Iran "Kicks It Up A Notch"

https://www.southbendtribune.com/ne...cle_773561b1-07c7-5389-ba79-3a4b13879ecf.html
On Sept. 30, Major General Hossein Salami, commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said,
“We have managed to obtain the capacity to destroy the imposter Zionist regime. This sinister regime must be wiped
off the map and this is no longer … a dream (but) it is an achievable goal.”

 

What Matters with nuclear is that nation's government. It's one thing for say France
to have The Bomb but it's another for say Hezbollah to have it. One nation is democratic
moderate and lives under rule of law - the other is committed to violence and racism.
And what better way to express violence and racism than with your bomb? Particularly
when your economy is in tatters as a direct result of your violence and racism.

 

I can't help but feel that these accusations against Iran's government are exaggerated. Iran's made up of human beings, not monsters. It's not realistic or fair to accuse them of being committed to violence and racism.

 

You are dead wrong
https://www.southbendtribune.com/ne...cle_773561b1-07c7-5389-ba79-3a4b13879ecf.html
On Sept. 30, Major General Hossein Salami, commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said,
“We have managed to obtain the capacity to destroy the imposter Zionist regime. This sinister regime must be wiped
off the map and this is no longer … a dream (but) it is an achievable goal.”

 

That this agreement was a temporary deal, lasting ten years was its weak point but it gave us time that hopefully woulf see change that would yield a permanent agreement. There was no need to break it, ramping up unneccary tensions . This imo was an irresponsible move and made things worse. Indeed the sum of our actions in the ME looks like a scheme created by a blooming idiot . It seems those Ivy League grads lack common sense and any of the no college Americans would have made a rational common sense choice.

Clearly we have the most irresponsible and stupid policy that we have ever had and dont learn from big mistakes .

But that defines this foreign policy that is from PNAC. A war driven policy that drstroys stability in a part of the world that we once worked for its stability not instability.

 

And what about the mad mullahs? You made no mention of the mad mullahs.

 

Yes even when compared to those mad boys, we win the contest for blooming idiots .

I guess non of them went to an ivy league school. And it was the ivy league boys that crashed our economy while even getting bonuses! With non going to jail for Obama was an ivy league man too!

I wouldn't worry about the mullahs. Worry about ivy league boys in our govt!

 

Nonsense. That is where Israel nuclear program (direct French and British assistance, the French more or less openly and the British covertly) comes from. That is where Israel's development of the Jericho missiles comes from, namely the French. That is where Israel's Dolphin submarines come from, namely the Germans.

Iran's enrichment program, on the other hand, is entirely home grown. Only our nuclear reactor, which is useless from a proliferation standpoint, is developed with foreign (Russian) assistance. Otherwise, Iran may have gotten jump started its enrichment program first by sold designs from Pakistan, and some material from China, but for decades everything about it is done and produced in Iran. And same with our missiles: some older missiles, including from North Korea, but everything about them now is made in Iran.

Unlike any other country, Iran's declared nuclear program - every part of it -- has been combed though. Everything that needs to be known about it is known already. Unfortunately, lies predominate the discussion and polemics about Iran and anyone who visits and reads the sites you visit and read would be the most guilty in that regard.

 

Much of everything you read about in the popular press and media about Iran is part of a campaign of lies and propaganda. To tell the truth requires retelling a story people just don't know.

 

Iran's agreement not to develop nuclear weapons wasn't temporary or subject to any of the subset clauses. Nor was Iran's agreement to submit its program to rigorous inspection.

What was 'temporary' was Iran's agreement to limit entirely legal and peaceful activities guaranteed under the NPT, including enrichment of uranium to fuel nuclear power plants instead of being forced to buy that nuclear fuel from outside. And Iran would not agree to extending the sunset clauses when even the limitations covered in those provisions were in violation of Iran's rights.

In that sense, I prefer what Trump did to what you are suggesting. It is a more honest in one sense.

 

Russia is also a close ally of Iran.

 

Even Russia isn't a close ally of Iran. It is, however, a state that occasionally works with Iran. Not as much as you imagine however.

 

While popular accounts about Iran are mainly worthless polemics, more scholarly accounts (while tinged with bias and propaganda) tell you the basic facts you need to know. As I have said, the flagship journal in American foreign policy is Foreign Affairs published by the American Council on Foreign Relations. While economic and political projections can be debated and aren't facts per se, the rest of what this latest article on Iran (published Nov 5)is based on facts. And even its projections have the advantage of being based on facts as opposed to polemics and propaganda.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/iran/2019-11-05/iran-doing-just-fine
Iran Is Doing Just Fine
Tehran Has Survived U.S. Sanctions. Its Nuclear Program and Regional Activities Will, Too.
By Henry Rome November 5, 2019

 

The 10 year deal not to develop nukes was sold here in all media.

