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Trump asked for the black vote Tuesday. But some black Republicans said the message didn’t jibe with how black people have been treated by members of the campaign. Several black Republicans referred to an incident involving Sean P. Jackson, a young Floridian Republican strategist. Jackson, whose plan to reach black voters has reached the inboxes of select black conservatives in his state and nationally, recently told friends that the Trump campaign’s chief Florida strategist, Karen Giorno, told him during that primary that Trump didn’t need his “classification of people” to get elected.
At a recent event in Florida, two sources said Jackson was approached by Secret Service and escorted out of the event. But when he confronted Giorno to vouch for him, a source said she declined to acknowledge Jackson, the chairman of the Black Republican Caucus of Florida, a group that once hosted Dr. Ben Carson.
....
.no, I got nothing.
Huh, it's almost as if he is openly saying racist things and embracing the white nationalist movement. No wait, that is exactly what he is doing.
Apparently, Trump sees the future of the Republican party in strong arm tribal politics and a lot of Americans agree with him. The GOP leadership needs to distance themselves from this clown show and re-affirm their position as the party of fiscal responsibility and individual opportunity, regardless of color. Otherwise, the GOP is looking to be headed the way of the nationalist parties in Europe, which is not a good thing. Unfortunately, I don't see Trump getting shutdown in the general like some are expecting- he is still in striking distance. Even if he loses, the fact that he will likely be very close on the popular vote should be very disturbing.
This is shaping up to be a fight for the nature of the GOP. If Trump is Goldwater, I hate to see who the Reagan will be.
I don't think Trump gives a gak about the Republican Party, I think Trump wants to say stuff that will help ensure he gets big crowds at his rallies and more free media attention. I think it's been pretty clear from Trump's speeches, tweets, interviews, press conferences and debate performances that he doesn't care about what are commonly thought to be "Republican" platforms and positions. His rallies don't even seem to be strategically planned, it looks more like he picks places where he is likely to draw a good crowd regardless of whether or not the location will help bolster his support or poll numbers in a given state/region.
While I wouldn't be surprised if Trump has plans for a new tv show it was also inevitable that he would get one given his ability to draw ratings. If Mike Huckabee, a poor man's Ted Cruz also ran has been can get a show on Fox then Trump can easily get one too.
There are now reports that Manafort may have been involved in organising Anti-NATO protests in Ukraine, at which rocks were thrown at US marines. Between that and the undisclosed payments, he may be in a lot of hot water.
Donald really can pick 'em.
Looking for a club in Brisbane, Australia? Come and enjoy a game and a beer at Pubhammer, our friendly club in a pub at the Junction pub in Annerley (opposite Ace Comics), Sunday nights from 6:30. All brisbanites welcome, don't wait, check out our Club Page on Facebook group for details or to organize a game. We play all sorts of board and war games, so hit us up if you're interested.
Pubhammer is Moving! Starting from the 25th of May we'll be gaming at The Junction pub (AKA The Muddy Farmer), opposite Ace Comics & Games in Annerley! Still Sunday nights from 6:30 in the Function room Come along and play Warmachine, 40k, boardgames or anything else!
Gordon Shumway wrote: Yes we legally did have to give that money over whether we got any troops or citizens or payment in return. We could have said no. And then we would have been in the courts for the next two years and have had to pay anyway. With interest.
The ICC in The Hague? Again, the International Courts has no jurisdiction in the US. In order for the ICC to have teeth, the Senate would have to formally ratify the treaty... so, again, we did NOT have to send this money.
This was wrapped up in that Iran Nuke deal, which, again... was a deal in an attempt to 'build some legacy' for Obama.
WASHINGTON—The Obama administration secretly organized an airlift of $400 million worth of cash to Iran that coincided with the January release of four Americans detained in Tehran, according to U.S. and European officials and congressional staff briefed on the operation afterward.
Wooden pallets stacked with euros, Swiss francs and other currencies were flown into Iran on an unmarked cargo plane, according to these officials. The U.S. procured the money from the central banks of the Netherlands and Switzerland, they said.
The money represented the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement the Obama administration reached with Iran to resolve a decades-old dispute over a failed arms deal signed just before the 1979 fall of Iran’s last monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
The settlement, which resolved claims before an international tribunal in The Hague, also coincided with the formal implementation that same weekend of the landmark nuclear agreement reached between Tehran, the U.S. and other global powers the summer before.
“With the nuclear deal done, prisoners released, the time was right to resolve this dispute as well,” President Barack Obama said at the White House on Jan. 17—without disclosing the $400 million cash payment.
Senior U.S. officials denied any link between the payment and the prisoner exchange. They say the way the various strands came together simultaneously was coincidental, not the result of any quid pro quo.
“As we’ve made clear, the negotiations over the settlement of an outstanding claim…were completely separate from the discussions about returning our American citizens home,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said. “Not only were the two negotiations separate, they were conducted by different teams on each side, including, in the case of The Hague claims, by technical experts involved in these negotiations for many years.”
But U.S. officials also acknowledge that Iranian negotiators on the prisoner exchange said they wanted the cash to show they had gained something tangible.
Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas and a fierce foe of the Iran nuclear deal, accused President Barack Obama of paying “a $1.7 billion ransom to the ayatollahs for U.S. hostages.”
“This break with longstanding U.S. policy put a price on the head of Americans, and has led Iran to continue its illegal seizures” of Americans, he said.
Since the cash shipment, the intelligence arm of the Revolutionary Guard has arrested two more Iranian-Americans. Tehran has also detained dual-nationals from France, Canada and the U.K. in recent months.
At the time of the prisoner release, Secretary of State John Kerry and the White House portrayed it as a diplomatic breakthrough. Mr. Kerry cited the importance of “the relationships forged and the diplomatic channels unlocked over the course of the nuclear talks.”
Meanwhile, U.S. officials have said they were certain Washington was going to lose the arbitration in The Hague, where Iran was seeking more than $10 billion, and described the settlement as a bargain for taxpayers.
Iranian press reports have quoted senior Iranian defense officials describing the cash as a ransom payment. The Iranian foreign ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The $400 million was paid in foreign currency because any transaction with Iran in U.S. dollars is illegal under U.S. law. Sanctions also complicate Tehran’s access to global banks.
“Sometimes the Iranians want cash because it’s so hard for them to access things in the international financial system,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on the January cash delivery. “They know it can take months just to figure out how to wire money from one place to another.”
The Obama administration has refused to disclose how it paid any of the $1.7 billion, despite congressional queries, outside of saying that it wasn’t paid in dollars. Lawmakers have expressed concern that the cash would be used by Iran to fund regional allies, including the Assad regime in Syria and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, which the U.S. designates as a terrorist organization.
But John Brennan, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, said last week that there was evidence much of the money Iran has received from sanctions relief was being used for development projects. “The money, the revenue that’s flowing into Iran is being used to support its currency, to provide moneys to the departments and agencies, build up its infrastructure,” Mr. Brennan said at a conference in Aspen, Colo.
The U.S. and Iran entered into secret negotiations to secure the release of Americans imprisoned in Iran in November 2014, according to U.S. and European officials. Switzerland’s foreign minister, Didier Burkhalter, offered to host the discussions.
The Swiss have represented the U.S.’s diplomatic interests in Iran since Washington closed its embassy in Tehran following the 1979 hostage crisis.
Iranian security services arrested two Iranian-Americans during President Obama’s first term. In July 2014, the intelligence arm of Iran’s elite military unit, the Revolutionary Guard, detained the Washington Post’s Tehran bureau chief, Jason Rezaian, and charged him with espionage.
A fourth Iranian-American was arrested last year. A former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent, Robert Levinson, disappeared on the Iranian island of Kish in 2007. His whereabouts remain unknown.
The Swiss channel initially saw little activity, according to these officials. But momentum shifted after Tehran and world powers forged a final agreement in July 2015 to constrain Iran’s nuclear program in return for the lifting of most international sanctions. A surge of meetings then took place in the Swiss lakeside city of Geneva in November and December.
The U.S. delegation was led by a special State Department envoy, Brett McGurk, and included representatives from the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to U.S. and European officials. The Iranian team was largely staffed by members of its domestic spy service, according to U.S. officials.
The discussions, held at the InterContinental Hotel, initially focused solely on a formula whereby Iran would swap the Americans detained in Tehran for Iranian nationals held in U.S. jails, U.S. officials said. But around Christmas, the discussions dovetailed with the arbitration in The Hague concerning the old arms deal.
The Iranians were demanding the return of $400 million the Shah’s regime deposited into a Pentagon trust fund in 1979 to purchase U.S. fighter jets, U.S. officials said. They also wanted billions of dollars as interest accrued since then.
President Obama approved the shipment of the $400 million. But accumulating so much cash presented a logistical and security challenge, said U.S. and European officials. One person briefed on the operation joked: “You can’t just withdraw that much money from ATMs.”
Mr. Kerry and the State and Treasury departments sought the cooperation of the Swiss and Dutch governments. Ultimately, the Obama administration transferred the equivalent of $400 million to their central banks. It was then converted into other currencies, stacked onto the wooden pallets and sent to Iran on board a cargo plane.
On the morning of Jan. 17, Iran released the four Americans: Three of them boarded a Swiss Air Force jet and flew off to Geneva, with the fourth returning to the U.S. on his own. In return, the U.S. freed seven Iranian citizens and dropped extradition requests for 14 others.
U.S. and European officials wouldn’t disclose exactly when the plane carrying the $400 million landed in Iran. But a report by an Iranian news site close to the Revolutionary Guard, the Tasnim agency, said the cash arrived in Tehran’s Mehrabad airport on the same day the Americans departed.
Revolutionary Guard commanders boasted at the time that the Americans had succumbed to Iranian pressure. “Taking this much money back was in return for the release of the American spies,” said Gen. Mohammad Reza Naghdi, commander of the Guard’s Basij militia, on state media.
Among the Americans currently being held are an energy executive named Siamak Namazi and his 80-year old father, Baqer, according to U.S. and Iranian officials. Iran’s judiciary spokesman last month confirmed Tehran had arrested the third American, believed to be a San Diego resident named Reza “Robin” Shahini.
Friends and family of the Namazis believe the Iranians are seeking to increase their leverage to force another prisoner exchange or cash payment in the final six months of the Obama administration. Mr. Kerry and other U.S. officials have been raising their case with Iranian diplomats, U.S. officials say.
Iranian officials have demanded in recent weeks the U.S. return $2 billion in Iranian funds that were frozen in New York in 2009. The Supreme Court recently ruled that the money should be given to victims of Iranian-sponsored terror attacks.
