Don’t Give Up on Diplomacy With Iran: To Avoid a Wider War, America Should Push for a Nuclear Deal

15 comments

1. [SS from essay by Ali Vaez, Director of the Iran Project at the International Crisis Group.]

   On June 13, Israel initiated a series of airstrikes and covert operations against Iranian nuclear sites and military officials. Dubbed Operation Rising Lion, this sophisticated and multilayered campaign followed days of speculation about an impending assault. So far, the attacks have damaged Iran’s Natanz and Isfahan nuclear facilities and killed a number of Iranian scientists. They have also claimed the lives of scores of civilians and injured dozens more, razed apartment buildings, and blown up parts of the country’s energy infrastructure. Israelis, meanwhile, have found themselves rushing to shelters as their own cities come under attack.

   Right now, there is no indication that the fighting will stop. Both [Iran](https://www.foreignaffairs.com/regions/iran) and Israel have signaled that they are willing to keep striking each other. Israel’s defense minister even promised that “Tehran will burn” if the attacks don’t end. The United States, meanwhile, has done little to stop the bloodshed. Instead, U.S. President Donald Trump has sent mixed signals about whether he wants the fighting to cease. His administration has positioned military assets in the area, and according to multiple news reports, U.S. forces are helping Israel shoot down Iranian drones and missiles.

2. No. The time for talk has been the last 40+ years with these fanatics.

3. They’ll just lie again and be more secretive. They made jt clear they want Nukes, and were actively pursuing them. No deal will change that now.

4. A nuclear deal like the NPT that Iran is a signatory to yet chooses to not abide by? If they have such a long history of violating the NPT why should anyone expect them to abide by some other agreement? All the special deals with Iran seem to be rewarding violations of the NPT and nothing else. 

5. America has no interest in a nuclear deal. America had a nuclear deal that Iran was following. Trump tore it up. Now Israel has assassinated the lead negotiator of the new deal.

   What America is waiting on is a war between Israel and Iran, so that they can engage on the pretense that it is a defensive measure against the Iranian regime.

6. Sorry to say this. But I feel like the world is safer if Iran does not have nukes. So whatever steps need to be taken to prevent that, I’m on board with.

7. We can’t ask them for a nuclear deal after they’ve had their negotiators killed a few days before a meeting. That ship has sailed.

   It’s laughable that people here are still trying to convince us that Iran was building a nuke prior to this. The Israelis are the boy who cried wolf, every few months they beg the US government to do something because “Iran has made a nuke or is very close”. Yet the nuke never comes. But now their actions are forcing Iran to create the bomb.

   They couldn’t end the nuclear program on their own so now they expect Iran to roll over and sign a worse deal, or they expect the US to finish the job, or they can keep lobbing missiles at each other till Iran creates the bomb and mounts it on a missile.

8. This article is straight-up unhinged Iranian propaganda. The Iranian regime has been talking about destroying America for half a century. They have funded militias and terrorist groups across the region that have destabilized countries and killed both locals and American soldiers. They are an ideologically committed enemy of the United States, and now that their regime has been kneecapped, Ali Vaez thinks we should pull them up and help dust them off? No.

   I do not understand what benefit there could be to restarting negotiations until the Iranian regime makes it clear that they have no intention of retaining the ability to enrich uranium, allow themselves to be subject to broad nuclear oversight, and agree to end their support for regional proxies. That is the BARE MINIMUM of acceptable terms. Until the Iranians come on bended knee with that offer, we should tell them to enjoy the bombs and send Israel more ammo to keep it up.

9. I agree with the sentiment but not even Canada and Mexico trust Trump and understandably so. Why would Iran trust Trump when he ripped up the last NPT deal?

   It seems impossible for this war to get stonewalled with Trump in office. If Biden was around, there would be atleast a new face that Iran could trust to commit to a deal. The Western World does not want to get dragged into another War on Terror given what a disaster that the first one was. I suspect that maybe America will give Israel some bunker busters to finish the objective of castrating Iran’s nuclear program and that will be the end of it.

10. Um, there was a nuclear deal in place. A certain prior administration unilaterally tore it up. I wouldn’t be holding my breath waiting for Iran to return to the negotiating table with a similar admin

11. There was a deal in place. The Iran nuclear deal that Obama made, which made it so nuclear inspectors were constantly checking on Iranian nuclear sites to ensure they didn’t enrich uranium to nuclear levels.

    It was working until Trump got elected the first time and blew up the deal cause he didn’t want to hold up the USA’s side of the deal, which was to return stolen money to the Iranians. His ego of not wanting to let Obama get a win has lead to where Iran is now with their enrichment.

12. I’m all for diplomacy, except the first term on my list would be “cool, we’ll stop bombing you, but you destroy your nuclear facilities yourselves then. We know where they all are and we’ll be watching so don’t try to be sneaky about it. Get to it, we’ll wait.”

    At this point, Israel is in too deep and Iran was too close to having them to settle for anything less than the destruction of that program. A theocratic regime that’s been funding and arming terrorist groups to attack on their behalf and with the charter of destroying Israel explicitly cannot be allowed to have nukes, full stop.

13. Iran keeps claiming that their program has no military aims, but keeps its facilities underground and refuses to allow free access to inspectors. They’re saying one thing but acting differently.

14. Iran has had decades to figure out how to play with the rest of the world. I think they’ve had enough time.

15. I don’t want to leave a long comment: I’m cool with Iran and Israel fighting, they clearly want to, otherwise they would have indeed “made a deal”. I just don’t want the U.S. to be involved. We already are to some degree, I’d rather that degree be zero.

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