danivon wrote:It was December 2007 Al-Maliki renewed the mandate for international forces. Clearly he was closer to Iran than you seem to think. Even Bush spotted it.

rickyp wrote:

It was successful in Germany, Austria and Japan.

Yes, where full fledged democratic institutions selected governments .
but consider Fates original statement

It's all wonderful to permit "self-determination," but we would not have permitted Germans to vote for Nazis, nor the Japanese to vote for another Tojo

He's suggesting that the US would ignore the "self determination of the German or Japanese of they had "stepped out of line".

When the US has selected the government, usually through CIA invovevment and sometimes through invasion, often supplanting a democracy, the results have been almost exclusively a failure.
Particularly in the middle east. (Syria, Iran,)
And I'm gauging that success in terms of the genera welfare of the populace - not from how it benefited US policy or commerce.

Doctor Fate wrote:

danivon wrote:It was December 2007 Al-Maliki renewed the mandate for international forces. Clearly he was closer to Iran than you seem to think. Even Bush spotted it.

"He was not acting as an Iranian stooge until near the US pullout."

I stand uncorrected.

danivon wrote:

Doctor Fate wrote:

danivon wrote:It was December 2007 Al-Maliki renewed the mandate for international forces. Clearly he was closer to Iran than you seem to think. Even Bush spotted it.

"He was not acting as an Iranian stooge until near the US pullout."

So, let me get this straight, 2006/7 is 'near the US pullout'? Because he was making deals with Tehran before the US decided he'd make a good President, before the start of negotiations on the SoFA, and well before Bush left office.

Otherwise, the word you are looking for is "incorrect", not "uncorrected".

So what? You were wrong in your original assertion and now you want to redefine the debate so you can save face

It's all wonderful to permit "self-determination," but we would not have permitted Germans to vote for Nazis, nor the Japanese to vote for another Tojo

rickyp wrote:Fate

So what? You were wrong in your original assertion and now you want to redefine the debate so you can save face

You do realize i was mostly agreeing with you when you made the claim:
Fate

It's all wonderful to permit "self-determination," but we would not have permitted Germans to vote for Nazis, nor the Japanese to vote for another Tojo

The US has shown a long track record of involving itself in the domestic politics of other nations. And often has supplanted democracies in favor of malleable tyrants.
However I do pick a nit with Danivons description of Germany and Japan as successful models of where the US chose the "sort of government" that Germany and Japan chose.
They were definitely examples of where self determination was allowed post WWII. And where it worked out in favor of the US...usually.
However they aren't examples of where the US "permitted" who the leader was .....
If he was refering to WWII, i guess they would be, but then an awful lot of nations - especially Russia - had a hand in that.

rickyp wrote:I'll make it easier for you Fate. What you are talking about is regime change... And specifically regime change of a nation despite its own "self determined" government choice.

Here's all the times the US has either militarily or covertly been involved in regime change...
Which ones do you think have worked out for the US and also for the nations caught up in the machinations....?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Sta ... ime_change

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_Uni ... ge_actions

You'll note Danivon that the creation of self determined democracies in Japan and Germany aren't included in these lists...

The point remains: if we invade a country and stick around to establish a government, we're not going to permit one to arise that is the same as the one which existed as when we invaded

rickyp wrote:fate

The point remains: if we invade a country and stick around to establish a government, we're not going to permit one to arise that is the same as the one which existed as when we invaded

.
And you think that's always a good thing?

The claim of the Obama administration that any eventual agreement will block all pathways toward an Iranian nuclear weapon, however, is surely an overstatement. At best, a deal will create impediments for the life of the agreement but offer little afterward. At that point, the administration and its successors would need to make clear that should Iran seek to break out to the production of weapons-grade enriched uranium—or the preparation of nuclear weapons—it would trigger the use of force by us.

But in that case, we would be acting to deter the Iranians from translating their sizable nuclear infrastructure into a nuclear weapon, not to dismantle the program.

It is noteworthy that the agreement that the administration still hopes to finalize with the Iranians by June 30 does not reflect the objective we had hoped to achieve for much of President Barack Obama’s first term. At that point, when I was in the administration, our aim was to transform the character of the Iranian nuclear program so that the peaceful intent of its capabilities would be demonstrated unmistakably to the international community. Necessarily, that meant that Iran could not have a large nuclear infrastructure. If permitted enrichment, it would have to be highly circumscribed and limited to small numbers for the purposes of research or production of medical isotopes. If Iran wanted additional nuclear reactors to generate electricity, it would receive its fuel from international fuel banks and its spent fuel would be sent out of the country—much like is done with the Bushehr reactor today. Similarly, there would be little or no stockpile of enriched uranium in the country that the Iranians might surreptitiously seek to purify to weapons grade. And, the questions about the possible military dimensions of the Iranian nuclear program—a euphemism for Iran’s efforts to create a nuclear weapon—would have been satisfactorily answered.

At some point, the Obama administration changed its objective from one of transforming the Iranian nuclear program to one of ensuring that Iran could not have a breakout time of less than one year. The former was guided by our determination to press Iran to change its intent about pursuing or at least preserving the option of having a nuclear weapon. The latter clearly reflects a very different judgment: that we were not able to alter the Iranian intentions, so instead we needed to focus on constraining their capabilities.

By definition, when we speak about a one-year breakout time, we are accepting that Iran will have the means and infrastructure to produce nuclear weapons and we are trying to develop impediments to its doing so—even as we also create indicators that alert us to any such Iranian effort.

. . .

Assuming an agreement is finalized by June 30, the administration may well be right that this was the best one possible—and that it is better than the other alternatives. That, of course, does not make it a good agreement. Even a bad agreement might be better than the available alternatives, but if the administration wants to prove that the eventual agreement is acceptable, it will need to show that it has produced the bare minimum of the outcome that we once hoped for: that there will be a breakout time of at least one year; that the Iranians cannot deny inspectors access to any site, including those on military or Revolutionary Guard facilities; and that it has anticipated a full range of different Iranian violations and won’t wait for others to respond to them. In reality, if we are to deter Iranian violations, they must know in advance what the consequences are and that they will be high.

Skepticism about an agreement based on constraining Iranian capabilities, and not on demonstrating a shift in Iranian intentions, is understandable. Rather than questioning the motivations of the skeptics, the administration would be wise to demonstrate that it has compelling answers to their concerns about the possible vulnerabilities of the deal. It might just convince some of the skeptics that the agreement is acceptable.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/ ... z3W9c6eKOs

Yes, I think he does. But I think we need to do a better job in clarifying how right Israelis are in being really, really cautious about any progress that can be made. They tell themselves, “We did everything the world had ever asked us” in pulling out of Gaza, and so on. When we talk about the Iranian deal, I say, “Do you remember that we are the country that Iran has sworn to destroy?” Not to have a fight with, not to send Hezbollah to shoot missiles at Ben Gurion airport, which is horrible enough. They say, “We want those people to die.” And you know, my father was the chairman of [the Israeli Holocaust memorial] Yad Vashem. In one of his last speeches, he said, “You know what the world is going to do if Israel will be destroyed? They’re going to open an orphanage and send a condolence letter.” And there’s a sad truth to it because it happened before. So I believe this administration is all for Israel. I think they want to be proactive, which is a good thing. I witnessed personally the kind of energy Secretary [John] Kerry brought into the room, and I thought it was a positive energy, so I’m all for it as long as everybody remembers, for us it’s our existence. And no Israeli in his right mind will say to himself, “OK, they probably know more about my destiny than I do.”