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Skirting U.S. sanctions, Europeans launch trade mechanism for Iran

reuters.com

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Re: Skirting U.S. sanctions, Europeans launch trade mechanism for Iran

#301

Post by ashelmire »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #298
ashelmire wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The “progressive secular government” was a despotic dictatorship without a free press, where political opponents of Reza were assassinated, and rule was maintained through the military. The progress was progress for the wealthy. Yes, there was foreign interference before that; but it wasn’t better before that either.

The progressive secular government was the one under Mosaddegh. Though Reza was the Shah at the time, he did not have the tyrannical power until after the US backed coup, and that period is the pro-west regime I mention.

I was referring to Reza Shah, Mohammad Reza's father, who led Iran for decades. Reza Shah is generally credited with being an autocrat, but who is credited with most of Iran's modern nation-building.

Mosaddegh led the nation for two years, half of which he had emergency dictatorial powers, which he used to forcibly reallocate wealth from landowners to tenants. And due to nationalizing oil, he faced a British boycott that caused the economy to fail (and declared the British an enemy... which was unwise). If anything, his short-lived leadership was one of the most rapid and catastrophic failures of leadership of any world nation in recent history. The US led coup was only planned 8 months after the emergency powers were granted to Mosaddegh. 5 months after that, the coup was executed.

Re: Skirting U.S. sanctions, Europeans launch trade mechanism for Iran

#302

Post by spiritcat »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #99
spiritcat wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you Mr. European, we'll continue to greatly consider and internalize your thoughts on what and when it is appropriate for Israelis act in self defense. Now get fucked. (not Israeli, but yes Jewish)

> for Israelis act in self defense Are other people/nations also allowed to 'act in self defense', or is it only Israel? > Now get fucked. Well, I guess you won the argument.

fwiw, the 'get fucked' part was probably uncalled for. kind of on edge these days.

Re: Skirting U.S. sanctions, Europeans launch trade mechanism for Iran

#303

Post by boomboomsubban »

ashelmire wrote: post #301
boomboomsubban wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The progressive secular government was the one under Mosaddegh. Though Reza was the Shah at the time, he did not have the tyrannical power until after the US backed coup, and that period is the pro-west regime I mention.

I was referring to Reza Shah, Mohammad Reza's father, who led Iran for decades. Reza Shah is generally credited with being an autocrat, but who is credited with most of Iran's modern nation-building. Mosaddegh led the nation for two years, half of which he had emergency dictatorial powers, which he used to forcibly reallocate wealth from landowners to tenants. And due to nationalizing oil, he faced a British boycott…

>If anything, his short-lived leadership was one of the most rapid and catastrophic failures of leadership of any world nation in recent history.

Purely because he resisted Western control over the oil fields. The government was secular and progressive, but the west only cares if you're pro-western interests.

Re: Skirting U.S. sanctions, Europeans launch trade mechanism for Iran

#304

Post by dang »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #83
danra wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hope we stop buying in. When a politician tells us a country is evil, we need to start asking for receipts. Well, there’s the minor issue of Iran’s totalitarian regime consistently announcing their intent to destroy Israel and devestate the U.S.A, and taking actual steps to support the same. I am Israeli and completely left-wing by the way, and believe there are many steps both Israel and the U.S. could take to m…

[flagged]

Please do not engage in political or ideological or nationalistic flamewar on HN. This is the sort of discussion that starts out bad ("spare me this crying"), can only get worse, and leads to hell.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Skirting U.S. sanctions, Europeans launch trade mechanism for Iran

#305

Post by dang »

spiritcat wrote: post #92
AsyncAwait wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Thank you Mr. European, we'll continue to greatly consider and internalize your thoughts on what and when it is appropriate for Israelis act in self defense. Now get fucked. (not Israeli, but yes Jewish)

This sort of flamewar will get you banned here. Please do not do it again.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19045708 is also bad. Tedious, nasty political back-and-forths are both off topic (on topic is gratification of intellectual curiosity, and there's none of that here) and against the spirit of the site. If this is what you want to do, please find somewhere else on the internet to do it. Here it's necessary to resist the bait when others do it, not respond in kind.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Skirting U.S. sanctions, Europeans launch trade mechanism for Iran

#306

Post by catdog »

zimablue wrote: post #223
catdog wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's that the deal that's being offered by the EU is awful. That's because full membership was already the best deal the EU had to offer. A lot of UK politicians seem to live inside a dream world where they think the remaining EU members are obliged to make major concessions without anything in return because a no-deal brexit surely hurts them, a little bit, too. Also the most disliked thing seems to be the backsto…

The countries of Europe are our allies and friends, the EU as an entity seems to treat the UK as an enemy. The UK as a negotiating entity has failed to argue coherently, because the political classes are hopelessly divided and opportunistic. It's important to note that the EU has not agreed to /anything/ in terms of trade as part of this deal, that's why it's a terrible deal. It's a deal to make a deal, but it includ…

> The countries of Europe are our allies and friends, the EU as an entity seems to treat the UK as an enemy.

