Soleimani Death

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Seems pretty serious and will definitely escalate tensions in the region.
Wars often start with assassinations like these, but tensions already escalating by what some call orchestration of Iranian leaders. Either way, this will be seen as an act of war.
Now we are sending more troops in.
Curious as to what you all think on this topic.

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It doesn’t really matter what you, me or anyone else here thinks. The rulers of our country (think ceo and chairmen of Raytheon, Boeing, etc) have decided that they’re not making enough in profits and want a new war. The poor will now be sending their children to die in this war by the millions. Buckle up and be thankful you have enough money to keep your kid from dying
 
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The way I see it is that Trump was not particularly excited/thrilled about this action. He was "advised" that this was the right move at the right time. Trump has been very anti-war and very restrained when it comes to IRAN. Remember the $300 million drone Iran shot down? Or, the Saudi oil fields? Or, the tankers stolen/destroyed by Iran's Navy?

Trump wants to win re-election based on the economy and the stock market not by starting a war with IRAN which will be unpopular.


 
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I guess the Iranian general was responsible for terrorist attacks throughout the middle East, the escalation of the Syrian war, attacking American assets, and killing a bunch of American soldiers.

The Iranian populace is largely against their government. Maybe the deterrence pressure against the Iranian regime will cause the failure of their government. Would be nice.
 
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Weren't we just hearing about how Trump was a genius for backstabbing our Kurd allies in the name of American lives and bringing our troops home? ::thinking::
 
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Weren't we just hearing about how Trump was a genius for backstabbing our Kurd allies in the name of American lives and bringing our troops home? ::thinking::
Yeah, it doesn't make any sense to fight pointless war in Syria if Iran would keep trying to kill US troops. I think this general was responsible for killing 500 American soldiers.
 
Nobody is sorry he is gone. It is hard to have confidence in the decision to do this given the intellect, integrity, and motives of the President who gave the order.
 
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This is definitely an act of war. It only gets worse from here. Israel is no doubt crapping their pants thinking over the worst case scenarios at this point. I'm just wondering what the possibility of Russia, China, and Pakistan getting dragged into this and setting the stage for WW3 actually is.
 
I think all reasonable people would see that Soleimani was an evil murderous leader; responsible for the deaths of hundreds of US military members and civilians. He had planned attacks on american soil in the past, including one in DC that was foiled, and was involved in the attack on the US embassy a couple of days ago (this stuff is not disputable). This will not lead to full scale war. The reason it wont because the ayatollahs know better because they will be dead in a couple of weeks. No one wants a war. Trump is an isolationist, he wants deterrence. Deterrence can only be achieved with the credible threat of force.
 
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I think all reasonable people would see that Soleimani was an evil murderous leader; responsible for the deaths of hundreds of US military members and civilians. He had planned attacks on american soil in the past, including one in DC that was foiled, and was involved in the attack on the US embassy a couple of days ago (this stuff is not disputable). This will not lead to full scale war. The reason it wont because the ayatollahs know better because they will be dead in a couple of weeks. No one wants a war. Trump is an isolationist, he wants deterrence. Deterrence can only be achieved with the credible threat of force.

Nothing will change. Just because we took Soleimani out does not mean Iran’s interest in the M.E. has changed. They are still the dominant Shia government in the region and they will still continue to protect their Shia interests across the Middle East, whether it is in Iraq, Syria, or Lebanon. Killing Soleimani will just lead to another Soleimani; only this time with more political capital.
 
Hopefully the Iraqi Parliament officially asks the United States to leave, it would be a nice excuse for Trump to pull out and deescalate, it would give Iran the excuse not to escalate, and it shows Trump to be a strong peacemaker.

We'll see what happens.

Is anyone surprised that Trump hasn't blamed the new Netflix show "Messiah" as the cause for the Iranian assault of the USA embassy in Baghdad?
 
Nothing will change. Just because we took Soleimani out does not mean Iran’s interest in the M.E. has changed. They are still the dominant Shia government in the region and they will still continue to protect their Shia interests across the Middle East, whether it is in Iraq, Syria, or Lebanon. Killing Soleimani will just lead to another Soleimani; only this time with more political capital.

