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Foreign Invaders crisis cost $150B in 2023, forcing some areas to cut police and fire services: report Israel kills head of Hezbollah Intelligence. Status: Not Logged In; Sign In International News See other International News Articles Title: Pompeo to Iran: Get ready for "strongest sanctions in history" Source: HotAir URL Source: https://hotair.com/archives/2018/05 ... y-strongest-sanctions-history/ Published: May 21, 2018 Author: Ed Morrissey Post Date: 2018-05-22 04:29:46 by Tooconservative Keywords: None Views: 2335 Comments: 17 Mike Pompeo offered both a clenched fist and an open hand to Iran in his first major policy speech. At the Heritage Foundation this morning, the new Secretary of State pledged never to “repeat the mistakes of past administrations” and rejected entirely the effort to “renegotiate the JCPOA,” the executive agreement created by the Obama administration. Instead, Pompeo offered to open full diplomatic and economic ties with Tehran, but only if they comply with twelve “basic requirements” for non-proliferation and the end of state-sponsored terrorism: If Iran agrees to US "requirements," Pompeo says US prepared to end all principal components of its sanctions; re-establish full diplomatic and trade relations; and assist in modernization of Iran's economy. pic.twitter.com/R0zMBARAb1 — Mark Knoller (@markknoller) May 21, 2018 Otherwise, Iran will face a much tougher sanctions regime — and presumably, so would anyone else doing business with them: Sec. of State Pompeo vows to hit Iran with “strongest sanctions in history” if its government does not change course. pic.twitter.com/y2k4q1BH7c — NBC News (@NBCNews) May 21, 2018 U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is threatening to place “the strongest sanctions in history” on Iran if its government doesn’t change course. Pompeo on Monday called for a new nuclear agreement with Iran following President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal. He says the Trump administration prefers for it to be a treaty that is ratified by Congress. Pompeo is laying out an onerous list of 12 “basic requirements” demands on Iran that he says should be included. He says Iran must “stop enrichment” of uranium and never preprocess plutonium. Iran must also allow nuclear “unqualified access to all sites throughout the country.” Pompeo says Iran must also “release all U.S. citizens,” end support for Houthi rebels in Yemen, “withdraw all forces” from Syria and stop threatening Israel. Iran’s not likely to agree to any of this, of course, especially about Israel. The mullahcracy in Tehran has its mission to destroy Israel and to spread its Shi’a Islam to dominate the region. Its ultimate goal is control over Mecca and Medina, which makes Saudi Arabia a higher priority than even Israel or propping up Bashar al-Assad in Syria, at least for Assad’s sake. Their encirclement strategy around Riyadh is too important to worry about diplomatic and economic engagement with “the Great Satan,” even if it was nice for a while not to have economic obstruction from the US. The real target for this speech wasn’t Tehran, though. It was the capitals of Europe, especially Berlin, Paris, and London. Pompeo intended to lay out the case that the Obama administration and the P5+1 group essentially funded Iran’s aggression in the region over the last few years with the execrable JCPOA, and that they are responsible now for cutting off that flow of funds in order to slow Tehran’s encirclement strategy: Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, is expected to call on European countries to help ramp up economic pressure on Iran as he outlines America’s ‘Plan B’ to the nuclear deal. Delivering his first major foreign policy speech since taking the job, Mr Pompeo will double down on the United States’ decision to quit the agreement earlier this month. He is expected to frame the 2015 deal as allowing Iran to increase its malign influence across the Middle East on the back of funding from renewed trade with the West. Mr Pompeo is also expected to urge other nations to join America in reimposing economic sanctions on the regime in a bid to bring it back to the negotiating table. Pompeo wants to underscore just how serious the Trump administration is about putting the shackles back on the Iranian regime. The existing, re-imposed sanctions will already put European businesses at risk for sustaining major economic damage if they continue to work with Iran. Pompeo made it clear in his speech today that the US does not intend to find ways to avoid that damage. The “strongest sanctions in history” only work as long as the US enforces them strongly enough to make them work as deterrents. The best way for Europe to avoid getting hurt in that exchange is to join up with the US in imposing them. This won’t prompt any immediate change from either Iran or our allies. It’s a marker laid down by Pompeo and Donald Trump, not yet an action in itself. Our allies will try to work Pompeo and Trump to mitigate those consequences, and perhaps Trump will be willing to negotiate around the edges. But Pompeo’s making it clear that the US plans to take a very hard line on Iran, and not just in nuclear-weapons proliferation. Post Comment   Private Reply   Ignore Thread   Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest #1. To: Tooconservative (#0) Pompeo says Iran must ... "withdraw all forces" from Syria Interesting A Pole  posted on  2018-05-22   5:35:28 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #2. To: A Pole (#1) Trump is reviewing the $200M we're spending on Syrian civilian relief and has already announced he will cut funding immediately for northwest Syria. The experts are saying this signals that Trump is serious about defeating ISIS and then leaving Syria very quickly. And ISIS is all but dead. At this point, they're mostly rotting corpses in the desert or have fled back to their home countries or are desperately trying to hide among civilians to avoid the