News US-Iran crisis intensifies after general assassinated

[LDSman]

Seems rather vague, but it only reinforces what I already knew. Still see no justification for assassinating him. Sure, he was a bad man, but Trump's actions were extreme.

As detailed in this article from the same web page you linked to, reinforcing my original point that what Trump did was a failure:

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/qassem-soleimani-iraq-iran-us-trump-war

The fact he was a terrorist who targeted the US is justification.

 

[Maedar]

Which brings me back to my original point:

With no formal declaration of war, and no proof of any plans to target American interests, Trump ordered him killed.

The President of the United States does NOT have the authority to have anyone he wants assassinated.

Furthermore, the fact remains, he violated the Geneva Convention by threatening to destroy Iran's cultural and historical sights. That makes Trump a war criminal from this point on.

 

[EnglishALT]

Which brings me back to my original point:

With no formal declaration of war, and no proof of any plans to target American interests, Trump ordered him killed.

Are you denying he had met with terrorists in October and told them to further their attacks on US targets, terrorists that then attacked the embassy, and who he then met with days later?

To not call that plans to target American interests is absurd.

Furthermore, the fact remains, he violated the Geneva Convention by threatening to destroy Iran's cultural and historical sights. That makes Trump a war criminal from this point on.

Uh huh, on one hand I do not like the targeting of cultural or historical sites.

On the other hand, if Iran believes the US is going to play just as dirty as they and by extension their proxy's do, it may give them pause in attacking.

So when he actually does attack those sites I will condemn it, until then, if it's to scare Iran into thinking the US will no longer fight with one hand tied behind its back, I can see the value.

 

[LDSman]

Which brings me back to my original point:

With no formal declaration of war, and no proof of any plans to target American interests, Trump ordered him killed.

We've provided proof that the general was engaged in terror plots making him a legitimate target.

The President of the United States does NOT have the authority to have anyone he wants assassinated.

. True enough. Taking out a terrorist is an authority he does have. One many presidents have exercised.

Furthermore, the fact remains, he violated the Geneva Convention by threatening to destroy Iran's cultural and historical sights. That makes Trump a war criminal from this point on.

making a tweet isn't a violation. Actually taking out a cultural site without a legitimate military reason is a violation.

 

[Maedar]

We've provided proof that the general was engaged in terror plots making him a legitimate target.

No, you haven't.

True enough. Taking out a terrorist is an authority he does have. One many presidents have exercised.

By whose definition of "terrorist"?

making a tweet isn't a violation. Actually taking out a cultural site without a legitimate military reason is a violation.

Threatening to do so in ANY way, verbal or otherwise, is a violation.

 

[LDSman]

No, you haven't.



By whose definition of "terrorist"?



Threatening to do so in ANY way, verbal or otherwise, is a violation.

https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/pages/tg1320.aspx
Obama administration thought he was a terrorist.

By any reasonable person's definition.

Threatening to do so is not a violation. Prove otherwise.

 

[EnglishALT]

No, you haven't.

Can you please explain then, why he was in Lebanon before traveling to Iraq, discussing US operations in the region, and then traveled to Iraq and met with the commander of Hizbollah, who in October he had given weapons and instructions to?

It seems fairly evident that he was planning something big, and was going around briefing those that could be effected, or that would be carrying out the attack.

 

[Corrin]

This is so terrible and it is starting to look like it was an accident, Iran possibly shooting down the plane because they thought it was a US aircraft.

So far Iran is refusing to release the black box which would either confirm that, or help explain why a relatively new aircraft suddenly crashed, which could save lives.

Yeah I saw that it was made in 2016 and was last inspected on the 6th so it's really troublesome to think about at best. These planes are all made by the same company so :/
Hard to know what is the truth really.

 

[EnglishALT]

Yeah I saw that it was made in 2016 and was last inspected on the 6th so it's really troublesome to think about at best. These planes are all made by the same company so :/
Hard to know what is the truth really.

I am starting to lean toward it was shot down, I hope Iran will release the black box recorder, but I have been reading, for example this is what a former FAA accident investigator had to say.

"Guzzetti, the retired head of the FAA's accident investigation division, said the details of the crash publicly available suggested the plane was brought down deliberately.