Soleimani was second only to the Ayatollah and ran an extremely aggressive terrorist force called the Qud, so I'm not sure what you mean by "more political capital".
 
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Soleimani was second only to the Ayatollah and ran an extremely aggressive terrorist force called the Qud, so I'm not sure what you mean by "more political capital".

By political capital I mean that they will continue to wage terrorist attacks against our “allies”, such as Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the Iraqi government. However, there will be less sympathy because it will be viewed as a tit-for-tat response to our escalation against the Iranian government.

Our country sure is good at toppling bad people in that region or at least trying to topple bad people in the region. Just look at Iraq, Libya, and Syria. However we do a piss poor job of finding actual competent replacements for these bad people.
 
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By political capital I mean that they will continue to wage terrorist attacks against our “allies”, such as Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the Iraqi government. However, there will be less sympathy because it will be viewed as a tit-for-tat response to our escalation against the Iranian government.

Didn't Iran by proxy launch an attack on the United States first?
 
Just another feather in the cap of US interventionism. We never learn. But of course we don't when money is at stake.

Is it interventionism when you kill the guy who organized an assault on your territory (USA embassy is American soil)?
 
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First of all, don't use the word assassination. Words have meaning, and that one carries a host of implicit accusations and suggestions of "illegality" and social impoliteness.

Soleimani was not a diplomat. He did not hold an elected office. He was a uniformed military leader actively engaged in planning and executing operations against the United States on foreign soil. He was as legitimate and appropriate a target as a nameless jihadist burying a bomb at the side of a road. Full stop.


Iran has been pushing, pushing, pushing, to see how far they could go. Let's make a list of just the publicly discussed high points in the last few months -

Mining the Gulf.
Brazenly attacking commercial shipping.
Attacking our military drones in international airspace.
The Saudi refinery attack.
Ongoing rocket attacks by proxy in Iraq.
The attack on our embassy. (Soleimani was probably in Iraq specifically because of this.)

The "new" problem here, is that there has been a shift from Iran acting by proxy (Yemen, Hezbollah, etc), and acting directly. Iran has been funding and supporting the bad behavior of other actors for decades. Nothing new there. But 5 of the 6 actions above, in the last year, they have done openly and directly.

Trump has exercised pretty remarkable restraint. He fired Bolton, arguably THE prototype anti-Iran-warmonger in his administration. He didn't respond to Iran firing upon and destroying our drone in international airspace. He didn't respond to the a brazenly transparent act of war vs our ally Saudi Arabia (and he restrained Saudi Arabia from responding). He didn't respond to recent attacks on our people in Iraq.

When they attacked and set fire to our embassy, a response was needed. Killing Soleimani and his entourage was effective, and was accomplished with essentially no collateral damage.

Killing Soleimani, especially in the manner he was killed, was a perfect response. It's anybody's guess where we'll go from here, but in 3 years of Trump's presidency, despite constant promises and warnings and handwringing fears that warmonger Trump would "start a war" he's shown more reluctance to use military force than any of the previous 4 presidents. Almost to a fault.

Sometimes the best response actually is to kill people and break things.


The leaders of Iran are bad people, but they're rational. The Ayatollah has been in power for about 40 years. He likes being in charge. He doesn't want to be a martyr, for all his encouraging of his subjects and pawns to become so. Iran is crumbling from sanctions, and much of the Iranian population correctly blame their own government. Soleimani has a long history of abusing and killing Iranians - he will not be missed by a lot of Iranians.

Invading Iran would be a long term disaster, but nobody wants to do that, and we don't need to. The recent uptick in Iran's openly bad behavior is because they're losing. Containment and sanctions are working. The world is always dangerous, and concern is always warranted.

My suspicion is that this will happen
1) Trump won't escalate this to a regional war
2) Iran won't escalate this to a regional war
3) there will be a lot of handwringing and concern expressed
4) the status quo will endure
 
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First of all, don't use the word assassination. Words have meaning, and that one carries a host of implicit accusations and suggestions of "illegality" and social impoliteness.

