Iran Framework Agreed

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-32172301#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

President Obama has hailed a deal restricting Iran's nuclear programme as a "historic understanding" which, if implemented, will make the world safer.

The framework agreement, struck after intensive talks, aims to prevent Tehran making a nuclear weapon in exchange for phased sanction relief.

Iran and the six world powers involved must now finalise the deal.

Iranians have been celebrating in the streets but Israel says the deal threatens its survival.

"This will be a long-term deal, that addresses each path to a potential Iranian nuclear bomb," the US President said in a statement after the deal was announced.

"If Iran cheats, the world will know it," he said, adding that the agreement was based not on trust but on "unprecedented verification". He said that if the deal is finalised, "we will be able to resolve one of the greatest threats to our security, and to do so peacefully".

According to "parameters" of the agreement published by the US state department, Iran must reduce the number of its centrifuges that can be used to enrich uranium into a bomb by more than two-thirds.

It also has to redesign a power plant so it cannot produce weapons-grade plutonium, be subject to regular inspections, and agree not to enrich uranium over 3.67% - far less than is required to make a nuclear bomb - for at least 15 years.

The biggest surprise for me (a pleasant one) was that Iran has agreed to unconditional inspections of all of its nuclear facilities for at least 15 years.

I think the Israelis are going to be mad, but that has nothing to do with the nuclear program itself, Israel just doesn't want Iran's economy to recover.

I'm glad it's pulled through. Iran can be a useful ally in the region and hopefully this is a starting block to further relations. Let's hope Israel doesn't kick up too much of a stink.

It's not just Israel, the Sunni Arab powers are also concerned because this deal won't do anything to address Iran's conventional power, but really they wouldn't be happy with anything short of the United States invading Iran and dismantling its government and military capabilities.

-"President Obama has hailed a deal restricting Iran's nuclear programme "

-"Iran must reduce the number of its centrifuges that can be used to enrich uranium"

-"and agree not to enrich uranium over 3.67% - far less than is required to make a nuclear bomb"

But I thought Obama wanted Iran to become a nuclear-power, this doesn't make any sense.

Originally posted by One_Angry_Scot
I'm glad it's pulled through. Iran can be a useful ally in the region and hopefully this is a starting block to further relations. Let's hope Israel doesn't kick up too much of a stink.

LOL. Israel is much more of a friend to us than Iran will ever be. Iran will never truly be our friend. They hate us (America). Always have. Always will.

HYG, Star428:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pahlavi_dynasty

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution

Originally posted by Star428
LOL. Israel is much more of a friend to us than Iran will ever be. Iran will never truly be our friend. They hate us (America). Always have. Always will.

I don't think Iran is such an antagonist as you make them out to be. Their ambition is to become a necessary power in the region, and obviously most western countries would rather make deals without Iran getting in the way. These are geopolitical interests that will last for some time without a doubt, but it's hardly the basis for perpetual hate.

How is Iran necessary? Not trying to be sarcastic, just curious.

Egypt and Saudi seem like are better Arab allies.

Originally posted by Omega Vision
It's not just Israel, the Sunni Arab powers are also concerned because this deal won't do anything to address Iran's conventional power, but really they wouldn't be happy with anything short of the United States invading Iran and dismantling its government and military capabilities.

Conventional power is really outside the scope of a deal.

Iran's not exactly known for launching offensive wars either. They tend to be more the meddle-by-proxy type, they want bufferstates, not an empire.

Originally posted by Henry_Pym
How is Iran necessary? Not trying to be sarcastic, just curious.

Egypt and Saudi seem like are better Arab allies.

Because it's one of the major powers in the region (Egypt's a good ally and all, but it's on entirely the other side of things, while Iran borders Afghanistan and Iraq), and it's not going away anytime soon.

And to start with, I'll mention one key difference is they're not Arab at all, they're Persian, meaning they have a different mindset and culture than many of the nearby counties.

It's one of the most stable, most developed and educated, and even most democratic states in the area (the democratic part of their government is subservient to the clerics, but they *have* a democratic part, unlike most of their neighbors), and has a history of being a rational actor (i.e. while some countries are known for doing stupid things for ideological reasons, Iran isn't the type to attack someone it doesn't like if the blowback would be too hard). They aren't aggressive in the conquest sense either, they don't desire to absorb their neighbors, but do want influence over them and use proxy powers, much like we do.

Also, in terms of difficulty of knocking down militarily, if Iraq was a 3/10, Iran is a 7, maybe an 8. It's got a different military culture than it's neighbors (again going back to the different culture thing), meaning they have a much more competent well-trained military.

They're opponents of ISIS and Al Qaeda. After 9/11, they offered their support against Al Qaeda. We turned them down pretty rudely, but they did offer. If our relations with them improved... not, like, to friendly, but just to not-so-hostile, it'd make things much harder on the forces in the region that truly hate us, because due to being Shiite Persians instead of Sunni Arabs, they're usually number two or three on those group's hit lists.