Members of Congress are seeking to pass legislation preventing the Obama administration from making any further cash payments to Iran. One of the bills requires for the White House to make public the details of its $1.7 billion transfer to Iran.
“President Obama’s…payment to Iran in January, which we now know will fund Iran’s military expansion, is an appalling example of executive branch governance,” said Sen. James Lankford (R., Okla.), who co-wrote the bill. “Subsidizing Iran’s military is perhaps the worst use of taxpayer dollars ever by an American president.”
As to the second answer,,I'll leave it at that. I agree. We weren't getting that from any govt there, but I'll accept the wishlist.
Gordon Shumway wrote: Yes we legally did have to give that money over whether we got any troops or citizens or payment in return. We could have said no. And then we would have been in the courts for the next two years and have had to pay anyway. With interest.
The ICC in The Hague? Again, the International Courts has no jurisdiction in the US. In order for the ICC to have teeth, the Senate would have to formally ratify the treaty... so, again, we did NOT have to send this money.
This was wrapped up in that Iran Nuke deal, which, again... was a deal in an attempt to 'build some legacy' for Obama.
WASHINGTON—The Obama administration secretly organized an airlift of $400 million worth of cash to Iran that coincided with the January release of four Americans detained in Tehran, according to U.S. and European officials and congressional staff briefed on the operation afterward.
Wooden pallets stacked with euros, Swiss francs and other currencies were flown into Iran on an unmarked cargo plane, according to these officials. The U.S. procured the money from the central banks of the Netherlands and Switzerland, they said.
The money represented the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement the Obama administration reached with Iran to resolve a decades-old dispute over a failed arms deal signed just before the 1979 fall of Iran’s last monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
The settlement, which resolved claims before an international tribunal in The Hague, also coincided with the formal implementation that same weekend of the landmark nuclear agreement reached between Tehran, the U.S. and other global powers the summer before.
“With the nuclear deal done, prisoners released, the time was right to resolve this dispute as well,” President Barack Obama said at the White House on Jan. 17—without disclosing the $400 million cash payment.
Senior U.S. officials denied any link between the payment and the prisoner exchange. They say the way the various strands came together simultaneously was coincidental, not the result of any quid pro quo.
“As we’ve made clear, the negotiations over the settlement of an outstanding claim…were completely separate from the discussions about returning our American citizens home,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said. “Not only were the two negotiations separate, they were conducted by different teams on each side, including, in the case of The Hague claims, by technical experts involved in these negotiations for many years.”
But U.S. officials also acknowledge that Iranian negotiators on the prisoner exchange said they wanted the cash to show they had gained something tangible.
Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas and a fierce foe of the Iran nuclear deal, accused President Barack Obama of paying “a $1.7 billion ransom to the ayatollahs for U.S. hostages.”
“This break with longstanding U.S. policy put a price on the head of Americans, and has led Iran to continue its illegal seizures” of Americans, he said.
Since the cash shipment, the intelligence arm of the Revolutionary Guard has arrested two more Iranian-Americans. Tehran has also detained dual-nationals from France, Canada and the U.K. in recent months.
At the time of the prisoner release, Secretary of State John Kerry and the White House portrayed it as a diplomatic breakthrough. Mr. Kerry cited the importance of “the relationships forged and the diplomatic channels unlocked over the course of the nuclear talks.”
Meanwhile, U.S. officials have said they were certain Washington was going to lose the arbitration in The Hague, where Iran was seeking more than $10 billion, and described the settlement as a bargain for taxpayers.
Iranian press reports have quoted senior Iranian defense officials describing the cash as a ransom payment. The Iranian foreign ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The $400 million was paid in foreign currency because any transaction with Iran in U.S. dollars is illegal under U.S. law. Sanctions also complicate Tehran’s access to global banks.
“Sometimes the Iranians want cash because it’s so hard for them to access things in the international financial system,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on the January cash delivery. “They know it can take months just to figure out how to wire money from one place to another.”
The Obama administration has refused to disclose how it paid any of the $1.7 billion, despite congressional queries, outside of saying that it wasn’t paid in dollars. Lawmakers have expressed concern that the cash would be used by Iran to fund regional allies, including the Assad regime in Syria and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, which the U.S. designates as a terrorist organization.
But John Brennan, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, said last week that there was evidence much of the money Iran has received from sanctions relief was being used for development projects. “The money, the revenue that’s flowing into Iran is being used to support its currency, to provide moneys to the departments and agencies, build up its infrastructure,” Mr. Brennan said at a conference in Aspen, Colo.
The U.S. and Iran entered into secret negotiations to secure the release of Americans imprisoned in Iran in November 2014, according to U.S. and European officials. Switzerland’s foreign minister, Didier Burkhalter, offered to host the discussions.
The Swiss have represented the U.S.’s diplomatic interests in Iran since Washington closed its embassy in Tehran following the 1979 hostage crisis.
Iranian security services arrested two Iranian-Americans during President Obama’s first term. In July 2014, the intelligence arm of Iran’s elite military unit, the Revolutionary Guard, detained the Washington Post’s Tehran bureau chief, Jason Rezaian, and charged him with espionage.
A fourth Iranian-American was arrested last year. A former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent, Robert Levinson, disappeared on the Iranian island of Kish in 2007. His whereabouts remain unknown.
The Swiss channel initially saw little activity, according to these officials. But momentum shifted after Tehran and world powers forged a final agreement in July 2015 to constrain Iran’s nuclear program in return for the lifting of most international sanctions. A surge of meetings then took place in the Swiss lakeside city of Geneva in November and December.
The U.S. delegation was led by a special State Department envoy, Brett McGurk, and included representatives from the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to U.S. and European officials. The Iranian team was largely staffed by members of its domestic spy service, according to U.S. officials.
The discussions, held at the InterContinental Hotel, initially focused solely on a formula whereby Iran would swap the Americans detained in Tehran for Iranian nationals held in U.S. jails, U.S. officials said. But around Christmas, the discussions dovetailed with the arbitration in The Hague concerning the old arms deal.
The Iranians were demanding the return of $400 million the Shah’s regime deposited into a Pentagon trust fund in 1979 to purchase U.S. fighter jets, U.S. officials said. They also wanted billions of dollars as interest accrued since then.
President Obama approved the shipment of the $400 million. But accumulating so much cash presented a logistical and security challenge, said U.S. and European officials. One person briefed on the operation joked: “You can’t just withdraw that much money from ATMs.”
Mr. Kerry and the State and Treasury departments sought the cooperation of the Swiss and Dutch governments. Ultimately, the Obama administration transferred the equivalent of $400 million to their central banks. It was then converted into other currencies, stacked onto the wooden pallets and sent to Iran on board a cargo plane.
On the morning of Jan. 17, Iran released the four Americans: Three of them boarded a Swiss Air Force jet and flew off to Geneva, with the fourth returning to the U.S. on his own. In return, the U.S. freed seven Iranian citizens and dropped extradition requests for 14 others.
U.S. and European officials wouldn’t disclose exactly when the plane carrying the $400 million landed in Iran. But a report by an Iranian news site close to the Revolutionary Guard, the Tasnim agency, said the cash arrived in Tehran’s Mehrabad airport on the same day the Americans departed.
Revolutionary Guard commanders boasted at the time that the Americans had succumbed to Iranian pressure. “Taking this much money back was in return for the release of the American spies,” said Gen. Mohammad Reza Naghdi, commander of the Guard’s Basij militia, on state media.
Among the Americans currently being held are an energy executive named Siamak Namazi and his 80-year old father, Baqer, according to U.S. and Iranian officials. Iran’s judiciary spokesman last month confirmed Tehran had arrested the third American, believed to be a San Diego resident named Reza “Robin” Shahini.
Friends and family of the Namazis believe the Iranians are seeking to increase their leverage to force another prisoner exchange or cash payment in the final six months of the Obama administration. Mr. Kerry and other U.S. officials have been raising their case with Iranian diplomats, U.S. officials say.
Iranian officials have demanded in recent weeks the U.S. return $2 billion in Iranian funds that were frozen in New York in 2009. The Supreme Court recently ruled that the money should be given to victims of Iranian-sponsored terror attacks.
Members of Congress are seeking to pass legislation preventing the Obama administration from making any further cash payments to Iran. One of the bills requires for the White House to make public the details of its $1.7 billion transfer to Iran.
“President Obama’s…payment to Iran in January, which we now know will fund Iran’s military expansion, is an appalling example of executive branch governance,” said Sen. James Lankford (R., Okla.), who co-wrote the bill. “Subsidizing Iran’s military is perhaps the worst use of taxpayer dollars ever by an American president.”
As to the second answer,,I'll leave it at that. I agree. We weren't getting that from any govt there, but I'll accept the wishlist.
Yup.
Sure, we didn't have to send back the money that was not ours. We could have just kept it and earned the reputation of "scumbag thieves" which I assume would help our image with the rest of the world.
sebster wrote: I think its quite interesting that people are taking Trump's fall in the polls, and Clinton's lead of about 8 points to be definitive. Polls have moved that much between August and November in the past. And polls in this campaign have swung quite a lot - if Trump can go from almost even to 8 points down in three weeks, then he can recover that ground in ten weeks. On top of that the campaign so far has typically defied any kind of narrative - as soon as people start to think things have settled in to some kind of natural state then something has upended that.
McCain was down by around 8 points for much of the 2008 campaign, and people didn't talk about that being in the bag. It turned out a comfortable win for Obama, but until election day there was always a chance something could have changed the race. But this year people are very quick to conclude that Clinton's 8 point lead means her certain election. I suspect this is just the latest round of 'surely no-one is really going to vote for Trump, his ridiculous campaign has finally gone too far'. That's a tempting story, but it is one that almost every sensible person has fallen for at least once during the campaign so far. And those sensible people have been wrong many times now, because something very not-sensible is happening deep within the base of the Republican party.
So maybe this time Trump's impossible popularity has finally been dashed his latest racist and stupid statements. Or maybe this will be like the last few times and in a couple of weeks he'll be back within a few points of Clinton.
jasper76 wrote: @Peregrine: You could be right, but I tend to think there are probably a whole lot of voters who would jump at the chance to vote for someone besides Trump or Clinton. Let's call them "Johnson voters".
Yeah, and people are making a big deal about lots of people moving over to Johnson because Trump and Clinton are so horrible. And yet there's Johnson polling a whopping 8 to 10% of the vote. I think we have to start to consider that the people who are willing to leave their team and vote for someone else are actually a very small number of voters. The much more common thing is for people to not like their team's candidate, and just stay home.