Soleimani was not a diplomat. He did not hold an elected office. He was a uniformed military leader actively engaged in planning and executing operations against the United States on foreign soil. He was as legitimate and appropriate a target as a nameless jihadist burying a bomb at the side of a road. Full stop.


Iran has been pushing, pushing, pushing, to see how far they could go. Let's make a list of just the publicly discussed high points in the last few months -

Mining the Gulf.
Brazenly attacking commercial shipping.
Attacking our military drones in international airspace.
The Saudi refinery attack.
Ongoing rocket attacks by proxy in Iraq.
The attack on our embassy. (Soleimani was probably in Iraq specifically because of this.)

The "new" problem here, is that there has been a shift from Iran acting by proxy (Yemen, Hezbollah, etc), and acting directly. Iran has been funding and supporting the bad behavior of other actors for decades. Nothing new there. But 5 of the 6 actions above, in the last year, they have done openly and directly.

Trump has exercised pretty remarkable restraint. He fired Bolton, arguably THE prototype anti-Iran-warmonger in his administration. He didn't respond to Iran firing upon and destroying our drone in international airspace. He didn't respond to the a brazenly transparent act of war vs our ally Saudi Arabia (and he restrained Saudi Arabia from responding). He didn't respond to recent attacks on our people in Iraq.

When they attacked and set fire to our embassy, a response was needed. Killing Soleimani and his entourage was effective, and was accomplished with essentially no collateral damage.

Killing Soleimani, especially in the manner he was killed, was a perfect response. It's anybody's guess where we'll go from here, but in 3 years of Trump's presidency, despite constant promises and warnings and handwringing fears that warmonger Trump would "start a war" he's shown more reluctance to use military force than any of the previous 4 presidents. Almost to a fault.

Sometimes the best response actually is to kill people and break things.


The leaders of Iran are bad people, but they're rational. The Ayatollah has been in power for about 40 years. He likes being in charge. He doesn't want to be a martyr, for all his encouraging of his subjects and pawns to become so. Iran is crumbling from sanctions, and much of the Iranian population correctly blame their own government. Soleimani has a long history of abusing and killing Iranians - he will not be missed by a lot of Iranians.

Invading Iran would be a long term disaster, but nobody wants to do that, and we don't need to. The recent uptick in Iran's openly bad behavior is because they're losing. Containment and sanctions are working. The world is always dangerous, and concern is always warranted.

My suspicion is that this will happen
1) Trump won't escalate this to a regional war
2) Iran won't escalate this to a regional war
3) there will be a lot of handwringing and concern expressed
4) the status quo will endure

how would you feel if Iran used a drone to kill our top General in Iraq? Would that be an assasination? Or is it only an assasination when they do it but when we do it it’s completely justified?
 
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how would you feel if Iran used a drone to kill our top General in Iraq? Would that be an assasination? Or is it only an assasination when they do it but when we do it it’s completely justified?
My understanding is that it's not assassination when it's a member of the armed forces killed using one's own armed forces.

Kinda like how we didn't assassinate Yamamoto in WW2.
 
I think the important thing is, people need to stop exaggerating the WW3 situation. This nonsense has been going on for many, many times right after WW2 ended, and it does nothing but fuel worries and panic.
 
how would you feel if Iran used a drone to kill our top General in Iraq? Would that be an assasination? Or is it only an assasination when they do it but when we do it it’s completely justified?
First, I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to try out the new eye-rolling "like" icon for the first time.

Second, you may wish to consider the use of a dictionary. Not only would it help you spell the word correctly, it could instruct you on its definition.

Third, the rank of the target is immaterial with regard to whether or not an attack is justified. Iran HAS been targeting and killing Americans in Iraq and throughout the middle east for many years. Neither I nor anyone else I'm aware of has ever characterized these killings as assassinations.

