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Or, as I fear, they’re open to negotiations because they have what they need... |
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Written By:
Keith_Indy
URL:
http://asecondhandconjecture.com
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What scares the Iranians is that the West began to takes Iran’s explicitly stated threats seriously.
All of the Muslim world (even from its vantage point as a civilization at the end of its own rope) views the West as dissolute and ready to be had, which it is.
The EU and most of its constituent countries have been rolling over for Muslims for years. That’s where Iran’s big talk comes from, not its own strength but from the West’s weakness.
But when the West seems to take Iran’s threats seriously (and maybe Putin told the mullahs that their threats were being taken seriously in the West) the Iranians want to look at a deal. They don’t want to go down in glory for Allah all of a sudden. They’d rather talk the West back into complaceny before starting up again.
I forget which of Saddam Hussein’s sons it was who understood too late that the jig was up and blurted out that George Bush was serious and that the Americans were coming heavy this time. Diplomacy is fine, of course, but when you do nothing but bluff (or worse, fire the occasional Cruise missile as if that could cure the problem of terrorist training camps), nutcakes like Saddam and bin Laden and the Iranian mullahs know you’re not serious.
And it’s the Party of Defeat in the U.S., of course, that gives confidence to terrorists and rogue states around the world now.
Harry Reid? The majority leader of the United States Senate: "The war is lost."
We’ve become just so wonderfully civilized in this country, where statements that were once the province of Tokyo Rose and Lord Hee Haw can now be made freely on the floor of the Senate by its leader without consequences. I don’t want to see mob rule, but shouldn’t a mob have formed naturally around the Capitol that day and demanded that Reid be handed over to them? |
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Written By:
Martin McPhillips
URL:
http://newpaltzjournal.com
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Aren’t you jumping to conclusions a bit when you say that the stick (the "threat against them") and not the carrot is the decisive factor? As you yourself say, both carrots and sticks should be on the table. North Korea has very recently provided an example of how that works. After this administration’s preference for the stick resulted in six years of abject failure, just a little bit of carrot - normalized trade relations, removal from the "sponsors of terror" list - seems to have yielded results. How can anyone ignore or dismiss the significance of that, or assume that Iran has done so, to continue pushing the "we like sticks" doctrine?
As for being lonely at the "Axis of Evil" table, not so much. We still have Sudan, Zimbabwe, Burma, Afghanistan backsliding, both China and Russia returning to the world stage in unpleasant ways, etc. Sure, we could let this administration define for us what nations are evil and say "two out of three ain’t bad" but if we actually look at the evil that’s out there it doesn’t seem to have decreased. It just moved around a bit. That’s the problem with policies that conflates the persistent ideological/political/sociological phenomena that we call "evil" with their transient representatives. Of course, that’s exactly what we should expect when those phenomena are the very same ones that the administration relies on for its own survival. They don’t want to stamp out evil. They want to stamp out *competition*, so they go after specific concentrations of evil but don’t care about the widely-distributed kind. |
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Written By:
Jeff Darcy
URL:
http://pl.atyp.us
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After this administration’s preference for the stick resulted in six years of abject failure, just a little bit of carrot Even by your own terms you make McQ’s point. "Stick for six years makes a little carrot appealing." But you can’t resist the trope imbedded in you by media hypnosis and repeat "Bush...abject failure." |
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Written By:
Martin McPhillips
URL:
http://newpaltzjournal.com
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Aren’t you jumping to conclusions a bit when you say that the stick (the "threat against them") and not the carrot is the decisive factor? The carrot has been laying there for quite some time. In the past they’ve specifically rejected it. They suddenly became interested in the carrot again after the Israeli exercise over the Med.As for being lonely at the "Axis of Evil" table, not so much. The "Axis of Evil" had a very specific membership. Your additions are irrelevant to that specific membership. No one contests the fact that there are other evil regimes, but they weren’t named in the "Axis of Evil". |
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.QandO.net
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They suddenly became interested in the carrot again after the Israeli exercise over the Med. Oh. I missed that Israeli exercise. So, this sudden interest in an offer shouldn’t be taken as anything more than a cadge for "world opinion" to restrain Israel. Not that it could be taken as much more than that, no matter the circumstances.
And never forget that the key player vis a vis Iran is Putin. No military action will happen without his sign-off and then faint damnation of the action afterwards. |
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Written By:
Martin McPhillips
URL:
http://newpaltzjournal.com
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The "Axis of Evil" had a very specific membership. yep, with specific membership requirements. Nuclear/WMD weapons development and a desire to use them (at least threaten). Plus training and exporting world class terrorists was an added bonus.
