Can you elaborate on how this amounts to telling Iran to "shoot itself in the head"? The 12 demands as per your article are:

> Declare to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) a full account of the prior military dimensions of its nuclear programme and permanently and verifiably abandon such work in perpetuity.

> Stop enrichment and never pursue plutonium reprocessing, including closing its heavy water reactor.

> Provide the IAEA with unqualified access to all sites throughout the entire country.

> End its proliferation of ballistic missiles and halt further launching or development of nuclear-capable missile systems.

> Release all US citizens as well as citizens of US partners and allies.

> End support to Middle East “terrorist” groups, including Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

> Respect the sovereignty of the Iraqi government and permit the disarming, demobilisation and reintegration of Shia militias.

> End its military support for the Houthi rebels and work towards a peaceful, political settlement in Yemen.

> Withdraw all forces under Iran’s command throughout the entirety of Syria.

> End support for the Taliban and other “terrorists” in Afghanistan and the region and cease harbouring senior al-Qaeda leaders.

> End the Islamic Revolutionary Guard corps-linked Quds Force’s support for “terrorists” and “militant” partners around the world.

> End its threatening behaviour against its neighbours, many of whom are US allies, including its threats to destroy Israel and its firing of missiles at Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and threats to international shipping and destructive cyberattacks.

This really amounts to 3 things:

1. Stop pursuing nuclear weapons development, and actually give inspectors the ability to verify that Iran is staying true to it's word.

2. Stop supporting terrorist organizations, and other proxy wars.

3. Stop threatening to destroy Saudi Arabia, Israel, and other countries.

Sure, demanding the release of US citizens is superfluous and unnecessary. But how does this amount to telling Iran to "shoot itself in the head"? How would fulfilling these 12 points kill Iran? How does Iran somehow end up dying if it stops fighting proxy wars in Yemen and Iraq?

How do you stop sanctions if you already follow the demands put in front of you? The reason the world isn't on the US side against Iran wholly as it were in the beginning of the sanctions is that Iran did live up to the demands.... and then the demands were changed. The US broke the deal, not the Iranians.

You stop the sanctions by meeting the new demands. The US decided the original deal did not offer inspectors enough leeway to ensure Iran was actually halting nuclear weapons development, and so it added more stringent inspection requirements. Adopting or walking away from a deal is a mutual decision. Yes, the US decided to put new terms on the deal. Iran could have accepted adding real enforcement mechanisms to the deal and ended the sanctions, but decided otherwise.

This thread is being rate limited. The commenter below is incorrect. The post deal demands included restrictions on nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, too, but they also included changes to increase the access of inspectors. This was a substantial part of why the original deal was rejected, the new administration believed the original restricted inspectors to the extent that Iran could still develop nuclear weapons in secrecy.

The existing deal already has enforcement mechanisms under Article 37. If Iran violates the deal, the UNSC sanctions are reinstated by the P5+1. If the P5+1 violate the deal, Iran scales back its own commitments. All of this is in the existing treaty.

And there is no guarantee that meeting the new demands would result in sanctions stopping, rather than in more sanctions and demands.

United States' post-deal demands were not nuclear. They were regarding Iran's missile program.

The sanctions are not to prevent nuclear development, the Israelis are not stupid and they know Iran can develop it sanctions or not, it will be dealt with a cold war strategies as it always was.

The sanctions are to weaken its non nuclear aspirations, their push to create an Iranian crescent from Iran to Lebanon making many people life miserable on the way, people who don't want them in the region.

It's a country that clearly state their will to destroy Israel and their militias in Lebanon actively attacked Israel even though there is no border conflict there right now and the two countries could set up a peace agreement easily. But it is not only the Israelis that don't want them there, the majority Sunni and Christians in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq also not happy with the Iranian push, hence the joy everybody had when Trump killed Sulemeini.

Obama was an idiot who bought into the meme of "preventing nuclear", he didn't understand the middle east at all and during his time the middle east was in flames with millions of deaths and refugees. He didn't support the demonstrations in Iran when they happened, just stood there looking like a the lame useless president that he was with his useless speeches.

Trump brought quiet and peace and he did it with almost no cost of life, just by having a knack to dealing with crazy leaders of the region which is more aligned with his natural craziness and line of thinking, and with a bit of Kushner brilliance behind the scenes.

I just hope Biden is not as stupid as Obama and will keep the pressure on Iran, got a feeling he is a bit more experienced and realist so I am hopeful he will understand what's going on.

The problem is the cost of the deal is too high and the benefit too low.

The Iran deal is actually rather simple in concept. Iran temporarily suspends certain nuclear activities (not all of them - for example, researching enrichment is fine). In return, Iran gets an economic boost and a permit to do whatever it wants, like supporting terrorists or mass murdering Syrians or trying to destroy Israel.

The latter part may surprise you, but it's obvious when one thinks about it. What is the West allowed to do when Iran commits those things? It's not economic sanctions, since removing sanctions and then placing them on again for different reasons would leave Iran no reason to comply with the nuclear deal. And of course, war is undesireable (the entire point of the deal was to avoid war). So Iran can do whatever, and if the West does anything serious, well, nukes.

The rest of the ME isn't going to meekly submit to Iran. Worse, Iran can't finance its holdings (Iran requires weak governments in order to hold Iraq and Lebanon, but that means no investments). That means things get done in the ME way, which already leads to mass amounts of refugees.

Iran's involvement in Syria directly led to Brexit (Leave would have lost without an immigration crisis on) and played a key role in Trump getting elected (Is it a surprise the most anti-immigration R candidate won the primary given that background? Didn't Trump end up hiring Cambridge Analytica, which would have never happened absent Brexit?). If it weren't for the deal, maybe the US would have done something about Syria and we'd have avoided all that. If Iranian destablization of ME restarts under Biden, the result may well be Trump mk2.

I do not believe this is an acceptable price for temporary restrictions.

> Iran's involvement in Syria directly led to Brexit

It's appalling how you (even partially(?)) blame Iran for Brexit. The US decided to support Syrian rebels (of whom mostly turned out to become or move to ISIS). Syria is a secular state, whether you like to believe this or not. The Russians and Iranians were legitimately asked by its officials to help support the Syrian army to tackle the terrorists. Yet, the US and its allies financed/armed so called rebels that made a disaster of the country. Remember McCain's visits and photographs back in 2011? Why is the US even STILL there?! I can not think of a single country in the ME that turned out to become better after the US started meddling in its elections/government - ironically, including the one which you are currently blaming.

Blame the incompetence of Brexit on the people who advocated for it and who like to ignore/dismiss facts.

Assad runs a mass-scale torture state. Iran supported Assad from the beginning, without it he wouldn't have survived to 2015. The result of Assad's butchery is a mass displacement of Syrians, ergo refugee crisis, ergo Leave victory in Brexit referendum.

If the US was ever serious about not letting Assad and Iran get away with it all that wouldn't have happened, and there wouldn't have been Brexit. The US's decision to not get involved against Assad (they're there for ISIS I remind you) had a far worse result in human lives and geopolitical impact than any of the US's 'meddling'.

> The US's decision to not get involved against Assad (they're there for ISIS I remind you)

So is Iran? Mind you: the weapons these rebels aka ISIS had were mostly/directly provided by the US and its allies! No official from Syria asked the US to be there! Imagine if Iran would deploy troops tomorrow in Washington to endorse groups to tackle the existing government. The real danger is supporting regimes that endorse Salafist/Wahabist Islam, which the West likes to do. This hypocrisy of the West is fascinating. I think that could have somehow played a role in Brexit...