"To me it has all the earmarks of an intentional act. I don't know whether it was a bomb or a missile or an incendiary device," he said.
If the video of the flaming plane is accurate, "I can't conceive of a failure that could cause that much of a conflagration," he said.

An engine fire, for example, would take a substantial period "to consume the airplane," said Guzzetti, who was an air safety investigator and engineering specialist at the National Transportation Safety Board for 18 years before joining the FAA.

The abrupt cutoff of flight-tracking data emitting from the plane also indicated that it was "a sudden catastrophic event that created a power loss throughout the whole airplane," he said"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...214eb4-31cc-11ea-91fd-82d4e04a3fac_story.html

I hate to speculate but the only information we have right now is the video of the plane on fire, Iran saying it was a malfunction, and the flight suddenly stopped broadcasting at the time of the accident.

 

[User Anon 1848]

I don't hate Trump but he campaigned as an anti-war candidate and he shouldn't even be flirting with the idea of war with Iran. Things easily could've escalated to that point if Iran retaliated by killing US soldiers or citizens. Putting America First doesn't have to mean occupying other countries. He has enough domestic issues to worry about as it is. I don't know who this meant to please other than the war hawks in his cabinet and around the world.

 

[EnglishALT]

The NY Times has obtained a video showing the missile hitting the Ukrainian jet right after takeoff, pretty much putting an end to the speculation of what happened.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/09/video/iran-plane-missile.html

 

[Corrin]

Yes our PM says the same too, according to his intelligence.
Because Canada was the second highest casualties, at 63.

Obviously I don't agree with how aggressive the Us is being to Iran, seemingly from nowhere because we'd heard nothing about it in a while before this :/ But they shouldn't shoot down a plane, like its obviously a passenger jet.

 

[Nah]

So now Iran has said that they did shoot down the plane:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51073621
https://twitter.com/HassanRouhani?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^author

Stating something along the lines of how because of the fact that it was shortly after the US killed Soleimani and the plane was allegedly flying too close to a military facility, that they mistook it for an American military craft or missile and so shot at it.

 

[EnglishALT]

Stating something along the lines of how because of the fact that it was shortly after the US killed Soleimani and the plane was allegedly flying too close to a military facility, that they mistook it for an American military craft or missile and so shot at it.

I still don't understand why Iran did not shut down the airport, that seems so dangerous to keep their airport open, and flights coming and going while a military operation was going on.

However it's good that we finally have confirmation from Iran.

 

[Maedar]

To absolutely nobody's surprise, one of Trump's aids is falling back on the administration's all-purpose contingency plan: Blame Obama!

https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/tr...-attacking-obama-but-it-completely-backfires/

It didn't go over well...

Edit: In incredible Irony, Trump is now pushing for more NATO presence in the Middle East:

https://www.politico.eu/article/us-president-donald-trump-asks-for-nato-help-in-middle-east/

This will likely go over even less well.

 

[VisionofMilotic]

We can both realize that for so many, like Pelosi, political calculations are the most important. If there is a war ( which seems far less likely now ) then Trump owns it, he would own it even if Democrats signed off on the strike. However if he did nothing, and comes off looking weak ( as many Democrats accused him of before the strike ) and Iran attacks again, then he has a tool to bludgeon the left with.

I guess the question I have to ask is this, which do you think Pelosi believes would hurt the Democrats more, another Iraq War in which Republicans and Bush were blamed, or another Benghazi in which Democrats were blamed for failing to act.

The Iraq War because the scale of the disaster would be far greater in
terms of lives lost, and the media coverage would wage on and on
indefinitely until the war was over which was 8 years in the case of Iraq. In order to escape blame Democrats had to be perceived as the party that would be the alternative to war, they would not be in a stronger position than the Republicans if they had authorized a drone strike that led to another Iraq. Obama for instance did not hold office as a senator when the Iraq War resolution was voted on. He was separated from that whole fiasco. He suffered no political repercussions because he had no vote on record. He was able to criticize the Iraq war and make a campaign promise out of ending the war, presenting a less hawkish face to the public in the general election than the war's proponent John McCain, who came off as just another 4 years of Bush's policies. The shadow of the Iraq War loomed over Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primary too, making for an unfavorable contrast between her and Obama. She was deservedly bludgeoned over the head for her pro-war vote. John Kerry also shot himself in the foot by voting for the Iraq war. Bush may have started the war, but Kerry's position was ultimately the same as Bush's, thus it nullified the criticism of Bush, making it not a conversation about which candidate was going to get us out of the war, but turning it into which one was in a better position to win the war. Kerry was rightly viewed as just a more cowardly version of Bush, and Bush was re-elected.

