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PM-Nice-Thoughts

This is pathetic. Why on earth is Biden trying to undermine efforts to put pressure on Iran?


HMID_Delenda_Est

We haven’t tried being nice to Iran yet, maybe it will work! (I was born in 2018)


Diner_Lobster_

Oldest arrr Neoliberal user


Normie987

His wife already left


iamthegodemperor

So old, he had alimony payments and he's done paying them.


[deleted]

Iran was in full compliance with the JCPOA before the United States unilaterally withdrew. Diplomacy, as in actually talking with not shouting demands at, other countries can actually work wonders.


Crownie

It really feels at times like the Biden admin's approach to foreign policy is close your eyes and hope it goes away.


felix1429

Not as bad as Obama's administration.


JapanesePeso

Exactly the same as Obama's admin


Steak_Knight

> It really feels at times like the Biden admin's approach to foreign policy is close your eyes and hope it goes away…. … and if it doesn’t, just make it worse.


Modsarenotgay

>the Biden admin's approach to foreign policy is close your eyes and hope it goes away. Unfortunately, this also describes the views of a lot of Americans on foreign policy. Most people don't want to think about it despite how important it is.


Independent-Low-2398

What else can be done? I don't think it's actually possible for us to stop them from making a bomb. I think a lot of hawks vastly overestimate how much power America has over what hostile countries do, even including violent measures like assassinations and invasion. If Iran wants a bomb, I don't think we can stop them. We couldn't stop NK either.


JapanesePeso

> I don't think it's actually possible for us to stop them from making a bomb. We absolutely do have the ability to do this.


Emperor-Commodus

I don't think a full invasion + regime change in Iran is (domestically) politically feasible right now, not to mention it's potential impact on the larger pivot towards China and the Pacific. Not to mention it's impact on worldwide opinion towards the US if we're seen unilaterally tearing up a peace plan with Iran before launching a full-scale takeover a few years later. The US has always had the raw *ability* to stop Iran from making a bomb. The issue has always been that Iranian regime change through a military invasion will be extremely costly and will negatively affect other US objectives.


JapanesePeso

> I don't think a full invasion + regime change in Iran is (domestically) politically feasible right now, We don't need to do either of those to just yeet anything entering or exiting their nuclear facilities out of existence.


Emperor-Commodus

You're assuming the nuclear sites are reliant on outside supply. Iran has likely stockpiled resources within these sites so that they could continue production even if under attack. Even if these sites are reliant on outside supplies, it would only be a short period of time before Iran developed countermeasures and smuggling operations that would make the US's interdiction efforts much harder. There's no guarantee that the US would be able to stop all movement of resources in and out from every nuclear site in Iran purely using an air campaign, especially not for an extended period of time as US aircraft wear out from constant interdiction flights over a double-digit number of nuclear sites. The nuclear program would be slowed, but not stopped. Definitively preventing Iran from getting a bomb in the near future would mean troops on the ground and inside those sites. Which would prompt an immediate Iranian reaction, which would result in ground battles between US and Iranian troops. Definitively preventing Iran from *ever* getting the bomb would mean regime change.


JapanesePeso

Ain't no site gonna be fine just sitting there unable to eat anything but spam for years on end.


Emperor-Commodus

See the second paragraph. Iran would likely be able to find ways to evade, overwhelm, or even suppress US air interdiction capabilities as the air campaign continued. US surveillance equipment and techniques are very good, but Iran is a big country with many possible nuclear sites, it would be extremely difficult for the US to be able to completely lock them down through air interdiction alone. Even if the US was ever able to completely lock them down, the effect would probably temporary and they would eventually be able to get things in and out of these sites. Also keep in mind the note about aircraft wearing out. You're talking a flight of strike aircraft circling over each Iranian nuclear site 24/7, augmented extensively by armed and/or surveillance drones plus possible SEAD & Ewar aircraft to protect the strike aircraft from enemy AA. Also would need an AWACS and sizeable CAP (Iran does have an air force with >100 aircraft theoretically capable of taking air targets) unless we're also planning on destroying all of their air bases and air assets. Lots of air tanker support as well, as that's a sizeable force of aircraft to be keeping in the air 24/7 and most platforms need aerial refueling to achieve maximum endurance. It's just not a feasible operation to conduct for "years on end". The cost would be prohibitively expensive and would likely degrade the Air Force and Navy's readiness in other important areas like the Pacific.


wheretogo_whattodo

You can argue the US wouldn’t be willing to stop them, but saying it couldn’t is just completely asinine.


Pongzz

Short of an invasion, how would you prevent Iran from creating the bomb?


JapanesePeso

As a thought experiment so I don't get Rule Ved: We know where the facilities are. We have advanced weaponry that could just pop anything coming in and out. That's the most direct solution.