I think Clinton's lead in some of the state polls is more insurmountable than the national lead. Look at the 2012 electoral map and try to find states that Obama won, where Clinton isn't leading or isn't leading by a significant margin. There are some states that are effectively already decided just due to partisanship. Is a Democrat presidential nominee going to win a state like Oklahoma anytime soon? Nope. Is a Republican presidential nominee going to win California any time soon? Nope. In the real battle ground states Clinton has a lead and it will be difficult for Trump to overcome that. Clinton is a very quiet campaigner and not terribly good at it because she lacks charisma, isn't a great public speaker and has high unfavorable so she's not going to putting herself out there much. Thankfully for her, Trump is the only nominee to have higher unfavorable than Clinton and he's determined to keep himself in the spotlight and keep saying atrociously stupid gak.
I don't think turnout is going to be terribly low even with unpopular candidates at the top of the ballot. There are plenty of governors, senators and representatives up for election too and those campaigns are going to push hard to get people out to vote. The Democrats understand the Republican dissatisfaction with Trump and will push hard to pick up seats and that will pressure the Republicans to pour money into Congressional and gubernatorial races too. There plenty of incumbents that are popular at the state and local level and plenty of counties/municipalities that have deeply ingrained partisan support that will motivate people to vote even with weak presidential nominees. You won't see Trump doing a lot of endorsements and events with Republican candidates which will be unusual but part of that is also because Trump is an ego maniac who doesn't want to share the spotlight anyway and doesn't feel beholden to the Party so his lack of endorsements for other Republicans is mutual.
Gordon Shumway wrote: Yes we legally did have to give that money over whether we got any troops or citizens or payment in return. We could have said no. And then we would have been in the courts for the next two years and have had to pay anyway. With interest.
The ICC in The Hague? Again, the International Courts has no jurisdiction in the US. In order for the ICC to have teeth, the Senate would have to formally ratify the treaty... so, again, we did NOT have to send this money.
This was wrapped up in that Iran Nuke deal, which, again... was a deal in an attempt to 'build some legacy' for Obama.
WASHINGTON—The Obama administration secretly organized an airlift of $400 million worth of cash to Iran that coincided with the January release of four Americans detained in Tehran, according to U.S. and European officials and congressional staff briefed on the operation afterward.
Wooden pallets stacked with euros, Swiss francs and other currencies were flown into Iran on an unmarked cargo plane, according to these officials. The U.S. procured the money from the central banks of the Netherlands and Switzerland, they said.
The money represented the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement the Obama administration reached with Iran to resolve a decades-old dispute over a failed arms deal signed just before the 1979 fall of Iran’s last monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
The settlement, which resolved claims before an international tribunal in The Hague, also coincided with the formal implementation that same weekend of the landmark nuclear agreement reached between Tehran, the U.S. and other global powers the summer before.
“With the nuclear deal done, prisoners released, the time was right to resolve this dispute as well,” President Barack Obama said at the White House on Jan. 17—without disclosing the $400 million cash payment.
Senior U.S. officials denied any link between the payment and the prisoner exchange. They say the way the various strands came together simultaneously was coincidental, not the result of any quid pro quo.
“As we’ve made clear, the negotiations over the settlement of an outstanding claim…were completely separate from the discussions about returning our American citizens home,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said. “Not only were the two negotiations separate, they were conducted by different teams on each side, including, in the case of The Hague claims, by technical experts involved in these negotiations for many years.”
But U.S. officials also acknowledge that Iranian negotiators on the prisoner exchange said they wanted the cash to show they had gained something tangible.
Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas and a fierce foe of the Iran nuclear deal, accused President Barack Obama of paying “a $1.7 billion ransom to the ayatollahs for U.S. hostages.”
“This break with longstanding U.S. policy put a price on the head of Americans, and has led Iran to continue its illegal seizures” of Americans, he said.
Since the cash shipment, the intelligence arm of the Revolutionary Guard has arrested two more Iranian-Americans. Tehran has also detained dual-nationals from France, Canada and the U.K. in recent months.
At the time of the prisoner release, Secretary of State John Kerry and the White House portrayed it as a diplomatic breakthrough. Mr. Kerry cited the importance of “the relationships forged and the diplomatic channels unlocked over the course of the nuclear talks.”
Meanwhile, U.S. officials have said they were certain Washington was going to lose the arbitration in The Hague, where Iran was seeking more than $10 billion, and described the settlement as a bargain for taxpayers.
Iranian press reports have quoted senior Iranian defense officials describing the cash as a ransom payment. The Iranian foreign ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The $400 million was paid in foreign currency because any transaction with Iran in U.S. dollars is illegal under U.S. law. Sanctions also complicate Tehran’s access to global banks.
“Sometimes the Iranians want cash because it’s so hard for them to access things in the international financial system,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on the January cash delivery. “They know it can take months just to figure out how to wire money from one place to another.”
The Obama administration has refused to disclose how it paid any of the $1.7 billion, despite congressional queries, outside of saying that it wasn’t paid in dollars. Lawmakers have expressed concern that the cash would be used by Iran to fund regional allies, including the Assad regime in Syria and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, which the U.S. designates as a terrorist organization.
But John Brennan, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, said last week that there was evidence much of the money Iran has received from sanctions relief was being used for development projects. “The money, the revenue that’s flowing into Iran is being used to support its currency, to provide moneys to the departments and agencies, build up its infrastructure,” Mr. Brennan said at a conference in Aspen, Colo.
The U.S. and Iran entered into secret negotiations to secure the release of Americans imprisoned in Iran in November 2014, according to U.S. and European officials. Switzerland’s foreign minister, Didier Burkhalter, offered to host the discussions.
The Swiss have represented the U.S.’s diplomatic interests in Iran since Washington closed its embassy in Tehran following the 1979 hostage crisis.
Iranian security services arrested two Iranian-Americans during President Obama’s first term. In July 2014, the intelligence arm of Iran’s elite military unit, the Revolutionary Guard, detained the Washington Post’s Tehran bureau chief, Jason Rezaian, and charged him with espionage.
A fourth Iranian-American was arrested last year. A former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent, Robert Levinson, disappeared on the Iranian island of Kish in 2007. His whereabouts remain unknown.
The Swiss channel initially saw little activity, according to these officials. But momentum shifted after Tehran and world powers forged a final agreement in July 2015 to constrain Iran’s nuclear program in return for the lifting of most international sanctions. A surge of meetings then took place in the Swiss lakeside city of Geneva in November and December.
The U.S. delegation was led by a special State Department envoy, Brett McGurk, and included representatives from the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to U.S. and European officials. The Iranian team was largely staffed by members of its domestic spy service, according to U.S. officials.
The discussions, held at the InterContinental Hotel, initially focused solely on a formula whereby Iran would swap the Americans detained in Tehran for Iranian nationals held in U.S. jails, U.S. officials said. But around Christmas, the discussions dovetailed with the arbitration in The Hague concerning the old arms deal.
The Iranians were demanding the return of $400 million the Shah’s regime deposited into a Pentagon trust fund in 1979 to purchase U.S. fighter jets, U.S. officials said. They also wanted billions of dollars as interest accrued since then.
President Obama approved the shipment of the $400 million. But accumulating so much cash presented a logistical and security challenge, said U.S. and European officials. One person briefed on the operation joked: “You can’t just withdraw that much money from ATMs.”
Mr. Kerry and the State and Treasury departments sought the cooperation of the Swiss and Dutch governments. Ultimately, the Obama administration transferred the equivalent of $400 million to their central banks. It was then converted into other currencies, stacked onto the wooden pallets and sent to Iran on board a cargo plane.
On the morning of Jan. 17, Iran released the four Americans: Three of them boarded a Swiss Air Force jet and flew off to Geneva, with the fourth returning to the U.S. on his own. In return, the U.S. freed seven Iranian citizens and dropped extradition requests for 14 others.
U.S. and European officials wouldn’t disclose exactly when the plane carrying the $400 million landed in Iran. But a report by an Iranian news site close to the Revolutionary Guard, the Tasnim agency, said the cash arrived in Tehran’s Mehrabad airport on the same day the Americans departed.
Revolutionary Guard commanders boasted at the time that the Americans had succumbed to Iranian pressure. “Taking this much money back was in return for the release of the American spies,” said Gen. Mohammad Reza Naghdi, commander of the Guard’s Basij militia, on state media.
Among the Americans currently being held are an energy executive named Siamak Namazi and his 80-year old father, Baqer, according to U.S. and Iranian officials. Iran’s judiciary spokesman last month confirmed Tehran had arrested the third American, believed to be a San Diego resident named Reza “Robin” Shahini.
Friends and family of the Namazis believe the Iranians are seeking to increase their leverage to force another prisoner exchange or cash payment in the final six months of the Obama administration. Mr. Kerry and other U.S. officials have been raising their case with Iranian diplomats, U.S. officials say.
Iranian officials have demanded in recent weeks the U.S. return $2 billion in Iranian funds that were frozen in New York in 2009. The Supreme Court recently ruled that the money should be given to victims of Iranian-sponsored terror attacks.
Members of Congress are seeking to pass legislation preventing the Obama administration from making any further cash payments to Iran. One of the bills requires for the White House to make public the details of its $1.7 billion transfer to Iran.
“President Obama’s…payment to Iran in January, which we now know will fund Iran’s military expansion, is an appalling example of executive branch governance,” said Sen. James Lankford (R., Okla.), who co-wrote the bill. “Subsidizing Iran’s military is perhaps the worst use of taxpayer dollars ever by an American president.”
As to the second answer,,I'll leave it at that. I agree. We weren't getting that from any govt there, but I'll accept the wishlist.
Yup.
Sure, we didn't have to send back the money that was not ours. We could have just kept it and earned the reputation of "scumbag thieves" which I assume would help our image with the rest of the world.
We'd already held onto the money for decades after seizing it in the first place. If any other country was going to hold a grudge or get upset over it that's already water under the bridge. Whether we gave the money back last month, next year, next decade or never whatever damage to our reputation we'd incur has already been done and I doubt it was severe enough to change any of the current geopolitical situations around the world. The American public didn't even realize we had that money until this past week when giving it back became a story and the majority of Americans probably still don't know or care.
