The Big Middle Eastern Thread

[Dr. Gonzo]

3 minutes ago, Michael said:

I thought it was too much of a coincidence for this plane tragedy to have happened right at the time when US and Iranian tensions were at an all time high. It seems that unfortunately, it is the case that the plane was shot down by the Iranians.

It is indeed very sad that this has happened and as you said, the lives of families were ended in a matter of moments because of this act. Actually, most of the passengers were of Iranian origin, be they British, Canadian or Swedish citizens. It is such a needless loss of life.

It will be interesting to see what the Iranain response will be towards the accusations made that the plane was shot down by them. No doubt that they will deny it, but they are likely to be frozen out even more now, after this tragedy. The Ukrainian government for one, will be furious with this revelation.

I completely concur with your initial thoughts, on viewing this incident. I thought the same, when I saw the plane was in flames as it descended. But I thought the fact the pilot didn't even declare an emergency, to be even more bizarre. In any case, there will now inevitably be more heat placed on the Iranian government after this calamitous incident.

I'm not too surprised most of the passengers were of Iranian descent - I think most people would be too scared to go to Iran unless they were Iranian. Especially lately, as in the months before this there were massive widespread protests in Tehran and other big cities... that got suppressed pretty brutally. But these were people who headed back to see their families when they had time off, and they know if you just keep your head down and don't get involved in any political shite while you're in Iran - you'll likely have no problems at all. Unless your a man of conscription age... then you might have to bribe someone on your way into the country.

And yeah, the fact the pilots couldn't sound out a distress signal indicates that the plane's transponder immediately stopped working. And one reason that'd happen is because the plane was struck by a missile and the transponder was destroyed.

It's a total tragedy. I'm not so sure that the government will flat out deny it was shot down - the Ukrainian embassy in Tehran was the first to report it was due to technical failures & Reuters reported that it was Iranian officials to ask them to retract that statement. Considering how pissed off Iran still is about the US shooting down one of their commercial airliners in the 80s... this has to be hugely embarrassing for the regime. Iran really can't afford to be further isolated from the world community - which a flat denial would likely cause. If that happens, all of this domestic unity they've managed to foster after Soleimani's death likely goes out the window as more countries impose sanctions on Iran and the economic condition (which is already really really bad) worsens and they'll have more massive anti-government demonstrations to deal with.

It's insane that the government didn't put any flight restrictions on commercial flights when they knew they would be at high alert as they responded. It's such an avoidable tragedy that happened, just because of the sabre rattling between two countries that haven't had good relations since 1979 and have reached an all time low in the last few years.

If the world community does unite against Iran though, that may be the sort of pressure needed to get Iran to come back to the negotiating table and re-enter some kind of agreement with similar terms to the JCPOA. Because as things stand, I can't see the Iranian government ever willingly going back to negotiate with the US regarding nuclear power - it's been demonstrated that what one administration might commit to, the other might immediately pull out of. And for the deal to have any meaning beyond one US presidential administration, which any nuclear deal with Iran would, it'd need to be able to guarantee that the US's commitments can't suddenly end with one administration. It'd need to be an official treaty that the US Congress ratifies... and US politics is so split right now, I can't see that happening anytime soon.

People hoping for regime change in Iran should be hoping for it through non-violent methods. Iran's not China - it's not a place where generations of people have had "I must remain apolitical and support my government" - it's a place with an incredibly high voter turnout where people, even living under theocratic repression, will pretty freely speak about politics - and pretty freely talk about what exactly they dislike about living under the IRI's rule. Opening Iran up to the rest of the international community means more Iranians can study abroad again, like they used to, they can get visas and travel to other countries more freely... and then they'll see a lot of the propaganda the IRI feeds them is a load of shit. And they'll remember that when they take to the polls.

The JCPOA was a great starting point to start putting more pressure on Iran through diplomacy. Taking a nuclear IRI off the table, and keeping Iran obligated to allow inspectors in upon demand of any of the parties to the agreement (so the UN security council nations + the EU) is the first step in engaging Iran in negotiations for things like: ending support for Hezbollah, ending the conflict in Yemen. And in return, Iran wants to be more involved in the global economy. Which in turn means Iran will open up to the rest of the world and ordinary Iranians will get more of a chance to see what life is like outside of an authoritarian theocracy.

The slow burn approach to reforming Iran is imo the best approach to regime change in Iran - because as I've stated here, Iran has the framework for a real and effective democracy - they just need to remove the roadblocks to having a real democracy in the Supreme Leader position shouldn't be around & neither should the Guardians Council.

An approach using western military intervention (aka an invasion of Iran) is likely to give us the same result as Iraq... but with a far greater cost, as it's a more populated country with a much harsher terrain, and with a larger military than Saddam's Iraq.

So I hope ultimately, at the end of the day, Iran is pushed back to the negotiating table and something to prevent the IRI from having a nuclear weapon (and thus probably being the government in place in Iran for as long as we are alive) and we go back to having that starting point to put pressure on Iran to stop doing the shitty things it does do.

But it's a real tragedy those people died in that plane. These tensions escalating since the end of US involvement in the JCPOA and the resumption of US sanctions on Iran were needless and have set back US-Iran relations decades... and the ultimate effect so far of all of this has been: 1.) Iranians getting shot for protesting the shitty economic condition these sanctions made worse, 2.) a plane full of innocent people being shot down, 3.) a top level IRGC is dead - which weakens the IRI... but has also created more unity around a government that was feeling extreme domestic pressure.

