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Israel launches attack on Iran | US bombs Iran nuke sites

All jokes and jabs aside, I sincerely would like for Trump to be successful in brokering peace in the ME, eliminating or crippling Iran’s ability to ever become nuclear, and for bonus points, stopping the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine. I couldn’t care less that I don’t like Trump personally; I’d happily be the very first person at the front of the line effusively praising him for pulling any or all of the above off.

At some point, though, even Trump’s fiercest supporters, samewashers, bootlickers, and/or both-siders have to acknowledge that directing military strikes and conducting diplomatic negotiations via Twitter is absolutely absurd, right? Like, you can think Trump the the bigliest alpha man, the stablest of geniuses, and the bestest dealmaker that ever made deals, and still find it to be …unbecoming…. that Trump’s own military, intelligence, and diplomatic staffers have to keep him in the dark or stage fake B-2 sorties to prevent him from tipping off our plans to the enemy? At what point can even the staunchest of Trump supporters acknowledge that this is absurd?
 
Centerpiece said:
I want to agree to end the fight, but wait… I wanna take this 2x4 up side your head a couple of times real quick. OK. I’m done now. Let’s shake hands and pretend this shit never happened. And let me bend the knee and kiss the feet of the referee who brokered the peace 48 hours after he bombed the shit out of my man cave. We’re good now.
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Anybody who thinks this ceasefire will hold is, given the history of the Middle East and what we know about Donald Trump, deluded. Even if it holds for a few days or weeks or months there will be other terrorist attacks, Iran will not stop trying to build nukes (and likely getting bombed by Israel again), and given Trump's nature there will inevitably be a disaster or incompetent bungling, if not in the Middle East then somewhere else. Within a month (probably much less time) we'll have forgotten all about this and will have moved on to the next crisis/disaster/"can you believe this shit?" event of Trump 2.0. The man is chaos and impulse personified.
 
CFordUNC said:
In your estimation, who would someone with “a full brain” vote for? I’m not even being snarky, I’m genuinely curious in your perspective.
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my perspective is simple....i will not vote for any politician or party just because they are what i believe to be the lesser of two evils. dc is a fucking cesspool of corruption and has been for decades because thats what people in america chose to be controlled into believing.....exactly what they knew the dumbed down american would accept and vote for.
 
I think Trump has several traits that may make him particularly (if not for great reasons) well suited to make progress with most of the key players in the Middle East:

* his transactional outlook generally
* he doesn’t care at all about human rights
* he doesn’t care much if at all about democracy or freedom other than the freedom of some to be rich
* he doesn’t care at all about conflicts or interest or ethics — and has made it clear he and his family are open for business / bribes
* he cares a great deal about fossil fuel — its impact on gas prices but also as a bizarrely vocal opponent of green energy
* his Administration has already announced they do not intend to enforce laws against bribery in foreign countries by U.S. businesses
* his newfound love of crypto and alternative currency schemes, which are very popular with folks trying to evade U.S. controls on dollar transactions
* his love of being lavished with praise, pomp and circumstance
* his love of strong men leaders in a region dominated by them
* Putin’s need to re-establish Russian influence in the Middle East
* he seems to have no grudges about 9/11
* he has no apparent interest in the long term repercussions of his actions, only how they directly benefit him at the time
* he has a somewhat fraught relationship with Netanyahu


None of that (except maybe the last bullet) is good for his domestic policies in the United States or for Palestinians, political dissidents or other vulnerable people in the Middle East. But it may make him an effective (if very gullible / easily manipulated) broker among the royalty and strongmen of the Middle East.
 
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nycfan said:
I think Trump has several traits that may make him particularly (if not for great reasons) well suited to make progress with most of the key players in the Middle East:

* his transactional outlook generally
* he doesn’t care at all about human rights
* he doesn’t care much if at all about democracy or freedom other than the freedom of some to be rich
* he doesn’t care at all about conflicts or interest or ethics — and has made it clear he and his family are open for business / bribes
* he cares a great deal about fossil fuel — its impact on gas prices but also as a bizarrely vocal opponent of green energy
* his Administration has already announced they do not intend to enforce laws against bribery in foreign countries by U.S. businesses
* his newfound love of crypto and alternative currency schemes, which are very popular with folks trying to evade U.S. controls on dollar transactions
* his love of being lavished with praise, pomp and circumstance
* his love of strong men leaders in a region dominated by them
* Putin’s need to re-establish Russian influence in the Middle East
* he seems to have no grudges about 9/11
* he has a somewhat fraught relationship with Netanyahu


