0__0 [he/him]

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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: September 22nd, 2024

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  • That was not said either.

    You literally said you didn’t ask me, as if you don’t care because it doesn’t matter.

    There was more than one demand. All others were long term. Only one is short term. You only focused on the short term goal because you envision a different world and sees the short term goal as detrimental to that new world, even though it isn’t. Sanctions relief provide short term relief to the common people of Iran who need food, medicines and other consumer goods. It does not in any way preclude the future shape of asian geopolitics.

    Yes, there is more than one demand, but only abandoning US bases is one that I see Iran can enforce in such a way that it definitively hurts the US. I also suggested other demands be of a more military nature, since they would also be more detrimental to the US in a realistic peace. The yuan one is just unrealistic, and makes it so that the US wouldn’t want to sign a peace treaty, meaning it is in fact detrimental to the actually realistic ones.

    Sanctions relief also provide an additional attack vector on Iran’s people and it’s government, to be conquered by the imperialists if they let their capitalists go haywire. Let me express this in the plainest possible terms at this point so we can put this shit to rest

    Iran does/doesn’t indicates the end of sanctions and Iran trading with the world and therefore the west. China does/doesn’t indicates it abandoning it’s export model.

    1. Iran does, China does - Best case economic scenario, but a gamble for Iran since it doesn’t know what China will do
    2. Iran does, China doesn’t - Worst case scenario, Iran gets rug-pulled and conquered by the Imperialists via two-pronged attack on their economic and military frontiers.
    3. Iran doesn’t, China does - Best case scenario in general, Iran secures itself for the long term, whilst China also does it’s thing. China secures that the US can’t bully it’s trade bloc, making the sanctions on Iran irrelevant in their eyes.
    4. Iran doesn’t, China doesn’t - Iran calculates that this is indeed the way with the least amount of unknown variables. Iran is able to secure the peace, even if China doesn’t achieve the status of global hegemon anytime soon.

    As you can see, for Iran personally, the most secure option is to not indulge in trading with the west (this is of course on the assumption that they don’t have full control of their economy). The problem with economic demands is that they go both ways, in a way that doesn’t really impact the US. But weakening it’s capabilities in the middle east is something that is detrimental to the US nevertheless, even if they break their promises, since it actually requires time to build back up.

    Point is, if the problem is ‘what happens when the US puts sanctions on Iran anyway or tells Germany not to trade with Iran’, then the problem is not about sanctions relief. If this war is not conclusive, then no demand matters until the next Iran War. At which point there’s no use criticizing sanctions relief because there’s no point demanding anything out of the Epstein Axis.

    Absolutely nothing is definitive in life. That is, in fact, the basis of dialectical materialism. The first and second world wars had definitive ends, if you look at your schools history books. But then there are people like Losurdo who bunch those two together and call it the Second Thirty Year’s War. This war right now will have a definitive end, but the conflicts with Iran will not be over unless Israel is destroyed and America loses the ability to project it’s power abroad. Extracting concessions right now is important, not because they cannot ever be regained, but because it is then harder to regain them. Military bases are a loss for the US, pure and simple. Dropping sanctions on Iran can indeed look like a loss, which is why I have argued that the US can actually turn that part to it’s advantage in a future conflict. It is important for Iran to make the calculation based not just on the pure short or long term, but on maximizing both. They should do everything that is in their power to reduce the equation to the least amount of unknown variables. Of course, for the best case scenario for everyone to happen, it is absolutely vital that China step it’s game up.


  • I did not ask you what the US will do on the long or medium term, or what China should do. I asked you what happens if the United States goes back on any of the demands set forth by Iran. Presuming, of course, that Iran actually achieves them, de facto or otherwise.

    So you don’t care what the US does in the long term, but do care what happens if the US breaks the treaty (which is most certainly not going to include oil being traded in yuan, and would require the US actually having it’s mainland militarily occupied), which is assumed to be in the long term?

    If the United States will inevitably fight a third war against Iran and renege on everything Iran may or may not achieve now, why focus on sanctions relief to the detriment to everything else? Why not call upon China to build their own bases across West Asia to keep the US shut out?

    Idk, ask the Iran government. They are the ones who have been negotiating with Israel and the US, let their important leaders get killed, issued a religious decree against building a nuke etc. Of course there is reluctance from China involved there too

    Iran isn’t going to set forth demands without the confidence that they can be achieved with some degree with solidity. I started this conversation stating that if the war is in any way definitive, then of all of Iran’s demands sanctions relief provides the best improvement for the common people in the short term. That is all.

    And I’m saying that the key term here is short-term. Long term, if Iran doesn’t have complete control over it’s economy, that is to say it’s exporting industry, it will be an inevitability that they will gravitate towards the west, and then get rug pulled once the US deems it pertinent to attack (this all of course because they’re not communists). The US will of course coordinate this economic crisis with a bombing campaign, and then after having made sure to build up it’s own oil exporting capacity, negate Iran’s trump card of closing the strait, being able then to wage a war similar to all the other wars it has waged in the 21st century so far. Without any major repercussions to it’s own or the world economy.

    If Iran’s future requires China to no longer be an export oriented economy then none of the demands matter. What matters is wether Iran can survive this war as well as future ones. The question is not which demands to make at all. The question is if Iran, unlike Syria, can survive 15 years of hybrid war against it.

    They don’t matter in the sense of the world, but they absolutely do matter in the sense of Iran itself, being able to weaken American and Israeli capabilities of waging war with them. That’s why they should primarily focus on military concessions, rather than economics ones. And the ability of Iran to support itself for those 15 years require a stable base which should be built up, not a high and mighty house of cards that can go belly-up at any second.