Syrians, Kurds, Iranians, Russians and Americans. It's not much fun to be a Syrian ISIS member these days. Tooconservative  posted on  2018-05-22   6:00:09 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #3. To: Tooconservative (#0) Does this fellow think his name is Trump, he has been channelling his inner trump and he has been carried away paraclete  posted on  2018-05-22   7:27:09 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #4. To: Tooconservative (#0) Pompeo to Iran: Get ready for "strongest sanctions in history" Pompeo to Americans: Get ready for "$4.00 a gallon gas!!!" Jameson  posted on  2018-05-22   7:35:00 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #5. To: Jameson (#4) Pompeo to Americans: Get ready for "$4.00 a gallon gas!!!" A $1 gas tax hike would add $2 trillion in revenue and put us in surplus territory. So let's do it. Vicomte13  posted on  2018-05-22   12:36:46 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #6. To: Vicomte13 (#5) A $1 gas tax hike would add $2 trillion in revenue and put us in surplus territory. Worth discussion, but I would rather see a "per transaction" tax on the financial services industry, which would have a much smaller impact on the middle class. Jameson  posted on  2018-05-22   12:49:34 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #7. To: Vicomte13, Jameson (#5) A $1 gas tax hike would add $2 trillion in revenue and put us in surplus territory. I think Trump is likely to get a gas/diesel tax increase at the federal level. He did promise more infrastructure. Probably 10-20 cents. Our shale oil operations are already setting records, topping all the production records of the last century. America can no longer be blackmailed over oil supply. We haven't even touched the real mother lode of oil out on the west coast. Just the west Texas and North Dakota and Canadian fields will keep us busy for decades. But just increase the price of gas (excluding taxes) by even 50¢/ga. and you would see all the wells that were shuttered when the price of oil got down under $60/barrel come back online. And the result would be rivers, lakes, a veritable OCEAN of American oil. We wouldn't be able to load the tankers for export fast enough. Every highway and rail line would be full of oil tankers. All our tank farms would be filled to the brim (well, they actually already are!). It would be a petrochemical madhouse, like a Rockefeller wet dream. The Iranians would be ruined. Russia would be ruined. Even the Saudis and rich Gulf oil states would be ruined over the long run. And we could keep it up for at least a century too. Tooconservative  posted on  2018-05-22   14:51:04 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #8. To: Jameson (#6) Financial products are like any other good: there ought to be a sales tax, just as there is a sales tax on everything else. Also, financial products are the primary vehicle for holding wealth in the USA. The primary place where MIDDLE CLASS wealth is stored is in housing, but the primary place where MOST wealth, which is to say UPPER CLASS wealth (as 80% of the wealth is held by 10% of the hands) is in the form of securities. Securities portfolios should be taxed in the same way that houses are, at the same rate (about 1.5%), every year. Obviously if you tax securities AND real estate AND art AND bullion, you can drop that rate to about 0.5% and take more money. There's a lot more money in securities than there is in housing. We already tax houses, cars, boats and planes - the primary assets of the middle and upper middle class. We should be taxing the wealth of the upper class, at the same rate, and that means securities portfolios. So, a sales tax on securities, just as there is a sales tax on boats and clothes and every other asset, and a property tax on securities, just as there is a property tax on houses. Further, there should be no estate tax at all, or inheritance tax. Rather, inheritances should be taxed as income to the recipients, because that's precisely what an inheritance IS: income to the recipient. And capital gains should not be carved out and treated differently from any other income. ALL REVENUE is income, and it should ALL be taxed by one tax system. Wages should not be triple taxed with social security and medicare and the income tax. Capital gains and dividends should not be separately taxed at different rates. Substantial gifts should not be untaxed, nor there be a special estate tax. Tax all of it as income, which is precisely what it is. These things, taken together, constitute a triple point of taxation that will raise a lot more revenue, chiefly by increasing the taxes on the wealthy so that they pay the same percentage of their gross wealth every year in taxes than the middle class does. That, in turn, will allow the tax rates to be reduced overall. Separate excises on tobacco, alcohol, legal and illegal drugs and gasoline all would raise significant revenue, allowing for the income and property and general sales taxes to be reduced, while focusing the cost of health care and environmental damage on those who cause it. Oh, and finally, take down the toll roads and toll bridges, which are a hindrance to driving and waste time. Instead, just tax everybody on a per- mile basis on the mileage increase on their odometers each year, converting all roads into toll roads without cost. That's how you run a tax system that can balance a budget and pay off national debt. Vicomte13  posted on  2018-05-22   14:53:32 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #9. To: Tooconservative (#7) And all of that hypercheap energy could be poured into desalination, to turn the Mojave green, and turn the Mexican desert green and, through foreign aid, the Sahara also - thereby not only ending world hunger and dramatically reducing the bite of poverty for the whole planet, but also sopping up massive quantities of greenhouse gases, making everybody happy - even the desert rodents. Vicomte13  posted on  2018-05-22   14:55:38 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #10. To: