Iran: now the business deals begin
The nuclear deal wasn’t the only deal, of course. It was a prelude to this sort of thing: France and Iran are trying to make a financial deal, now that sanctions are no more. Will it work?:
Exactly what stage the Airbus deal was at remained unclear on Thursday, however, amid scepticism over how far and how fast western firms can get into Iran.
French officials said Iran was putting the finishing touches to the Airbus deal, and Iran earlier this week gave estimates of up to 127 Airbus planes, but Iranian Transport Minister Abbas Akhoundi declined to give further details and sources close to the discussions said technical talks were continuing.
Banks also remain wary so soon after the lifting of sanctions, senior French bankers have said…
Among other deals flagged on Thursday were one involving French national railway operator SNCF and another for aluminum company Fives.
For Peugeot, the Iranian factory tie up is critical. When it suspended sales in Iran in 2012 it lost nearly 10 percent of global deliveries and interrupted a relationship with the country that dates back more than 50 years.
Europe’s chomping at the bit, warily. Can you chomp warily?
This was what the Iran “deal” was all about. Selling the Iranians stuff so they can terrorize the world, build nukes and crush our oil business.
Trump is right about this and immigration.
Cornhead:
Why single out Trump? Most of the GOP candidate are right about it. I don’t think there’s a one who doesn’t say it (although I don’t follow every single one).
As for immigration, Trump’s rhetoric is harsher, but many of the others are saying similar things, at least for the big picture.
Neo
It is Trump’s rhetoric on the Iran deal. “The worst ever” stands out.
The Iran deal drives me insane and I have posted so here. We sell stuff to Iran so they can terrorize and destroy us. We should have finished the job and really stepped on their throats.
Iran will be a problem forever. They will get nukes. We got duped. Unforced error by us.
This is a typical European thing: Keep the support of the do-gooder peacenik lefty constituents and pay off the business people with trade deals. It was exactly the same with Iraq; Praise Hans Blix for trying to avoid war and get all you can from oil for food.
The hypocracy needs to be exposed, but it can’t come from Trump or, for that matter, a president. We need some very clever musicians and film makers who can get a message to the grass roots. Unfortunately, most are on the do-gooder side.
In the Iran situation, I’d prefer to have Trump in the White House. While most of the other Republican candidates talk tough, I don’t think they would act tough. Trump would tear up the deal on day one. I think Carly would also, but she’s (sadly) not getting any traction.
For example, tonight. Repubicans have complained that the media is biased against them, and uses “debates” as a means of throwing “gotcha” questions at them. Trump is telling them to stuff it. The others are only too glad to be on camera.
“The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.” Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
The flip side to the European’s greed is that it’s also a form of appeasement. A subconscious, unofficial, “jizza tax”. It’s all about the art of the ‘deal’ you see, for when flight isn’t an option for the cowardly, dhimmitude is the only remaining option.
A certain percentage of which will then seek to alleviate their oppression through collaboration.
“War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings, which thinks that nothing is worth war, is much worse.
A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing that is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.” – John Stuart Mill
“This is a typical European thing:”
“The flip side to the European’s greed”
Excuse me but TOTUS is president of which country and was voted in by who?
Ah well, luckily the American commercial community wont have anything to do with greed.
Phil D,
I was not talking just about the greed. I was talking about the do-gooderism that combines with it. I probably should have mentioned that there is a fair amount of anti-Americanism in the mix too. And the euros loved Obama. I never did.
I’m going to be the worst person and correct to “champing at the bit.”
holmes:
Not so fast, holmes, not so fast:
Yes, yes, but I’m sure “Bae” is in the dictionary now too. Here I stand. 🙂
Neo, your repertoire of knowledge is encyclopedic.
I’m Flemish and I don’t love Obama. But even if I did I couldn’t have voted for him and none of my fellow Europeans could, so that’s simply irrelevant.
What I do find relevant is this automatic anti-Europeanism which seems to be built in the soul of the USA. And since the USA roots are European (what else would they be, Alpha-Centaurian?) I see that as a suicidal tendency (perhaps as substantiated by the “white privilege” upside down nazis).
My opinion, as I already expressed it here some time ago, is that we have the same diseases but that the USA is better off and in a better position to fight them and perhaps reverse the trends. And I see hope in that.
I also follow the news and in some ways the USA is even more insane then us. Examples would be “Rape-culture”, “white privilege”, the Brandeis-Hirsi Ali kerfuffle, “BLM”, (bogus) fractional race categorization like for example 1/32 cherokees aka Liz Warren, the whole “one drop of blood” race hustlers industry, and so on.