Fourth, you've obviously already made up your mind that this is something to be outraged about, that this is evil American adventurous imperialism or whatever the buzzword is today, but I'll respond anyway, in the hopes that you'll learn something.

As I explicitly and clearly explained in my my original post, killing a uniformed member of a nation's armed forces when that person is actively and openly engaged in acts of aggression against your own personnel isn't an assassination. It isn't even counterinsurgency or a nebulous "operation other than warfare" ... it's simply warfare.

And again, the fact that it was a general, as opposed to a nameless foot soldier, is immaterial in terms of what label you want to apply.

Lastly - yes, circumstances absolutely ARE shaded by the fact that our forces are in Iraq with the express permission of the lawful government of Iraq, and theirs are not.

Is there anything else you need cleared up?
 
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First of all, don't use the word assassination. Words have meaning, and that one carries a host of implicit accusations and suggestions of "illegality" and social impoliteness.

Soleimani was not a diplomat. He did not hold an elected office. He was a uniformed military leader actively engaged in planning and executing operations against the United States on foreign soil. He was as legitimate and appropriate a target as a nameless jihadist burying a bomb at the side of a road. Full stop.


Iran has been pushing, pushing, pushing, to see how far they could go. Let's make a list of just the publicly discussed high points in the last few months -

Mining the Gulf.
Brazenly attacking commercial shipping.
Attacking our military drones in international airspace.
The Saudi refinery attack.
Ongoing rocket attacks by proxy in Iraq.
The attack on our embassy. (Soleimani was probably in Iraq specifically because of this.)

The "new" problem here, is that there has been a shift from Iran acting by proxy (Yemen, Hezbollah, etc), and acting directly. Iran has been funding and supporting the bad behavior of other actors for decades. Nothing new there. But 5 of the 6 actions above, in the last year, they have done openly and directly.

Trump has exercised pretty remarkable restraint. He fired Bolton, arguably THE prototype anti-Iran-warmonger in his administration. He didn't respond to Iran firing upon and destroying our drone in international airspace. He didn't respond to the a brazenly transparent act of war vs our ally Saudi Arabia (and he restrained Saudi Arabia from responding). He didn't respond to recent attacks on our people in Iraq.

When they attacked and set fire to our embassy, a response was needed. Killing Soleimani and his entourage was effective, and was accomplished with essentially no collateral damage.

Killing Soleimani, especially in the manner he was killed, was a perfect response. It's anybody's guess where we'll go from here, but in 3 years of Trump's presidency, despite constant promises and warnings and handwringing fears that warmonger Trump would "start a war" he's shown more reluctance to use military force than any of the previous 4 presidents. Almost to a fault.

Sometimes the best response actually is to kill people and break things.


The leaders of Iran are bad people, but they're rational. The Ayatollah has been in power for about 40 years. He likes being in charge. He doesn't want to be a martyr, for all his encouraging of his subjects and pawns to become so. Iran is crumbling from sanctions, and much of the Iranian population correctly blame their own government. Soleimani has a long history of abusing and killing Iranians - he will not be missed by a lot of Iranians.

Invading Iran would be a long term disaster, but nobody wants to do that, and we don't need to. The recent uptick in Iran's openly bad behavior is because they're losing. Containment and sanctions are working. The world is always dangerous, and concern is always warranted.

My suspicion is that this will happen
1) Trump won't escalate this to a regional war
2) Iran won't escalate this to a regional war
3) there will be a lot of handwringing and concern expressed
4) the status quo will endure


The Iraqi govt. is going to vote soon to demand all US forces leave their country. This should de-escalate the situation and allow Trump to remove trrops from the region.
 
The Iraqi govt. is going to vote soon to demand all US forces leave their country. This should de-escalate the situation and allow Trump to remove trrops from the region.
I'm not a betting man, but I would bet the odds of Iraq's government voting to demand all US forces leave are approximately zero.


We'll see what Iran does. Open confrontation isn't their style, which makes their activity the last 6-12 months so remarkable. I suspect the situation will be de-escalated when Iran slinks back to their historic pattern of proxy support of terrorism.
 