Politics on twitter (and most social media really) is mostly a cesspool of worthless needling, harassment and faux outrage. It always seems to be about promoting nonstories to create mountains out of molehills for the sake of being outraged over something or deliberately doing something just to provoke outrage and then getting outraged over the outrage. So much melodramatic ego stroking self righteous indignation it's insane.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/08/19 16:55:07
Gordon Shumway wrote: Yes we legally did have to give that money over whether we got any troops or citizens or payment in return. We could have said no. And then we would have been in the courts for the next two years and have had to pay anyway. With interest.
The ICC in The Hague? Again, the International Courts has no jurisdiction in the US. In order for the ICC to have teeth, the Senate would have to formally ratify the treaty... so, again, we did NOT have to send this money.
This was wrapped up in that Iran Nuke deal, which, again... was a deal in an attempt to 'build some legacy' for Obama.
WASHINGTON—The Obama administration secretly organized an airlift of $400 million worth of cash to Iran that coincided with the January release of four Americans detained in Tehran, according to U.S. and European officials and congressional staff briefed on the operation afterward.
Wooden pallets stacked with euros, Swiss francs and other currencies were flown into Iran on an unmarked cargo plane, according to these officials. The U.S. procured the money from the central banks of the Netherlands and Switzerland, they said.
The money represented the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement the Obama administration reached with Iran to resolve a decades-old dispute over a failed arms deal signed just before the 1979 fall of Iran’s last monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
The settlement, which resolved claims before an international tribunal in The Hague, also coincided with the formal implementation that same weekend of the landmark nuclear agreement reached between Tehran, the U.S. and other global powers the summer before.
“With the nuclear deal done, prisoners released, the time was right to resolve this dispute as well,” President Barack Obama said at the White House on Jan. 17—without disclosing the $400 million cash payment.
Senior U.S. officials denied any link between the payment and the prisoner exchange. They say the way the various strands came together simultaneously was coincidental, not the result of any quid pro quo.
“As we’ve made clear, the negotiations over the settlement of an outstanding claim…were completely separate from the discussions about returning our American citizens home,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said. “Not only were the two negotiations separate, they were conducted by different teams on each side, including, in the case of The Hague claims, by technical experts involved in these negotiations for many years.”
But U.S. officials also acknowledge that Iranian negotiators on the prisoner exchange said they wanted the cash to show they had gained something tangible.
Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas and a fierce foe of the Iran nuclear deal, accused President Barack Obama of paying “a $1.7 billion ransom to the ayatollahs for U.S. hostages.”
“This break with longstanding U.S. policy put a price on the head of Americans, and has led Iran to continue its illegal seizures” of Americans, he said.
Since the cash shipment, the intelligence arm of the Revolutionary Guard has arrested two more Iranian-Americans. Tehran has also detained dual-nationals from France, Canada and the U.K. in recent months.
At the time of the prisoner release, Secretary of State John Kerry and the White House portrayed it as a diplomatic breakthrough. Mr. Kerry cited the importance of “the relationships forged and the diplomatic channels unlocked over the course of the nuclear talks.”
Meanwhile, U.S. officials have said they were certain Washington was going to lose the arbitration in The Hague, where Iran was seeking more than $10 billion, and described the settlement as a bargain for taxpayers.
Iranian press reports have quoted senior Iranian defense officials describing the cash as a ransom payment. The Iranian foreign ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The $400 million was paid in foreign currency because any transaction with Iran in U.S. dollars is illegal under U.S. law. Sanctions also complicate Tehran’s access to global banks.
“Sometimes the Iranians want cash because it’s so hard for them to access things in the international financial system,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on the January cash delivery. “They know it can take months just to figure out how to wire money from one place to another.”
The Obama administration has refused to disclose how it paid any of the $1.7 billion, despite congressional queries, outside of saying that it wasn’t paid in dollars. Lawmakers have expressed concern that the cash would be used by Iran to fund regional allies, including the Assad regime in Syria and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, which the U.S. designates as a terrorist organization.
But John Brennan, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, said last week that there was evidence much of the money Iran has received from sanctions relief was being used for development projects. “The money, the revenue that’s flowing into Iran is being used to support its currency, to provide moneys to the departments and agencies, build up its infrastructure,” Mr. Brennan said at a conference in Aspen, Colo.
The U.S. and Iran entered into secret negotiations to secure the release of Americans imprisoned in Iran in November 2014, according to U.S. and European officials. Switzerland’s foreign minister, Didier Burkhalter, offered to host the discussions.
The Swiss have represented the U.S.’s diplomatic interests in Iran since Washington closed its embassy in Tehran following the 1979 hostage crisis.
Iranian security services arrested two Iranian-Americans during President Obama’s first term. In July 2014, the intelligence arm of Iran’s elite military unit, the Revolutionary Guard, detained the Washington Post’s Tehran bureau chief, Jason Rezaian, and charged him with espionage.
A fourth Iranian-American was arrested last year. A former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent, Robert Levinson, disappeared on the Iranian island of Kish in 2007. His whereabouts remain unknown.
The Swiss channel initially saw little activity, according to these officials. But momentum shifted after Tehran and world powers forged a final agreement in July 2015 to constrain Iran’s nuclear program in return for the lifting of most international sanctions. A surge of meetings then took place in the Swiss lakeside city of Geneva in November and December.
The U.S. delegation was led by a special State Department envoy, Brett McGurk, and included representatives from the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to U.S. and European officials. The Iranian team was largely staffed by members of its domestic spy service, according to U.S. officials.
The discussions, held at the InterContinental Hotel, initially focused solely on a formula whereby Iran would swap the Americans detained in Tehran for Iranian nationals held in U.S. jails, U.S. officials said. But around Christmas, the discussions dovetailed with the arbitration in The Hague concerning the old arms deal.
The Iranians were demanding the return of $400 million the Shah’s regime deposited into a Pentagon trust fund in 1979 to purchase U.S. fighter jets, U.S. officials said. They also wanted billions of dollars as interest accrued since then.
President Obama approved the shipment of the $400 million. But accumulating so much cash presented a logistical and security challenge, said U.S. and European officials. One person briefed on the operation joked: “You can’t just withdraw that much money from ATMs.”
Mr. Kerry and the State and Treasury departments sought the cooperation of the Swiss and Dutch governments. Ultimately, the Obama administration transferred the equivalent of $400 million to their central banks. It was then converted into other currencies, stacked onto the wooden pallets and sent to Iran on board a cargo plane.
On the morning of Jan. 17, Iran released the four Americans: Three of them boarded a Swiss Air Force jet and flew off to Geneva, with the fourth returning to the U.S. on his own. In return, the U.S. freed seven Iranian citizens and dropped extradition requests for 14 others.
U.S. and European officials wouldn’t disclose exactly when the plane carrying the $400 million landed in Iran. But a report by an Iranian news site close to the Revolutionary Guard, the Tasnim agency, said the cash arrived in Tehran’s Mehrabad airport on the same day the Americans departed.
Revolutionary Guard commanders boasted at the time that the Americans had succumbed to Iranian pressure. “Taking this much money back was in return for the release of the American spies,” said Gen. Mohammad Reza Naghdi, commander of the Guard’s Basij militia, on state media.
Among the Americans currently being held are an energy executive named Siamak Namazi and his 80-year old father, Baqer, according to U.S. and Iranian officials. Iran’s judiciary spokesman last month confirmed Tehran had arrested the third American, believed to be a San Diego resident named Reza “Robin” Shahini.
Friends and family of the Namazis believe the Iranians are seeking to increase their leverage to force another prisoner exchange or cash payment in the final six months of the Obama administration. Mr. Kerry and other U.S. officials have been raising their case with Iranian diplomats, U.S. officials say.
Iranian officials have demanded in recent weeks the U.S. return $2 billion in Iranian funds that were frozen in New York in 2009. The Supreme Court recently ruled that the money should be given to victims of Iranian-sponsored terror attacks.
Members of Congress are seeking to pass legislation preventing the Obama administration from making any further cash payments to Iran. One of the bills requires for the White House to make public the details of its $1.7 billion transfer to Iran.
“President Obama’s…payment to Iran in January, which we now know will fund Iran’s military expansion, is an appalling example of executive branch governance,” said Sen. James Lankford (R., Okla.), who co-wrote the bill. “Subsidizing Iran’s military is perhaps the worst use of taxpayer dollars ever by an American president.”
As to the second answer,,I'll leave it at that. I agree. We weren't getting that from any govt there, but I'll accept the wishlist.
Yup.
Sure, we didn't have to send back the money that was not ours. We could have just kept it and earned the reputation of "scumbag thieves" which I assume would help our image with the rest of the world.
We'd already held onto the money for decades after seizing it in the first place. If any other country was going to hold a grudge or get upset over it that's already water under the bridge. Whether we gave the money back last month, next year, next decade or never whatever damage to our reputation we'd incur has already been done and I doubt it was severe enough to change any of the current geopolitical situations around the world. The American public didn't even realize we had that money until this past week when giving it back became a story and the majority of Americans probably still don't know or care.
You are right. There is clearly no difference between eventually giving something back and never giving something back. /s
Gordon Shumway wrote: Yes we legally did have to give that money over whether we got any troops or citizens or payment in return. We could have said no. And then we would have been in the courts for the next two years and have had to pay anyway. With interest.
The ICC in The Hague? Again, the International Courts has no jurisdiction in the US. In order for the ICC to have teeth, the Senate would have to formally ratify the treaty... so, again, we did NOT have to send this money.
This was wrapped up in that Iran Nuke deal, which, again... was a deal in an attempt to 'build some legacy' for Obama.
WASHINGTON—The Obama administration secretly organized an airlift of $400 million worth of cash to Iran that coincided with the January release of four Americans detained in Tehran, according to U.S. and European officials and congressional staff briefed on the operation afterward.
Wooden pallets stacked with euros, Swiss francs and other currencies were flown into Iran on an unmarked cargo plane, according to these officials. The U.S. procured the money from the central banks of the Netherlands and Switzerland, they said.
The money represented the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement the Obama administration reached with Iran to resolve a decades-old dispute over a failed arms deal signed just before the 1979 fall of Iran’s last monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
The settlement, which resolved claims before an international tribunal in The Hague, also coincided with the formal implementation that same weekend of the landmark nuclear agreement reached between Tehran, the U.S. and other global powers the summer before.
“With the nuclear deal done, prisoners released, the time was right to resolve this dispute as well,” President Barack Obama said at the White House on Jan. 17—without disclosing the $400 million cash payment.
Senior U.S. officials denied any link between the payment and the prisoner exchange. They say the way the various strands came together simultaneously was coincidental, not the result of any quid pro quo.