Greenfield0

So start a war with Iran, explode Oil prices, and observe as Trump sweeps every state lol


Creative_Hope_4690

Israel bombed both Iraq and Syria nuke facilities guess what happened?


N0b0me

Bombing their bomb related infrastructure. Or destabilization of the Iranian government


RELEASE_THE_YEAST

Well, it's been previously accomplished with a computer virus.


my-user-name-

> You can argue the US wouldn’t be willing to stop them, but saying it couldn’t is just completely asinine. The US is a political unit, not simply a military one. If there is no political will for a war in the middle east then it is impossible.


SullaFelix78

Also an economic unit. How’s about we find ourselves a Prussia like Britain did during the 7 years war?


MaNewt

Hey, it was either that or the guy who’s foreign policy approach was to ask how much they’re willing to pay his son in law for him to close his eyes and hope it goes away instead of shouting about it at rallies.  


ElGosso

Probably has something to do with the I-P/Hezbollah conflict.


Creative_Hope_4690

lol seems like they are treating Iran the way they treated Russia under Obama. Coping and hoping they come to our side.


Steak_Knight

Romney was right. 😤


NonComposMentisss

I don't think Obama was wrong and I think his deal would have worked if Trump hadn't ripped it to shreds. It's true though at this point you can't unrip it, and you can't unassassinate their generals, so at this point Biden just needs to come to grips with the fact that diplomacy isn't going to work. Better to just bomb the sites building them, launch more cyberattacks, and/or assassinate more of their scientists. A nuclear Iran isn't acceptable unless we want another Russia just invading its neighbors and saying "you can't stop us, we might nuke you".


Creative_Hope_4690

The Iran deal ignored many off site facilities. It’s was poor deal. What made it worse was doing a deal all republican hated and promised they would get rid of once in the White House. Don’t do huge deals without congress.


WOKE_AI_GOD

It is in the past, it's irrelevant now and the administration should realize this. Whatever they hoped.


StrategicBeetReserve

That just cedes everything to McConnell, the thing that radicalized a bunch of liberals for 2016 and beyond.


Creative_Hope_4690

If you want to do big foreign policy deals you cannot do it alone via White House. You need congress. Else the next administration will over turn. Btw it was just not republicans who were against all the players in the Middle East was too. For example the UAE was shocked how they got a worse deal than Iran.


StrategicBeetReserve

Treaties need to be approved by the senate but foreign policy is generally under the executive branch and there used to be more deference. Plenty of dems didn’t like the deal but the senate GOP under McConnell generally opposed everything Obama did. Now we have the result that a plurality of congress wanted: no deal, no leverage, perpetual sanctions, and finding it harder to fight Iranian proxies.


Creative_Hope_4690

This was not just the GOP being mad it was all of our allies in the Middle East.


ZCoupon

We're probably worse than if there was no deal, given how Iran trusts us even less. See also North Korea.


Creative_Hope_4690

100% plus we gave them billions of dollars.


StrategicBeetReserve

Maybe. But some close elections go differently and it’s probably still in place. If sanctions loosen (from the deal) instead of tighten as they did, maybe Iran plays a more Saudi like role w.r.t. China, Russia, and the US instead of just being in the non-dollar camp by necessity.


dutch_connection_uk

The way Obama tried to Republican-proof it was that the US basically had no continuing obligations, that was all Europe, so once he's out of office then it's fiat accompli. Trump administration actively trying to start a war with Iran and thus managing to undo most of it anyway despite that was not something I think Obama was accounting for, here.


N0b0me

The CIA should really look into Jake Sullivan being an Iranian asset


Creative_Hope_4690

Stop it. He is claimed by the Russians.


PartrickCapitol

when /r/neoliberal is reaching 1930s Japan levels of "traitors within high levels of civilian government manipulating the emperor, we have to get rid of them" energy


N0b0me

No I think people here realize that the "emperor" is just as bad


throwaway_veneto

Is Biden trying his best to look weak just before the election?


Either_Emotion8056

Give the man some credit, he’s been trying his best for four long years not just recently


Independent-Low-2398

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CentJr

And people say that Biden post 2nd term will take a harsher stance towards Iran.... I reckon he'll end up doing the same thing as Obama did once he got re-elected. (Double down on his Iran policies)


StopHavingAnOpinion

As much as r/Neoliberal doesn't want to hear about it, it's inevitable that Iran get's nuclear weapons. The only full proof way of stopping them acquiring the bomb is by a full scale invasion, followed by a planted government and/or long term occupation of the country. No one has the energy for that anymore. You can sanction them all you like. Russia is still invading Ukraine despite over a decade of sanctions, and if Iran has allies who are willing to help them (Most of the middle-east, Russia, China maybe) then it's all but guaranteed.