Do they? Nobody wants the UK to leave as far a I know.

> It's important to note that the EU has not agreed to /anything/ in terms of trade as part of this deal, that's why it's a terrible deal. It's a deal to make a deal, > The EU /can/ enforce this on us, because of their relative size and our political disunity/mismanagement, but it seems obvious that they /should/ not.

Why shouldn't the EU act in its own best interest? And why should the EU expect ongoing negotiations would be more productive than what happend the last 2 years and be finished in a pre set schedule? I think the political mismanagement in the UK is fully to blame here. Yes the UK is in no position to simply dictate the terms of an ongoing relationship, everyone knew that (at least who wanted to know). What the EU is willing or able to accept was also known. Despite that article 50 was triggered without a plan, not even speaking of a realistic one while knowing that 2 years are not a lot of time to untangle such a deep relationship even with a solid plan.

> but it includes us agreeing to pay massive outstanding budget commitments.

I think it's reasonable to demand budget commitments already made to be paid for. It's not some arbitrary "exit fee", it's just paying the bill. Would you be willing to sign a new contract with someone who is unwilling to fulfill outstanding obligations of the previous one?

Re: Skirting U.S. sanctions, Europeans launch trade mechanism for Iran

#307

Post by ovi256 »

benj111 wrote: post #182
ovi256 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter where one stands. If you want to fight against, say, the people that run campaigns, you'll have to fight in their chosen arena, that of public oppinion and elections. It's empirically found effective to use "arguments as soldiers" in that arena. If we chose policies through a peer-reviewed search for truth, we wouldn't have this discussion.

But then it becomes a race to the bottom. So I think you need some enforcement of standards, whether moral or legal.

And to enforce standards, you better win some elections, right ? And how are you going to win them ?

Re: Skirting U.S. sanctions, Europeans launch trade mechanism for Iran

#308

Post by misja »

tomp wrote: post #248
misja wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the Apartheid regime in South Africa has collapsed, and so have (most) communist totalitarian regimes in Eastern Europe.

Was that because of trade sanctions, or because the regimes were (internally) unsustainable? (Honest question, I'm not old enough to know.)

The first US Sanctions against South Africa took into effect in 1986, 5 years later the Apartheid system was ended.

See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_Anti-Apartheid_A...

Re: Skirting U.S. sanctions, Europeans launch trade mechanism for Iran

#309

Post by spiritcat »

dang wrote: post #305
spiritcat wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you Mr. European, we'll continue to greatly consider and internalize your thoughts on what and when it is appropriate for Israelis act in self defense. Now get fucked. (not Israeli, but yes Jewish)

This sort of flamewar will get you banned here. Please do not do it again. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19045708 is also bad. Tedious, nasty political back-and-forths are both off topic (on topic is gratification of intellectual curiosity, and there's none of that here) and against the spirit of the site. If this is what you want to do, please find somewhere else on the internet to do it. Here it's necessary…

No don't send me back to slashdot, I'll be good. Peace wuv coexist.

Re: Skirting U.S. sanctions, Europeans launch trade mechanism for Iran

#310

Post by danra »

jameslk wrote: post #292
danra wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first article is mostly an opinion piece on the illegitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state. > So the UN resolution was actually legally compromised and the partition plan was also completely unfair, giving out 70 percent of the land to the immigrant Jews who made up only 30 percent of the population at the time! (See 1947 UN Partition Proposal) > So people only need to use their common sense to see how wrong this r…

Stating that a country should not exist vs stating a country should be wiped off the map are drastically different things. It's long been known that Iran doesn't recognize Israel as a country, just like Israel doesn't recognize Palestine, so there should be no surprise here. I really don't understand why others really think the people of Iran have some overarching goal of attacking Israel and the US versus just tryin…

> Stating that a country should not exist vs stating a country should be wiped off the map are drastically different things.

You make the first sound very sterile. Aggressively saying one (a person or country) must not exist is not that far off from saying he must be wiped off, especially if you’re taking actual military steps against that subject.

> It's long been known that Iran doesn't recognize Israel as a country just like Israel doesn't recognize Palestine, so there should be no surprise here.

Who’s surprised? I just demonstrated the so-called receipts the parent OP said one must show.

Regardless, not recognizing something is very different from saying it must not exist and taking steps to advance that desired non-existence.

I think the Israeli regime is also evil in not allowing a Palestenian state to exist, even if it’s not Israel’s exclusive fault.

> I really don't understand why others really think the people of Iran have some overarching goal of attacking Israel and the US versus just trying to live their lives. What will that accomplish them?

I think it’s clear we are talking about the regimes here, not “the people”. Especially in autocratic Iran.

> Iran is a republic and must answer to it's people

False. [1]

> de jure: Unitary Khomeinist presidential Islamic republic

> de facto: Theocratic-republican authoritarian unitary presidential republic subject to a Supreme Leader

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran

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