First, I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to try out the new eye-rolling "like" icon for the first time.

Second, you may wish to consider the use of a dictionary. Not only would it help you spell the word correctly, it could instruct you on its definition.

Third, the rank of the target is immaterial with regard to whether or not an attack is justified. Iran HAS been targeting and killing Americans in Iraq and throughout the middle east for many years. Neither I nor anyone else I'm aware of has ever characterized these killings as assassinations.

Fourth, you've obviously already made up your mind that this is something to be outraged about, that this is evil American adventurous imperialism or whatever the buzzword is today, but I'll respond anyway, in the hopes that you'll learn something.

As I explicitly and clearly explained in my my original post, killing a uniformed member of a nation's armed forces when that person is actively and openly engaged in acts of aggression against your own personnel isn't an assassination. It isn't even counterinsurgency or a nebulous "operation other than warfare" ... it's simply warfare.

And again, the fact that it was a general, as opposed to a nameless foot soldier, is immaterial in terms of what label you want to apply.

Lastly - yes, circumstances absolutely ARE shaded by the fact that our forces are in Iraq with the express permission of the lawful government of Iraq, and theirs are not.

Is there anything else you need cleared up?

Don’t pretend like you know what you’re talking about, as I said in the first post, what you or I say doesn’t matter. The government will lie to us and make things up to further their own interests (ie corporate interest), they will lie to get us in a war (Iraq) and they will lie and fabricate to cover their asses. When you have a country that is so stupid as to elect an immoral actor (trump) nothing is surprising and everything is on the table. I’m not going to quibble about the definition of assasination with you. I frankly don’t care and it’s irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Anyone that understands Middle East history and politics can clearly see that the US is an aggressor. There’s a reason the UN just condemned the attack as illegal. Again, none of this matters because our rulers want their bonuses up this year and they’ve transformed the US into the strongest military by far because we spend 10X what all other countries spend..combined
Lastly, we just killed the second most powerful person in their country..that would be like Iran killing Pence..that is an act of war!!
 
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The Iraqi govt. is going to vote soon to demand all US forces leave their country. This should de-escalate the situation and allow Trump to remove trrops from the region.

First of all, PGG, I greatly appreciate your post. I found it to be very informative of the situation.

If and when Iraq votes to remove our troops from their country, what will become of their government? My understanding of the situation is that they are a Shia majority country and have already been heavily influenced by the Iranian government even with us there. Iran has infiltrated major sectors of their government and they have free reign to transport troops and weapons across the region. Won’t they just become another Iranian proxy government once our troops leave anyway, regardless of which military leaders we have “assassinated”?
 
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The Iraqi govt. is going to vote soon to demand all US forces leave their country. This should de-escalate the situation and allow Trump to remove trrops from the region.

If they do, I hope they take full responsibility of the events that'll happen after US withdrawal. I'm tired of the world punishing the US regardless of what we do overseas.
 
Don’t pretend like you know what you’re talking about,

Heh, it's apparent that one of us is more informed than the other on these matters.

Out of curiosity, why do you think I don't know anything? What is it you think you know about my experience and knowledge? You haven't actually countered any fact I've presented.

And you respond to the argument I made with a diversion into a diatribe about our lying government lying about lies and our bigly lying president lying about lies for personal enrichment:

as I said in the first post, what you or I say doesn’t matter. The government will lie to us and make things up to further their own interests (ie corporate interest), they will lie to get us in a war (Iraq) and they will lie and fabricate to cover their asses. When you have a country that is so stupid as to elect an immoral actor (trump) nothing is surprising and everything is on the table.

And there it is. You can't separate your analysis of current events from your disgust with Trump.

Do you think maybe, just maybe, you could concede that in this particular case, Trump did something reasonable? (If it makes you feel better, you could attribute it to luck, broken clock right twice per day, blind squirrel and a nut, etc.)

I’m not going to quibble about the definition of assasination with you.