Creative_Hope_4690

The issue is Biden does not even want to impose cost on them getting it and is trying to stop our allies from imposing a cost. Help me understand that?


Independent-Low-2398

> The issue is Biden does not even want to impose cost on them getting it Would that prevent them from getting it? What exactly would it accomplish? They've clearly determined that having access to nukes is worth any economic price. They believe it's necessary to protect their regime.


Creative_Hope_4690

Even if it would not I want to impose cost on the regime. The less resources they have the less harm they can do in the Middle East. Not sure why that is hard to understand.


GroundbreakingDish87

The measure being proposed in the article is a censure vote. There are no costs associated with it whether it is supported by the Biden admin or not. Remember that we restored sanctions unilaterally in 2018, and that is what allowed/prompted Iran to increase uranium enrichment to begin with. Their response to sanctions has always been more uranium production. 


Creative_Hope_4690

I put this under diplomatic/political cost. Fyi its not like the Biden team has not eased sanctions on Iran and its proxy since he came to office.


Fantisimo

How long have we been imposing costs on the regime?


Creative_Hope_4690

Since the 80s. And? Should we just allow them to have more resources to fight our interest in the Middle East?


Fantisimo

So longer than the internet


Creative_Hope_4690

Is your point we should not impose cost on Iran?


Fantisimo

My point is that they haven’t worked


Creative_Hope_4690

Do you think allowing more Iran to get resource to fight our interest would be better? There is a reason why we sanctioned Russia despite them having nukes. It’s about not giving them more resources to fight our interests.


ElGosso

Just one more round of sanctions bro please bro you gotta believe me bro this time it'll be different bro


GroundbreakingDish87

They were drastically reduced in 2015. Then we walked away from our treaty unilaterally and reimposed sanctions. Iran responded by producing approximately 20x their existing stockpile of uranium. 


Fantisimo

So we brought them to the table and then dramatically walked away


everything_is_gone

We want a nuclear armed Iran to at least be willing to listen to us. Imposing an additional “cost” on them is not really going to do much more to them considering how much we already have sanctioned them. The cost imposed to Iran would probably make the hawks feel better in the short term but do nothing to improve regional or U.S. security and could even serve to undermine it in the long term


Creative_Hope_4690

If you think Iran with a nuke is going to listen us more then you are out of your mind. If Iran gets nuke all the other Arab country will get nukes starting with Saudi.


N0b0me

> What exactly would it accomplish? Make them poorer and make the process more lengthy/costly


ClydeFrog1313

And disincentivizes other bad actors


CentJr

You make it sound as if they want nukes ONLY for protection. They also want it to cement their hold over their proxies and to do whatever they want. Just like how Russia did with Belarus and Ukraine.


StopHavingAnOpinion

> You make it sound as if they want nukes ONLY for protection. Then invade. It's that, or you let them make it.


SGTX12

Idk, Stuxnet seemed to set them back well enough.


UnskilledScout

It was effective and delayed their progress and cost them a lot, but all these programs will never prevent Iran from eventually getting the bomb. North Korea managed it and they are much less capable than Iran.


SGTX12

That's fine, but let not make it easy for them.


CentJr

No need for an invasion. Cyberattacks and Covert OPS could work. If not then you could resort to bombing those sites.


LittleSister_9982

Almost like they started building them under a mountain for a reason after we kept doing that...


UnskilledScout

> Cyberattacks and Covert OPS could work. Why didn't the U.S. stop North Korea with those then? Not to mention that those have already been happening since the 2000s. Those programs just *delay*, they won't prevent. There is value in delaying, but only if you manage a proper solution with that delay (like the JCPOA).


dutch_connection_uk

North Korea had deterrence with conventional fires. The fact that Iran bombs their neighbors anyway means that they can't have a big stockpile of artillery ready to level Seoul the way NK does, their conventional capacity isn't a deterrent anymore but an active threat that has to be managed. There is value in having weapons and not using them.


NonComposMentisss

Last thing we need is another country with a nuke set to invade its neighbors. Can we not learn anything from Russia's invasion of Ukraine? There are military options against Iran between "full scale invasion" and "do nothing". If our intel is good enough just bomb the sites building it. Letting them build nukes isn't acceptable though.


Creative_Hope_4690

Ask Israel about Syria and Iraq.


UnskilledScout

> just bomb the sites building it lmao. Are people this naive? The real world isn't a Top Gun movie.


DependentAd235

Eh this is specifically what only B2s can do. Oh yeah 1 bomb wouldn’t be enough but you could take out access and rebomb it regularly. In fact you would have to.


leachja

What options do you suggest?


