Nader

[Majid Hosseini @m4h007]

This guy thinks it’s better to be a bootlicker to the US and have absolutely no dignity or sovereignty, as GCC Arabs, than to be able to stand up for your rights. This is the consensus view among the foreign policy establishment in the West, for obvious reasons: they prefer obedient sheep than adversaries. He prefers Iran spends money on consumer junk peddled by corporations from his country, rather than independently build a top weapons programs and a self-sustaining military force, tasked with protecting the state.

That’s the entire program: we’ll extract your resources for you and take a cut. You’re required to spend it with us, and whatever you don’t spend should be invested in our debt and capital instruments. Otherwise, you’re a rogue nation of savages.

[Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D. @RecTheRegime]

I'm not on the "woke left" and I think Lindsey Graham was a warmongering POS and a war criminal partly responsible for the death of millions.

[Policy Tensor @policytensor]

If writing checks were the key to military power, Saudi Arabia would be the military hegemon of the Gulf.

[Reza Nasri @RezaNasri1]

The war could end very soon if Arab states found the political courage to expel U.S. forces from their territory.

No state can be the room where peace is negotiated and the platform from which war is launched. Yet this is precisely the position the Arab states of the Persian Gulf now occupy. Some of them have hosted nearly every serious channel between Washington and Tehran. At the same time, their territory supplies the runways, tankers, prepositioned armour, command nodes and deep-water berths without which the campaign against Iran could not be sustained. The mediator's table and the launch platform sit in the same country, sometimes in the same week.

Neutrality is not a communiqué. It is a legal status, and it is forfeited by conduct. Hague Convention V of 1907 forbids a neutral from allowing belligerents to move forces or war materiel across its territory. Arab governments insist they play no part in offensive operations. The claim is neither believed in Tehran nor verifiable anywhere. Aerial refuelling, surveillance and logistics do not become defensive because a foreign ministry says so. Iran's missiles answered the reality on the ground, not the paperwork. 

The remedy is available, and it is lawful.

Foreign forces hold no title to territory. They are present because the host consents, and consent is revocable. That is what sovereignty means. Kuwait's 1991 defence agreement, by public account, continues in force only until either party gives one year's written notice. Oman never granted permanent basing at all; it grants access case by case, and withholds it by saying nothing. Saudi Arabia's arrangements rest on executive instruments no Senate has ratified. Riyadh expelled American forces from Prince Sultan Air Base in 2003 by simple request. Where the texts are silent, the Vienna Convention supplies the rest: a state may terminate for material breach when facilities are used beyond their agreed purpose (Article 60), and for fundamental change of circumstances (Article 62). No change is more fundamental than the collapse of the security model on which consent was premised.

There is more, and it is heavier. Under Corfu Channel, no state may knowingly allow its territory to be used for acts contrary to the rights of others. A state that furnishes fuel, basing and intelligence to another's unlawful use of force bears responsibility for the assistance it renders. Kuwait's constitution prohibits offensive war outright and voids secret treaty provisions. Bahrain's requires that agreements touching sovereignty be enacted by law; its basing agreement has never been published. Expulsion is not merely an option these states may exercise. It is an obligation they are currently breaching.

The precedents are unremarkable. The Philippines in 1991. Saudi Arabia itself in 2003. Uzbekistan in 2005. Iraq, France, Niger. Sovereign states ask foreign armies to leave, and the armies leave. 

This is the simplest solution to end the war. Expecting Iran to forgo its right to self-defense while Arab states continue hosting the U.S. military infrastructure that enables the campaign against it is not an option. It is legally untenable, politically absurd, and profoundly hypocritical.

[Policy Tensor @policytensor]

1) Yes. 2) Yes, “The strait is worth more than the money.” But No, Iran is not “passing up tens of billions in U.S. sanctions relief to lock in permanent control of Hormuz.” It does not believe US promises of sanctions relief.

3) Yes. 4) No. It’s not so much that Iran “doesn't think Trump will hit back hard.” It is that it is prepared for any level of escalation from the US.

5) No. There is no serious disagreement in Tehran over controlling Hormuz. It’s a consensus position.

[Megatron @Megatron_ron]

JUST IN: 🇺🇸🇮🇷 Iranian Foreign Ministry:

“We have unfortunately reached a stage where there are not just U.S. bases inside neighbouring countries, but in fact some countries have been entirely turned into a U.S. base”

[Policy Tensor @policytensor]

Let me guess. SAO-san?

