French Pres. Macron adresses a joint session of USA Congress

[hellheaven1987]

His climate change talk was perhaps the strongest message to Trump that he should reconsider his present course

Ha you bet that is strong enough.

Iran does back insidious groups like Hezbollah, but this is almost an afterthought compared to the onslaught and the worldwide reach of Sunni terrorist organizations.

Yeah, lets pretends Hezbollah only received Iranian aid after 2010, and do I have to point out Iran actually support Hamas and Taliban?

Macron is indeed a massive threat.

*sigh

Unfortunately he kindly tie his reform program with EU, so if his reforms fail it probably means EU's day is number in France.

[Cyclops]

...and do I have to point out Iran actually support Hamas and Taliban?

....

Do you mean Hezbollah?

Hamas is a Sunni organisation funded largely by the Saudis and the Gulf States, and the Taliban is Sunni fundamentalist (I was going to say Wahhabist but I looked it up and its "Deobandi", an Indian sect of Islam that shares some outlooks with Salafism), supported by the Saudis as well as Pakistani factions. Iran has its own factions in Afghanistan and gave their support to the US invasion against the Taliban, and is heavily involved in Lebanon and Syria opposing ISIS and other Sunni factions. Iran is literally at war with Saudi backed organisations across multiple fronts in the Islamic world, from Syria to Yemen.

Its important to bear in mind these sort of distinctions, its easy to get confused when dealing with myriad Islamic factions, but there are clear and deep divisions in the Islamic world.

[sumskilz]

Do you mean Hezbollah?

Hamas is a Sunni organisation funded largely by the Saudis and the Gulf States, and the Taliban is Sunni fundamentalist (I was going to say Wahhabist but I looked it up and its "Deobandi", an Indian sect of Islam that shares some outlooks with Salafism), supported by the Saudis as well as Pakistani factions. Iran has its own factions in Afghanistan and gave their support to the US invasion against the Taliban, and is heavily involved in Lebanon and Syria opposing ISIS and other Sunni factions. Iran is literally at war with Saudi backed organisations across multiple fronts in the Islamic world, from Syria to Yemen.

Its important to bear in mind these sort of distinctions, its easy to get confused when dealing with myriad Islamic factions, but there are clear and deep divisions in the Islamic world.

Iran is obviously more naturally aligned with Shiite groups, but they do openly support Hamas and have been caught supplying them with M-302 missiles. Although there was a bit of a falling out for awhile over the war in Syria, since Hamas is or was supporting the rebels according to both Israeli and Syrian state media. Iran's anti-Israel stance is all about wanting to be seen as the leaders of the Islamic world, and to a lesser extent, just because Israel is aligned with the US. Prior to the revolution, Iran was allied with Israel as you probably know. Iran also plays multiple sides against each other in Afghanistan, including supporting the Taliban in order to make things difficult for the US and put pressure on the Afghan government.

Supporting your lesser enemies against your greater enemies is a good way to get your enemies to keep killing each other. I think this is pretty standard Middle Eastern foreign policy.

[hellheaven1987]

Welcome to real world, comrade; a world when socialist would fund religious fundamentalists or Catholic and Islamic terrorists would form an united front fighting for greater good.

[Prodromos]

Macron and France would rather do business with Iran. So far they haven't shown any signs of disobeying the nuclear deal that has been set in place since Obama. Obama got much of the world community (including all member states of the permanent UN Security Council, including China and even freaking Russia) to sanction Iran and freeze their assets overseas until they capitulated and allowed inspectors into their country to periodically check in on their uranium enrichment program. Iran's currency plummeted in value as a result and Iranian leadership finally gave in. In fact, even just the recent speculation about Trump nixing the Iran Deal has sent the Iranian rial hitting record lows as of late. Iran clearly doesn't want an economic disaster. It's why the came to the table in the first place. Ripping apart this deal makes no sense, unless it is seen from the vantage point of Netanyahu in Israel, who would rather bomb Iran (like Israel did in Operation Orchard with Syria's uranium program in 2007) or keep up the hostilities by sabotaging their uranium program as he did with the 2010 STUXNET virus. It would also be doing US oil companies and for that matter Russian oil companies a big favor, since it would send oil prices through the roof. Of course, it would dick over regular consumers, but the oil lobby would be fat and happy about it.

Well that's precisely what they said about North Korea, almost word for word. How did that work out? Not only do they have nukes now, but ICBMs as well.

https://www.history.com/news/north-k...reed-framework



The agreement doesn't actually check Iran's nuclear and other ambitions, so it doesn't matter whether they're in compliance with it or not. Not that we even have a way of truly finding out, anyway, as IAEA admits. In any case Trump decides whether Iran's complying with the agreement or not, and he will say they aren't.

It was suspected early on that Obama had no interest in the military option on Iran. He wanted a deal at any cost and Iran gave him one. One that is favorable to their long-term goals, or else they obviously wouldn't have agreed to it in the first place.

The agreement suffers from several major flaws. For one it doesn't provide for unfettered access to Iran's military facilities, where much of the nuclear weapons research historically took place. It also doesn't include Iran's missile development program, which is likely done with the help of North Korea, and is in violation of UN Security Council resolutions. Additionally, it completely ignores Iran's sponsorship of terrorist and separatist groups throughout the world, such as in Lebanon, Israel, Iraq, and America. And then there is Iran's violation of the human rights of women and religious minorities.

What is even more worrisome, the agreement's nuclear restrictions aren't even permanent; pretty soon all restrictions will end and Iran will be free to pursue a nuclear bomb. When asked about this, Obama said that he would be long gone by then and it wouldn't be his problem.

This agreement is a huge gift to Iran and a terrible loss to the West. While Israel is understandably more worried than most, (just as Czechoslovakia was more worried about Hitler than Britain was in the 1930s), Iran poses an immediate and long-term threat to many other countries, including America and most of Iran's neighbors, almost all of whom have historically attempted to annihilate Israel.

80 years ago peace at any cost didn't work with Hitler, and it won't work with Iran. Don't think Iran will stick to the Middle East and leave America alone. An appeaser is one who feeds the crocodile hoping it will eat him last. Ignoring a threat won't make it go away. Let's learn from history.

Iran does back insidious groups like Hezbollah, but this is almost an afterthought compared to the onslaught and the worldwide reach of Sunni terrorist organizations.

Surprisingly I think the threat of Sunni Islamism is another reason for regime change in Iran. The main reason Western countries align with the Arabs is Iran. Once we get a favorable regime in Iran, there'll be no need to keep palling around with the Arabs. Oil is not a concern anymore and the Arabs certainly aren't a net gain on terrorism. For every terrorist plot they foil, they create ten more.

[Cyclops]

Welcome to real world, comrade; a world when socialist would fund religious fundamentalists or Catholic and Islamic terrorists would form an united front fighting for greater good.

Good lord, how extraordinary. Thank you for illuminating my ignorance on this matter.

I really shouldn't be surprised, but I thought there was a limit to hypocrisy. This morning I was chuckling at Bib Netanyahu's outrage at Iran hiding its nuclear capacity, but this is several more levels of irony deeper.

...
Supporting your lesser enemies against your greater enemies is a good way to get your enemies to keep killing each other. I think this is pretty standard Middle Eastern foreign policy.

Again thanks for the correction. I knew there was some "martyr funding" to get Palestinians to suicide attack Israel but I hadn't realised there was this level of formal support. I agree that the "enemy of my enemy" doctrine is a regional diplomatic theme, spiced up with the local speciality of random betrayal now and then.