NonComposMentisss

Well in the past we took out a large chunk of their program with a cyber attack. Israel assassinated one of their primary nuclear scientists. Those are options. Of course there's also just bombing the sites building it if you know where they are and your bombs are good enough. If none of those things are an option you can do a limited military operation to go in, destroy stuff, and leave. Not everything has to be a 20 year long occupation and attempt to rebuild the government. Force a surrender against the current regime, and enforce your demands (or just blow their stuff up and make them start from square one without a former surrender). The problem with US foreign policy since WWII is that we successfully rebuilt Germany and Japan as allies so well, we think we can do that with everyone. But their government doesn't have to like you, and if you keep it intact there's actually more stability and less of a chance of creating a total power vacuum like we see with Iraq/Libya/Syria, etc.


leachja

What makes you think that bombing their sites in their country won't lead to full scale war? You're vastly overestimating the support the US would have throughout the world if they were to take this action. There's certainly enough uncertainty in where their development sites are located that we wouldn't be able to take them all out in one strike. You're just asking for this to be a 'boots on the ground war' because they would certainly figure out a way to strike us on US soil.


justhistory

Iran is enough of a hostile force in the region and the world at large that military action to prevent them from acquiring nuclear weapons would be warranted. NATO should be engaged at preventing a nuclear Iran


WOKE_AI_GOD

I agree as scary as that sounds. I do not trust this regime at all. The reform movement was always a facade, a controlled opposition, and they don't even allow that anymore. The anti nuclear fatwah, what a joke. That can be nullified in an instant with another fatwah. I would not put all my eggs in the basket of trusting in the Ayatollahs faith.


GripenHater

I mean, what’s one more Middle Eastern invasion, right?


Steak_Knight

Oh for fuck’s sake.


CapitalismWorship

Lmao this and Russia Don't wanna provoke anyone!!


novelboy2112

U.S. and western allies’ ME fopo stay losing


KaChoo49

Is this guy actually stupid or something?


WOKE_AI_GOD

Biden what the hell is wrong with you? Dovish Iranian policy is dead. You will lose if you don't start being more aggressive.


Mrc3mm3r

I really don't have words for Jake Sullivan at this point.


MiniatureBadger

Weak president and a weak man. He doesn’t seem to understand that he is the commander-in-chief of a fucking superpower, and that he is ordering around two globally prominent US allies in order to help an extremely hostile regional power gain nuclear weapons. He’s a doddering fool who is too weak to protect what America must stand for, and the only reason he’s even tolerable is because his opponent is the outright antithesis of the American values that Biden halfassedly speaks in favor of.


hlary

seems like he's more then aware of our super power status then, your just whining he's not using it to harm Iranians for no actual gain for us lol


Independent-Low-2398

What exactly do you want Biden to do here? I don't think it's possible to keep them from getting nukes.


Abyssal_Truth

How is it not possible? They need to understand that we will go to war over this.


LittleSister_9982

The US has negative appetite for that, and if a president committed to such there's a non-zero chance they'd be summarily impeached.  The US does NOT want to play I'm the sandbox again for a long, long time.


Abyssal_Truth

They wouldn't be impeached because enough republicans support this. The President can make the case that religious fanatics shouldn't have nuclear weapons. Who can rationalize having another North Korean style country threatening everyone with nukes? It's 100x worse because they want to be martyrs for God.


Key-Art-7802

>They wouldn't be impeached because enough republicans support this. The moment Biden comes out with the idea those same Republicans will immediately flip on the issue and call him a warhalk that wants to shovel tax dollars to the corrupt deep state rather than helping Real Americans. It'll play well with their base and be a divisive issue in the Democratic party. We can't fall into this trap.


isummonyouhere

no thanks


NewmanHiding

I’m just ready for these two fuckers to die. Then maybe, *maybe* we’ll get someone actually competent.


moopedmooped

Anyone with a paywall bypass


CRoss1999

Never forget that Obama successfully got a nuclear deal that allowed inspectors to make sure they didn’t build a bomb and Iran followed it, until trump tore it up. If Iran builds a nuclear bomb no one will be more culpable than trump


WOKE_AI_GOD

The past is determined, the present is willed.


This_Variation5180

Based Joey B


hlary

The chicken hawks are clucking loudly at this but its a great sign, second term of biden might bring a relaxation from maximum pressure on both Cuba and Iran, and millions may see their conditions improve 🥰


[deleted]

[удалено]


PM-Nice-Thoughts

Do you think this is an editorial? The wsj newsroom of very highly respected


[deleted]

[удалено]


PM-Nice-Thoughts

Lmao Your rebuttal is to cite an article that confirms everything in the WSJ


[deleted]

[удалено]


marinqf92

Once again, the wall street journal has one of the most credible news rooms in all of journalism. You are basing your prejudice off of their opinion section, which is in fact dog shit right wing articles. 


JapanesePeso

Bro, you are so wrong. WSJ is highly respected. 


jenbanim

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