There would have been political loss if Democrats obstructed Trump and
American personnel were harmed or killed overseas as a result of their
inaction, but there would have also been a political loss if Democrats
supported a poorly-hatched foreign policy decision that plunged us into war, and the size of the loss would be far worse. Trump can be the one steering the ship, but they can all still go down with his ship.

Ultimately they should make their calculations based on what evidence is
presented to them at the time, and what was more likely. They would be crazy to just rubber stamp something this important with their eyes closed.

For what it's worth I'm glad that the U.S and the Iranians at this time are pulling back, and that nobody was harmed in the military base, and there's a visible grace period where we should be able to de-escalate. I say this knocking wood, hoping that the political situation doesn't alter yet again by the time I finish writing.

That is great, but more than likely the General was not planning to stick around Iraq while Congress deliberates his fate. If the plan was to kill him to prevent another attack, there is a limited opportunity to do that. Otherwise he retreats to Iran, and the preparations begin on the next stage of attack by Hizbollah.

The United States has become the boy who cried wolf after the Iraq War. If this is not true then you have killed a senior statesman #2 in the government of a country you already have hostile relations with, and they can retaliate against you. That's what they did, and now 176 people were accidentally killed in a plane crash because Iran thought it was us again in the dark. Shame on both of our nations. Iran and the United States both have blood on their hands. 56 people killed in a stampede of devastated mourners just trying to go to a funeral. 10 people died in the airport strike total, not just Soleimani. This is a waste of human life, dead Iraqis, Canadians, Iranians, Germans, Afghans, Swedes , Ukrainians, and we risked war for no real reason, and our situation did not change for the better. What did Iran do? They turned around and brought in another general just like Soleimani to take his place.

The only thing we accomplished is infuriating Iran and making the situation in the middle East more caustic. We fortunately are not at war today at least, which is one blessing at least, but the shiites hate us even more now as we killed a popular general of theirs. They won't forgive or forget this, and all we have to show for this is a bunch of innocent people gone. Not to mention all the people will die indirectly because they can't afford food and don't have access to their medicine because of the sanctions we then had to place on Iran as a response to their military action, though there isn't much left in Iran to sanction been sanctioned by the United States, we were already down to taking even cancer treatment drugs from the Iranians.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/08/14/u-s-sanctions-are-killing-cancer-patients-in-iran/

This is not a game so Trump can appear to not look weak. This was not a win for Trump. It still led to a mess. Both of our nation's are probably guilty of violating international law.
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opini...ons-international-law-both-tehran-ncna1113646

Honestly what do you expect? For Pompeo to come on and play the secret video files they have recorded, maybe secret phone conversations? Maybe he could bring up a from inside the Iranian regime and have them infront of the camera?

I can understand by being frustrated by the lack of information, however lets be realistic here, the more concrete information is going to be given out to those like the Gang of 8 in Congress, because of how much risk it puts on the intelligence community to reveal where they got it.

It's one thing to have an unattributed source for national security interests, it's another to have no evidence and and pretend that you are protecting someone who doesn't exist so you don't have to answer questions. They won't even tell congress what the threat is specifically. This is phonier than the Iraq war. Your administration didn't even bother to go through the charade of a propaganda campaign. For Iraq the White House read off detailed eye witness testimony that was fabricated, they misquoted intelligence from foreign governments, fake documents were circulated like the Niger Uranium forgery, the dogy dossier and the September dossiers.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/feb/15/curveball-iraqi-fantasist-cia-saddam

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/12/leadup-iraq-war-timeline

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2006/07/yellowcake200607

https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/07/08/how-the-iraq-war-was-sold/

Drone striking Soleimani is a leap based simply on blind faith in the American government must have unseen evidence that they would show you if they could, but it's too sensitive. Mother knows best

