Saad Khan

Global affairs junkie, Racism & Islamophobia @GSUPoliSci, @TCVatGSU, Substack: Ex-Huff

[Saad Khan @Real_opinion]

https://t.co/XsKtBOlDjH

[Aaron Parnas @AaronParnas]

If Joe Biden did this, Republicans would impeach him just because this deal is so bad.

[Robin Yassin-Kassab @qunfuz2]

Getting sick of the 'Iran respects diplomacy' takes. It called for negotiations with the Syrian opposition three days before the opposition drove its murderers from Syria. Before that it starved, bombed, raped, and expelled Syrians. Glad it humiliated the US, but fuck it anyway.

[Clash Report @clashreport]

Iran's Ghalibaf:

My pessimism and distrust toward the United States is greater than anyone else's.

Even if there is a final agreement and it is approved by a United Nations Security Council resolution, it is still not trustworthy. Our guarantee is Iran’s power.

[Saad Khan @Real_opinion]

Regime apologists are now spinning it the usual way -- Iran is a natural ally. It is not and Americans cannot make common cause with a deeply racist and exclusionary Iranian society.

[Amir @AmirAminiMD]

This is unreal.

Iran is giving up something it never wanted and only used as leverage - in exchange for virtually EVERYTHING it ever wanted:

fairness and justice. Nothing more.

While this is a brutal, brutal defeat for Israel and war hawks in Washington- it’s a huge win for the American people. Iran has always been the natural choice and partner in the Middle East. Having better relations with Iran is absolutely in US interests - politically and economically.

[Al Arabiya English @AlArabiya_Eng]

🔴 Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan says he has no information about a reported $300 billion reconstruction fund for Iran

🔴 Prince Faisal says Iran’s attacks on Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have resulted in a “significant loss of trust” in Tehran

🔴 Prince Faisal says trust with Iran must be rebuilt “before any concept of economic cooperation, mutual investment or anything like that can rationally be addressed”

[Saad Khan @Real_opinion]

Rank Islamophobia in Congress is a crisis for American Jews.
https://t.co/Ft1Nnnw9w3

[Saad Khan @Real_opinion]

But at least ayatollah fanboys like Mehdi are happy. The hidden Imam might also descend finally.

[Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan]

"A lot of people defended the admin’s strategy for months only to have him throw the entire enterprise under the bus."

Lol. Watching these right-wing pro-Israel hawks lose it at Trump is hilarious.

[Saad Khan @Real_opinion]

For once I hope this crazy professor is right.

[Robert A. Pape @ProfessorPape]

The Bloomberg Iran MOU contains the seeds of the next war.

Everyone is focused on Friday-- But what comes next is the key

After dissecting the agreement, I believe the next 60 days will become more dangerous—not less.

My new analysis at Escalation Trap Substack explains why: "Stage IV Begins?"

[Saad Khan @Real_opinion]

Haste can make hundreds of billions of dollars of waste. The Iran "deal" is a perfect example.

[Chuck Schumer @SenSchumer]

Three days later and there’s still massive confusion about Trump's "understanding" with Iran.

This is foreign policy by clown car.

Trump must brief Congress, release the official text of the “understanding”, disclose any secret side deals to the public immediately, and end this war now.

[U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. @SenBillCassidy]

Reagan is rolling over in his grave. Iran’s nuclear ambitions were not curbed, and they have learned that threatening the Strait of Hormuz works and will undoubtedly leverage it in the future. Now, Iran gets to build brand-new infrastructure under this deal.

Before the war, the strait was open, Iran was being crushed by sanctions, and 13 service members were still alive. Now, 13 Americans are dead, families have paid billions at the pump, sanctions will be lifted, and the bombing has stopped. This is the worst foreign policy blunder in decades.

[Saad Khan @Real_opinion]

Pretty interesting to see the Persians in America in an overdrive to sell the deal. From hardcore regime apologists like @tparsi to so-called regime critics, converted Christians and the ilk.

[Antony Blinken @ABlinken]

Thoughts on the “Ceasefire” with Iran:

President Trump should share the ceasefire agreement with the American people.  They deserve to see it and draw their own conclusions about the results of the president’s war. Just as they should have been informed before he launched it.

From what’s been reported, it’s a bad deal to end a misguided war of President Trump’s choosing. The only thing worse would be to continue the war that has proven so costly in lives lost — including U.S. service members — and taxpayer dollars spent without making the American people safer or their lives better.

By President Trump’s own terms, the war is a failure.

The Iranian regime is intact and its military wing more empowered, while the Iranian people are more impoverished, repressed and desperate.