“As we’ve made clear, the negotiations over the settlement of an outstanding claim…were completely separate from the discussions about returning our American citizens home,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said. “Not only were the two negotiations separate, they were conducted by different teams on each side, including, in the case of The Hague claims, by technical experts involved in these negotiations for many years.”
But U.S. officials also acknowledge that Iranian negotiators on the prisoner exchange said they wanted the cash to show they had gained something tangible.
Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas and a fierce foe of the Iran nuclear deal, accused President Barack Obama of paying “a $1.7 billion ransom to the ayatollahs for U.S. hostages.”
“This break with longstanding U.S. policy put a price on the head of Americans, and has led Iran to continue its illegal seizures” of Americans, he said.
Since the cash shipment, the intelligence arm of the Revolutionary Guard has arrested two more Iranian-Americans. Tehran has also detained dual-nationals from France, Canada and the U.K. in recent months.
At the time of the prisoner release, Secretary of State John Kerry and the White House portrayed it as a diplomatic breakthrough. Mr. Kerry cited the importance of “the relationships forged and the diplomatic channels unlocked over the course of the nuclear talks.”
Meanwhile, U.S. officials have said they were certain Washington was going to lose the arbitration in The Hague, where Iran was seeking more than $10 billion, and described the settlement as a bargain for taxpayers.
Iranian press reports have quoted senior Iranian defense officials describing the cash as a ransom payment. The Iranian foreign ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The $400 million was paid in foreign currency because any transaction with Iran in U.S. dollars is illegal under U.S. law. Sanctions also complicate Tehran’s access to global banks.
“Sometimes the Iranians want cash because it’s so hard for them to access things in the international financial system,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on the January cash delivery. “They know it can take months just to figure out how to wire money from one place to another.”
The Obama administration has refused to disclose how it paid any of the $1.7 billion, despite congressional queries, outside of saying that it wasn’t paid in dollars. Lawmakers have expressed concern that the cash would be used by Iran to fund regional allies, including the Assad regime in Syria and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, which the U.S. designates as a terrorist organization.
But John Brennan, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, said last week that there was evidence much of the money Iran has received from sanctions relief was being used for development projects. “The money, the revenue that’s flowing into Iran is being used to support its currency, to provide moneys to the departments and agencies, build up its infrastructure,” Mr. Brennan said at a conference in Aspen, Colo.
The U.S. and Iran entered into secret negotiations to secure the release of Americans imprisoned in Iran in November 2014, according to U.S. and European officials. Switzerland’s foreign minister, Didier Burkhalter, offered to host the discussions.
The Swiss have represented the U.S.’s diplomatic interests in Iran since Washington closed its embassy in Tehran following the 1979 hostage crisis.
Iranian security services arrested two Iranian-Americans during President Obama’s first term. In July 2014, the intelligence arm of Iran’s elite military unit, the Revolutionary Guard, detained the Washington Post’s Tehran bureau chief, Jason Rezaian, and charged him with espionage.
A fourth Iranian-American was arrested last year. A former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent, Robert Levinson, disappeared on the Iranian island of Kish in 2007. His whereabouts remain unknown.
The Swiss channel initially saw little activity, according to these officials. But momentum shifted after Tehran and world powers forged a final agreement in July 2015 to constrain Iran’s nuclear program in return for the lifting of most international sanctions. A surge of meetings then took place in the Swiss lakeside city of Geneva in November and December.
The U.S. delegation was led by a special State Department envoy, Brett McGurk, and included representatives from the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to U.S. and European officials. The Iranian team was largely staffed by members of its domestic spy service, according to U.S. officials.
The discussions, held at the InterContinental Hotel, initially focused solely on a formula whereby Iran would swap the Americans detained in Tehran for Iranian nationals held in U.S. jails, U.S. officials said. But around Christmas, the discussions dovetailed with the arbitration in The Hague concerning the old arms deal.
The Iranians were demanding the return of $400 million the Shah’s regime deposited into a Pentagon trust fund in 1979 to purchase U.S. fighter jets, U.S. officials said. They also wanted billions of dollars as interest accrued since then.
President Obama approved the shipment of the $400 million. But accumulating so much cash presented a logistical and security challenge, said U.S. and European officials. One person briefed on the operation joked: “You can’t just withdraw that much money from ATMs.”
Mr. Kerry and the State and Treasury departments sought the cooperation of the Swiss and Dutch governments. Ultimately, the Obama administration transferred the equivalent of $400 million to their central banks. It was then converted into other currencies, stacked onto the wooden pallets and sent to Iran on board a cargo plane.
On the morning of Jan. 17, Iran released the four Americans: Three of them boarded a Swiss Air Force jet and flew off to Geneva, with the fourth returning to the U.S. on his own. In return, the U.S. freed seven Iranian citizens and dropped extradition requests for 14 others.
U.S. and European officials wouldn’t disclose exactly when the plane carrying the $400 million landed in Iran. But a report by an Iranian news site close to the Revolutionary Guard, the Tasnim agency, said the cash arrived in Tehran’s Mehrabad airport on the same day the Americans departed.
Revolutionary Guard commanders boasted at the time that the Americans had succumbed to Iranian pressure. “Taking this much money back was in return for the release of the American spies,” said Gen. Mohammad Reza Naghdi, commander of the Guard’s Basij militia, on state media.
Among the Americans currently being held are an energy executive named Siamak Namazi and his 80-year old father, Baqer, according to U.S. and Iranian officials. Iran’s judiciary spokesman last month confirmed Tehran had arrested the third American, believed to be a San Diego resident named Reza “Robin” Shahini.
Friends and family of the Namazis believe the Iranians are seeking to increase their leverage to force another prisoner exchange or cash payment in the final six months of the Obama administration. Mr. Kerry and other U.S. officials have been raising their case with Iranian diplomats, U.S. officials say.
Iranian officials have demanded in recent weeks the U.S. return $2 billion in Iranian funds that were frozen in New York in 2009. The Supreme Court recently ruled that the money should be given to victims of Iranian-sponsored terror attacks.
Members of Congress are seeking to pass legislation preventing the Obama administration from making any further cash payments to Iran. One of the bills requires for the White House to make public the details of its $1.7 billion transfer to Iran.
“President Obama’s…payment to Iran in January, which we now know will fund Iran’s military expansion, is an appalling example of executive branch governance,” said Sen. James Lankford (R., Okla.), who co-wrote the bill. “Subsidizing Iran’s military is perhaps the worst use of taxpayer dollars ever by an American president.”
As to the second answer,,I'll leave it at that. I agree. We weren't getting that from any govt there, but I'll accept the wishlist.
Yup.
Sure, we didn't have to send back the money that was not ours. We could have just kept it and earned the reputation of "scumbag thieves" which I assume would help our image with the rest of the world.
We'd already held onto the money for decades after seizing it in the first place. If any other country was going to hold a grudge or get upset over it that's already water under the bridge. Whether we gave the money back last month, next year, next decade or never whatever damage to our reputation we'd incur has already been done and I doubt it was severe enough to change any of the current geopolitical situations around the world. The American public didn't even realize we had that money until this past week when giving it back became a story and the majority of Americans probably still don't know or care.
You are right. There is clearly no difference between eventually giving something back and never giving something back. /s
You seem to have completely missed the point. If other nations or people are going to have a lower opinion of the US because we took Iran's money then it doesn't when or if we give the money back because the act that caused those nations/people to think less of us (taking Iran's money) already happened. It's not like giving the money back makes those nations/people change their minds and think we're awesome now. That makes trying to win their approval a poor reason to give the money back. Getting our people back is a good reason, being concerned that somebody somewhere might think we're gakholes if we don't give it back isn't.
Its not about winning the people's approval. We don't need their approval. We only need to deal with their governments. Giving the money back was part and parcel of normalizing relations with Iran and stepping back from the disaster that is US-Iran relations. Giving up the hostages is much the same for them. Unless we want to be at each other's throats for another unproductive quarter century, we both had to sit down and play nice even if we don't really like each other in the end.
LordofHats wrote: Its not about winning the people's approval. We don't need their approval. We only need to deal with their governments. Giving the money back was part and parcel of normalizing relations with Iran and stepping back from the disaster that is US-Iran relations. Giving up the hostages is much the same for them. Unless we want to be at each other's throats for another unproductive quarter century, we both had to sit down and play nice even if we don't really like each other in the end.
-do you dispute that Iran had hostages?
-if you don't dispute that, then isn't the only demand that we must adhere to is a return of ALL HOSTAGES prior to any fething treating/normalize relations?
whembly wrote: -if you don't dispute that, then isn't the only demand that we must adhere to is a return of ALL HOSTAGES prior to any fething treating/normalize relations?
That's wildly unrealistic, and the kind of absolutism that got us into this mess in the first place.
whembly wrote: -if you don't dispute that, then isn't the only demand that we must adhere to is a return of ALL HOSTAGES prior to any fething treating/normalize relations?
That's wildly unrealistic, and the kind of absolutism that got us into this mess in the first place.
And you don't think this ordeal now won't encourage more kidnappings/ransom demands?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/08/19 18:07:20
Sure, it seems like a no brainer. Buy some arms from the US, have them not deliver them, wait 30 years, take some hostages, then release the hostages and get back a small chunk of the money. Pure profit.
I'm going to cash out my 401k because this seems like a safer bet, personally.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/08/19 18:13:01
lord_blackfang wrote: Respect to the guy who subscribed just to post a massive ASCII dong in the chat and immediately get banned.
Flinty wrote: The benefit of slate is that its.actually a.rock with rock like properties. The downside is that it's a rock
whembly wrote: [And you don't think this ordeal now won't encourage more kidnappings/ransom demands?
That would require this to be equivalent to kidnapping/ransom, an equivalence that really only seems to exist for you so you can do the thing you do.
Iran didn't take hostages to get its money back. Iran took hostages as part of a larger "we don't like America" policy, in which the money we refused to give back was but a part. These people weren't even hostages in the most straight forward sense. More like detainees, because if you're American and you happen to walk into Iran you must be a spy. These people were never taken with expectation of ransoming them. They were taken because that was part of the game two countries were playing, and now that the games over both countries are giving each other their stuff back. Naturally, neither side really trusts each other, so it's not going to be 1 to 1. It's a process, and unless you think we should go back to all that pointless grand standing we were doing before we have to let it all play out. That means we don't get everything we'd like to have the moment we want to have it.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/08/19 18:16:46
whembly wrote: [And you don't think this ordeal now won't encourage more kidnappings/ransom demands?