I am being realistic, realistic that this a morally bankrupt white house with literally some of the very same Bush administration people who have come back in a revolving door to tell you to trust them like Gina Haspel and Brian Hook. There was no concrete information to take to the gang of 8, which is why they chose to circumvent congress to kill Soleimani because they had no case against him. Even in the classified setting of congress it was the same vague information you would know if you read the newspaper. If they had anything specific then our vice president Mike Pence, who was just out there peddling conspiracy theories about Soleimani being behind 9/11, would not be trying to respond to criticism about how insulting this briefing was by saying it wasn't really the full briefing to account for why it is so general. Trump would also not be out there fast-talking, inventing things that our statesmens say was never in the briefing like four embassies about to be blown up in an effort to make himself look less irresponsible for serving the country this nothing burger to suit his political interests.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-...lotting-to-blow-up-our-embassy-before-strike/

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/wh...-account-soleimani-s-imminent-threat-n1113846

https://www.rollingstone.com/politi...aming-soleimani-for-benghazi-and-9-11-933915/

So he was on a peace mission, he just so happened to be visiting a terrorist leader responsible for attacking the US Embassy on such a mission, as well as the deputy leader for Lebanon Hezbollah. For a peace mission, he sure was visiting some of the top leadership of Iran's proxies for war.

By the way, just before he arrived in Baghdad, he was in Syria, to coordinate with Iran's proxys on what to do next against the US, further strengthening the point that he came to Baghdad to plan with the proxys in Iraq.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/tracked-targeted-killed-qassem-soleimanis-final-hours

Putin met with Assad after the assination of Soleimani. You couldn't
disprove that they were not deliberating about what action they could potentially take against the United States over Iran. Should we go escalate with Russia now too? Of course not!
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020...yria-visit-iran-tensions-200107150701410.html

In fact Russia's deputy foreign minister has met with Hassan Nasrallah. It would be suicidal to take the next step from that to go assasinate someone in the Russian government. This is not enough to kill someone over. It would be an act of war.
https://www.foxnews.com/world/senior-russian-official-in-damascus-for-talks-with-syrian-leaders

What's even more disturbing is that not only did the prime minister of Iraq say that Soleimani was coming for peace talks, he says that the United States also knew this and gave approval for Soleimani to visit, encouraging these negotiations to foster relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia. What he's describing sounds like we set him up.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voice...d-middle-east-iraq-saudi-arabia-a9272901.html

Pompeo says this is all Iranian propaganda, (though the source is Iraq and not Iran) and that they knew of no peace mission. One of these two men is a liar, either Pompeo or Abdul-Mahdi. I take the word if the Iraqis over the United States in this instance, as they are the neutral party, contrary to Pompeo saying it is Iranian propaganda. Furthermore Pompeo has urged Trump to kill Soleimani before. He is the Lady Macbeth who has screeched to attack Iran more than once. That much we know for a fact at least.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...2a8e00-2f7d-11ea-be79-83e793dbcaef_story.html

https://www.salon.com/2020/01/08/wh...n-pushing-trump-into-war-with-iran-all-along/

Wait let me get this straight, you say you are anti war because Iraq was an illegal war ( It wasn't ) for oil,

"Of course it's about oil; we can't really deny that," - General John Abizai

This is the head of the head of the U.S. Central Command and Military Operations in Iraq telling you that they were there for the oil. There's far more evidence that we invaded Iraq for their oil then there is right now that Soleimani was out to blow up some Americans last week. There are memos from the British government that show them brazenly lobbying not be cut out of their fair share of the oil too.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...n-oil-firms-and-invasion-of-iraq-2269610.html

Before we invaded Iraq the oil was nationalized. It was not open to the British and American oil companies that have set up in Iraq today, companies that profited from the suffering of the people, including Haliburton the oil business that then-vice president Cheney once ran.

