![]() |
US-Iran crisis intensifies after general assassinated
The United States last night attacked Baghdad airport, killing multiple people including it's target one of Iran's top government officials Qassem Soleimani. This CNBC article I think does a fair job of recapping the underlying conflicts between Iran and US over the past couple of years that are coming to a head here.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/03/top-iranian-general-qassim-soleimani-killed-in-us-airstrike-in-baghdad-pentagon.html Iran's foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif calls the assassination of their top general an act of international terrorism by the United States, and says that the "U.S bears responsibility for all consequences in it's rogue adventurism." US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says that the U.S was performing a pre-emptive strike to defend itself, and that they have intelligence showing Soleimani had planned an "imminent" attack on Americans deployed in the region. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/01/03/qasem-soleimani-killing-pompeo-says-airstrike-response-threat/2802844001/ Pompeo has not disclosed intelligence evidence of a plot at the this time, and UN official Agnes Callamard argues the airstrike is a violation of International Law. https://nypost.com/2020/01/03/us-airstrike-that-killed-qassim-soleimani-of-iran-violates-human-rights-law-un-official-says/ Here are worldwide reactions to this volatile situation. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/01/03/world/iran-killing-triggers-global-alarm-we-are-waking-up-more-dangerous-world/ This is arguably an act of war, one that threatens to also engulf Iraq again as this attack was carried out without the approval of the Iraqi government by the United States on Iraq's soil. I would expect some form of response by Iran, and then another response by the United States. I don't know how far this will escalate, but global affairs are not off to a good start in 2020... |
So far from what I read, Soleimani was responsible for the deaths of over 500 US soldiers, worked on the attack on the US Embassy ( An act of war, as any Embassy is considered the soil of the home country ), and was largely considered the most dangerous terrorist since Osama Bin Laden.
The U.S. has been in a quiet war with Iran for four decades, and been in a proxy war with them in Iraq for over almost two decades, it is good that there was finally a punch back to this monster. |
While what Trump did was probably deserved, there’s a good chance it’s gonna cause WW3.
|
What Trump did, whether the guy deserved it or not, was pretty par for the course for his stupidity and inability to actually follow through on anything he promises.
You do not kill a foreign diplomat on a third party's soil without even informing that country that you will be undertaking military action. Did anyone from Iraq die in the attack? If they did, that's a whole other clusterfuck. As for Trump's inability to keep a promise, let's not forget that he was supposedly pulling troops out of the Middle East? Now he's sending them back, and let's not pretend he hasn't been spoiling for open war with Iran for months now. Every time the US pokes its nose into the middle-east, things get worse not better and it is high time the US government stopped acting like the world's authority on everything because every country they interlope in ends up worse than where they started. We don't need yet another Gulf War. |
Quote:
|
Quote:
|
Quote:
|
Quote:
|
Quote:
|
Quote:
I'm not necessarily saying that there should not have been a strike against this guy, but this was definitely a poorly conceived plan. |
Quote:
|
Quote:
But even if there was conclusive evidence, this particular plan for carrying it out was a bad one for reasons already outlined. |
Quote:
Also if I may ask, how else would you suggest they carry out the plan? |
Know how folks complain when Iran citizens shout "DEATH TO THE GREAT AMERICAN SATAN!"?
Well, they surely aren't gonna stop doing that NOW. |
Quote:
Either confer with Iraq's government or strike him somewhere else. He's high profile, I doubt they'd have much trouble finding him somewhere that wouldn't cause quite so much trouble. If need be, you can always prep/evacuate likely targets as needed until the operation is over. I don't claim to have all the answers here, but given how much of a mess of things this makes, I can't imagine it's the best way of doing things. |
Quote:
Quote:
Also while he could be targeted elsewhere, as he traveled across the Middle East, doing so would not have taken out the leader of Kata'lb Hizballah as well, and it would potentially allow any plans made during the meeting to go forward. Quote:
|
Craziest part, Trump is actually stupid enough to think this will incite a rebellion in Iran. How dumb can someone get?
|
I am of an age where I can remember the start of the Iraq war. Thwarting the alleged Soleimani plot sounds uncomfortably close to the script used for invading Iraq. We did a "pre-emptive strike" there too, and it was based on false intelligence of weapons of mass destruction in the country. So my default position is skepticism until we can examine all of the evidence ourselves, and not just take Trump's word or Pompeo's.