That would require this to be equivalent to kidnapping/ransom, an equivalence that really only seems to exist for you so you can do the thing you do.
Iran didn't take hostages to get its money back. Iran took hostages as part of a larger "we don't like America" policy, in which the money we refused to give back was but a part. These people weren't even hostages in the most straight forward sense. More like detainees, because if you're American and you happen to walk into Iran you must be a spy. These people were never taken with expectation of ransoming them. They were taken because that was part of the game two countries were playing, and now that the games over both countries are giving each other their stuff back.
This. Had Iran asked for money in return for the detained americans before?
Really, Whem, your reaction seems to highlight that you really do not support compromise on anything, even when it involves the safe release of detained US citizens held abroad. This is just a case of quid pro quo, like every diplomatic negotiation in the history of forever. Both sides get something they want, both sides get to walk away with a victory.
"Hey Iran, we'd really like those detained US citizens back so we can close that particular page in our relations." "Well USA, I'm going to need something in return so that I don't seem weak to my own people." "What did you have in mind?" "Well, you remember that money from a long time ago that you still have?"
and so on.
Whembley, your slippery slope argument is rubbish. If it were to actually work that way in real life then the USSR would have sent nukes to Cuba every other year in order to pressure the USA into reducing its nuclear stockpiles held in other countries. After all, the Cuban Missile Crisis got rid of the US's nukes in Turkey and Italy the first time they did it, wo why wouldn't they do it again to get rid of more?
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2016/08/19 18:27:57
The Laws of Thermodynamics:
1) You cannot win. 2) You cannot break even. 3) You cannot stop playing the game.
Colonel Flagg wrote:You think you're real smart. But you're not smart; you're dumb. Very dumb. But you've met your match in me.
Gordon Shumway wrote: Yes we legally did have to give that money over whether we got any troops or citizens or payment in return. We could have said no. And then we would have been in the courts for the next two years and have had to pay anyway. With interest.
The ICC in The Hague? Again, the International Courts has no jurisdiction in the US. In order for the ICC to have teeth, the Senate would have to formally ratify the treaty... so, again, we did NOT have to send this money.
This was wrapped up in that Iran Nuke deal, which, again... was a deal in an attempt to 'build some legacy' for Obama.
WASHINGTON—The Obama administration secretly organized an airlift of $400 million worth of cash to Iran that coincided with the January release of four Americans detained in Tehran, according to U.S. and European officials and congressional staff briefed on the operation afterward.
Wooden pallets stacked with euros, Swiss francs and other currencies were flown into Iran on an unmarked cargo plane, according to these officials. The U.S. procured the money from the central banks of the Netherlands and Switzerland, they said.
The money represented the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement the Obama administration reached with Iran to resolve a decades-old dispute over a failed arms deal signed just before the 1979 fall of Iran’s last monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
The settlement, which resolved claims before an international tribunal in The Hague, also coincided with the formal implementation that same weekend of the landmark nuclear agreement reached between Tehran, the U.S. and other global powers the summer before.
“With the nuclear deal done, prisoners released, the time was right to resolve this dispute as well,” President Barack Obama said at the White House on Jan. 17—without disclosing the $400 million cash payment.
Senior U.S. officials denied any link between the payment and the prisoner exchange. They say the way the various strands came together simultaneously was coincidental, not the result of any quid pro quo.
“As we’ve made clear, the negotiations over the settlement of an outstanding claim…were completely separate from the discussions about returning our American citizens home,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said. “Not only were the two negotiations separate, they were conducted by different teams on each side, including, in the case of The Hague claims, by technical experts involved in these negotiations for many years.”
But U.S. officials also acknowledge that Iranian negotiators on the prisoner exchange said they wanted the cash to show they had gained something tangible.
Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas and a fierce foe of the Iran nuclear deal, accused President Barack Obama of paying “a $1.7 billion ransom to the ayatollahs for U.S. hostages.”
“This break with longstanding U.S. policy put a price on the head of Americans, and has led Iran to continue its illegal seizures” of Americans, he said.
Since the cash shipment, the intelligence arm of the Revolutionary Guard has arrested two more Iranian-Americans. Tehran has also detained dual-nationals from France, Canada and the U.K. in recent months.
At the time of the prisoner release, Secretary of State John Kerry and the White House portrayed it as a diplomatic breakthrough. Mr. Kerry cited the importance of “the relationships forged and the diplomatic channels unlocked over the course of the nuclear talks.”
Meanwhile, U.S. officials have said they were certain Washington was going to lose the arbitration in The Hague, where Iran was seeking more than $10 billion, and described the settlement as a bargain for taxpayers.
Iranian press reports have quoted senior Iranian defense officials describing the cash as a ransom payment. The Iranian foreign ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The $400 million was paid in foreign currency because any transaction with Iran in U.S. dollars is illegal under U.S. law. Sanctions also complicate Tehran’s access to global banks.
“Sometimes the Iranians want cash because it’s so hard for them to access things in the international financial system,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on the January cash delivery. “They know it can take months just to figure out how to wire money from one place to another.”
The Obama administration has refused to disclose how it paid any of the $1.7 billion, despite congressional queries, outside of saying that it wasn’t paid in dollars. Lawmakers have expressed concern that the cash would be used by Iran to fund regional allies, including the Assad regime in Syria and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, which the U.S. designates as a terrorist organization.
But John Brennan, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, said last week that there was evidence much of the money Iran has received from sanctions relief was being used for development projects. “The money, the revenue that’s flowing into Iran is being used to support its currency, to provide moneys to the departments and agencies, build up its infrastructure,” Mr. Brennan said at a conference in Aspen, Colo.
The U.S. and Iran entered into secret negotiations to secure the release of Americans imprisoned in Iran in November 2014, according to U.S. and European officials. Switzerland’s foreign minister, Didier Burkhalter, offered to host the discussions.
The Swiss have represented the U.S.’s diplomatic interests in Iran since Washington closed its embassy in Tehran following the 1979 hostage crisis.
Iranian security services arrested two Iranian-Americans during President Obama’s first term. In July 2014, the intelligence arm of Iran’s elite military unit, the Revolutionary Guard, detained the Washington Post’s Tehran bureau chief, Jason Rezaian, and charged him with espionage.
A fourth Iranian-American was arrested last year. A former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent, Robert Levinson, disappeared on the Iranian island of Kish in 2007. His whereabouts remain unknown.
The Swiss channel initially saw little activity, according to these officials. But momentum shifted after Tehran and world powers forged a final agreement in July 2015 to constrain Iran’s nuclear program in return for the lifting of most international sanctions. A surge of meetings then took place in the Swiss lakeside city of Geneva in November and December.
The U.S. delegation was led by a special State Department envoy, Brett McGurk, and included representatives from the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to U.S. and European officials. The Iranian team was largely staffed by members of its domestic spy service, according to U.S. officials.
The discussions, held at the InterContinental Hotel, initially focused solely on a formula whereby Iran would swap the Americans detained in Tehran for Iranian nationals held in U.S. jails, U.S. officials said. But around Christmas, the discussions dovetailed with the arbitration in The Hague concerning the old arms deal.
The Iranians were demanding the return of $400 million the Shah’s regime deposited into a Pentagon trust fund in 1979 to purchase U.S. fighter jets, U.S. officials said. They also wanted billions of dollars as interest accrued since then.
President Obama approved the shipment of the $400 million. But accumulating so much cash presented a logistical and security challenge, said U.S. and European officials. One person briefed on the operation joked: “You can’t just withdraw that much money from ATMs.”
Mr. Kerry and the State and Treasury departments sought the cooperation of the Swiss and Dutch governments. Ultimately, the Obama administration transferred the equivalent of $400 million to their central banks. It was then converted into other currencies, stacked onto the wooden pallets and sent to Iran on board a cargo plane.
On the morning of Jan. 17, Iran released the four Americans: Three of them boarded a Swiss Air Force jet and flew off to Geneva, with the fourth returning to the U.S. on his own. In return, the U.S. freed seven Iranian citizens and dropped extradition requests for 14 others.
U.S. and European officials wouldn’t disclose exactly when the plane carrying the $400 million landed in Iran. But a report by an Iranian news site close to the Revolutionary Guard, the Tasnim agency, said the cash arrived in Tehran’s Mehrabad airport on the same day the Americans departed.
Revolutionary Guard commanders boasted at the time that the Americans had succumbed to Iranian pressure. “Taking this much money back was in return for the release of the American spies,” said Gen. Mohammad Reza Naghdi, commander of the Guard’s Basij militia, on state media.
Among the Americans currently being held are an energy executive named Siamak Namazi and his 80-year old father, Baqer, according to U.S. and Iranian officials. Iran’s judiciary spokesman last month confirmed Tehran had arrested the third American, believed to be a San Diego resident named Reza “Robin” Shahini.
Friends and family of the Namazis believe the Iranians are seeking to increase their leverage to force another prisoner exchange or cash payment in the final six months of the Obama administration. Mr. Kerry and other U.S. officials have been raising their case with Iranian diplomats, U.S. officials say.
Iranian officials have demanded in recent weeks the U.S. return $2 billion in Iranian funds that were frozen in New York in 2009. The Supreme Court recently ruled that the money should be given to victims of Iranian-sponsored terror attacks.
Members of Congress are seeking to pass legislation preventing the Obama administration from making any further cash payments to Iran. One of the bills requires for the White House to make public the details of its $1.7 billion transfer to Iran.
“President Obama’s…payment to Iran in January, which we now know will fund Iran’s military expansion, is an appalling example of executive branch governance,” said Sen. James Lankford (R., Okla.), who co-wrote the bill. “Subsidizing Iran’s military is perhaps the worst use of taxpayer dollars ever by an American president.”
As to the second answer,,I'll leave it at that. I agree. We weren't getting that from any govt there, but I'll accept the wishlist.
Yup.
Sure, we didn't have to send back the money that was not ours. We could have just kept it and earned the reputation of "scumbag thieves" which I assume would help our image with the rest of the world.
We'd already held onto the money for decades after seizing it in the first place. If any other country was going to hold a grudge or get upset over it that's already water under the bridge. Whether we gave the money back last month, next year, next decade or never whatever damage to our reputation we'd incur has already been done and I doubt it was severe enough to change any of the current geopolitical situations around the world. The American public didn't even realize we had that money until this past week when giving it back became a story and the majority of Americans probably still don't know or care.
Wasn't the return of this money part of the Iran deal? If so, then certainly the other nations who signed the deal may very well hold it against us if we reneged on one of the terms of the deal.