I have no expectation that you'll start using the word correctly, but it'd be a step in the right direction if you'd start spelling it correctly. :)

I frankly don’t care and it’s irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Anyone that understands Middle East history and politics can clearly see that the US is an aggressor. There’s a reason the UN just condemned the attack as illegal. Again, none of this matters because our rulers want their bonuses up this year and they’ve transformed the US into the strongest military by far because we spend 10X what all other countries spend..combined

I can't really tell if you're pretending like you know what you're talking about. :)

Regarding the UN -

For one thing, UN resolutions are products of its member nations, which act in ways they perceive to be to their own benefit. In matters of morality and ethics, I care little what the UN says, influenced as it is by China, Russia, and various other despotic regimes. That Syrian President Assad called it a "treacherous and cowardly act of aggression” means little to me.

And concerning the UN's response, it's instructive to read the rest of the quote from Agnès Callamard (the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions): “outside the context of active hostilities, the use of drones or other means for targeted killing is almost never likely to be legal.” Her obvious yet unstated assumption here was that General Soleimani was NOT engaged in active hostilities. Does it change your opinion of the event to know that he was involved with directing the local Iran-proxy militias that attacked our embassy?

The simple truth is that he was a uniformed member of a military actively engaged in hostilities against the United States.

Additionally, in assessing anything the UN ever does, you have to remember why it exists in the first place: to reduce the odds of small conflicts turning into larger ones. Its structure is hardwired to almost universally condemn any military action for any reason anywhere in the world, ever. There is some value to this, but it's a mistake to interpret UN resolutions as the fruit of some kind of collective moral or ethical consciousness.


Bottom line, Soleimani was actively engaged in planning, directing, and executing attacks on the United States and our allies in the region. Killing him was absolutely appropriate. If you want to talk about the strategic wisdom of doing so right now, and what might happen next, that's a separate discussion. But all you've said so far is "orange man bad" and "US bad aggressor" and "assasination" ... that's just bias, not argument.
 
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If and when Iraq votes to remove our troops from their country, what will become of their government? My understanding of the situation is that they are a Shia majority country and have already been heavily influenced by the Iranian government even with us there. Iran has infiltrated major sectors of their government and they have free reign to transport troops and weapons across the region. Won’t they just become another Iranian proxy government once our troops leave anyway, regardless of which military leaders we have “assassinated”?

I don't know. If we weren't there at all, the natural course of events might be some Iraqi Shias allying with Iran to exterminate Iraqi Sunnis, with some Iraqi Shias just looking the other way. Is watching genocide OK if they're "just" Iraqis? Do we have some moral responsibility to prevent that? We said "never again" when the Nazis tried to wipe out the Jews - and having invaded Iraq and toppled Saddam in 2003, there's a compelling argument that we have some responsibility for Iraq specifically. Though 16 1/2 years later, my sense of duty there is quite thin.

The Sunni-Shia split isn't something I think anyone expects to ever be reconciled. It's the root cause of most of what's wrong with the middle east, and the last 50 years have been marked with mostly unsuccessful attempts to fix, contain, temper, or exploit that conflict. Generally speaking, I favor containment.


The most relevant questions to me seem to be

1) In 2020, is Iraq better off with us there, or not there? If you're a Sunni, absolutely yes. If you're a Shia who wants an independent Iraq, maybe? If you're a Shia who wants to be an Iran satellite state, no.

2) In 2020, is the US national interest better off with us in Iraq, or not? This is fuzzier, and my thoughts are
- We should have an embassy there. It should be safe enough for diplomats to work. To a large extent, we have to depend on the host nation to provide security.
- We should continue to train and support the lawful government's forces in their efforts to counter ISIS remnants and other agents that export violence and terror to the Iraqi government and our allies in the region. (This is why Iraq's government won't "kick us out" ... they need and want this support.)
- We should not have troops in the country beyond what is needed for embassy security and cooperative security agreements at the Iraqi government's invitation.

3) In 2020, do we need to be in the middle east at all? Can we effectively keep sea lanes open for shipping and exercise freedom of navigation in international waters, without a ground presence and ports in the region? The answer is no.

So, we're not going anywhere.
 