Vicomte13 (#9) And all of that hypercheap energy could be poured into desalination, to turn the Mojave green, and turn the Mexican desert green and, through foreign aid, the Sahara also - thereby not only ending world hunger and dramatically reducing the bite of poverty for the whole planet, but also sopping up massive quantities of greenhouse gases, making everybody happy - even the desert rodents. I think the projects to capture wind/solar excesses (mostly wind at this point) and use them to pump vast amounts of water uphill to use later in power generation is the most promising way to move ahead with green energy. It is also possible that next-gen batteries will come online. Tesla's big battery bank in Australia has exceeded all expectations and those are just smart lithium battery banks. Desalination is still very very very energy intensive. We need to use a lot less fresh water from ground sources. Our aquifers are being depleted. Many other countries, like Iran and China, are already in a water crisis, drilling wells 2-3 miles deep now. The same is happening in California. There is not enough reporting on this. Tooconservative  posted on  2018-05-22   15:07:47 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #11. To: Tooconservative (#10) Solar is free. Wind is free. Tides are free. Volcanic geothermal is free. Wherever there are deserts, there is vast solar energy. Many deserts are located right beside tropical and subtroplical oceans. Take free sunlight and turn it into fresh water, making the desert not a desert anymore, feeding the world, and creating all sorts of employment for the poor everywhere. It's what Jesus would do...if Jesus were a macro-economist. Vicomte13  posted on  2018-05-22   15:28:09 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #12. To: All (#11) Solar is free. Wind is free. Tides are free. Volcanic geothermal is free. I know it's not really "free" - you have to spend money on the physical plant to capture it. But jeez, all you need to do to boil water and desalinate it the low tech way is use freaking MAGNIFYING GLASSES to focus the sun's rays on tanks of water. You don't have to use membranes and efficient methods. You can use First Century tech and a hand crank to turn the angle of the glass every half hour or so - employing some guy to do it. Vicomte13  posted on  2018-05-22   15:30:59 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #13. To: Vicomte13 (#11) Solar is free. In the West where the vast majority of solar is located, its capacity is almost entirely devoted to meeting domestic needs. A lot of it is just for A/C in the summer months. Which isn't a bad thing but we can't really look at solar as a source of major green energy surpluses on the scale that you need for salination. Or for providing green power to the developing Third World. Solar may be free (amortized over its 25 year life) but it is already spoken for in the energy economy and that won't change any time soon. Tooconservative  posted on  2018-05-22   15:45:37 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #14. To: Tooconservative (#13) (Edited) California is producing so much excess energy, thanks to solar, that they are paying Arizona to shunt it off there. They could pour it into desalination instead. Truth is, a bold revisit of assumptions and a Manhattan Project scale rework of the energy and water economy would transform everything for the better, not just here but all around the world. Vicomte13  posted on  2018-05-22   15:52:23 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #15. To: Tooconservative (#13) For that matter, Mexico could do it, all along the inner coast of the Baja (where nobody lives and there's not much of any tourism), generate vast amounts of water from solar-driven desalination plants, and then pump the water north to a greedy California to pay for it, which they will. Vicomte13  posted on  2018-05-22   15:56:41 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #16. To: Vicomte13 (#12) I liked this little survey of the various technologies for solar desalination in desert areas in the Third World. Waterworld: Solar Powered Water Desalination Heats Up in Chile Tooconservative  posted on  2018-05-22   16:15:25 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   #17. To: Tooconservative (#16) Cheap water is the root of everything else. Cheap water means cheap food. Cheap food means healthy people and lots of jobs, which means rising wealth from food, transport, etc. And we're off to the races then. With greater vision and more energy, the brine salts that remain are concentrated minerals of virtually every naturally occurring element, all of which have commercial value. The key to separating the out - the gold, silver, rare earths, copper, potassium, iodine, uranium, platinum, lithium - all of it - is energy, lots and lots of energy. In deserts by the seashore there are three things in superabundance, super cheap: Wasteland nobody wants, so separating pools and the like can be spread out, and also there is land right there that can spring into productivity - and vastly enhanced value ($0 to farmland in a jiffy)- immediately. There is inexhaustible sunlight for free. And there is inexhaustible water and minerals - in the form of seawater - for free. Combine the three, and you've produced a way to get water to turn the land green, get fertilizer out of the salts to make the land greener, and get precious metals and rare earths to pay for the energy and the development. Without a pollution stream. It's a truly remarkable prospect, that - thanks to the free water and free sunlight, and the value of water in the desert - essentially allows the ocean to become both the source of water AND the most open mine, containing all of the valuable elements in very pure and simple form: salts, which are easy to unbind. Vicomte13  posted on  2018-05-22   16:52:40 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply   Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest

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