The threat was made by a US president and appears to have been real. It seems likely that Iran took it seriously. That such a thing could happen, and that the words that he used, suggesting that he would annihilate a civilisation, means that Trump should now be treated as the pariah that he is by all other states around the world. He threatened one of the most serious crimes known to humanity with the apparent intention of undertaking it. That was, in the terms of politics and international relations, unforgivable.
So all those insisting upon the eradication of Israel, we get to hang them then, right?
But Spud, consistency…
A crucial part of negotiation is that threats appear to be real. If the recipient believes there is no chance of the threat being carried out it becomes a failed negotiating strategy. This was and still is the principal of a nuclear deterrent.
Exactly.
I find it perplexing that so many people in the media and politics are so dumb, that they refuse to see through Trump’s tactics ( he does it every time ) and call him out on it. When the deal is made they call him ‘chicken’ and he walks away with exactly what he wanted in the first place.
I don’t think they really do. After all, they’re getting clicks, both when they report it and when they write decrying it.
It’s not in their (financial and political) interest to point this out.
Either Trup does not have tactics, or they are very stupid tactics. Threats are only as powerful as your enemies belief that you will carry them out. Trump has repeatedly shown that he cannot be trusted to do what he says, so his threats are now worthless. And even when he does do what he threatens – such as over tariffs – he clearly has not cared enough to plan properly as he ends up getting his actions blocked as he has exceed his powers.
Iran may be been fooled sufficiently this time to pause attacks, but they now realise they’ve been TACOed and won’t fall for it again.
This may be exactly what Trump wants – for the Iranians to believe they have the upper hand and so resume full hostilities. He’ll have been seen to have given peace a chance (at some apparent cost to himself) and will then be able to unleash the full power of America’s conventional forces to remove Iran as a functioning nation.
A far more likely third option is that you are simply ignorant of his tactics.
Always give the other side a way out to save face.
That’s what JFK did over Cuba.
Otherwise the alternative is rather grisly…
Yep. You gonna believe a man who has blowed up your whole damn military and killed off half your staff?
His threats carry weight.
Does Iran have the right to exist? Did the Confederacy? Does Belgium, Germany, Italy, Iraq, Poland, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, …
This is one of the many things I can’t understand nowadays. You try and eradicate a fanatical religious regime that is hell bent on murdering as many people as it can and that’s a “crime against humanity”?
I suppose because it’s all done in the name of the religion of peace…
It’s perfectly possible to share a goal while disagreeing on how to achieve it or what price is worth paying to achieve it.
If ever there was occasion to go nuclear it was Afghanistan.
“Give us bin Laden or get your land turned to glass.”
But they didn’t.
So all subsequent threats are not credible.
If they’d nuked Afghanistan, would the locals have even noticed? Places is a desolate wasteland already.
Eh. The “leader” of Afghanistan is basically the mayor of Kabul. Any claims to reach beyond that are only valid when there’s loyal troops right at that place at that time to enforce it.
This has been the case forever.
I think there were enough people who knew this to point out that threatening to drop a nuclear bomb on Kabul would be pointless, and dropping one elsewhere has the problem of finding the right place to drop it.
As it turned out, the place to drop it would have been in Pakistan. Which would cause other problems.
IMHO turn Mecca to glass, demonstrating to moslems worldwide that our God is greater than theirs.
Who would they have asked?
Have you noticed that the mozzers are always ranting apocalyptic shit? Trump is doing the same back at them, which is discombobulating because they can’t tell when he’s lying just like them.
Remember that hilarious AI Gaza vid of Trump and Netanyahu drinking cocktails, and the bearded belly dancers? It wasn’t just an absurd random ejaculation. A shrewd article in their the DT or Speccie pointed out that Arab cultures use very specific visual symbiology and the imagery in that vid specifically pressed those buttons for an equally specific purpose.
This is what Trump does, and it’s way more effective than Obama’s “statesmanlike” guff. Of course, this doesn’t even part Spud’s remaining hair.
Whenever I see some pundit gobbing off about how diplomacy is the solution I want to see them asked why diplomacy had a free run for decades and never solved it. They kick it into the long grass, search, find the ball and kick it again.
Diplomacy has brought us to the point at which Iran may practically be unbeatable, having been allowed to develop an abundance of cheap but effective automated weapons.
Well done, Foreign Policy Establishment, with your fine words. Great job.
The motor in Iran started running at full tilt when Obama sent Killary and Katherine thingy… Peter Kellners wife… In to negotiate a nuclear deal.
It was like taking a Sooty puppet into a machine gun fight.
The worst wars in history started out with two sides broadly equally matched. Spud believes in equality ergo he believes in appalling conflicts.
I praise the Power that there is a massive disparity in technology between Israel (and its ally the USA) and the peoples who pathologically want to martyr themselves in destroying Israel forever.
Trump said mean things to Iran. Therefore, Iran should be allowed to have nuclear weapons.