  • In the time after this war and the next one, if there exist more than two braincells between the lot of them, they will use it to build up the capacities for crude oil exports of their own companies in Venezuela. They will also incentivize the gulf states to build pipelines to the red sea and towards Oman, away from the gulf. You could say the Americans definitely weren’t wise to enter into a war prematurely, underestimating their opponent and letting hubris get the better of them. But that doesn’t mean you should underestimate them when their interests are on the line.

    But that could of course be offset if China actually took a proactive approach to it’s political economy and foreign relations. If China became the primary partner of countries in terms of their export markets, they could easily steal America’s position. Therefore creating a new order not dependent on America, being able to financially protect it’s allies and enforce certain countries to even trade with America on it’s own terms.



  • Iran is demonstrably worse off if they can’t freely and safely negotiate deals with India or Europe or South America.

    It would also be quite good for Iran to have reliable partners from whom it doesn’t expect to get news of any surprise arrangements with the imperium. Sure, trading with everyone is good, but whilst smaller countries are disunited and pursuing their own material interests, it leaves pretty much only Russia and China as the only countries who can conceivably shake off these threats coming from the US. Iran wants to negotiate with Germany? Oops! Uncle Sam has threatened tariffs on Germany if they do that, and the deal falls through. You are assuming the US will just do nothing and let these deals happen without their supervision.

    If there is one thing which the America excels at, it’s practicing divide and conquer on both it’s enemies and allies alike. In the 1971, when Nixon suspended paying gold to in exchange for dollar-dominated assets, the European countries were enraged, and it looked like they could legitimately shake the foundations of the established international monetary system. Instead of an earthquake, we got a whimper. The US issued tariffs, buy-american tax credits and forced the exporting countries to impose quotas upon their industries. And of course it floated the idea of withdrawing troops from Europe and Asia, leaving the ruling classes of these countries to their own devices against the “Communist threat”. In the end, it forced them to basically give up their real material goods not for something as shiny as gold, but as boring and mundane as a US Treasury security. The US reversed the established paradigm from having the control of these countries through issuing debt in dollars that forced countries to support american exports, to giving financial instruments such as bonds for real material goods, making these countries dependent on their consumer markets. The US picked off countries both large and in established economic unions, let alone countries who have nothing of the sort, which are the majority of the countries of the global south.

    Not creating a sort of “axis” leaves countries vulnerable. And in this context, China needs to step up big time and actually be proactive for once, instead of letting a Home Alone character take the initiative. You fundamentally have to give up these cheap material exports and let your currency appreciate, reallocate labor from these industries into ones of greater technological innovation and boost domestic consumption. Simultaneously letting countries from the global south thrive by exporting to you, removing yourself from the rat race to the bottom. China giving up neoliberalism is the best thing that can happen to Iran and countries of the global south.




  • Makes imports way cheaper and exports more competitive. Western sanctions don’t just cut off trade between a country and the west. They limit trade with the entire world. The mechanisms for bypassing sanctions tend to be more expensive (with lower volumes to boot) than just being on western financial networks to begin with. Although obviously, the best case scenario is to create truly open financial networks that cannot be sanctioned to begin with.

    To an extent, yeah. Pressures on prices in terms of the country being sanctioned, and therefore not having access to markets of countries actually respecting the sanctions play a part as well. But as I said in another comment, I fear that because of the nature of capital, there will appear a relaxation in their politics towards the west (much like Lenin talks about when discussing the NEP, and how it must be only a temporary measure).

    The question of managing trade gets very complex, but it cannot be wise to only trade with a select few countries. Splitting the world into cold war style blocs would be a mistake, and not what multi-polarity aims for. Diversified trade with the global majority should be on the table. Although in reality, the Iranians should focus on internal circulation as much as possible due to their precarious geopolitical situation.

    I mean, it’s not like there is really a choice at this point. The west doesn’t really need sanctions to enforce it’s will upon smaller countries who rely on it’s consumer base. But I totally agree on the internal circulation part.






  • And what exactly is the point of lifting sanctions imposed by the west also? If Iran starts trading with them, they’re either gonna be more dependent on their consumer market or consumer goods. Literally the reason why the could actually pull the Hormuz closure card is because they’re under sanctions. They should rather look into simply boosting their trade with China and Russia, and not allowing any kind of reluctance when it comes to making military tech deals with them. Pretty much their best chance is what @xiaohongshu@hexbear.net has been preaching for the last who knows how long, and that is Chinese fiscal deficit spending allowing Iran to develop their productive forces and start exporting to China, whilst importing technology from them. Don’t really get the frozen assets in this context either, not sure what they’re made up of, although I guess China would accept them whatever they are (but that would also have the presupposition that China is not planning on dropping their IMF export mindset).

    If anything, Iran should demand some kind of military base in Iraq, so their more accurate short-range ballistic missiles can hit Israel.


  • He’s decent. Not really a marxist even though he declares himself as one every so often. Disagree heavily with his whole “techno-feudalism” shtick since those things aren’t historically comparable. His analysis whilst good is not really materialist but is materialist-adjacent, like Mearsheimer or Sachs. He has made an interesting documentary about his time as finance minister of Greece, although your eyes might roll to the back of your head when you hear him talk about his father. Guy was in a Nazi concentration camp in WW2, and when the communists asked him to sign a worthless piece of paper denouncing leftism just to get released, he was stupidly stubborn and refused, yet Varoufakis makes this out as some point of unbent pride or something lol. Like damn, I wonder why the communists asked you to do that, it couldn’t possibly be because you’d be a helluva lot more useful outside than inside of there.

    Edit: He wasn’t in a Nazi concentration camp, but in the one established by the reactionary Greek government after the war.