<story><title>Iran Complies with Nuclear Deal; Sanctions Are Lifted</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/world/middleeast/iran-sanctions-lifted-nuclear-deal.html?hp&amp;action=click&amp;pgtype=Homepage&amp;clickSource=story-heading&amp;module=a-lede-package-region&amp;region=top-news&amp;WT.nav=top-news&amp;_r=0</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tyre</author><text>This is terrific news!&lt;p&gt;As with the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, opening up countries to the world&amp;#x27;s economy and ideas is the first step towards democracy.&lt;p&gt;The implications of this are tremendous (not in order of importance):&lt;p&gt;1) Oil prices will continue to fall as Iran is able to supply the global markets. Many oil states rely on money from natural resources to preserve monarchies. Money for freedom only works so long as the money keeps flowing.&lt;p&gt;2) Our (US) reliance on Saudi Arabia will diminish as there are now two powers in the region to work with. Having strong relations with both Shiite and Sunni powers in the Middle East will likely reduce sectarian violence. We&amp;#x27;re light years from being out of the woods, but this is big step in the right direction.&lt;p&gt;3) The Iranian people will gain access to the world economy. From a human rights perspective, they are the biggest winners here. As with Sunni&amp;#x2F;Shiite relations, no doubt a long way to go (the Ayatollah is a tyrant,) but you gotta celebrate the wins when you can.&lt;p&gt;4) De-escalation of our conflict with Iran. We saw it with Iraq, Vietnam, and Korea. Invasion + nation building is sexy, but highly ineffective. Having one less nuclear power that calls for our destruction is certainly a nice to have.&lt;p&gt;5) Shows Americans that diplomacy can work. Iranians don&amp;#x27;t hate Americans, they hate what America represents. To them, we represent a superpower that gives little to no thought of anyone else&amp;#x27;s sovereignty. We assassinated their democratically elected leader and backed the Shah, which got us into this mess. Diplomacy is far less sexy and easily criticized, but that&amp;#x27;s a huge part of getting this deal done.&lt;p&gt;Note: Many of these are over-simplified. Nonetheless, this is a pretty big deal and a cause for celebration.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>clarkmoody</author><text>All of your points are great but have nothing to do with this:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt; first step towards democracy.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;More importantly, when countries are strong trade partners, they are way less likely to fight. War would hurt both parties through loss of economic activity more than it would benefit either as aggressor.&lt;p&gt;The United States has been the aggressor &amp;#x2F; meddler in too much of the world for too long. It&amp;#x27;s good to see when diplomacy works, since we&amp;#x27;ve been taking the &amp;quot;last resort&amp;quot; of war WAY too often.</text></comment>
<story><title>Iran Complies with Nuclear Deal; Sanctions Are Lifted</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/world/middleeast/iran-sanctions-lifted-nuclear-deal.html?hp&amp;action=click&amp;pgtype=Homepage&amp;clickSource=story-heading&amp;module=a-lede-package-region&amp;region=top-news&amp;WT.nav=top-news&amp;_r=0</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tyre</author><text>This is terrific news!&lt;p&gt;As with the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, opening up countries to the world&amp;#x27;s economy and ideas is the first step towards democracy.&lt;p&gt;The implications of this are tremendous (not in order of importance):&lt;p&gt;1) Oil prices will continue to fall as Iran is able to supply the global markets. Many oil states rely on money from natural resources to preserve monarchies. Money for freedom only works so long as the money keeps flowing.&lt;p&gt;2) Our (US) reliance on Saudi Arabia will diminish as there are now two powers in the region to work with. Having strong relations with both Shiite and Sunni powers in the Middle East will likely reduce sectarian violence. We&amp;#x27;re light years from being out of the woods, but this is big step in the right direction.&lt;p&gt;3) The Iranian people will gain access to the world economy. From a human rights perspective, they are the biggest winners here. As with Sunni&amp;#x2F;Shiite relations, no doubt a long way to go (the Ayatollah is a tyrant,) but you gotta celebrate the wins when you can.&lt;p&gt;4) De-escalation of our conflict with Iran. We saw it with Iraq, Vietnam, and Korea. Invasion + nation building is sexy, but highly ineffective. Having one less nuclear power that calls for our destruction is certainly a nice to have.&lt;p&gt;5) Shows Americans that diplomacy can work. Iranians don&amp;#x27;t hate Americans, they hate what America represents. To them, we represent a superpower that gives little to no thought of anyone else&amp;#x27;s sovereignty. We assassinated their democratically elected leader and backed the Shah, which got us into this mess. Diplomacy is far less sexy and easily criticized, but that&amp;#x27;s a huge part of getting this deal done.&lt;p&gt;Note: Many of these are over-simplified. Nonetheless, this is a pretty big deal and a cause for celebration.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Camillo</author><text>&amp;gt; As with the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, opening up countries to the world&amp;#x27;s economy and ideas is the first step towards democracy.&lt;p&gt;Saying this kind of thing in 2016 is not merely naive, but sits firmly in the territory of culpable ignorance. That was Clinton&amp;#x27;s official line when he brought China into the WTO, and the following decade and a half have proven that it is perfectly possible to have a fully globally integrated market economy without making any concessions to democracy.&lt;p&gt;Apart from that, what the fall of the Berlin Wall shows is that annexing a smaller country is the first step towards extending your system of government to it, be it democracy or otherwise.</text></comment>