So Platy, when Sudan gets their A bomb ready, then they can join as well. |
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Written By:
capt joe
URL:
http://
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What a *convenient* after-the-fact definition. Anything that lets us rationalize our actions. Too bad that Iraq didn’t meet that definition, but Pakistan does. Kinda blows that facile non-argument out of the water. |
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Written By:
Jeff Darcy
URL:
http://pl.atyp.us
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Too bad that Iraq didn’t meet that definition, but Pakistan does. Kinda blows that facile non-argument out of the water. But it was in the "Axis of Evil" and Pakistan wasn’t...facts kinda of blow your complaint out of the water, don’t they Jeffy?
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Written By:
Joe
URL:
http://
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Zimbabwe? Axis of Evil? Since when?
Axis of stupid asses maybe.
I have a million zim note handy, anyone interested? It’s good up till, I think, end July of this year.
WRT Iran, have we forgotten to mention demolition of a reactor cooling tower in that little country just north of South Korea and the sudden PR change of heart by the cockroach that runs the place?
And Jeff, try and get with the program - "Axis of evil" was a term coined by United States President George W. Bush in his State of the Union Address on January 29, 2002 in order to describe governments that he accused of helping terrorism and seeking weapons of mass destruction. Bush named Iran, Iraq, and North Korea in his speech. Bush’s presidency has been marked by this notion as a justification for the War on Terror. What a *convenient* after-the-fact definition. facts? you didn’t seem interested in facts when you put all those other countries at the Axis of Evil table and invented your own little methodology for including new members in a clearly defined & restricted list.
In 2002, Iraq was posturing quite nicely, making everyone think they possessed WMDs. Let’s not let facts stand in your after-the-fact definitions though. |
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Written By:
looker
URL:
http://
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Tell me Jeff Darcy do you guys on the left use Google, for anything other than trying to link "George Bush & Failure"? You know like persue the internet looking for information BEFORE you post? Just wondered, because I see this happen all the time, a generic "Jeff" walks into a forum makes some silly claim and about 120 seconds later another poster brings up a link that just trashes the "generic Jeff’s" supposed point...or do you just hang out in KosLand or DU all day long, with only a short jaunt off the reservation to troll, and then run back to the echo chamber? |
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Written By:
Joe
URL:
http://
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As a "generic" Jeff, I take exception to your racist remarks. |
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Written By:
Jeff
URL:
http://repatriate.blogspot.com
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"What a *convenient* after-the-fact definition."
From Bush’s 2002 speech;
"States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil,"
’these’ were, specifically, N. Korea, Iran, and Iraq.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axis_of_evil |
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Written By:
timactual
URL:
http://
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As a "generic" Jeff, I take exception to your racist remarks. And how can they be "racist"? I said "Jeff", not "Gheff", or "Jay-F"...So I say just take your Cracker-@rse complaint right out of here... |
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Written By:
Joe
URL:
http://
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Maybe its the North Korean news about them destroying their cooling tower that has also sparked some Iranian interest in addition to the Israeli exercise.
Or more likely it could just be another delaying tactic designed to buy 6 months, because Iran KNOWS that Libya got rid of its weapons and got a deal from the West. It KNOWS that if it just made some positive steps, the US would join the EU-3 at some point in direct negotiations. It KNOWS that Syria got its hidden facility bombed.
And Jeff Darcy might be wise to recall North Korea had an all carrot diet from the Clinton administration that they spurned and cheated on. So I doubt it was just the little bit of carrot that did the trick this time.
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Written By:
Harun
URL:
http://
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And how can they be "racist"? I said "Jeff", not "Gheff", or "Jay-F"...So I say just take your Cracker-@rse complaint right out of here...
RACIST!!!!
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Written By:
Jeff
URL:
http://
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Jeff I can’t be racist, it’s obvious you are melanin-challenged and therefore open to the sobriquet of "Cracker." YOU are the racist, it’s in your DNA, *SHEESH* can’t you wingnuts comprehend anything? |
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Written By:
Joe
URL:
http://
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The empire of Jeff, racists? Oh no. |
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Written By:
looker
URL:
http://
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The empire of Jeff, racists? Oh no.
looker,
Do not think I have not noticed your blatant lack of capitalizing the "e" in Empire of Jeff. Jeff holds grudges, people. This is not how one positions himself for a future cabinet position!
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Written By:
Jeff
URL:
http://
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