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[scriver]

While I don't think it's racist, it's still the same principle (they don't know what's good for them), not to mention that it's utter bullshit.

Then you aren't listening to me at all, because the whole idea is that they know what's good for them and will reach out and take it once knocked out of the malaise of "acceptable but bad" that modern dictatorships employ by an outside force, that being these sanctions.

There are plenty of cases where the USA have approved of repressive dictatorship over an elected democratic government.

Yes, yes, terrible actions in the past. Only more reason to start doing things like this for the sake of the future. Hell, the US is responsible for Iran's current state, so that's only more reason to start trying to fix it.

I'm not saying that the trade refusals are bad in themselves, or at least not the worst course of actions, I'm just saying that it's ridiculous to think the US government even has a notion of giving a damn about anybody but the US. They certainly wouldn't care if the country is a democracy or not as long as it is less anti-American. That is the only thing they would "approve of".

[Reelya]

But America are the "overbearing jerks" that everyone hates. Iran basically just sits in the corner and wouldn't be in the news at all if it wasn't for butt-hurt America.

A common occurance is America pretending they can't hear you any time someone they want to invade starts offering compromise. Then, American media pretends its was the OTHER GUY who wouldn't negotiate. I guess that's the prerogative of the victor writing history:

Iranian nuclear experts are also offering compromise proposals, as reported by IPS journalist Gareth Porter, who say that  "Iran has again offered to halt its enrichment of uranium to 20 per cent". Washington has yet to publicly respond or acknowledge this compromise, perhaps because the passions of the campaign.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/10/201210295641216862.html

Similar happened with the Panama war and Gulf War I. Noriega in Panama was removed from office in a coup and offered to the USA (USA was claiming they only wanted that 1 person), then the USA manipulated things by temporarily BACKING generals loyal to Noriega, who reinstalled Noriega. Thus ensureing Bush Snr got his first "shooting war". It's no fun if they surrender I guess. More specifically, it was only a few years before America was due to hand back control of the Panama Canal. Ensuring a military occupation just before the hand-over was thus critical.

In the first Gulf War, when Saddam realized he'd pissed of America he was very conciliatory. He's not a moron. America pretended HE never tried diplomacy.

[Gantolandon]

Erm...Sanctions aren't an attack. They're a refusal to do business.

Here' a better analogy:

Say your boss is an overbearing Jerk that everyone hates so they declare that unless he cleans up his act they're not going to do business with your company. Your livelihood depends on your company making enough money to stay afloat.

Who do you blame, your Boss or the people who are refusing to do business with your company because of your boss?

This is a much closer scenario to what's going on with Iran.

I believe you forgot about the part where I can't leave this company, because other ones most probably won't employ me and every scrap of the land except of Antarctic is claimed by them. And the people who won't do business with my boss clearly expect me to fight the security and overthrow him, seizing the workplace.

[mainiac]

But America are the "overbearing jerks" that everyone hates. Iran basically just sits in the corner and wouldn't be in the news at all if it wasn't for butt-hurt America.

A common occurance is America pretending they can't hear you any time someone they want to invade starts offering compromise. Then, American media pretends its was the OTHER GUY who wouldn't negotiate. I guess that's the prerogative of the victor writing history.

This isn't something that the Americans made up.  A majority of the Iranian people voted to kick out the current government last election and the government ignored them.  This is not a dispute that was made in America, this is a dispute that was made in Iran.  If this was a dispute that was made up in America then do you really think that the rest of the world would be going along?

The reason why the Iranian people wouldn't blame the US for the sanctions is because the sanctions are over what the Iranian people want!  The US wants fair elections.  The Iranians want fair elections.  This isn't rocket science.

OK, I'm really trying to understand that.

No you really aren't.  You are shoving a lot of context into your "metaphor" that is completely missing from the situation you are trying to analogue and omitting crucial details.

[Mephansteras]

@Gantolandon: Well...you, or the shareholders of the company. The US doesn't care if the Iranians revolt or if the upper echelons of the country simply decide to start cooperating.

@Reelya: Has Iran really offered to compromise in any meaningful fashion? Last I heard they were touting their ability to cut off the Strait of Hormuz, thus crippling much of the world's oil trade with the Persian gulf.

The fact of that matter is that it is in Iran's interests to oppose the US in the middle-east, as the US is really the only thing that's stopping them from becoming the dominant power in the region. Turkey could, but they haven't decided to do much in that arena at this point. So they fund militants in other areas to cause problems for the US.

The US doesn't trust Iran not to fund terrorists (because they have in the past), and wants to ensure that the oil supplies of the middle-east remain open and as low cost as possible.

Neither country wants to back down because doing so causes them problems.