But I’m quit sure that we don’t differ that much in greed or do-gooderism. As for anti-Americanism, I’m not one. But as a personal observation; it seems to me that since the sixties anti-Americanism has been one of the main “cultural” export products of the American lefty media and culture. And that you have in common with our Left (I do know European idiots on the right who have the same tendency but then having lots of idiots is something we do have in common, don’t we).
Phil D:
Oh, we do have problems in common with Europe, and getting more each day, it seems.
However, you write: “USA roots are European.” Mostly true, but you left out a very important thing—the people who came here from Europe had actually left Europe, and they did it for a reason. Our ancestors rejected Europe and tried to build a country that was different in some very important ways. And they did, and we’d like to keep it that way.
In grade school I had to memorize this poem, written in 1911. They don’t make kids memorize that sort of stuff anymore, I don’t think, but some of the sentiment remains.
However, when push came to shove, we came Over There, and it made a difference, didn’t it?
I love Europe, have loved my visits there, but also appreciate the differences.
Sharon W:
Well, I do okay in Trivial Pursuit, but that one about chomp and champ was pure Google.
Phil D,
I certainly agree that there is anti.Europeanism in the US. I also think that much of the anti-Americanism in Europe comes from lefty elites. I also think that many of the Europeans who talk about America know only a tiny part of the country, just as the people with media clout in America only know Germany from having lattes with their German peers in Cafe Einstein. I personally love to see what normal life is like when I visit other countries. Sure the museums can be great, but it’s also interesting to visit normal supermarkets and cafes outside the tourist zones.
BTW, I love Bruges. Aside from the buildings and art, any city where every third shop sells chocolate is truly world class.
“Our ancestors rejected Europe”
Really? There is a statue of Father De Smet in Dendermonde. He was know for missionary work amongst the Native Indians. According to wikipedia he sailed 8 times back to Europe to raise money for his missions. I don’t think he “rejected” Europe. Neither do I think that Father Damian, who has a statue in the Capitol rejected Europe.
Flemish people immigrating to the USA certainly didn’t do it because they rejected Flanders.
Or as another example, I don’t think the Irish rejected Europe though most of them certainly rejected Great Britain.
The original colonies weren’t build on rejection of England but as an extension of it. The original beef the colonies had was with Parliament. They saw themselves co-equal with England, united under the Crown. The British Parliament thought otherwise and poor Georges got blame.
In short, European immigration to the US wasn’t based on rejection but on opportunity.
Phil D:
I didn’t mean it quite that harshly.
But yes, most people who came here did reject Europe. And when the Founders designed the Constitution, they built on some European models but made it quite different, and made it different in ways that were based on their experience with Europe. In terms of the greatest numbers of people who came here from Europe, they came to escape religious persecution, a fossilized class system, and for economic opportunity and certain liberties they did not have there.
If you read biographies of a lot of people—or, for example, read the Emigrant Saga about Swedes—they came very explicitly because they rejected the economic stratification in Europe. They were, for the most part, the riff-raff there, not the elite. They wanted opportunity, and they rejected Europe’s lack of it, which was not accidental but systemic.
“I love Europe, have loved my visits there, but also appreciate the differences.”
Good, I love my country too despite everything.
“Oh, we do have problems in common with Europe, and getting more each day, it seems.”
Point is, those problems aren’t “European”. They come from within you. They just have the same origins which I would diagnose as a rejection of the fundaments society is build on and as a result a government which turns malignant.
Phil D:
Very similar origins.
Phil D,
TOTUS? Did you mean POTUS? Please clarify.
Lumping two different comments together by two different people at best confuses and at worst is deceitful. I never even implied that greed is “typically European” nor would I deny American predilection toward greed either. Greed is an ‘equal opportunity’ sin.
The 50% of Americans who elected as President our ‘progressive’ Marxist is indeed reflective of the ignorance of that segment of the public. Some of that segment are indeed as suicidal as the majority of Europeans.
The half of Americans who voted for Obama admire and wish to emulate Europe. The half of Americans who did not vote for Obama are the source of the “automatic anti-Europeanism which seems to be built in the soul of the USA” and that attitude is a reaction to the majority of European’s moral bankruptcy.
Denial of Europe’s suicidal appeasement of its Muslim population and its moral bankruptcy is an indication of willful blindness. Willful blindness cannot be persuaded otherwise…
TOTUS: Teleprompter of the United States.
How short some people’s memory are.
As for “admire and wish to emulate Europe” that isn’t Europe’s fault. That’s on you.