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How could this be ww3? It's bad but who is pitted against who and for what reason or gain?

Iran has the ability to hit exactly none of Europe America Australia Japan. They could maybe drop a few more on Israel or shut Hormuz but that's about it other than more random terrorist strikes.

Iran also doesn't have a huge amount thatwoukd be worth a ground invasion that hasn't already been extracted from Iraq.

Trump definitely won't invade. A few drones and chest beating to make his impeachment go away, plus extra military spending to keep his mates happy and on we go
 
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Heh, it's apparent that one of us is more informed than the other on these matters.

Out of curiosity, why do you think I don't know anything? What is it you think you know about my experience and knowledge? You haven't actually countered any fact I've presented.

And you respond to the argument I made with a diversion into a diatribe about our lying government lying about lies and our bigly lying president lying about lies for personal enrichment:



And there it is. You can't separate your analysis of current events from your disgust with Trump.

Do you think maybe, just maybe, you could concede that in this particular case, Trump did something reasonable? (If it makes you feel better, you could attribute it to luck, broken clock right twice per day, blind squirrel and a nut, etc.)



I have no expectation that you'll start using the word correctly, but it'd be a step in the right direction if you'd start spelling it correctly. :)



I can't really tell if you're pretending like you know what you're talking about. :)

Regarding the UN -

For one thing, UN resolutions are products of its member nations, which act in ways they perceive to be to their own benefit. In matters of morality and ethics, I care little what the UN says, influenced as it is by China, Russia, and various other despotic regimes. That Syrian President Assad called it a "treacherous and cowardly act of aggression” means little to me.

And concerning the UN's response, it's instructive to read the rest of the quote from Agnès Callamard (the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions): “outside the context of active hostilities, the use of drones or other means for targeted killing is almost never likely to be legal.” Her obvious yet unstated assumption here was that General Soleimani was NOT engaged in active hostilities. Does it change your opinion of the event to know that he was involved with directing the local Iran-proxy militias that attacked our embassy?

The simple truth is that he was a uniformed member of a military actively engaged in hostilities against the United States.

Additionally, in assessing anything the UN ever does, you have to remember why it exists in the first place: to reduce the odds of small conflicts turning into larger ones. Its structure is hardwired to almost universally condemn any military action for any reason anywhere in the world, ever. There is some value to this, but it's a mistake to interpret UN resolutions as the fruit of some kind of collective moral or ethical consciousness.


Bottom line, Soleimani was actively engaged in planning, directing, and executing attacks on the United States and our allies in the region. Killing him was absolutely appropriate. If you want to talk about the strategic wisdom of doing so right now, and what might happen next, that's a separate discussion. But all you've said so far is "orange man bad" and "US bad aggressor" and "assasination" ... that's just bias, not argument.

If all you got from what I said was orange man bad and assassination then I rest my case
 
If that's all you got from 3 lengthy posts on the subject, I'm not sure you've done enough thinking to need to rest anything

Great, now family docs are giving their opinion on middle eastern politics..exactly what we need..I’m out lol
 
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Great, now family docs are giving their opinion on middle eastern politics..exactly what we need..I’m out lol
Dude, really? You're a resident (psychiatry?) throwing shade on a board certified attending physician?

Not that either your position in the training pipeline or his or mine or anyone else's has anything to do with this discussion.

Just one more ridiculous, uninformed, weird thing you've written.


I’m out lol

OK, bye.
 
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Dude, really? You're a resident (psychiatry?) throwing shade on a board certified attending physician?

Not that either your position in the training pipeline or his or mine or anyone else's has anything to do with this discussion.

Just one more ridiculous, uninformed, weird thing you've written.




OK, bye.
Psych intern
 
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is anyone else as surprised as me that many politicians and pundits are now apologists over someone who had been listed as a known terrorist since 2011, sanctioned by the UN and EU, violently put down student protests in Iran, directed iraqi militias who ultimately killed hundreds of US service members over the past several years....all because orange man bad. Likely dude was a thorn in the US side for decades and was a target of opportunity.
 
is anyone else as surprised as me that many politicians and pundits are now apologists over someone who had been listed as a known terrorist since 2011, sanctioned by the UN and EU, violently put down student protests in Iran, directed iraqi militias who ultimately killed hundreds of US service members over the past several years....all because orange man bad. Likely dude was a thorn in the US side for decades and was a target of opportunity.