"Through the darkness of future past, the magician longs to see.
One chants out between two worlds: Fire, walk with me." - Twin Peaks
"You listen to me. While I will admit to a certain cynicism, the fact is that I am a naysayer and hatchetman in the fight against violence. I pride myself in taking a punch and I'll gladly take another because I choose to live my life in the company of Gandhi and King. My concerns are global. I reject absolutely revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method... is love. I love you Sheriff Truman." - Twin Peaks
whembly wrote: [And you don't think this ordeal now won't encourage more kidnappings/ransom demands?
That would require this to be equivalent to kidnapping/ransom, an equivalence that really only seems to exist for you so you can do the thing you do.
Iran didn't take hostages to get its money back. Iran took hostages as part of a larger "we don't like America" policy, in which the money we refused to give back was but a part. These people weren't even hostages in the most straight forward sense. More like detainees, because if you're American and you happen to walk into Iran you must be a spy. These people were never taken with expectation of ransoming them. They were taken because that was part of the game two countries were playing, and now that the games over both countries are giving each other their stuff back.
This. Had Iran asked for money in return for the detained americans before?
Really, Whem, your reaction seems to highlight that you really do not support compromise on anything, even when it involves the safe release of detained US citizens held abroad. This is just a case of quid pro quo, like every diplomatic negotiation in the history of forever. Both sides get something they want, both sides get to walk away with a victory.
"Hey Iran, we'd really like those detained US citizens back so we can close that particular page in our relations."
"Well USA, I'm going to need something in return so that I don't seem weak to my own people."
"What did you have in mind?"
"Well, you remember that money from a long time ago that you still have?"
and so on.
Whembley, your slippery slope argument is rubbish. If it were to actually work that way in real life then the USSR would have sent nukes to Cuba every other year in order to pressure the USA into reducing its nuclear stockpiles held in other countries. After all, the Cuban Missile Crisis got rid of the US's nukes in Turkey and Italy the first time they did it, wo why wouldn't they do it again to get rid of more?
Look... Here’s the bottom line (anyone feel free to correct me if the following isn't accurate):
-Iran gets $1.6 billion in cash (we know about the $400 million, but we're still in the dark with how WH paid Iran with the rest).
-Approx $150 billion in international sanctions relief.
-Access to international arms markets.
-Access to imported ballistic-missile technology.
-And finally the release of seven Iranian criminals held in U.S. jails.
What we got In exchange:
-Was four hostages (I thought there was a 5th??)
-Bunch of agreements that are vague and difficult-to-enforce promises from Iran... that was widely understood to, at best, delay the Iranian's desire for nuclear weapons.
-anything else?
Seems like the US and allies got shafted (as cold to say it, even over the released hostages)...
All the while that doing absolutely nothing about the Iranian Guard/Ayatollahs’ sponsorship of terror and their ongoing low intensity warfare against the US and allies.
In fact, this agreement makes it easier for the Iranian Guard/Ayatollahs to maintain the status quo.
This has probably been done already, so apologies if that's the case, but I'm confused by recent events in the USA.
First we had the whole Trump/Russia/Clinton hack thing, now we've got sections of the USA media calling for a counter-hack
Then we had that email scandal at the DNC, then some of those people have been dying mysterious circumstances or something...
Probably a bit early to break the tinfoil hats, but I'm confused as hell...
There's not going to be another watergate is there?
No whitewash at the white house?
Seriously, though, you have all these stories swirling around, and I'm not sure what to make of it...
I'm yearning for the simpler days of the EU referendum
"Our crops will wither, our children will die piteous
deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky. But is it true?" - Tom Kirby, CEO, Games Workshop Ltd
whembly wrote: [And you don't think this ordeal now won't encourage more kidnappings/ransom demands?
That would require this to be equivalent to kidnapping/ransom, an equivalence that really only seems to exist for you so you can do the thing you do.
Iran didn't take hostages to get its money back. Iran took hostages as part of a larger "we don't like America" policy, in which the money we refused to give back was but a part. These people weren't even hostages in the most straight forward sense. More like detainees, because if you're American and you happen to walk into Iran you must be a spy. These people were never taken with expectation of ransoming them. They were taken because that was part of the game two countries were playing, and now that the games over both countries are giving each other their stuff back.
This. Had Iran asked for money in return for the detained americans before?
Really, Whem, your reaction seems to highlight that you really do not support compromise on anything, even when it involves the safe release of detained US citizens held abroad. This is just a case of quid pro quo, like every diplomatic negotiation in the history of forever. Both sides get something they want, both sides get to walk away with a victory.
"Hey Iran, we'd really like those detained US citizens back so we can close that particular page in our relations."
"Well USA, I'm going to need something in return so that I don't seem weak to my own people."
"What did you have in mind?"
"Well, you remember that money from a long time ago that you still have?"
and so on.
Whembley, your slippery slope argument is rubbish. If it were to actually work that way in real life then the USSR would have sent nukes to Cuba every other year in order to pressure the USA into reducing its nuclear stockpiles held in other countries. After all, the Cuban Missile Crisis got rid of the US's nukes in Turkey and Italy the first time they did it, wo why wouldn't they do it again to get rid of more?
Look... Here’s the bottom line (anyone feel free to correct me if the following isn't accurate):
-Iran gets $1.6 billion in cash (we know about the $400 million, but we're still in the dark with how WH paid Iran with the rest).
-Approx $150 billion in international sanctions relief.
-Access to international arms markets.
-Access to imported ballistic-missile technology.
-And finally the release of seven Iranian criminals held in U.S. jails.
What we got In exchange:
-Was four hostages (I thought there was a 5th??)
-Bunch of agreements that are vague and difficult-to-enforce promises from Iran... that was widely understood to, at best, delay the Iranian's desire for nuclear weapons.
-anything else?
Seems like the US and allies got shafted (as cold to say it, even over the released hostages)...
All the while that doing absolutely nothing about the Iranian Guard/Ayatollahs’ sponsorship of terror and their ongoing low intensity warfare against the US and allies.
In fact, this agreement makes it easier for the Iranian Guard/Ayatollahs to maintain the status quo.
Thanks Obama.
"Anything else?" You mean besides a step towards normalizing relations with one of the de facto powers in the Middle East? You know, that crazy diplomacy thing that we're supposed to make an attempt at even with countries that don't bow down to us. You're implying that Obama should continue along the failed strategies of the past with regards to Iran? Yeah, that would be a step forward. Try thinking a couple steps ahead and cease with your endless pot shots from the cheap seats.
whembly wrote: [And you don't think this ordeal now won't encourage more kidnappings/ransom demands?
That would require this to be equivalent to kidnapping/ransom, an equivalence that really only seems to exist for you so you can do the thing you do.
Iran didn't take hostages to get its money back. Iran took hostages as part of a larger "we don't like America" policy, in which the money we refused to give back was but a part. These people weren't even hostages in the most straight forward sense. More like detainees, because if you're American and you happen to walk into Iran you must be a spy. These people were never taken with expectation of ransoming them. They were taken because that was part of the game two countries were playing, and now that the games over both countries are giving each other their stuff back.
This. Had Iran asked for money in return for the detained americans before?
Really, Whem, your reaction seems to highlight that you really do not support compromise on anything, even when it involves the safe release of detained US citizens held abroad. This is just a case of quid pro quo, like every diplomatic negotiation in the history of forever. Both sides get something they want, both sides get to walk away with a victory.
"Hey Iran, we'd really like those detained US citizens back so we can close that particular page in our relations."
"Well USA, I'm going to need something in return so that I don't seem weak to my own people."
"What did you have in mind?"
"Well, you remember that money from a long time ago that you still have?"
and so on.
Whembley, your slippery slope argument is rubbish. If it were to actually work that way in real life then the USSR would have sent nukes to Cuba every other year in order to pressure the USA into reducing its nuclear stockpiles held in other countries. After all, the Cuban Missile Crisis got rid of the US's nukes in Turkey and Italy the first time they did it, wo why wouldn't they do it again to get rid of more?
Look... Here’s the bottom line (anyone feel free to correct me if the following isn't accurate):
-Iran gets $1.6 billion in cash (we know about the $400 million, but we're still in the dark with how WH paid Iran with the rest).
-Approx $150 billion in international sanctions relief.
-Access to international arms markets.
-Access to imported ballistic-missile technology.
-And finally the release of seven Iranian criminals held in U.S. jails.
What we got In exchange:
-Was four hostages (I thought there was a 5th??)
-Bunch of agreements that are vague and difficult-to-enforce promises from Iran... that was widely understood to, at best, delay the Iranian's desire for nuclear weapons.
-anything else?
Seems like the US and allies got shafted (as cold to say it, even over the released hostages)...
All the while that doing absolutely nothing about the Iranian Guard/Ayatollahs’ sponsorship of terror and their ongoing low intensity warfare against the US and allies.
In fact, this agreement makes it easier for the Iranian Guard/Ayatollahs to maintain the status quo.
Thanks Obama.
Whembly, I sat through both the Senate and the Congressional oversight committee on the Iran deal, and the vast majority of these points you make were answered...
Don't make my sacrifice be in vain. Trust me on this one - it's not a bad deal with Iran...
"Our crops will wither, our children will die piteous
deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky. But is it true?" - Tom Kirby, CEO, Games Workshop Ltd
LordofHats wrote: Its not about winning the people's approval. We don't need their approval. We only need to deal with their governments. Giving the money back was part and parcel of normalizing relations with Iran and stepping back from the disaster that is US-Iran relations. Giving up the hostages is much the same for them. Unless we want to be at each other's throats for another unproductive quarter century, we both had to sit down and play nice even if we don't really like each other in the end.
I agree with you that we should be normalizing relations with Iran and I don't personally have a problem with us giving back the money. I just disagree with Dreadwinter's opinion that we should care about other nations/people in the world thinking that we're "scumbag thieves" if we didn't give the money back.
-And finally the release of seven Iranian criminals held in U.S. jails.
Prove they're criminals, and by criminals I mean committing a crime other than offending the United States.
Most of them were convicted of sanctions violations. Sanctions that no longer exist. Another was convicted of launching a satellite, which I don't think has ever been a crime.
And yes. There was a fifth American released around this time, but his release was part of a separate agreement distinct from the prisoner exchange.