“Denial of Europe’s suicidal appeasement of its Muslim population and its moral bankruptcy is an indication of willful blindness. Willful blindness cannot be persuaded otherwise”
I remember an article in Newsweek end of the eighties were us Europeans were admonished to stop being racists and all the problems with immigration was on us. No mentioning of the fact that almost all the problems we had was because of muslim immigration. So don’t tell me we live in denial unlike you who only discovered evil islam after september 2001.
As for “European’s moral bankruptcy”. Projecting your own failures on someone else has been done before. It is very unhealthy.
It’s been so long since I’ve heard the acronym TOTUS that I had forgotten. Living a bit in the past? But derision is a petty response to a simple request for clarification…
Oh, an article in Newsweek! Well, that makes it factual.
Actually, America has known of the threat of Islam since 1785, when Thomas Jefferson and John Adams traveled to London to meet with Sidi Haji Abdrahaman, the “Ambassador” from Tripoli and asked him this question:
“What is the justification of why Tripoli is capturing American ships and holding sailors for ransom while turning them into slaves?”
The ambassador replied: “It is written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave.” He added “that every Muslim who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise.”
And our sixth President, John Quincy Adams also warned of the Mohammadean;
While the 1979 seizure of our embassy staff in Iran was arguably, the first modern indication that Islam itself has renewed its threat to the West.
One of Europe’s first warnings came in 1899 when Churchill wrote; “Individual Muslims may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.”
Then again in 1974, the promise of Hijrah (migratory jihad) to Europe was made;
“One day, millions of men will leave the Southern Hemisphere to go to the Northern Hemisphere. And they will not go there as friends. Because they will go there to conquer it. And they will conquer it with their sons. The wombs of our women will give us victory.” Algerian leader Houari Boumedienne speaking at the UN, 1974
That the vast majority of Europeans have forgotten (if they ever knew of) Charles Martel @ Tours and “The Gates of Vienna” ensures its doom.
Finally, many American’s are morally bankrupt and support civilizational suicide. However, as a percentage of population, Europe’s far exceeds ours. Attempting to deny it by labeling an objective observation as an example of “projecting” is intellectual dishonesty.
expat,
Indeed, the opponents of the strict US-led enforcement of the “governing standard of Iraqi compliance” (UNSCR 1441) coincide with the proponents of the Iran deal. While the Iran deal stands out for echoing the changes that Saddam’s advocates wanted to make to the “governing standard of Iraqi compliance”.
Cornhead:
“We got duped. Unforced error by us.”
The Iran maneuver was set up with audacity and care.
To make the Iran deal possible, strong-horse ‘American leader of the free world’-type enforcement of disarmament standards, as was manifested contra Saddam’s regime, needed to be discredited first. The Iran deal directly and necessarily followed from the deliberately manufactured prevalence of a false narrative of the Iraq intervention.
By the same token, the prerequisite for discrediting the Iran deal was setting the record straight on the epochal Iraq intervention.
Simply, if (HW Bush and Clinton and) Bush was considered wrong on Iraq, then Obama would be justified on the Iran deal.
For Obama to be considered wrong on Iran, it needed to be established as foundational premise that (HW Bush and Clinton and) Bush was justified to strictly enforce Iraq’s compliance with UNSCRs 687, 688, 1441, et al.
We were “duped” on Iran because we allowed our competitors to lay the foundation necessary to then make the “unforced error by us” – ie, the demonstrably false narrative of the Iraq intervention, even though the primary sources of the mission provide a straightforward explanation and are easily accessed by anyone on-line.
Perhaps “rejecting Europe” is the wrong phrase.
My distant ancestor FLED Europe.
He did a very naughty thing.
He ran his mouth off. Politics. ( It was the beer speaking )
He HAD to blow town PDQ.
( European politics — at retail — is finkdom. )
Lest we forget.
If you infuriated the elites — in the 17th, 18th, 19th or 20th centuries — your best bolt hole is America.
&&&
You would not believe the number of Germans that emigrated to America — after WWII. They entered as PWs.
Then they were revulsed — against Hitler.
They went the full American — even after having been repatriated back to Germany — they pled to become Americans ASAP.
So, at least for that crowd, they rejected Europe.
*******
My best high school friend was the son of a Dane.
Not any Dane.
His father was in the PERSONAL bodyguard protection detail for the Danish king.
They — detail and king — escaped the SS ( weird that the Heer was not used ) and raced off to England.
Mr. Dane stood at attention when Winston Churchill greeted them — the entire detail ( a platoon ) in ICELAND.