As much as this situation reminds me of Iraq, Trump's infinitely crazier than Bush, as even George Bush specifically ruled out assassinating Soleimani, understanding that it would be a potentially irreversible point of escalation. https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-obama-bush-and-bibi-all-passed-on-killing-qassem-soleimani Trump also has to know this, but wants to open that Pandora's box. I cannot see the United States as victims acting only in self-defense though I'm American. I see this as part of a larger pattern of actions by Trump to try to make peace with Iran impossible, starting with tearing up the Iran Nuclear deal and burying them in sanctions, though Iran was abiding by the terms agreed. We took further punitive action against Iran for the Saudi Arabia oil field attack that the Houthis of Yemen actually claimed responsible for, not Iran. https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/20/politics/trump-announces-iran-sanctions/index.html?no-st=9999999999 We similarly accused Iran of attacking a Japanese oil tanker, despite protests from the actual owner of the ship that they were not struck by any Iranian mine. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/14/oil-tanker-owner-disagrees-with-us-that-mine-caused-blast-near-iran.html I watched a very interesting interview this afternoon on Democracy Now with award-winning journalist Amy Goodman. She invited Ro Khana on her show, and I thought what he had to say was perhaps the most informative of all of the guests. Congressman Khana had an amendment in the national defense authorization that would have prevented any offensive action against Iran and any funding for it, but the Pentagon forced this language to be taken out of the bill, and now Trump just so happens to be doing this very thing, taking offensive action in Iran and can't be held accountable by Congress. Here's the link if anyone wants to watch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAFr_s4ZOd8 I don't believe the doublespeak by the United States government that they don't want escalation in Iran. Yes, they do. |
Quote:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iran-news-us-shows-limpet-mine-parts-case-against-iran-in-tanker-attacks-today-2019-06-19/ A Revolutionary Guard boat also approached the tanker later and removed an unexploded mine. https://apnews.com/6a48842e263541a5b3451f0d41dee01a Quote:
|
Quote:
|
Quote:
|
Quote:
|
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
|
Quote:
This is why the Pentagon had the amendment against offensive action in Iran stricken from the Defense Authorization Act. If the language had not be removed Trump would have been forced come to Congress and make a case presenting evidence to get approval. Facts would be necessary. No, not even this congress would have approved something as general as, "it is hard not to imagine that their discussion did not involve plans..." You would have to prove that you were in imminent danger. Assassinating a government official because of the possibility of an embassy being vandalized again does not look like self-defense, it looks like a punitive action, and a reckless one because of the scale of our response in relationship to what happened, and also because it is based on conjecture that these were the operatives behind past attacks-- we believe, and assuming they were then they could have been plotting a future riot together. Now when you say the general is a "plotter" and a "terrorist" are you are referring to Soleimani being the head IRGC/ the external wing Qudz? If this is what you are talking about I want to make sure you understand that IRGC is a part of the military structure in Iran's political system, and has been for 40 years. It is similar to a combination of the CIA and US Special forces. Soleimani's position would parallel to a defense secretary here in the United States. In fact the United States worked with Soleimani and his very militia previously against the Taliban in the aftermath of 9/11, he was actually an opponent of Isis and is credited with keeping them from taking over Iran. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/01/03/when-united-states-qasem-soleimani-worked-together/ This is not to say that Soleimani was not an oppressive figure or that I supported him or that there aren't serious internal problems within Iran and their military, I think the same could be said of the United States and our government, that doesn't mean if someone were to go to assassinate officials from our department of defense it would be justifiable or wise. The designation of the IRGC as a terrorist group is quite new. Trump controversially labelled the country's own military terrorists just back in spring, and it is yet another link in a long chain of aggressive actions the United States has been taking since Trump got in office to isolate and antagonize Iran, and destabilize the peace in the region we had obtained under the Obama administration, and it undermines the narrative that the United States wants to de-escalate and is just defending themselves but they keeping getting attacked randomly by Iran. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-iran/u-s-officially-designates-irans-revolutionary-guards-a-terrorist-group-idUSKCN1RR1BE |