[Said Arikat @SMArikat]

He was a racist, genocidal maniac.

[Policy Tensor @policytensor]

Chatham House’s @SanamVakil tells the FT: “They are gambling.” The risk, we are told, is that Iran “overplays its hand.” 

But what exactly makes it a gamble instead of, you know, wise security policy? Should Iran not try to control Hormuz? Then how is Iran supposed to secure itself against further aggression by the US?

Vakil isn’t alone. None of these experts have any alternate policy proposals for Iran beyond submission. But Iran is interested in securing its survival without submission to the West. The only way to do that, given that the US has not and will not keep its word, is unilaterally by imposing its authority on Hormuz.

It’s a perfectly understandable and reasonable strategy. And one that will succeed because the US, or anyone else for that matter, does not have effective counter-measures.

https://t.co/CIskCoILTL

[Seth Abramson @SethAbramson]

Trump made a shitty DoD nomination. Ever since, we've *all* paid.

[Joe Kent @joekent16jan19]

This is objectively absurd.

McKenzie oversaw the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. GWOT generals offering more GWOT-era ideas should not be taken seriously.

It’s insane to hear a GWOT leader like McKenzie casually suggest that we can seize ground, as if that’s the ultimate solution.

In the GWOT, we had no issue seizing ground—it was holding that ground and the resulting insurgency that was the real problem, and most of this occurred before our adversaries possessed drone/ballistic missile capabilities.

Attempting any boots-on-the-ground operation in Iran is a fool’s errand. It will result in Americans getting needlessly killed, all for the sake of stroking neocon egos in Washington.

[Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D. @RecTheRegime]

"israel" lost one of its most important political servants yesterday. Never has a politician served "israel" more faithfully. It's no wonder they're mourning their loss.

[Ro Khanna @RoKhanna]

If a US Congressman & American citizens were detained illegally by settlers & the military of any other nation, the Ambassador would beg the American people for forgiveness and take action against the perpetrators. The height of arrogance.

[Fereshteh Sadeghi فرشته صادقی 🟩 ☫ 🟥 @fresh_sadegh]

الان جواد لاریجانی در شبکه خبر دارد می گوید مجلس باید قانون تنگه هرمز را در اسرع وقت تصویب کند و بعلاوه به دستور مجلس عضویت در NPT را لغو کنیم.

لطفا مجلس را باز کنید.

[sarah @sahouraxo]

BREAKING:

Israeli drones are dropping incendiary bombs on agricultural land in South Lebanon.

A massive fire has already consumed more than 100 dunams of farmland.

Fields. Olive trees. Crops. Livelihoods.
All reduced to ashes.

This is deliberate. This is ecocide.

[Policy Tensor @policytensor]

Maybe if you don’t spend your life celebrating the deaths of others, people won’t celebrate your death.

[Daniel Davis Deep Dive @DanielLDavis1]

I can no longer say I suffer from shock, but I am deeply disappointed, if not angered, by the continuing humiliation of the senior flag officer corps in the United States of America, as now General McKenzie humiliates himself with this absurd suggestion about KHARG Island.

Only someone who is a complete neophyte on Iranian issues — and can definitely NOT read the room after the millions of Iranian people came out to mourn and show their anger at the United States after the assassination of the supreme leader — would ever even *suggest* that holding a piece of terrain in the northern part of the Persian Gulf would somehow cause the government in Tehran to tremble and submit to Washington.

Even if possession could be maintained, it has no bearing on control of the SOH, and one wonders if the General is even aware of that.

But much more to the point, to even make such an effort would be near suicide for every American we would send there, as they would be pulverized, within range of nearly every weapon system Iran has. We would not hold the terrain, we would suffer tremendous military casualties, and would still fail to pry the SOH loose from Iranian hands.

It is a disgrace to the senior officer corps in America that he even makes such a claim.

[Assal Rad @AssalRad]

Boasting about your war crimes is not normal. The impunity will only embolden them to commit more atrocities.

[Nader @lucky2bLive]

@PahlaviReza You are the most deranged person in entire world! You should not call yourself an Iranian as you have no humanity toward them! Only to your masters!

[آرش یوسفی -ARASH @arash_Cosmo]

یادتونه برای بچه‌های میناب خفه‌خون گرفته بود؟