None of that (except maybe the last bullet) is good for his domestic policies in the United States or for Palestinians, political dissidents or other vulnerable people in the Middle East. But it may make him an effective (if very gullible / easily manipulated) broker among the royalty and strongmen of the Middle East.
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I think all of this is really interesting to consider and may ultimately even prove correct. As I’ve said several times, I’d love for nothing more than to be able to witness President Trump being able to solve some of the most vexing international challenges that have plagued decades of presidential administrations across both parties. I can very easily square my personal dislike for Trump with my desire for him, and for our country, to succeed.

My concern is that, while much of what you outline above may be true, ultimately the problem is that all of those Middle Eastern leaders may be vile, evil, despicable men- but they’re all extremely intelligent and extremely well-versed on the historical and cultural nuances that innervate the region. They’ll always have a sizable and significant advantage over ANY U.S. president because of that. But we don’t have just ANY U.S. president at the helm right now. We don’t have the calm, intelligent demeanor of a Barack Obama, or the folksy affable nature of a George W. Bush, or the smooth charm of a Bill Clinton, or the foreign policy expertise and brilliance of George HW Bush, or the bonafide toughness of Ronald Reagan.

We have Donald Trump, the least intelligent, the most easily manipulated, the most erratically tempered, the most incurious, and the most foreign policy ignorant POTUS in U.S. history. And he’s surrounded by staffers in his administration who may be even less intelligent than he is. I’m sure this is just my TDS flaring up, but my concern is that we are bringing a grape to a gun fight.

And since I know the above may trigger the inevitable “but Biden!” from our conservative friends here, I’ll even go as far as to concede that I highly doubt that any of the ME leaders took Biden seriously, either, by the end.
 
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OGtruthhurts said:
my perspective is simple....i will not vote for any politician or party just because they are what i believe to be the lesser of two evils. dc is a fucking cesspool of corruption and has been for decades because thats what people in america chose to be controlled into believing.....exactly what they knew the dumbed down american would accept and vote for.
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You answered who you wouldn’t vote for, but, again, who would you vote for?
 
Our best leverage right now is that Israel is apparently low on interceptor missiles and will be depending on us to replace them quickly. I truly hope Trump is willing to play hardball with them on those in order to get them to stand down for longer than they did in Gaza.
 
Iran is crawling with Mossad operative and informants. I suspect they know where all the nuclear material was and is. Everyone knows there are centrifuges at the nuclear plant the russian run. That is the real remaining problem
 
HeelYeah2012 said:
So where do we stand?

We blew the shit out of Iran’s nuke facilities, then Iran couldn’t do anything about it whatsoever, and now we’ve got a ceasefire that recently became effective?
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We don’t know yet the extent to which we damaged Iran’s ability to make nukes, but the damage done appears to be enough to get them to the negotiating table. Hopefully this in the future leads to an agreement similar to what we had up until 2018 with perhaps some additional ability for inspectors, if that was ever indeed an issue.

There is no ceasefire yet.
 
LosPollosHermanos said:
OK maybe it was 775. But the point is it's not hard to move 900 pounds of anything, so any idea that all this enriched uranium was just going to be sitting where the entire world knew it was until Iran got "tipped off" seems pretty ridiculous to me. I just listened to three hours of news on the way home from the beach and this war was the only thing discussed the entire time. Some of the stuff being thrown around is pretty far fetched. I hate Trump but I remain open to the possibility of a blind squirrel finding a nut here. I'm also open to the possibility this was a big mistake but those arguments shouldn't make fellow liberals facepalm.
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You and another guy didn’t move a 775 lbs sofa up two flights of stairs.

Ever try deadlifting 387.5 pounds? Now try that with something that is far harder to carry and balance and take it up two flights.

Edit: I misread the original post. It was four people carrying it. Apologies.
 
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superrific said:
Oh God. For real, dude? Transporting enriched, near-weapons grade uranium is like carrying a sofa?

I have no idea whether Trump tipped them off nor do I care. I'm just flabbergasted at the thought process here. Maybe it's sarcastic.
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Sofa weight aside I think he has a point. Smaller chunks of enriched uranium is not terrible dangerous. You can find people holding them with nothing but gloves.
 
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