They are omitted from the Allied propaganda reels of the time. The final edit shows DUTCH, ENGLISH troops… in Iceland.
The troops at the front — are the (Danish) King’s own bodyguard.
This is not in the film.
It was upon this occasion that my best friend’s father got to shack Churchill’s hand — as he did so with the ENTIRE platoon.
He was then sent — very strangely — to the Far East.
Hence, he ended up in the very odd situation of being attacked by BOTH the Nazi Germans — but the Imperial Japanese.
He rejected Europe — and went American — almost to the extreme.
My pal went back to Denmark — and in less than thirty days — picked up the language.
!!!
( My niece did the exact same thing a generation later. )
BOTH rejected modern Danish values for America.
And the old Dane?
He TOTALLY rejected Danish — modern Danish — values.
For him America was as close to home as could ever be.
He still loved Danes. It’s that socialism — ruined Denmark.
It just blew his mind.
He settled in Marine County.
MANY a tale lies floating therein.
They don’t travel well — as they entirely revolve around personalities, stupidities, and corruption.
dang the typos
To Geoffrey Britain – the Boumedienne quote may be bogus. I recently searched in vain for a primary source. If you know of such a source, then please post. It’s golden, and I’d like to use it as a proof point.
To Eric – I admire the work you’ve done to lay out the factual basis of OIF, but that train has left the station for our era. The false narrative is now a permanent feature of the zeitgeist. That demagogue Trump reinforces the false narrative. Even Jeb! seems run from it, and is incapable of articulating a defense. Your best hope for the future is to set up a trust fund to ensure your Learning Curve website stays running for posterity.
As far as American strong-horse leadership – that is dead, too. We’re totally broke, and Obama has turned the military into a defunded, politically correct experiment in social engineering. The Left and the media will sabotage any stong-horse effort initiated by a conservative. They will trot out Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan, Valerie Plame, and Code Pink at every opportunity. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan – how many more data points do we need to see the pattern of Demshevik sabotage? Finally, any sensible nation will think long and hard before allying with us. We could turn around and elect another Demshevik at any time.
I’m sorry to be so bleak, but Breitbart was right about politics being downstream of culture. We lost the kulturekampf long ago to Cultural Marxists. If there is a solution to this state of affairs, I think is will be “messy”.
“Finally, many American’s are morally bankrupt and support civilizational suicide. However, as a percentage of population, Europe’s far exceeds ours. Attempting to deny it by labeling an objective observation as an example of “projecting” is intellectual dishonesty.”
Attempting to deny it? That’s strange, I can’t remember ever mentioning anything about percentages or number of people or other BS like that. Only in your mind.
And one Newsweek article? Want do you want. For me to write a book about it? Point was that it was before 2001. And I do remember other things like the USA pushing for a EU membership for Turkey. Or the actions of TOTUS (who, you may not know this, is the President of the USA and not of the EU) on Iran which resulted in the subject of this article (or see further).
As for the “shores of Tripoli”, meh. Perhaps I should mention Lepanto or Vienna or the Crusades (*) or Churchill’s remark on islam or the Reconquista, or … but what would be the point.
I already mentioned the fact that I find the USA healthier than (western) Europe. What a way for you to spit on a patient just because he is more sick.
And BTW it isn’t all about islam. It is my belief that the West is being destroyed from within and that islam is just the predator who profits. And if you belief that the USA isn’t, together with EU (never mind the ‘numbers’), at the root of this then you are in denial.
For example, reflect on the term “neocon”, on why this blog we are commenting on is named “neo-neocon” or click on the series “A mind is a difficult thing to change”. Where did the mind get its ideas, what happened to make it change and why did it have to change?
Since this is turning into a flaming war, bye.
No mentioning of the fact that almost all the problems we had was because of muslim immigration. So don’t tell me we live in denial unlike you who only discovered evil islam after september 2001.
As for “European’s moral bankruptcy”. Projecting your own failures on someone else has been done before. It is very unhealthy.
Bush II had killed enough terrorists to delay the invasion of Europe, up until now at least.
Where is your gratitude for the American expenditure of blood and treasury for the entire 20th century, for the sake of Europe and FDR’s ambitions?
The Pax Americana has allowed Europe to live in denial. That was what they wished for and voted for. It may not be a good thing, but it was what they wished of the Pax. It is not America’s job to protect Europe from wars and Islamic invasions. But the fact that many Americans have, deserves recognition, not claims of projection.
Hi Neo-neocon – FYI, at 11:10 pm. PST on Jan 29 your RSS feed is non-responsive.