Iran apparently retains a significant supply of missiles and drones and the productive capacity to make more. It has renewed links to lethal proxies in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere. The ceasefire agreement seems to be silent about these issues

The attempt to “re-obliterate” Iran’s nuclear program — which President Trump claimed to have wiped out last year — failed. Iran still has the highly enriched uranium it had produced before the war started, along with centrifuges to spin the uranium into weapons-grade material. Maybe that will be addressed in the negotiations that are supposed to start this week. But at what price in terms of sanctions relief and assets unfrozen? At best, we’ll get back to something that looks like the JCPOA — the nuclear deal negotiated by President Obama without going to war that put Iran’s nuclear program in a box. President Trump tore up the JCPOA in 2018 and then failed to replace it. There’s reason to doubt we will come away with anything as strong as the JCPOA — which took two years to negotiate in partnership with all the major powers — in 60 days, playing a far weaker hand. And by the way, if the president tries to claim credit for Iran renouncing nuclear weapons as part of any agreement, look no further than the very first paragraph of the JCPOA, which contains the same pledge.

The only “achievement” of the ceasefire is the likely re-opening the Strait of Hormuz — which was open before the war started. And we will apparently pay Iran to do so, in the form of waivers for the export of Iranian crude oil. Iran has now demonstrated the capacity to stop or slow the passage of oil, natural gas, fertilizer and other critical products upon which so much of the world depend. Going forward, it will almost certainly find ways to collect “fees” for safe passage that will help entrench the regime.

Don’t expect a return to normal any time soon, if at all. Crude oil prices will drop from the record highs they reached — but they’re unlikely to fall to pre-war levels. We will all pay for a sustained inflationary effect. It will take time to restart oil and gas production, repair infrastructure, refill dangerously depleted stockpiles, clear mines, and restore confidence. Just as it will take a lot of time to replenish our own supply of offensive and defensive missiles, to the detriment of our deterrent in other parts of the world.

Maybe the only positive development is the world’s renewed focus on renewable energy as a way to break the stranglehold of the Strait. But China will be the big winner as the world’s leader in wind, solar, EV’s and batteries — further expanding its influence — while the Trump administration is paying wind farms to shut down and gutting incentives to make us more competitive in EVs. (I just returned from Norway, where more than 90 percent of the new cars sold last year were full EV’s. Norway may be ahead of the curve, but we’re driving right off the road).

Meanwhile, the administration achieved a terrible trifecta of alienating our partners in Europe (insulted and threatened for two years, not consulted on the war and then lambasted for not helping bail us out), Asia (which bore the greatest impact of high energy prices and rising scarcity) and the Middle East (the primary target of Iranian retaliation), while diminishing our standing and credibility everywhere.

Most of all, President Trump’s war of choice has failed the ultimate foreign policy test: it has failed to make the American people better off. At a time when more and more American families are struggling to make ends meet, this war has made filling everything from the gas tank to the grocery cart to medical prescriptions harder and more expensive.

We should all be glad the war is over — for now. No doubt President Trump will claim credit for ending it. But that’s like an arsonist boasting about putting out a fire he started after half the house has been burnt down.

[Jessica Tarlov @JessicaTarlov]

Vice President Vance was on the show today to talk Iran.

The truth is simple: The leaked MOU lets Iran sell oil immediately, grants sanctions relief upfront, and dangles a $300 billion reconstruction fund before the hard nuclear issues are even negotiated.

Meanwhile, Iran keeps its program intact during a 60-day talks period. This deal shares language with the JCPOA and abandons Trump’s goals of the war.

[Saad Khan @Real_opinion]

So, Iran gets to keep ballistic missiles, terrorist proxies, drones and perhaps even nuclear dust. And will get hundreds of billions of dollars in return.

[Saad Khan @Real_opinion]

Murphy has been relentlessly attacking the deal but also fully in favor of implementing it.

[Chris Murphy 🟧 @ChrisMurphyCT]

This is not part of the agreement. He is making this up. Iran agrees to give up NOTHING on their nuclear program in this deal.

[Fox News @FoxNews]

HAPPENING NOW: President Trump details the tactics used by the U.S. military to take out Iran’s leadership that refused to negotiate with the United States at the beginning of Operation Epic Fury:

“The first group is dead. One little morning having breakfast, the whole group, they thought they'd never be caught because we never bombed during breakfast, but we bombed. And they all- 88 people- and I'm not proud of that at all.

“The second group came in, and they were very unreasonable too. And they were all gone. They were all gone. And then the third group we've been dealing with them, a couple left this planet, but we've been dealing with them and again, they've been fine.”

[Saad Khan @Real_opinion]

@BarakRavid Not waiting until Friday?

[Secunder Kermani @SecKermani]

We travelled to a Sunni Muslim village just on the edge of Israel's "yellow line" of control in southern Lebanon

And uncovered shocking CCTV showing the moment Israeli soldiers shot dead an unarmed 17 year old boy on a street near his home during a raid

Muhammad had been due to graduate this year

The Israeli military told us it's looking into the incident

[Ihab Hassan @IhabHassane]

HORRIFIC: Israeli settler terrorists are attacking the village of Jiljilya in the West Bank, setting a mosque on fire and spraying hateful graffiti on its walls.