The problem is, all American tourists in Iran are spies in the Iranian eyes. Heavily promoting tourism is heavily promoting POWs.

 

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Pakistan has nukes. They're horribly unstable and unreliable, even to the Pakistanis. I don't care who has nukes or doesn't have nukes. Eventually, all countries will own them because it will be impossible to be taken seriously without them. Is that threatening to me personally? Yes. Going to war with Iran is even more threatening to me.

 

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That's something that is negotiated on a diplomatic level before open tourism is initiated. We already did this with Jordan, who now has English speaking hospitals that accept privately insured patients from the US, EU, and Canada because of their rates and the high level of care they offer patients. Jordan expands its tourism, medical or not, and they continue to send medical students to the US. Jordan has more displaced Palestinians living in their country than the West Bank, and so far all of the medical tourists have come back. The West also has a student placement program with them which is going to be adopted by Saudi Arabia. Of course, the discovery of rich plutonium deposits in Jordan has nothing to do with it.

 

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LOL of course not....

 

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I'm not an expert on either of the two countries governments but they seem pretty different to me. Would Iran be able to implement an agreement like that across it's country, or will local authorities and judges be able to trump a diplomatic agreement made at the federal level?

And I know the Iranian people are semi-democratic and peaceful, but they have also been known to attack Americans. Do you honestly think justice would be enforced for American tourists or would many of them disappear?

Was the recent upheaval at the British Embassy the Iranian people or the government?

 

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Good advice

 

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I am very inclined to agree with you. But "Country X has nukes" doesn't seem sufficient enough of an excuse for allowing country Y to have nukes too. At least if there is for example country Z, which may be willing to go to war to prevent country Y from getting nukes.

Do we just stay the eff out of all that? I am not convinced. There's too many places where those who nourish off of conflict still have power over those who've understood the advantages of peaceful cooperation.

I feel like we're heading towards disaster. Disaster that could be avoided, yet no one seems willing or able to even try. It's like WWI all over again.

 

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Sounds good to me! But, I fear, just like Nixon was really the only person who could go to China, it will be impossible for Obama, or any Democrat to normalize relations with Iran. Though, if Obama was a confrontational person, rather than a conciliator, it would be fun seeing him do it in his second term and just see right wing reactions.

It'd pretty much guarantee Republicans the WH in 2016, though.

 

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We are headed towards disaster because we design sanctions based on fear and not on thought. Its an emotional knee-jerk reaction rather than trying to think forward to ten years from now. [Example: The Iranian public has gone from praising Obama to hating him openly for two reasons: failure to support them in their revolution attempt, and they are feeling the brunt of the sanctions. So instead of carrying his image as a hero they're burning him in effigy. Now the Iranian people will learn to hate the US as much as their evil dictators do. This is the pool from which future leaders will emerge. Nice job!]


We have two choices, either drop the sanctions or bomb. Clearly the sanctions aren't working so where do we go from here? We can't sanction any more than we have unless we decide its illegal for Iranians to utilize oxygen. Leon Panetta made it very clear on where the US stands so I'm guessing bombing sooner rather than later. We will disguise it as 'freeing the Iranian people' presumably from us. Much like with Libya, China will continue to get their oil regardless of the oil supply distruption everyone else will feel.

 

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I think you are too eager to dismiss "fear". Yeah "we" (whoever that is) fear a nuclear Iran. Some of "us" are likely to act at some point based on their fear and there's nothing the rest of "us" can do to stop them.

I know what game Iran is playing. Or rather what game those pulling the strings in Iran are playing, the various factions. Do they have the ability to make the right move when it counts? Or are the forces of the game too strong?

As far as I'm concerned Europe should stay out of this. But can we? Even if we'd be willing to? What's going to happen in Syria? That could tip the balance either way.

 

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