say.


Okay.  So what's this better deal?  And why does Iran (the most important country to agree to the deal) sign it?  Why do they not say "Forget that, you're not going to undo our economic sanctions, so it's time we put all our focus on getting our nuclear bomb."


If the US decides to back out of the deal, do you think it hastens their development of the bomb, or slows it down?  Keep in mind that only our sanctions would remain.  And that even with the sanctions we've had recently that Iran isn't that far off from the bomb now.

 

 

 

 

 

Quote:America is exceptional, dating back to its very founding. The concept of a democratic republic was the sort of thing left for philosophers to speculate on up until the US actually did it. The fact that a nation that most of the world expected to collapse was able to hoodwink France out of the vast majority of its North American land for pennies, survived a Civil War, exploded into a superpower after surviving two world wars (leading the charge in one) that it wanted nothing to do with and ultimately stared down the Soviet Union to win the Cold War is pretty amazing, no matter how you cut it.

 

We're becoming less exceptional, though. The rest of the world is catching up to us. To be blunt about it, the Cold War is over. We're no longer the voice of the west. The EU is as important as we are these days. The Soviet Union might be gone, but Russia is still a major player in world politics. China...yeah. China has blown up as their economy has grown to the rest of the world.

 

Point being, the old dynamic of "America says go, the west goes" no longer exists. We no longer get to pound on the table until the other party relents. This deal is a perfect example of that. Instead of the "deal" that the right wing would have preferred--release the prisoners, give us all your nuclear material and research, destroy the reactors, allow an American "supervisory force" to stick around and make sure you're behaving, sanctions stay in place anyway but hey, we won't invade you today--we got something that every country involved signed off on. Does it keep Iran nuke-free forever? Probably not, but it means that there are now several European nations, not to mention Israel, that would turn Iran into a parking lot if it fired a nuke.

 

The US no longer gets to decide who can and can't have a nuclear bomb. Israel has eighty. Eight, zero. The rest of the Middle East has none combined. You think the fact that Israel, Iran's mortal enemy, is protected by the US and allowed to have more than enough nukes to leave a smoldering green hole in the ground where Iran used to be might be causing some resentment? You think the fact that Iran was heavily sanctioned by the west while Israel, which commits war crimes against Palestine, is coddled and supported might have something to do with it? The simple truth is that the US has gone out of its way historically to enhance hostility with Iran, whether we intended to or not, and the world government will no longer allow us to do so.

 

America has an exceptional history, and we're used to being "exceptional" meaning that we aren't just a world leader, we are the world leader. That's not the case anymore. We don't get to set the rules. As hard as this concept is for some people (not necessarily you, JIB) to grasp, we can be exceptional without being the only voice at the table. I think this Iran deal is an example of new American exceptionality. I don't know what President Obama wanted out of this deal. I somehow doubt that he went in with these terms. In fact, I suspect the original framework was very different, and much more harsh. Thing is, we don't get to just put take-it-or-leave-it deals down anymore. We worked with multiple nations, Iran included, to come up with a deal that was made in good faith and acceptable to everyone. That's not Neville Chamberlain. That's getting [BAD WORD REMOVED] done, and that is the sort of exceptionality America needs to pursue going forward. Telling everyone which rules they'll play by is no longer an option. Sitting down and getting everyone to agree on those rules and enforce them equally? That's the future we're already living in.

 

The fact that this half handed ideological masochism actually passes for intellectualism in this day and age is frankly shocking!  There are those in this country who can look at a situation like this where we get no tangible meaningful benefit from an international accord and they can be solely content with idea that 'America isn't leading.  We are not in control.  The EU controls us.  YES INTERNATIONAL MASTERS.'

 

It would be funny if this wasn't the view held by the current commander and chief.  The sad thing is that i have had to sit here for the past dozen pages or so while those who are in favor of this accord lecture us about "true leadership involves listening, you can't just bang the table and get what you want.  you have to give, you have to compromise."  Then we find out that the lead Iranian negotiator was standing yelling at the international delegation (including women) like they were five year old children embarrassing our chief diplomat and that while some are holding onto a pipe dream of normalized relations, The Iranians are actively threatening the lives of international atomic inspectors so that we don't learn how impotent the inspection regime will be with all these side deals.  

 

And Tj, if you want to lower yourself to misscharecterizing the conservative position on this deal then go right ahead.  All that you are doing is demonstrating that your position is based on your emotional predisposition and biases and not the facts on the ground.  Releasing our hostages and abandoning the footing that you want to wipe us and our allies off the planet is a pretty common sense position before we okay the international community to give you the means to arm yourself to that end.  If those conditions were met then we could talk about enrichment, centrifuges and peaceful processes.  As it stands now, the first move that they made was to go out and make a deal to by arms from Russia and publish books about how they want to deceive and kill us.  If that's the kind of normalization that you were looking for then that speaks more to your misunderstanding or Iran's intentions than it does to my sides lack of international decorum.  

 

What we have in this situation is a national entity that is sworn to undermine our international interests and ultimately our destruction.  This deal does nothing to change that, it just gives them a stronger economy and a pathway to being a nuclear power.  The idea that some are so giddy just to see our country embarrassed on the world stage pushed around like some pitiful Giant is both sickening and dangerous!

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