51–60 of 157 posts
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So why not punish Israel as well?
Israel is much closer to the western point of view on human rights for one thing. It's OK for there to be an objective right and wrong in a conflict.
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Yup we can only achieve world peace if it's just us who owns nuclear weapons. If the goal is really that, the U.S. wouldn't be flashing its nuclear arsenal.
The more people there are who can choose to use nuclear weapons, the greater the chance that someone will actually choose to use them.
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So why not punish Israel as well?
Israel is much closer to the western point of view on human rights for one thing. It's OK for there to be an objective right and wrong in a conflict.
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This isn't a country's laws - Huawei is a Chinese company, it's not Chinese prosecutors going after Huawei. Companies should not be subject to the laws of arbitrary countries. Would you say US copyright laws should be applied globally too?
Yes, copyright is a good analogy: I don't get to legally torrent non-American works just because they're foreign. And if I did breach the copyright laws of a country with which the US has no extradition treaty, I absolutely could be persecuted if I travel to that country.
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Doesn't change the fact that it should be up to that country's prosecutors to do the enforcement - not the governments of Canada or the USA. International treaties should not override a country's laws - Canada for example is already in brazen violation of internation drug treaties. If US authorities want them on these charges, they should be presenting legitimate evidence to Chinese prosecutors and arguing over the t…
No. If every person was legally immune, save for their own country, then each country could simply refuse to persecute citizens that violate treaties. Under your proposed scheme, treaties wouldn't be worth the paper they're written on.
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> That said, the stated reason for the current sanctions is still nuclear weapons Of course. And I think it's a blatant lie. > The limited analysis in your comment seems to assume that the deal was effective, something I don't think we have enough information to reliably evaluate The IAEA opinion is that we do, and that Iran has complied with the terms of the deal.
The IAEA opinion that I've seen is limited to "Iran has complied with the terms of the deal", not "the public has enough information to evaluate that the deal was effective at stopping nuclear weapons", or even "the deal is effective at stopping nuclear weapons development". The latter two (especially the middle one) being outside of the scope of what they discuss. It's possible I missed something, I would be surpris…
To suggest that all the major world powers would have signed a deal that leaves space for Iran to develop nuclear weapons, and that the IAEA might have been happily certifying the compliance to the terms of the deal without bothering to make sure that Iran isn't actually developing nuclear weapons, would be supremely naive.
A more complete quote from the IAEA statement that you quoted is:
"The Agency’s overall assessment was that a range of activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device were conducted in Iran prior to the end of 2003 as a coordinated effort, and some activities took place after 2003. The Agency also assessed that these activities did not advance beyond feasibility and scientific studies, and the acquisition of certain relevant technical competences and capabilities. The same report stated that the Agency had no credible indications of activities in Iran relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device after 2009. Based on the Director General’s report, the Board of Governors declared that its consideration of this issue was closed."
In fact, what IAEA is diplomatically saying is "we don't give a damn what Netanyahu claims, we have reports and information that proves that the claims are not true and we don't have to discuss it any further".
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The stupid part is: Why is Iran forbidden from buying telecommunication equipment? God forbid evil Iranians using using smartphones or the Internet.
The embargoes are to force regime change.
My comment will never be seen.
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The goal of most sanctions, from a diplomatic perspective, is to place enormous financial pressure on an economy so that the population revolts agains the government in question. It's believed that when the "price of onions" becomes too high for a society to tolerate, revolution occurs. I'm not saying the world is/isn't a better place, just explaining the common beltway logic re: Iran sanctions.
The goal of the sanctions is to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. The sanctions cause economic harm, forcing Iran to the negotiating table. It's not anyone's goal to overthrow Iran. No one want to clean up the mess. There are already enough messes in that region already (afghanistan, iraq, syria, yemen).
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> "Outlawing business" (i.e. sanctions) are being used to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. If you're talking about the current US sanctions, I think you're wrong. The deal ensured Iran could not develop nuclear weapons, through a strict regime of inspections. Without the deal, there are no inspections anymore and Iran is free to develop said weapons. It seems that the real purpose of the sanctions is to w…
I'm talking about the sanctions that the article is, i.e. the pre-deal ones that Meng Wanzhou is accused of violating. That said, the stated reason for the current sanctions is still nuclear weapons [0]. An accurate evaluation of why the US chose to withdraw from that deal is probably not possible with publicly available information. The limited analysis in your comment seems to assume that the deal was effective, so…
Before the deal (5 years ago), we were hearing that Iran was ~18 months away from a bomb. Yet, no bomb so far. Looks like the deal has been in the black for at least 3.5 years, to me.
The reason for pulling out of the deal had everything to do with domestic politics and, on a disorganized level, a bunch of yahoos' power fantasies. Nothing to do with Iran's behavior.