One final, kinda funny thing. There's even been attempts to increase US tourism from Iran (I don't think very successful). You know how sometimes you hear Americans say 'We don't hate Iranians (or whoever), just their evil government'? They have a similar view on us.

Basically, they don't view the US as the great satan or monsters, they view us as political enemies who they can't entirely trust, and who have bad blood with, but who can be dealt with in the situations where interests align.

Originally posted by Star428
LOL. Israel is much more of a friend to us than Iran will ever be. Iran will never truly be our friend. They hate us (America). Always have. Always will.

Also, the fact that you don't have any knowledge of world events before 1979 explains a lot about you.

There's even been attempts to increase US tourism from Iran (I don't think very successful).

Agh, increase US tourism *to* Iran. As in, Iran said, 'hey Americans, if you come here, you'll have a good time.' Mixed that up...

Seems odd that Iran would spend billions on atomic energy, yet they can not spend millions to refine their own oil.

Do folks in Iran consider themselves Iranian? After all it was the west that came up with their name of the country 100 years ago. Much like the other countries named after the Ottoman Empire was abolished.

The West didn't come up with it- Persia requested the change based on what it had called itself historically.

They've had government changes in that time, most recently in the 70s. If they wanted a name change, they'd have it.

And unlike many of their neighbors, they aren't a slap-dash country with lines draw heedless of local groupings.

Originally posted by SayWhat
Seems odd that Iran would spend billions on atomic energy, yet they can not spend millions to refine their own oil.

Not odd at all when you realize one key thing. With nuclear power, they can sell their oil, rather than use it. The more nuclear power they have, the more profit they have.

Oil refining is a very large involved process too, with plenty of byproducts one has to deal with, if you want to do it in quantity. But they don't need the oil for themselves anyway, so selling crude is just as good to them.

The price of oil on the open market went down in response to this deal, as buyers noted Iranian oil is going to be reliably on the market as a result.

Originally posted by SayWhat
Do folks in Iran consider themselves Iranian? After all it was the west that came up with their name of the country 100 years ago. Much like the other countries named after the Ottoman Empire was abolished.

You have it the other way around, it was the Greeks who started the Western trend of calling Iran "Persia," which actually refers only to a small part of the country (the old capital region of the Achaemenid Empire), a mistake that stuck until the 20th century. The Iranians have called themselves Iranians for centuries.

Funnily enough, Greeks don't call themselves Greeks--they've always called themselves Hellenes, but I don't know the etymological battle there.

Edit: ****in Romans, that's why.

When I'm elected leader of the Earth, expect to see a 'call everyone what they call themselves' campaign.

No more Germany, just Deutschland. Nihon-koku! Hellenes! Etc.!

Germany is a particularly bewildering example as just considering their immediate neighbors in Europe there are four different etymologies for their name. Deutschland, Allemagne (French), Germany, and Nemetsia (Russian, Slavic, and Hungarian), along with various names in Baltic countries.

And I find it quite weird when it's names that are easily pronouncible in the other languages...

A positive(ish) step from Israel: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/07/world/middleeast/israel-iran-nuclear-deal.html?ref=world&_r=0

At least now they've offered some suggestions for how the deal could be improved.

However, the fourth and sixth items on the wishlist are so open-ended and vaguely worded that Iran would never agree to them--in fact no nation with any kind of bargaining power would.

Here are those items, and why they're unrealistic:

4th: • Iranian compliance in revealing its past activities with possible military dimensions

Why it's unrealistic: It's not clear what "past activities" means. It might mean Iran revealing every scrap of data on its nuclear program from its inception till now, or it might extend into other areas like Iran's covert actions around the Middle East and its trade relations with nuclear nations like Russia, China, and North Korea. Divulging a lot of this information would amount to Iran compromising its national security.

Sixth: • And the ability for inspectors charged with verifying the agreement to go “anywhere, anytime” in Iran.

The "anywhere, anytime" wording is also vague, and might mean "any relevant facility on short notice" or "anywhere we suspect there might be nuclear research going on." If you're Iran, and you hear this, the first thing you'll imagine is Israeli intelligence agents disguised as nuclear inspectors going into military bases that have nothing to do with the nuclear program and conducting espionage on the pretext of monitoring the implementation of the deal. I don't think Israel would try this, but it's what Iran will expect, which is why they'd never accept this condition. I do agree that for inspections to work they have to be conducted on as short a notice as possible (a minute less than however long it takes to deactivate and hide a couple hundred centrifuges), but Iran isn't going to allow unconditional inspections anywhere in the country.

I agree more or less with the other conditions, especially the condition that Iran must send its fuel out of the country for reprocessing. Russia has offered to convert Iran's fuel into a grade that would be useless for weaponry, as well as to construct half a dozen nuclear plants across Iran. I think that's the way to go, as it would satisfy Iran's supposed desire for nuclear energy without giving them the recourse to building a bomb on the side.