The Shrine

I have my doubts that it'll ever be safe enough that I would be able travel to Iran, but of all the places I would love to visit, the land of the Persians; one of history's greatest cultures. I still have hope. Who knows? Thanks to this deal, and the potential for future growth, the face of Iran could be extraordinarily different 15 years down the road.

The deal was only marred by Khamenei's little "Death to America" rhetoric in the middle of it. But there is Rouhani, the Prime Minister, who is far more moderate; who has wished Jewish people a happy holy day before. It's important somehow to keep advocating for the Prime Minister to rule Iran instead of the ayatollahs, in my opinion. Those old shits are as unholy as any other gold-frocked, worldly-power priest who has forgotten the injunction we commonly refer to as "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's."

Another thing we can do to help is to start social media pages in favor of the peace process. I did this on Facebook before finding out that Zuckerberg is an Israeli loyalist and that anyone who does so on FB is stalked and harassed, sad to say.

The one thing about Iran that's probably going to work in favor of the peace process is this: it is a HUGE nation and a massive place for business to be done. If the sanctions fall, all sorts of people will build business ties that make war harder.

Best outcome is we see Iran fall into the same status as China: it becomes a valuable American business partner whom we don't trust fully but is too essential to the world economy to go to war with.

A bad possible outcome is it becomes another Saudi Arabia; a haven for unrest and jihadism that makes quiet deals with the powers that be here, like the Bushes did in Saudi.

The worst outcome - and the one we all should watch for - is that the Israelis send Mossad or Kidon to attack a Western target with Iranian masks on to scuttle the peace process. Bibi is not above this; we all saw what he tried to do in terms of doing an end-run around the Obama Administration.

Still has to get through congress, and it would be a major victory for Obama, which means Republicans will probably oppose him and fuck it over.

To be honest, it's not even a deal yet, just a "framework".

And of course the Republicans will oppose it, and do everything they can to scuttle Obama. The modern Republican party is a CORE of vicious racism.

My worry is that they'll go so far as to dress up the CIA or Mossad as "Iranian terrorists" and attack something themselves in order to justify the wars. They have done it before. The USS Cole was...probably not attacked by Iran, I will say that much; it was Able Danger and the Bush Administration feeling their oats, getting ready for 9/11.