Quote:
United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence: Adam Schiff (D-CA-28), Chair Devin Nunes (R-CA-22), Ranking Member United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence: Richard Burr (R-NC), Chair Mark Warner (D-VA), Vice Chair Leadership in the United States House of Representatives: Nancy Pelosi (D-CA-12), Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA-23), Minority Leader Leadership in the United States Senate: Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Minority Leader 4 Republicans, 4 Democrats, David Nunes, Richard Burr, Kevin McCarthy, and Mitch McConnell have shown support for the attack on twitter, that leaves the 4 Democrats being the only ones who could have opposed this. 4 Democrats, opposing the killing of the leader of Kata'lb Hizballah, who had just attacked the embassy, and a man responsible for the killings of 500 to 600 Americans. Yeah, I am sorry but there is no way that those 4 top Democrats are going to take responsibility, in an election year, to not stop these two people if presented the opportunity. Especially since such a meeting between the general and Kata'lb Hizballah, could very well result in another embassy attack or deaths of US personnel. It would be Benghazi 2.0 right before the 2020 election. Quote:
Quote:
He planned a strike on US soil, that would have killed US civilians, along with the Saudi Ambassador in 2011. https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/01/04/iran-agents-once-plotted-kill-saudi-ambassador-dc-case-reads-like-spy-thriller/ He instructed his militia leaders in Iraq to step up their attacks on U.S. targets in Iraq using weapons provided by Iran. Two weeks before he moved rockets that could target helicopters into Iraq. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-security-soleimani-insight/inside-the-plot-by-irans-soleimani-to-attack-us-forces-in-iraq-idUSKBN1Z301Z He is responsible for the building and shipping of IED and other weapons into Iraq to destabilize the country and fuel a civil war that targeted US troops between 2005 to 2007 which claimed the lives of over 600 US troops and injured thousands more. He also allegedly had direct planning, financing, and directing of the 2012 terror attack against the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi. https://nypost.com/2020/01/04/inside-the-twisted-terrible-reign-of-iranian-general-qassem-soleimani/ Quote:
Quote:
https://www.hudson.org/research/11436-obama-strikes-a-deal-with-qassem-suleimani Peace? Peace? Are you serious? Again I point out that this man was shipping weapons into Iraq as recently as October and telling the militias there to step up the targets and attacks. Lets look at this "peace" we achieved under Obama with Iran, we already covered the Benghazi attacks and the planned bombing on U.S. soil. We have the capture of US soldiers on January 12, 2016 which resulted in release of pictures of them bound, a direct violation of the Geneva convention. https://www.lawfareblog.com/irans-photographs-navy-sailors-war-crime-or-just-outrage Iran through its use of Hezbollah was responsible for shipping countless number of drugs into Europe and America, the money of which was used to further finance terror operations. https://www.politico.com/interactives/2017/obama-hezbollah-drug-trafficking-investigation/ They engaged in various acts of cyber espionage targeting the state department and various other civilian targets. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/25/world/middleeast/iran-hackers-cyberespionage-state-department-social-media.html I could go on and on, but I think it is rather clear that Iran, despite the nuclear accord, was still willing to act in a non peaceful manner, in attempts to humiliate and hurt the U.S. |
| All times are GMT -8. The time now is 12:48 AM. |
![]()
© 2002 - 2018 The PokéCommunity™, pokecommunity.com.
Pokémon characters and images belong to The Pokémon Company International and Nintendo. This website is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Nintendo, Creatures, GAMEFREAK, The Pokémon Company or The Pokémon Company International. We just love Pokémon.
All forum styles, their images (unless noted otherwise) and site designs are © 2002 - 2016 The PokéCommunity / PokéCommunity.com.
PokéCommunity™ is a trademark of The PokéCommunity. All rights reserved. Sponsor advertisements do not imply our endorsement of that product or service. User generated content remains the property of its creator.
Acknowledgements
Use of PokéCommunity Assets
vB Optimise by DragonByte Technologies Ltd © 2023.