If what you say is accurate why would we and partners ever agree to what looks like nothing in regards to a goal?

And why would iran claim they would not develop nukes anyways?

 

Hezbollah has been in a position to destroy much of Israel for some time. Yet Israel hasn't been attacked. Apparently deterrence works with them. And the same with Iran.

Iran's actual policy on Israel is to have the capacity to destroy it, as a means to deter aggression against it. Iran's policy also is to bring about a change in the entire regime in Israel. Not through military attack, but through other means. That is true.

But that doesn't mean Iran's wish list regarding a regime change in Israel is its most important objective in the world. The most important foreign policy objective of Iran is to preserve Iran's independence and make the country secure from foreign attack. The next is to drive US forces and bases outside of the region surrounding Iran. Finally, it is to see the Israeli regime replaced by one that is less of a threat to the neighborhood and less of a foreign colonial implant.

Iran can live with a Jewish state in the region and in many ways that fits Iran's geopolitical interests. But that Jewish state cannot be like the one that currently reigns in Israel.

 

What I said is accurate. The JCPOA is not a secret document. You can read it yourself. Iran's agreement not to develop nukes is permanent. Iran's agreement to submit to inspections does not lapse. The sunset clauses only pertain to limits on Iran's ability to undertake enrichment activities. Of course, a state that has unfettered rights to enrich (e.g. Japan or Germany) can easily develop nukes if they so choose. But that is a different issue than Iran's commitment not to develop nukes expiring.

 

Iran's change of "regime" means replacing the Jewish "regime" with an Arab one.
I like what one Syrian said about the 1973 war, Syria's aim was then to "cull" the
Jews. Do we have a worse word than "ethnic cleansing"? As the Egyptian president
put in 1967, the sands of Palestine will be drenched in the blood of Jews.

In the next major war I think Israel should actually do to her enemies what they had
planned to do to Jews.
Frankly, Iranians should stay in Iran, and seek the true path of peace and nuclear
non-proliferation. Not setting up missiles on the Golan and calling Israel a "one bomb
country." Iran could find itself being a 200 bomb country.

 

You may believe what you wrote, but as someone who is Iranian and knows Iran better than you will ever know reading the things you read, I know what is Iran's main objective and interest with regard to Israel. And it certainly isn't to create another anti-Iran Arab state in the region! There are plenty of those in the region already.

You want to know the truth, I will let you know. If you want to believe in propaganda, continue. It doesn't change much. Policy on Iran isn't decided on this page. On this page, and in our own personal conduct, we can only either choose to ally ourselves with the quest for truth or be on the side of falsehood.

 

The Real Reason is that Hezbollah doesn't, at this stage, want another war.
It lost some 600 fighters in the last war with Israel.
Hezbollah hates the Jews like all Muslims do. But the cost of warfare is just
too high at the moment. Also, Israel has told Lebanon what will happen if those
130,000 Iranian rockets are fired at it - Israel will utterly destroy all the infrastructure
of Lebanon - ports, airfields, bridges, roads, rail etc..
Yet, deterrence does work.

 

So was Nazi Germany. They were made of human being, not monsters.
However, it turned out, human being are capable to perform atrocities, no monster can.
It matters what they say, when they talk about mass murder of whole countries, you'd better believe them and not ignore it like europeans do.
Last time the whole world went up in smoke because tge europeans ignored what the Germans said.

 

When posters here engage in propaganda, fear mongering and falsehoods, I can't help lose some of my faith that humans are indeed interested on the quest for truth. I fully recognize that our world view is shaped by our different perceptions of reality based on what we have been exposed to, but some of what is said here is so patently false and so devoid of anything except obvious propaganda, that I am left wondering how trying to enlist a few individuals on a message board like this can justify any of these lies?

 

Are you saying these cases of capital punishment or long term
incarceration for feminists, gays, dissidents or other religious
groups (think Bahai who come to Aust as refugees) are simply
not true? (55 years for three women who refused Islamic dress
codes, and over 8,000 killed as politicals.)

 

It pains me to even enter into this discussion with you. The mountain of lies built is so high, and aspects of it so widely believed across the political spectrum in the US, that no amount of effort on my part may be sufficient to shed light on the truth on these issues. And that pains me because one thing I care about, and which truly disturbs me and my faith, being unable to expose falsehoods about my own country, its laws and legal system, despite being the only one here who has actually some knowledge about Iran, its legal institutions, its politics, its history and who has lived and worked in both Iran and the US as a lawyer to boot.

Many of the issues you raise I have responded to at length in another thread.