In 1998 Kenneth Derr, then CEO of Chevron, said, "Iraq possesses huge reserves of oil and gas-reserves I'd love Chevron to have access to." Now Chevron does, along with BP, ExxonMobil, Shell, you name it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/28/us/a-closer-look-at-cheney-and-halliburton.html

https://www.cnn.com/2013/03/19/opinion/iraq-war-oil-juhasz/index.html

https://waronwant.org/media/shell-blasted-iraq-oil

There were no weapons of mass destruction, both the United States inspectors and the United Nations spent years in Iraq looking for this fairytale, and found nothing. Iraq didn't even have Scud missiles. Iraqi scientists explained they had no chemical weapons. You invaded them unjustly. The war was illegal, breaching the United Nations Charter.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/oct/07/usa.iraq1

https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3661134.stm

in the same paragraph you seem to wave off attacks that were planned, prepared, and funded by Iran. Without Iran, there would have been no attacks! There would have been no militia, at least sizeable militia, in Iraq.

You say that without Iran there would have been no attacks and no militia. Did you not got to a war? The reason I don't like war is because the wars I am most familiar are the ones where soldiers are trying to kill each other until one side emerges as the victor. Of course, it is a terrible thing war. I'm not waving off anything, I'm the one crying out let's talk and let's negotiate so nobody is killed, but he US said no! They went off to invade the region. I take military action off the table unless it's the most extreme situation like the holocaust or if someone is attacking you. If you choose to go down that road then waging war cannot just be right for you and wrong for the people of the region you are invading.

Yes, Soleimani was an Iranian commander, that didn't remove him from the conflict between Iraq and the United States however, as his country is Iraq's neighbor. What happened is that he formed an alliance with Iraq. People trying to build a coalition to drive out a mutual threat is also something that I would expect of war. The United States was trying to seize control of Iraq. It would be in his nation's interest to prop up Iraq because Iran is next door. What happens to Canada would concern us as Americans naturally, and vice versa I hope.

John Bolton, who was not only Trump's former National Security adviser but the architect of the Iraq War, told Israeli officials after the Iraq invasion that, "Everybody wants to go to Baghdad. Real men go to Tehran." It was pretty clear what he meant by that, his ambition was to invade Iran.
https://www.motherjones.com/politic...ted-war-with-iran-since-before-you-were-born/

You support sending a drone to kill Soleimani because you thought he could be a threat. Here was a far less subtle threat then what you claim to be in danger from. Your tanks rolled into the region, and said his country was next.

I don't condone many of things that Soleimani has done. This is why I think war should be avoided at all costs, I'll it say again. You can't just say without Iran there wouldn't be attacks since you've attacked Iraq. The horror of war is not just the suffering and death of the people you are conquering, it's our own loyal troops who are going to get shot down. It's even more heartbreaking when we had no good reason to be on that soil. Iraq hadn't been trying to attack us.

You say Soleimani just wants to kill the Americans. I think that's not likely since a year earlier he was helping the Americans defeat the Taliban after we were the victims of 9/11 and he played an important role in restoring order in Afghanistan. I think we could learn more about what's going on in the region and strengthen our foreign policy if we ask why it is that someone who was willing to work with us just a minute ago so quickly turned against us? Did we do anything that might have inflamed tensions that we could not do in the future like start a game war?

This is important to understand not to justify the tragedy of anyone's death. It's so we can make better informed foreign policy decisions. There is an international community of people we have to work within like it or not. We are all connected to each other.

Iran was funding and orchestrating a full on Sunni vs Shia civil war in Iraq that killed thousands upon thousands of civilians, a civil war that they continue to try and push to today. That blood is on Soleimani's hands.

Remember that the Shiites were the oppressed population in Iraq. The Shiites mostly lived in poverty, they couldn't hold office and were banned from taking part in their religious processions publicly under Sadaam Hussein, who was a Sunni. Soleimani is a Shiite who was unhappy with the way his people lived. It's not accurate to just say he started civil war. That makes it sound like there was no underlying dispute. I don't condone any violence against the Sunnis. I don't condone the way the Shiites were treated either. It is possible to look at things from both sides. I don't also see that this is a conflict the United States needs to take a side over and kill Soleimani for.

I didn't say Soleimani did not have blood on his hands. Yes, he does. He is the equivalent of the CIA. How many nice agents carrying out black ops do you know? The question is was the United States in imminent danger from this person? Is this about regime change again, or is it about self-defense? If it's the former then it was an offensive action against Iran, not defensive and Trump needed to go congress to make a declaration of war, and I would be against that too. I don't think Iran has done enough directly to us to warrant sending more soldiers over there in front of militias.

