I think the point is the Brits no longer pose much of military threat by themselves. Obviously you have nuke subs but they are not all that much use in a situation like this. You do point up how outdated and indeed dangerous NATO has become. The US has obligations under article 5 to go to war with Russia if some nutcase in a former Soviet bloc country starts a fight with them. Or we could get sucked into a war with Iran or your lot could be. Makes no sense, and even less when the euros are not holding up their end.
I do have some sympathy for our allies who agreed to a seriously flawed deal with Iran because The Obama demanded that they do so, only to have Trump come in and pull the rug out. I'm not convinced Trump made the smartest call on that, since Obama and Kerry gave the store away up front, ie by handing over the $150bill cash, so maybe Trump should have tried to play it out. This whole business smells like what d08 suggested, Israel and Saudi trying to get us to do the heavy lifting for them again.
Yeh, I dunno. I certainly don't have any sympathy for the europeans. Iran is not a concern of theirs. The Great Satans are the U.S and Israel. Otherwise, Iran is just a market for the europeans and the spread of muslim power in any of its various extreme forms through state actors or their surrogates is not a concern for them- except for a week or ten days after the most recent bombing. Many of the european countries are just base camps now for radical extremists and if Iran took out Israel tomorrow, well, something happened to some people somewhere as Ilan Omar says. People replay this Iran Deal thing. The root cause is that it is a fucking "deal" not a treaty. The Constitution refers to treaties, not deals - if you want a firm agreement and commitment between countries. Obama took a treaty-level obligation and just renamed it to be a "deal" for one reason and one reason only- because he could not get the senate approval that a treaty would require. He was fine with that- because he "knew" that Hillary would eventually be elected and she would not reverse it. So frig all the whiners, who think that Trump reversed the Holy Grail or something. When a president implements something upon a wish and a whim, then no one should expect the next president to treat it a irreversible. Obama, in fact, got this country in serious trouble by putting the full faith and commitment of the country behind something that did not have senate approval. The Iranians are not interested in having talks with trump to hammer out a long term mutually beneficial deal anyway. All the mullahs and ayatollahs and everyone watch CNN which tells them 24/7 that trump is not going to be re-elected or gives them a hundred reasons a day to form that conclusion themselves. They are just dicking around to get some relief on the sanctions by promising to be good- which means shit but buys some time- until the dem president takes over in 2020- per CNN. As soon as that happens the new dem president can officially apologize to Iran, lift all the sanctions, and throw in some reparations. Fine, good luck to them wit dat plan. I am sure Commander in Chief Marianne Williamson will love-bomb them and everything will be groovy. But if Trump wins, there will be major crying and wailing in major cities. One of them will be Tehren.
My concern is that there seems to be no evidence that the US did in fact decommissioned an Iranian drone of any kind. What details. Doubt Iran has $130 million drones "Iran shoots down a $130 million dollar US drone. Trump is worried about being "proportional", (a strategy that seldom works), and the US was said to have taken down an Iranian drone with electronics. No details on the drone - value - how it was taken down with electronics - where - nothing. Iran says no drone taken down. US offers no evidence that it did. Guess it was all TS." There is no evidence that the US did indeed take out a drone. The Iranians have a much better handle on the audio - visual - https://www.foxnews.com/world/iran-uk-tanker-video-commando-rappelling
UK has a significant military force so I'm not sure what you're talking about. You're displaying ignorance here. If you'd know anything about the region, you'd know that absolutely every "eastern bloc" country is focused on defense in case Russia invades. Russia runs attack drills every year. Not to mention the many verbal threats of attack by Russian politicians. Some "Euros" aren't doing their fair share of GDP but some are. Militarily Europe is not one. Punishing Greece for what France is doing is absurd and illogical. If NATO disintegrates then the EU will form a military force of its own. Of course US' little Middle Eastern adventures would suffer a blow as the logistics would become much more difficult.
And what concern is Iran to Americans living in America? You are even further from Iran than Europe. Meanwhile you have Russian nuclear subs near your territory ready to launch at a minutes' notice. You're illogical and irrational. If Iran had a government change and "changed its mind" regarding an international agreement, you'd call them all sorts of names but this is exactly what the US is doing. This also means all American contracts are worthless because you're only reliable if you honor agreements. Iran has been sticking to their end, America has not. Simple. There is no rational threat from Iran. If you're so eager to go to war, why don't you grab a gun and go volunteer somewhere.
He made a very valid point. A presidential "agreement" is not a treaty, a term of art under our Constitution that requires Senate approval. A treaty binds the US. Anything less does not and can be reversed by a subsequent president.
So is the UK prepared to take a nuclear attack from Russia to defend Montenegro? Because at the end of the day, that is what you have agreed to.
The UK does not even rank in the top 29 armies in the world. https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/29-largest-armies-in-the-world.html As I said, you do have a theoretical nuclear threat, although who knows if it would even function, and you no doubt have a qualitative advantage over some of the larger third world armies. That said, you would have zero chance against the Iranians on their home pitch without major assistance from the US.
Relax duterte, your getting excited here in this thread... You are confusing Americans in general with trump who has a personality disorder on top of mediocre intelligence at best. Except for a few useless areas in the south that don't produce shit to humanity except leach handouts from the US government, everyone disagree with donny's Foreign Policies. He's a absolute disaster, a train wreck with dementia and don't confuse him for " Americans "... His actions on Foreign Policy represent a tiny minority of the population, only the china tariffs are widely agreed upon. He got voted in cause he was against the war and promised Americans to bring many troops home, while Hilary was known as a major war hawk. He lied, like they always do Does duterte represent what people in the Philippines represent ? Does xi " winnie " jinping represent the view of the Chinese people ? Same as the retard currently in the White House, he doesn't represent Americans... He's gonna get voted out next year anyways