No, because politicians say that for job reasons. And pundits aren't credible. History has shown far worse events that have been dealt with successfully. Even the media overhyped a possible nuclear war between USA and North Korea before proceeding to slam Trump for being too nice and welcoming.
 
is anyone else as surprised as me that many politicians and pundits are now apologists over someone who had been listed as a known terrorist since 2011, sanctioned by the UN and EU, violently put down student protests in Iran, directed iraqi militias who ultimately killed hundreds of US service members over the past several years....all because orange man bad. Likely dude was a thorn in the US side for decades and was a target of opportunity.

The pundits/journalists on CNN, MSNBC all have the same talking points as the DNC politicians and presidential candidates. It's hilarious when you see the mashup of everyone on the left talking in unison.

I don't know who is pulling who's strings, but it's just insanity. "Dangerous escalation", over and over again, it's like they're trying to brainwash an entire voting bloc.
 
Those who oppose us killing Soleimani need to ask themselves if they had the same opposition to our attempts to kill bin Laden before 9/11.

Make no mistake, Soleimani was far more dangerous to us just last week than bin Laden was in the lead up to 9/11. Soleimani was responsible for the deaths of thousands including hundreds of Americans, and had attempted attacks in DC that were thwarted. He had backing and resources that bin Laden could not dream of in 2000. We are far, far safer with him in small pieces just like we would have been safer if those Tomahawks that Clinton sent after Bin Laden had landed on his head.
 
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The Trump administration has been very patient with Iran, engaging in negotiations and attempting to maintain a constant dialog. It's all been pointless because Iran is only interested in building a nuclear weapon.

Iran attacked oil tankers in May and July in the Gulf of Oman. Since July, Iran downed a US drone, Iran attacked an oil facility, Iran's leader has threatened to disrupt shipping in the Gulf, Iran launched drones from Yemen and fired rockets at US bases in Iraq, Iran has given money and weapons to both sides in the Yemeni civil war, and Iran broke off direct negotiations with the US and broke off talks through France and Germany. Just four days ago, Iran orchestrated an attack on the US embassy in Baghdad. That alone is an act of war.

Thankfully, Trump isn't a cowardly beta like Obama who gave billions of dollars to Iran in exchange for their word that they would stop acting like bad guys. Trump punched them right in the mouth. That's how you deal with thugs. The neocon response would have been a "Shock & Awe" campaign and regime change and 15 years of American presence in Iran. Trump is far, far from a neocon
 
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Honestly, it’s just a shame we (at least I) can’t trust that this action was taken in the best interest of the country rather than best interest of politics.
 
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Dude, really? You're a resident (psychiatry?) throwing shade on a board certified attending physician?

Not that either your position in the training pipeline or his or mine or anyone else's has anything to do with this discussion.

Just one more ridiculous, uninformed, weird thing you've written.




OK, bye.
I’m curious to your thoughts about the not unreasonable theory that this was a political move more than anything? Based off prior tweets and reasonable deductions.

Not that I don’t appreciate your analysis in general.
 
I also think it's hilarious to watch Sean Hannity and Republicans continue to lie about "pallets of cash" being part of the Iran nuclear deal when it was for an entirely unrelated matter. Both sides have talking points that they recycle to no end.

It was done at the same time as the Iran nuclear deal, just a strange coincidence?
 
Those who oppose us killing Soleimani need to ask themselves if they had the same opposition to our attempts to kill bin Laden before 9/11.

You could be sure that if Trump didn't decapitate Mani, Democrats would be criticizing Trump for "appeasing dictatorships" if Mani followed through on his bigger and bigger terrorist attacks.
 
The Democrats and Mani, in a nutshell:

 
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