I would also caution any Americans who want to start hunting the world for monsters abroad, as they might be surprised to learn what their own
government is doing. Trump funded and armed the Saudis as they waged the genocide against the people of Yemen, he did so even over the objections of the congress. What about the blood of those people on his hands? I think the Saudi Arabian government has done far more to destabilize the region than Iran.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...abc312-60a1-11e9-bfad-36a7eb36cb60_story.html

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/26/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-war-yemen.html

I will readily acknowledge with you that Soleimani and his military has blood on it's hands. Are you willing to agree at least that we also have blood on our hands?

My response to that is what else is new? Iran has been getting around the enrichment process and building weapons in military sites, unable to be inspected by eear inspections for months if not years. Iran's leadership continues to kill dissidents and moderates, as we saw in the uprisings in the early 2010s.

Iran was abiding by the terms of the the nuclear deal. This is from the IAEA, it isn't me saying it. Iran was not enriching their uranium to the point of getting a nuclear weapon.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...r-deal-restrictions-iaea-report-idUSKCN1LF1KR

After Trump not only reneged on the promise America made to Iran, but kicked them on the way out of the door by putting punishing sanctions on them, then yes, Iran did stop meeting comittments as they had no incentive to anymore. Europe and China tried to see what they could salvage of the deal, and keep Iran from leaving the table altogether. Now that we assassinated the general Iran has made clear that they will no longer comply with any of the restrictions of the deal. This does not serve the National security interests of the United States or the international community to keep goading a country until they develop nuclear capabilities. Before the deal they had the capacity to make 10 bombs if they wanted. Why would you want them to go back to that?

As for Iran's leadership killing moderates and dissidents, yes, that is awful I agree. You say that you understand Soleimani's position, but I want to draw your attention to the fact you that Soleimani was part of the external wing of the Quds force. He was not ayatollah-- whose regime is still firmly entrenched. To be clear this domestic policy will not alter at all by removing Soleimani. If it did, that would still be an act of war against a nation if that was your interest. It is not a defense action if your goal is to change their regime.

The United States has a habbit of trying to topple governments with a nonchalant attitude to what comes next. Don't like the Iranian government now? Neither do I. I wish the American CIA hadn't in overthrown Mossadeq who was democratically-elected, and then forced the Shah on the Iranian people over so the country would be a puppet state for the USA and give them a juicy share of the oil. The United States is okay with puppets so long as they control the strings. After years of the dictatorship the people revolted against the Shah's reign, and now there is the reactionary government in Iran we see today.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/cia-assisted-coup-overthrows-government-of-iran

So ask yourself what your goal is for Iran before you start taking out the country's administrators, and saying it won't make a difference. Make sure it's going to yield the results you think.

So what has changed? Honestly the only thing that has changed is that the US took off the table the man responsible for largely orchestrating Iran's foreign policy of funding militias and engaging in terrorism.

Does Iran run out of generals when Soleimani dies? No, they already popped in another in his place who is more of a hardliner than Soleimani.

Doubtful, ISIS leadership is beyond decimated, it's fighters having fled back home, and it's funding largely dried up.

Because the person you just killed played a central role in crushing Isis. Iraq isn't as confident as you that Isis won't come back to their region, and they told the American government not to assasinate Soleimani and we did it anyway, potentially endangering their lives now. They are scared that Isis will return.
https://www.google.com/url?q=https:...BMAB6BAgAEAI&usg=AOvVaw1WppTYDQ_Jvx5jQefHSjBv

This was Soleimani's purpose for working with the iraqi government. If you took out the person who could protect them then there better be strong evidence that Iran was going to do imminent harm to the United States. There isn't. You could indirectly lose a lot more lives in the future. This is an opportunity for Isis and Al-Qaeida to regroup because now Iran and the United States are focused on one another instead of a potential mutual threat.

The Iraq vote was largely meaningless as it did not include a timetable for leaving, it was symbolic and was abstained by half of Iraq's parliament.