Iran has not executed anyone for being homosexual or engaging in sodomy, even though Iran's laws permit harsh punishments for sodomy in case there are 4 witnesses to the act who are willing to testify to it or in case a person admits 4 times in open court to engaging in sodomy and does not repent either. Any accusation that someone has engaged in sodomy is itself subject to severe punishment, unless that person (even law enforcement) can produce 4 witnesses. The crime of sodomy is unenforceable in Iran, as evidenced by tens of thousands of Iranians who seek exemption from military service claiming to be homosexuals who (because of many false claims affecting Iran's ability to recruit conscripts) now need to be backed up by a declaration or admission that the person claiming the exemption has also engaged in homosexual conduct (sodomy). Thousands today still get their military exemption by making the declaration and other than complaints that the 'military exemption/discharge card' they receive can be used by employers due to the code used on the back of the card to divulge to a prospective employer the person's homosexual preference, there isn't a single case of anyone of these people ever being prosecuted for being homosexual or admitting to sodomy.
A more complete discussion on the issue is found in my responses to questions posed on this thread (pages 27-31).
http://www.politicalforum.com/index...s-in-prison-for-removing-hijab.561260/page-27

Punishment for failing to observe the dress code (hijab) in public, even if there is a prosecution, is from 1 day to 2 months in prison. The cases you refer to are misreported and while they relate to protests organized from outside against the hijab, there has been no final disposition on many of those cases referred to begin with. In any case, the relevant issues and facts on those cases are also discussed in that same thread in earlier pages.

Iran did execute several thousand MEK members, some of them summarily and without much due process, towards the end of the Iran-Iraq war when the MEK was actively engaged in terrorism in Iran and fighting alongside Saddam's forces. Otherwise, Iran has not executed any political prisoners in recent decades at all.

Iran has incarcerated and continues to imprison anyone who threatens national security, particularly if they are shown to follow or be linked to foreign based groups. Most such people do not serve long prison terms. Except those who have shown to be involved in violent acts. There are a few more controversial cases, involving labor activists, feminist lawyers, human rights activists, were initially long prison sentences were handed own against them, in almost all these cases the actual sentences subsequently commuted and reduced. But in almost all these cases (except a very few), the individuals involved were alleged (and "proven" in court) to have been linked to a foreign based group acting against state security (usually groups that spread false propaganda and lies about Iran, with the MEK at the forefront of such groups).

Iran's legal system is not what I would like it to be and injustices do occur in it with greater frequency that I would like. But that is true of many other legal systems as well. Iran does have some dogmatic and archaic laws on the books, whose enforcement (or lack thereof) reflects prevailing cultural standards and their evolution in Iranian society. But ultimately Iran is nothing like what you are told or what you imagine. Its warts and failings and its greatest genuine crime, its corruption, notwithstanding.

 

This report is from an LGBT group advocating for LGBT rights in Iran. It contains some propaganda and is understandably not meant to complement Iran's laws. While Iran does not prosecute homosexuality or sodomy, it does condemn the practice. I post it not to endorse what it says, but nonetheless hoping some of you can apply logic and begin to understand the extent to which some things claimed about Iran are simply lies.

This report doesn't open up the issue and explain why "confessing to having same-sex' relations is the new norm for military service exemption. The reason is that up to 25% of draft age men in some places such as Tehran were claiming to be homosexual to obtain exemption from military service. A fact that by itself should tell you that no one in Iran is afraid of long prison terms and execution for being gay! Not even for admitting same sex-relations, since the only real issue with the exemptions now is still to make sure that some (particularly prostitutes) who make the claim (and who may have even engaged in homosexual sex for money) aren't just making up the claim of actually being homosexual (which is the legal requirement to be entitled to the exemption from military service) to escape conscription.

http://6rang.org/english/2261
Confessing to having same-sex relations is the new norm for military service exemptions in Iran
May 20, 2016

 

I oppose the term "quest for truth" because such quests have often led humanity to horribly wrong paths. We can't properly define "truth" outside of a frame of reference, any attempt to do so ends in totalitarian ideologies and savage extremism.

Look at the most primitive tribes in remote places. They live today as their ancestors lived millennia ago. Why? Because it works for them.

Our quest is for what works best for our survival - as a tribe, a society, a species, as individuals too. Any other way to look at it as a quest for absolute truth leads to disaster. What do we do with the truths we discover on our quest? We obviously use them to take over the entire planet, then slowly over the rest of the universe. We are a pragmatic species, all things considered.

Even your Jaffari school of jurisprudence says truth is relative and depends on the frame of reference (times and mores). The search for the "essence of truth" however, didn't end well, leading to mysticism instead of a healthy relationship with objective reality. This is because truth has no essence outside of a frame of reference.

This Jaffari school of jurisprudence seems to be, in its approach to the sacred texts, closer to Judaism than to Sunni Islam.

There's no empirical evidence whatsoever for a hypothetical "non-material world".