Seems like the US and allies got shafted
Only if you presume that everything Iran got is worth more than getting everyone to calm the feth down. Iran was one of a number of global hot topics that could have sparked a massive war if even a few little things went wrong. And for what? So the US could stand on a high horse proclaiming freedom against a nominally democratic state? The pipe dream that is nuclear non-proliferation? Nothing was being gained by our approach to Iran, and all we'd done was produce a sponsor of terrorism who thrived internationally on saber rattling and rocking the boat because we'd shut them out of being able to do things normally. Iran is the poster child of "creating your own enemy" for America. It was pointless then and its pointless now, and when you start something by sheer arrogance somewhere down the line you're gonna have to swallow your pride if you want the problem to go away (which probably won't happen, at best we get the problem to be a lesser problem and can move on to other things).
All the while that doing absolutely nothing about the Iranian Guard/Ayatollahs’ sponsorship of terror and their ongoing low intensity warfare against the US and allies.
Turns out that leveling massive economic sanctions on someone because you don't like them doesn't have stellar results. Instead they end up doing all kinds of crazy stuff, domestic and foreign, and a powerful regional ally becomes your greatest regional pain in the ass. Though it's probably debatable who is the bigger pain in the ass for the US in the ME; Saudi Arabia or Iran, with possible dark horse contenders Turkey and Kurdistan.
In fact, this agreement makes it easier for the Iranian Guard/Ayatollahs to maintain the status quo.
It's almost like you think the Iranian Guard universally approves of the Iran deal (they don't, most of them hate it), and the Ayatollah's are some kind of shadow government. Hassan Rouhani has taken as much flak from Conservatives in Iran as Obama has from Conservatives in the US. Hell he was getting death threats for shaking Obama's hand that one time they passed each other in the halls. It's something of an eye opener that he's still in power, both in regards to the democratic progress of Iran, and in the current power structures within the country.
LordofHats wrote: Its not about winning the people's approval. We don't need their approval. We only need to deal with their governments. Giving the money back was part and parcel of normalizing relations with Iran and stepping back from the disaster that is US-Iran relations. Giving up the hostages is much the same for them. Unless we want to be at each other's throats for another unproductive quarter century, we both had to sit down and play nice even if we don't really like each other in the end.
I agree with you that we should be normalizing relations with Iran and I don't personally have a problem with us giving back the money. I just disagree with Dreadwinter's opinion that we should care about other nations/people in the world thinking that we're "scumbag thieves" if we didn't give the money back.
Fair enough.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/08/19 19:36:08
whembly wrote: [And you don't think this ordeal now won't encourage more kidnappings/ransom demands?
That would require this to be equivalent to kidnapping/ransom, an equivalence that really only seems to exist for you so you can do the thing you do.
Iran didn't take hostages to get its money back. Iran took hostages as part of a larger "we don't like America" policy, in which the money we refused to give back was but a part. These people weren't even hostages in the most straight forward sense. More like detainees, because if you're American and you happen to walk into Iran you must be a spy. These people were never taken with expectation of ransoming them. They were taken because that was part of the game two countries were playing, and now that the games over both countries are giving each other their stuff back.
This. Had Iran asked for money in return for the detained americans before?
Really, Whem, your reaction seems to highlight that you really do not support compromise on anything, even when it involves the safe release of detained US citizens held abroad. This is just a case of quid pro quo, like every diplomatic negotiation in the history of forever. Both sides get something they want, both sides get to walk away with a victory.
"Hey Iran, we'd really like those detained US citizens back so we can close that particular page in our relations."
"Well USA, I'm going to need something in return so that I don't seem weak to my own people."
"What did you have in mind?"
"Well, you remember that money from a long time ago that you still have?"
and so on.
Whembley, your slippery slope argument is rubbish. If it were to actually work that way in real life then the USSR would have sent nukes to Cuba every other year in order to pressure the USA into reducing its nuclear stockpiles held in other countries. After all, the Cuban Missile Crisis got rid of the US's nukes in Turkey and Italy the first time they did it, wo why wouldn't they do it again to get rid of more?
Look... Here’s the bottom line (anyone feel free to correct me if the following isn't accurate):
-Iran gets $1.6 billion in cash (we know about the $400 million, but we're still in the dark with how WH paid Iran with the rest).
-Approx $150 billion in international sanctions relief.
-Access to international arms markets.
-Access to imported ballistic-missile technology.
-And finally the release of seven Iranian criminals held in U.S. jails.
What we got In exchange:
-Was four hostages (I thought there was a 5th??)
-Bunch of agreements that are vague and difficult-to-enforce promises from Iran... that was widely understood to, at best, delay the Iranian's desire for nuclear weapons.
-anything else?
Seems like the US and allies got shafted (as cold to say it, even over the released hostages)...
All the while that doing absolutely nothing about the Iranian Guard/Ayatollahs’ sponsorship of terror and their ongoing low intensity warfare against the US and allies.
In fact, this agreement makes it easier for the Iranian Guard/Ayatollahs to maintain the status quo.
Thanks Obama.
Whembly, I sat through both the Senate and the Congressional oversight committee on the Iran deal, and the vast majority of these points you make were answered...
Don't make my sacrifice be in vain. Trust me on this one - it's not a bad deal with Iran...
True enough. Normalizing relations with Iran makes sense. They offset other powers in the region like KSA, who sponsor lots of terrorist groups all over the world that kill Americans, and there are plenty of young people in Iran that would be happy to have more freedom and exposure to western cultures/ideas. Iran's primary sponsorship of terrorism is through Hizbollah and Hamas, both of which are tied to the Israel-Palestinian conflict that we need to keep working to resolve but is limited to the ME region. If Iran, or any other country really wants nuclear weapons and has the financial resources to actually legitimately pursue them then they will get them eventually. When that day comes it would be better for everyone for us to have a normal or at least functional relationship with Iran.
whembly wrote: [And you don't think this ordeal now won't encourage more kidnappings/ransom demands?
That would require this to be equivalent to kidnapping/ransom, an equivalence that really only seems to exist for you so you can do the thing you do.
Iran didn't take hostages to get its money back. Iran took hostages as part of a larger "we don't like America" policy, in which the money we refused to give back was but a part. These people weren't even hostages in the most straight forward sense. More like detainees, because if you're American and you happen to walk into Iran you must be a spy. These people were never taken with expectation of ransoming them. They were taken because that was part of the game two countries were playing, and now that the games over both countries are giving each other their stuff back.
This. Had Iran asked for money in return for the detained americans before?
Really, Whem, your reaction seems to highlight that you really do not support compromise on anything, even when it involves the safe release of detained US citizens held abroad. This is just a case of quid pro quo, like every diplomatic negotiation in the history of forever. Both sides get something they want, both sides get to walk away with a victory.
"Hey Iran, we'd really like those detained US citizens back so we can close that particular page in our relations."
"Well USA, I'm going to need something in return so that I don't seem weak to my own people."
"What did you have in mind?"
"Well, you remember that money from a long time ago that you still have?"
and so on.
Whembley, your slippery slope argument is rubbish. If it were to actually work that way in real life then the USSR would have sent nukes to Cuba every other year in order to pressure the USA into reducing its nuclear stockpiles held in other countries. After all, the Cuban Missile Crisis got rid of the US's nukes in Turkey and Italy the first time they did it, wo why wouldn't they do it again to get rid of more?
Look... Here’s the bottom line (anyone feel free to correct me if the following isn't accurate):
-Iran gets $1.6 billion in cash (we know about the $400 million, but we're still in the dark with how WH paid Iran with the rest).
-Approx $150 billion in international sanctions relief.
-Access to international arms markets.
-Access to imported ballistic-missile technology.
-And finally the release of seven Iranian criminals held in U.S. jails.
What we got In exchange:
-Was four hostages (I thought there was a 5th??)
-Bunch of agreements that are vague and difficult-to-enforce promises from Iran... that was widely understood to, at best, delay the Iranian's desire for nuclear weapons.
-anything else?
Seems like the US and allies got shafted (as cold to say it, even over the released hostages)...
All the while that doing absolutely nothing about the Iranian Guard/Ayatollahs’ sponsorship of terror and their ongoing low intensity warfare against the US and allies.
In fact, this agreement makes it easier for the Iranian Guard/Ayatollahs to maintain the status quo.
Thanks Obama.
Whembly, I sat through both the Senate and the Congressional oversight committee on the Iran deal, and the vast majority of these points you make were answered...
Don't make my sacrifice be in vain. Trust me on this one - it's not a bad deal with Iran...
True enough. Normalizing relations with Iran makes sense. They offset other powers in the region like KSA, who sponsor lots of terrorist groups all over the world that kill Americans, and there are plenty of young people in Iran that would be happy to have more freedom and exposure to western cultures/ideas. Iran's primary sponsorship of terrorism is through Hizbollah and Hamas, both of which are tied to the Israel-Palestinian conflict that we need to keep working to resolve but is limited to the ME region. If Iran, or any other country really wants nuclear weapons and has the financial resources to actually legitimately pursue them then they will get them eventually. When that day comes it would be better for everyone for us to have a normal or at least functional relationship with Iran.
We're going over old arguments here, but the GOP tried tried and tried again to make this look like an Obama 'deal' but It's almost identical to what George W Bush proposed, a point that John Kerry was happy to ram down the throats of the hapless Republican senators who brought this up.
I'm no John Kerry fan, but he was on top form that day, and took great delight in skewering his GOP interegators...
And, the EU also thought it was a good deal, so not just American agreement...
"Our crops will wither, our children will die piteous
deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky. But is it true?" - Tom Kirby, CEO, Games Workshop Ltd
And, the EU also thought it was a good deal, so not just American agreement...
This. Though Iran isn't really the source of frothing at the mouth, full erection hatred here that it seems to be in the US, from what I've seen in our media at least.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/08/19 20:04:21
The Laws of Thermodynamics:
1) You cannot win. 2) You cannot break even. 3) You cannot stop playing the game.
Colonel Flagg wrote:You think you're real smart. But you're not smart; you're dumb. Very dumb. But you've met your match in me.
Rosebuddy wrote: Obviously it can be both. Run for presidency, get it if you can, if not you start a TV channel. It pays to have a plan B.
Yes, exactly. Trump can be of two minds about something, in fact he seems be of two minds about everything. Which one is the Plan B though? Like I said running for president was just a publicity stunt at first then he got trapped in it by the voters.
I believe Trump is actually spending some of that donation money now. Is it for real or just for show though? We'll have to wait and see how much of it he actually spends.
Come along and play Warmachine, 40k, boardgames or anything else! 
Try thinking a couple steps ahead and cease with your endless pot shots from the cheap seats.