Tell me what you are doing in Iraq? You say Isis is gone for good. That was the purpose of why the United States was supposed to be in Iraq. If the country asked you to leave and you said yourself there isn't a threat from Isis then why are are you here? Whether Iraq is powerful enough to stand up to you and enforce their request isn't the point. You say that you had to defend yourself and are so in danger, then why would you want to stay there and place Americans in harm's way if the country doesn't want you there? Iraqis have been demonstrating against the United States for several months unhappy with your presence and the conditions they are living in, and isn't all being organized by Soleimani. This is not the behavior of a panicked nation who shot in self-defense because they were afraid for their lives, this sounds more like the behavior of a bullying country that has their boot on Iraq's face so it can remain the launchpad for our military operations. This is why people in the middle East are afraid of America. Is that the image you want people to have of us?

Neither will happen, China won't risk the economic disaster, especially after some of the sanctions have been lifted, and Russia does not have the capability at this point to wage a massive war across Europe.

Russia has the capability to not only hit a United States military base abroad, but they can hit the United States directly from across Europe as they have hypersonic missiles that can wage long-range war swiftly, and can do so quickly.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/27/us/politics/russia-hypersonic-weapon.html

The same is true of China. If you went to war with Iran, you would be testing China since they are Iran's top trading partner and oil consumer, they have an economic interest in keeping Iran afloat, and they ignore the United sanctions and continue to work with Iran.

Also who would have constituted your allies if Iran had shot to kill? The United States is the loyal henchman for Saudi Arabia and Israel, did they have our backs? No. They ducked and ran for cover. Netenyahu made it clear that this was an Iranian-American conflict and we were on our own. Trump didn't coordinate this attack with Europe, they found out about it after we had already killed Soleimani, and most countries were horrified. We were isolated from many of our traditional allies, even our own country wasn't united about this. It was split along party lines, and protests against war were popping up all over the country. It doesn't sound like this bothered you, but I was disturbed.

Look, I am glad both nations de-escalated. I don't want a nuclear war either. I think it's dangerous however to do something like this with no expectation of retaliation. It isn't something to play around with. We got off the hook this time, but had Iran's missiles killed Americans in that military base it would have been war. Was this an experiment really worth it to take down one man? I am inclined to say no based on all the information I currently have.

Whether they think Soleimani deserved to die or not, most Americans seem to agree that killing him made us more unsafe.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...ess-safe-trump-reckless-iran-poll/2835962001/

 

[EnglishALT]

To absolutely nobody's surprise, one of Trump's aids is falling back on the administration's all-purpose contingency plan: Blame Obama!

https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/tr...-attacking-obama-but-it-completely-backfires/

It didn't go over well...

Honestly, Obama holds a lot of responsibility for how Iran currently is, so many of his actions would more than likely be worthy of impeachment if they came to light during his administration.

I swear, you still think Trump is so popular? Answer me this, ALT, when was the last time a sovereign nation put an $80 million bounty on the U.S. President's head? Iran would never have dared do that to Reagan, either Bush, Clinton, or Obama, but they realize Trump is a weak and incompetent President.

To carry this over from another thread, Iran has possibly already attempted to assassinate Trump.

An Iranian national was captured not too far away from Mar-A-Lago carrying $22,000 in cash, and multiple weapons.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/irania...ago-resort-today-had-weapons-cash-2020-01-10/

 

[o1a1d1s1]

Well, US already proved that it can win a few battles but overall, the war is always lost. An enemy is weak, but roots are still there. No rockets, no fire and certainly no words can change the weight of a history already written. In order to end this, people must stop with their meddling. They must leave each other alone. Of course this won't save civilians from their demise, since they're always in the wrong.
Killing Saddam was utterly stupid. And people knew that back then. Yet they didn't cared. In the end this greed turn out to be unprofitable. How many billions of dollars lost? And no american dream achieved. Only hatred was founded.

 

[Corrin]

What I don't like is how wars are always taken to the middle east, killing innocent civilians. Then when some try and seek asylum they are denied and called "terrorists" and other shit, obviously racism. You can't destabilize these nations and think people aren't going to flee for their safety.

 

[EnglishALT]

What I don't like is how wars are always taken to the middle east, killing innocent civilians. Then when some try and seek asylum they are denied and called "terrorists" and other muk, obviously racism. You can't destabilize these nations and think people aren't going to flee for their safety.

That is a good point, but it would probably help if the increase in asylum seekers did not also follow an increase in crime, rape, sexual attacks, and terrorism, or that they came over in so many waves that it overwhelms the local economy and nations.