reading a: the window to bomb iran is now officially closed.
reading b: obama has "lost" iran.

this "lost a country" thing is pretty steep. we once "lost" russia. then we "lost" china. now, we've "lost" iran. when we "lose" a country, we talk about it for decades.

this isn't recent. but the story is pretty obscure. because while our media is open, it doesn't understood the issues very well.

so, the american media has been focusing on the "detente" between iran and the usa. which is absurd language, as lifting the american sanctions were never even on the table. but, the idea that a "breakthrough" was "imminent" was all over the press. this aligns with the preposterous idea that obama is a "peace president". the press has it's narrative, and facts do not have anything to do with it.

of course, the fact (which the media does not care about) is that iran does not have a nuclear program to suspend or shut down, so the whole charade is an elaborate facade. what is really going on?

well, russia and china had indicated an interest to bring iran into the sco. the sco is a kinda-sorta mutual defense pact. china won't sign mutual defense pacts because it's hard-headed and paranoid about these kinds of things, but the sco is about as close as they're going to get to one. once that happens, iran is off limits. it becomes a russian protectorate. an attack on iran becomes world war III, because it sets off russian (and maybe chinese) defenses.

that's not gold for iran. it means a loss of sovereignty. hence the talks. but there's been no movement.

so, tehran is lost.

is there an end to the sanctions coming, then? hardly. but, russia is also under sanction, remember. and, the truth is that the rest of the world is sort of not into this "can't buy oil from iran" thing. the americans have been forced to hand out exception after exception.

what it means is that iran will hopefully be able to get some of the materials it needs - like medicine, and food - via russia. and that russia may be able to get some of the things it needs from iran. and that, maybe, over time, it might draw a few more partners in.

in the long run, this is a big pickup for the sco. and it's actually likely to cement some stability in the middle east, even if it's along less than ideal heavily fortified cold war type boundaries.

so, the "should we bomb iran?" question is now answered.

no.

obama lost it...

http://www.timesca.com/news/15174-iran-has-good-prospects-to-join-sco-russian-fm
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/04/13/putin-s-missile-could-make-u-s-attacks-on-iran-nearly-impossible.html?hc_location=ufi
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/04/13/uk-iran-nuclear-russia-missiles-idUKKBN0N419P20150413?hc_location=ufi