The Sanctions are an attempt by the US and much of the World to convince Iran that it's more costly to oppose them than it is to cooperate. (The EU has imposed their own set of sanctions on top of the UN and US Sanctions)

Geopolitics is rarely simple, and often complicated by the fact that every nation acts in its own interests first. Conflict is inevitable.

[Reelya]

The thing about the 2009 Election in Iran is that the results totally match the polling data by international observers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_presidential_election,_2009

Every single foreign polling service called the election for Ahmadinejad by a wide margin. Not one found support for the 2nd place candidate higher than he actually got in the election.

Local polling firms in Iran were all over the shop. But i'd be more convinced that their methodology sucked and they didn't have representative samples, than ALL the foreign polling firms got it wrong.

@Mephansteras: "Last I Heard" = American media. The point is (as Noam Chomsky of writes about) they don't WANT you to hear the truth.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/158156
23rd July, Iran military official states they would NOT to close the Straits of Hormuz. didn't make it into the US news, huh. Funny that :/ more recently their ambassador to the UN said about the same thing.

http://www.jpost.com/IranianThreat/News/Article.aspx?id=274373
19th of June, Iran offers to limit enrichment to 20%. America STILL hasn't responded.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/08/201288142724224103.html

Iran's offers to do swaps or, most recently, its offer to halt its 20 per cent enrichment and export its stockpile for sanctions relief, have consistently been spurned by the West as too little too late or simply a ploy to buy time. When the US rejected a Russian step-by-step plan to break the deadlock in 2011, which Iran had accepted, President Vladimir Putin publicly stated that it was clear the West's real design was not resolution but regime change.

Iran's second major strategy is to get sanctions lifted and its nuclear file removed from the UN Security Council. After ten years, it has a stockpile of 20 per cent enriched uranium it wants to exchange for graduated sanctions relief. It has offered to open its facilities to full transparency if its right to enrich to five per cent is recognised.

As i was saying before, almost ALWAYS in these circumstances if you dig beneath the surface it's AMERICA who rejects compromise and diplomacy, just like they always use their veto in the United Nations to overturn mass-votes. Iran couldn't get 20% enrichment agreed to, so they dropped that to FIVE PERCENT. And America still won't come to the table. Don't give me that "Iranian Hardliners" crap.

[mainiac]

The ballot stuffing that took place in the 2009 Iranian elections is common knowledge.  There were huge protests in the streets or Iran.  Outside observes extensively documented the statistical anomalies that showed that the results were fabricated.  I just don't know what to say about this.  Like I said, it's common knowledge.

The reason why the US will not agree to allowing Iran to enrich at 5% because resuming trade would give Iran the money to continue to enrich.  It doesn't matter if you enrich to 5% or enrich to weapons grade, it's the same technology.  This would just give Iran to continue to build up the capacity to make weapons, they just promise really hard not to.  And they want to do it with money and technology from us.  To call this offer a turd would be to undersell the value of fertilizer.

[alway]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19812482

[Reelya]

It says the protestors are Ayatollah loyalists. Looks like the crisis is weakening the parliament and strengthening the clerical council.

[mainiac]

It says the protestors are Ayatollah loyalists.

WHAT?

Do Ayatollah loyalists even exist?

Dude, let me repeat this.  The fraudulant nature of the 2009 elections is well known.  Look up the Iranian Green Revolution.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Iran's current state is pretty much exactly what Islamists strive towards, so the presence of Ayatollah loyalists isn't that surprising.

[mainiac]

Oh, I was confused there.  I was thinking he was refering to pre- '76 loyalists.

[Reelya]

Mainiac, read the BBC article right before my comment. It says who was protesting, and that they're loyalists to the Ayatollah's faction and opposed to Amedinijad's faction.

Ah ok you thought i meant the Shah.

Also: regardless of election irregularities, show me data that says the other guy should have won? All 6 polls by US firms called the race for Ahmadinejad. Did every one of those get it wrong? Evidence? They may have pulled some dodgy stuff to ensure they won, but without another source it's not possible to prove that Ahmadinejad would have lost a fair fight.

It doesn't matter if 35 million people are opposed to a candidate, if the other 40 million support him. Hell, lots of tea partiers believe Obama stole the election, their belief or the fervor with which they oppose him, by itself says nothing.

[mainiac]

It's hard to conduct polls in a non-free country accurately.  Plus there was a late surge by the opposition because he entered late.  The polls meant nothing.

As for the contesting of the results I don't know where to start.  I mean just for starters you can go to time magazine: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1904645_1904644_1904643,00.html

But I seriously don't even know of any post election sources who don't think there was rigging.  There was a study that was debunked but the people debunking it were taking issue with that one study, not saying the elections weren't rigged.

[Another]

In 2000 US president elections more Americans voted for Gore than for the person who became the president. Do we have any sanctions against the US as a result? Proposals to bomb the US until they give all the power to the person whom most of the citizens so clearly preferred?