It's been a bad few years, but especially a bad week, for the Iranian people. 

[Azeem]

I don't think after the number of proxies Iran has created in the region they can just stop supporting them. 

[Azeem]

3 minutes ago, Azeem said:

I don't think after the number of proxies Iran has created in the region they can just stop supporting them. 

from left to right : 

Iran's flag, Revolutionary Guards, RG Airforce, Hezbollah Lebanese proxy, Houthis Yemeni proxy, Hashd al Sha'abi Iraqi proxy, Hamas not proxy but allies, Fatemiyoun Afghan proxy, Zainabiyoun Pakistani proxy

[Harry]

I think that will be flavour of the criticism from at least democratic politicians. Frustration at a collateral damage outcome from a conflict that was needlessly escalated.

 

[Cicero]

Utterly predictable too

[Dr. Gonzo]

Lol well they’re denying it was hit by a missile. Just in case you ever want to feel better about how the UK is being run, just remember Iran is run by absolute morons

[Azeem]

45 member Ukrainian and Canadian delegation has arrived in Iran for investigation.

[Harry]

 

[Harry]

 

[Harry]

Iran admit to shooting down the Ukrainian Airlines plane, citing human error. The plane turned towards a sensitive Iranian army base and was mistaken for a hostile aircraft.

[Cicero]

Absolute travesty 

[Azeem]

Massive incompetence by Iran. They had to admit, because Canada, Boeing, Ukraine wouldn't let it go.

Edited January 11, 2020 by Azeem

[Harry]

 

 

 

[Machado]

"My bad" doesn't work when you killed a lot of innocent people.

[RandoEFC+]

Incompetence from Iran but the US aren't blameless either. These things can happen when you engage in posturing like this.

Imagine if you were some sort of alien race watching our planet, you'd think we were absolutely insane. 

[Inverted]

I'm actually quite shocked they've admitted it. 

[Honey Honey]

2 hours ago, RandoEFC said:

Incompetence from Iran but the US aren't blameless either. These things can happen when you engage in posturing like this.

Classic teacher behaviour, tell everyone off then no one can complain 

[Dr. Gonzo]

11 hours ago, Azeem said:

Massive incompetence by Iran. They had to admit, because Canada, Boeing, Ukraine wouldn't let it go.

They could have pulled a Russia and kept denying despite the evidence against them.

Whoever was responsible for not restricting the airspace is a moron and should be ultimately held responsible. However in Iran, that probably means being put to death.

[Dr. Gonzo]

5 hours ago, Inverted said:

I'm actually quite shocked they've admitted it. 

I’m not, there was loads of evidence against them - other countries gave their reasons for why they could say “it was shot down” and one thing Iran’s always been pissed off about is the US navy shooting down a commercial Air Iran flight and the commander of that ship getting medals afterwards.

The US never made an formal apology to the victims or Iran, but did pay out compensation to the families of the victims. I wonder if Iran will make payouts, they obviously are under very different economic circumstances than the US at any point in the US’s history after 1945. I assume they will, but the payouts will be much smaller.

But the mountain of evidence against them meant denying like Russia did would probably have Iranians in Iran being more outraged about this plane being shot down than they currently are about their government killing a plane full of people. And people are very very pissed off at the government right now because of this news

[Michael]

Well the Head of Iran's Civil Aviation Organisation is now looking a fool, having said that they could say for certain that a missile didn't hit the plane. At least the Iranian government are now telling us what we all thought was the case, that this flight was shot down by an Iranian missile, albeit by accident. 

One has to really feel sorry for the family of the victims after this tragedy.

Here is a short sad report of the Ukrainian pilot's wife grieving and her feelings about the incident:

 

[Harry]

5 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

They could have pulled a Russia and kept denying despite the evidence against them.

Whoever was responsible for not restricting the airspace is a moron and should be ultimately held responsible. However in Iran, that probably means being put to death.

Canada demanding full and frank investigation and identification of parties responsible... They should be warier.

[Harry]

6 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

I’m not, there was loads of evidence against them - other countries gave their reasons for why they could say “it was shot down” and one thing Iran’s always been pissed off about is the US navy shooting down a commercial Air Iran flight and the commander of that ship getting medals afterwards.

The US never made an formal apology to the victims or Iran, but did pay out compensation to the families of the victims. I wonder if Iran will make payouts, they obviously are under very different economic circumstances than the US at any point in the US’s history after 1945. I assume they will, but the payouts will be much smaller.

But the mountain of evidence against them meant denying like Russia did would probably have Iranians in Iran being more outraged about this plane being shot down than they currently are about their government killing a plane full of people. And people are very very pissed off at the government right now because of this news

I suspect we'll see demands for compensation and payouts with some of that motivation being to increase the economic hardship.

[6666]

On 11/01/2020 at 07:41, Machado said:

"My bad" doesn't work when you killed a lot of innocent people.

It doesn't but it is more than the US do when killing innocent people. It's down to the heavy coverage as to why Iran addressed it but that then poses the question why the media don't cover things fairly across the board. It creates this idea that the US military making mistakes regularly is fair enough because they're heroes and can do no wrong.  

Not much mention of this -

It's one of the many reasons war, or anything approaching war, is fucking terrible and any clown that's lusting for war, like a lot of Republicans, is a piece of shit. 

[Azeem]

UK ambassador to Iran arrested/detained and then released after he was at a protest outside of a university and took pictures. 

Why does UK always manages to get involved in some way 

[Harry]

This is just preposterous.