What's the harm in trying?

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"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."

There is no harm in trying. There WAS harm in saying they aren't a threat any more removing the pressure on other countries to maintain sanctions and enabling them to go back to doing business with NK. When we said the problem was solved we lost leverage in keeping people from trading with them.

But assuming we don't want to start a shooting war with them, talks and sanctions are the tools we have.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

Makes me wonder if NK does another nuclear test, will Trump throw Kim a military parade in Washington?

It's a win-win right?

No harm but Trump will leave the talks telling everyone how NK is capitulating and, of course, reality will tell a different story.

Pretty much the same thing with every topic that Trump discusses.

There is what Trump says and then there is reality. The are never the same thing.

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

But every President tells us BS. Did Obama's treaty with Iran really make us safer? Was Bush's war really a success? Did Clinton really not have sex with that girl? Was Nixon not a crook? Anyone expecting their politicians to be honest should be repeatedly whacked with a hammer. And that goes for ALL politicians.

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"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."

Bolton kind of holding Trump at arm's length there, "Trump believes, "President thinks".

I think that's called a false equivalency. It's like saying everyone lies, so a husband who tells his wife her ass doesn't look fat in a dress is the just the same as the one who tells his wife he's not having an affair with his co-worker (and does it over and over in every way possible way day after day).

Other than trump blurting out a promise without consulting with our allies and causing tension with our allies? And get nothing in return for that promise?

Also it is another great propaganda coup for North Korea. They get to show to their people how powerful their leader is by getting the US president to do what Kim wants and put photos of the meeting everywhere.

I think every President lies. And everyone in Congress too. It's the nature of politics. When's the last time a political group stood up and said they suck? Or we lied just to get the vote? Or yes our candidate is awful but yours is even worse? There is no false equivalency here. If I can go back to a quote from the 2016 election I think you will get my point:


"The media’s need to cover “both sides” of every story makes no sense when one side has little regard for the truth."

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"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."

Maybe he's not lying. Which is an even scarier thought.

Yes I think you can find examples of people lying on both sides. I also think it's patently ridiculous to claim what Trump does is akin to what others on either side typically do when they lie both in magnitude and frequency.

You know they say Comedy = tragedy + time. This could be hilarious in a few years.

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"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."

Yes, it did. I mean Iran not having nuclear weapons makes us safer. Add to that if Iran developed nuclear weapons, Saudi Arabia would probably want them also.

No harm. The dialogue should continue.
The problem is that this President disparaged every predecessor (DEM and REP) as ineffective and weak. He made it clear that they all failed and that he would succeed because of the TRUMP factor.
This boastful, egotistic approach and complete lack of self awareness is at best embarrassing to the US, and more likely harmful in the long run as ally's faith in US diplomacy will plummet.

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Remember - It's important to be comfortable in your own skin... because it turns out society frowns on wearing other people's

"Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has maintained that Iran does not have nuclear weapons under the premise that such weapons are forbidden by Islam."

Does that statement make you more likely to believe Iran or does it make you fall on the floor and laugh uncontrollably? Because I have to wipe the tears off my eyes every time I read it, it's so damn amusing.

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"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."

Poor Obama never got the old, "No harm in trying," I guess. A lot of people are apparently willing to give North Korea the old college try despite 50 years of rock-solid evidence, But those same people knew for damn sure there was no point in trying with Iran, who actually did stop their nuclear development by all available evidence (as opposed to North Korea, who are right now publicly shoving it in our faces).

I also love how under Obama "sanctions" were this naive silly thing that everyone knows never works. But now Trump sanctions are this manly strongman move.

Of course there are hypocrisies on both sides. I'm just pointing out these ones in play now.

The sense to a second meeting to me is this: Trump did get played in the first summit. He committed to more than he should. Was vague and without specifics throughout in his private discussions. Loose ends now abound and he is returning to tie them up and provide a bit more clarity and a little less chummyness.

But then, will he even be around to fix his mess?

I don't believe the Ayatollah, but I don't know that has to do with the JCPOA.

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Little doubt Trump is getting played here, but Obama got played by Iran, and because the agreement was so bad Early warningof inspections, military sites that are off limits altogether, etc) we don't get to see it...that's the difference. So you're right that the inspectors have returned good reports, but it's for incomplete look at what's going on there, so of limited value. Meanwhile, the cost has been huge, Obama going very easy on an increasingly aggressive Russia (till his last couple months), not following through on a Syria red line, the result being large amounts of casualties of massive human migration that's unsettled Europe and prompted waves of nationalism, and a big (US funded) increase in Iranian ability to foment problems throughout the ME (see the Iran-Saudi proxy conflict in Yemen, and the related US involvement, as example one). So, lots of cost, and really unknown gain.

Not sure what sanctions you are talking about, but if you look at the years leading to the Iran deal, congress repeatedly pushed (and passed) sanctions on Iran, bipartisan sanctions that the Obama admin fought, and in the end pubs credited for bring Iran to the table. You can reason out your POV on that result, but at least those sanctions are not the ones to which you refer.

Ok, there seems to be a real lack of understanding on this deal and the methodology. Yes, there was warning, but access to Military sites was allowed. It just required more warning and very low standard of proof. Now you may say, but they have 20 days of warning. Well, the nuclear weapons experts on our side agreed to that amount of warning. Why, did they agree to that? Because over the decades the US and others have researched this. They have actually done experiments when we take down old nuclear weapons facilities, they have experts go in and try and scrub the evidence. Then they have another team go in and try and find that evidence. Through these programs we have a very good idea of what is required to hide evidence and they will not be able to do it in the time they have. In addition after the warning, that site will be watched like a hawk by observers, so any coming and goings will be monitored and could easily catch things leaving the site. Not to mention national assets of the US and others that would catch things once they leave buildings. Also soil and air samples can be taken around the site that would give away the game.

Seriously, we have experts in this sort of thing that have spent decades working on the problem. These are not politicians, but experts in the technical aspects of this that developed this deal. It is really really hard to hide this stuff and you just can't clean up a site in a couple months.

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A number of problems, here are a couple: if you remember, there was a side deal that allowed Iran to do the soil collecting itself:
"The chief of the U.N. nuclear agency acknowledged Monday that samples used to determine whether Iran tried to develop a nuclear weapon were collected by the Iranians instead of agency experts, but insisted the probe stands up to strict agency standards.
Such sampling of soil, air or dust from equipment is usually done by the International Atomic Energy Agency's own experts. But IAEA chief Yukiya Amano confirmed that Iranians carried out that part of the probe at Parchin, where the agency suspects that explosive triggers for nuclear weapons might have been tested in the past.
Diplomats say Iran insisted on the compromise as a condition for any probe of Parchin."
https://forum.slowtwitch.com/...rent_post_id=6810034


and as to the military sites:

"Inspectors with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations organization tasked with monitoring Iran's nuclear facilities, have not requested access to military sites since the agreement went into effect, according to experts monitoring the process."
https://www.latimes.com/...-20170830-story.html

Arguably, it did. But even ignoring that, did it make us less safe? Were there any other benefits that Trump threw away when he tossed the aside the deal?

Ask Boeing.

Ok, how does any of that address what I wrote?

Explain how the probe of parchin is hiding something? I think you need to learn the history of the site and how the deal works.

Yea, they had not requested access to a military site. I have never been to Alaska, does that mean I am forbidden from going to Alaska?

The agreement made us less safe because Iran is still continuing with it's atomic program and they have help from NK. Why not ask Israel if they are more safe today?

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"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."