The US has circulated its version of the Memo of Understanding with Iran to G7 leaders in France. It’s as bad if not worse than expected.
— The moment it’s signed (Friday) sanctions on the export of Iran oil are lifted. So the regime can start replenishing its coffers immediately.
— The US commits to doing nothing to undermine or destabilise the Iranian regime (it started the war to remove it).
— The US specifically commits to ending its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz but Iran does not commit specifically to returning the Strait to toll/fee free transit exactly as before the war, with no Iranian control/regulation whatsoever .
— All sanctions against Iran will be dropped should phase two negotiations go well. And America will withdraw its forces from the region.
— The US ‘undertakes’ to work with Iran and Gulf allies to create a $300 billion reconstruction package for Iran. So America will now become a partner with the tyrants of Tehran, who Trump only recently wanted to overthrow, in rebuilding their economy.
— All matters related to Iran’s nuclear capabilities are kicked into the ‘final agreement’ in 60 days time (or longer if necessary).
— No mention of Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities or its financing of terrorist proxies.
And that’s just about it. When Trump insisted the war would only end with ‘unconditional surrender’ it never crossed my mind he meant his own.
Ok, fellas, we see all your tags and we get it.
But.
Being a shitty person doesn't make someone a legitimate military target under international law. Climbing on a tank for internet clout isn't enough to become a combatant.
Do something that actually qualifies — then we can talk. Until then, we'll keep our drones for real military targets 😉
The Iranian navy, which has been destroyed eight times, has apparently closed the Strait of Hormuz again, because the United States, for the seventh time, won the war that wasn’t a war, so now the United States has to open the Strait of Hormuz that was already open before the not-war began.
The not-war began because Iran had uranium that was totally, completely, beautifully obliterated, so they can’t build the nuclear bomb they weren’t building, which is why the United States had to start the not-war it definitely didn’t start.
Now the United States, which has nuclear weapons, is threatening to use nuclear weapons to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, because nuclear weapons are far too dangerous for countries with nuclear weapons to allow other countries to have.
If the United States saw the United States doing what the United States does in other countries, the United States would invade the United States to liberate the United States from the tyranny of the United States.
@HunterBiden@PMastersMusic I did not have Hunter Biden taking down Twitter trolls on my 2026 bingo card but that's the fucking energy we need man welcome to the resistance
Hello, we are Jonathan and Abigail - unashamed pedants who want to bring this affliction to bear on all things public policy and practice.
We believe that details matter, especially in public administration. This is why today we are founding quibble: a campaign to fix the small stuff.
Think, for example, about the cookie banner that we click on every webpage. Each instance is not a big deal, so we just put up with it. But its cumulative impact adds up - on average we press it 5 times per day. The European Commission estimates that it costs EU citizens 343 million hours per year.
And who is there to represent the impacts of seemingly minor issues like this in a systematic way? We want quibble to be the answer. In the case of the cookie banner, lots of advocacy has rightly focused on privacy, but has this meant that user experience has taken a backseat? We believe there are ways to improve user experience without compromising on privacy. We will share more about this soon.
Consider another example. Did you know that in some government-run car parks you can be fined for a minor keying error, such as accidentally typing a zero instead of an “o”? Again, we will come to the detail of this quibble in the coming weeks, but for now just consider again the question: who? Who is there currently to systematically represent the interests of the parker who is given an unfair ticket?
An inherent feature of consumer interests is that those who have them rarely have enough other things in common to make collective organisation and representation feasible. This is the gap that quibble seeks to fill. Now of course excellent consumer interest groups exist. But understandably quibbles might not be at the top of their lists. Our hope is that quibble will be complementary; picking up the bottom-of-the-list issues faced by various groups - the stuff they are almost too embarrassed to raise because they are too small.
We are not embarrassed about detail. If you’ve ever had a splinter, you know small things can have a big impact. This is what quibble is committed to tackling, and our wider hope is that by doing so we will also incentivise policy makers to be even more careful about detail.
Check out our website here, including our first four campaigns: https://t.co/gZiqqHbhIL