I checked the news first thing this morning. I was so relieved nothing happened during the night.
Some sort of terror attack seems inevitable within the next week or so. My concern is it could be from a sleeper cell inside the US.
The US assassinated Iran"s most powerful general. Would Iran/Hezbollah be crazy enough to take out a group of our Senators or Congressman?
Terrorists may have the capability to launch missile strikes against a US city. Missiles and other military grade weapons are compact and may have already been smuggled into the US.
I can’t ever remember being more worried about major terror attacks inside the US.
I’m beginning to understand how my grandparents felt just after Pearl Harbor. The prospect of all out war for our country’s survival is scary. Especially with our current fractured political system. The US is very vulnerable. We’re so fucked up that even passing a budget is beyond the abilities of Congress. We can’t go into a war with Iran with a divided nation. It’s them or us. Absolute, total war against Iran and it’s terrorist allies.
I’d be less worried about their response than I am about our government using this as an excuse to start another war and further destabilize the region.
While your worries are not unreasonable, there’s also a good likelihood that any retaliation will come against US targets in the Middle East region. (Indeed, the US attack could be construed as retaliation for the Iranian supported attack on the US embassy in Baghdad, so it’s clear we have assets local to the region).
ETA: And a “proportional” response would be targeted against an individual. I wouldn’t do much traveling if my name ended in Trump, is what I’m saying.
In my opinion (which means nothing of course) personally you have nothing to worry about. Nothing will happen here in the US. American’s in the Middle East should be concerned. In the US you should worry more about if the guy driving down the street is drunk.
If by some miracle Iran gets some sort of attack on US soil the response will be devastating. I’m not expecting nukes or boots on the ground but we might empty our inventory of cruise missiles.
0.001% of the us population died in the September 11th attacks. Even if that was guaranteed to happen again you shouldn’t worry. You would need one of those a quarter to even let it get to the amount you’re worried about drunk driving.
What I see happening is stuff more like the USS Cole bombing, the recent tanker bombings, the Beirut bombing of the Marine barracks, the Berlin disco bombing. You couldn’t pay me money to travel to Europe, Africa, or Southwest Asia right now, even with a Canadian flag sewn on my ass.
But something like that is def. going to happen, and there will be a US response, and things may look much different beyond that point.
Why do you think Iran would engineer some kind of attack in Europe to retaliate for this? Isn’t it clear that the European powers have nothing to do with it?
Remember when Libya bombed a disco full of US servicemen in West Berlin in 1986? Then Reagan bombed Libya in retaliation for that? Then Libya bombed Pan Am flight 103 out of Frankfurt in retaliation for that retaliation?
There are a lot of Americans and American stuff in Europe, not least of which are US military bases and military personnel. Iran has a lot more reach in Europe than they do in the US. Not just Europe, but worldwide - the rest of the middle east, Africa… hell, Iran has even struck Jewish people in Argentina.
And it should go without saying that Iran has a hundred times the reach that Libya did.
Of course if we go into a war with Iran we can do it with a divided nation. In fact, I guarantee you that if we go into a war with Iran it’ll be with a divided nation; because that’s what we’ve got. And one of the things we’ll be divided about is whether such a war would be a bright idea.
And ‘it’s them or us, total war’? Seriously? Iran is in no way capable of destroying the United States – unless they can cause us to do it to ourselves. If the USA decided to totally destroy Iran, that might well be one way of doing it to ourselves.
I think this line is actually the argument against military intervention. Even the biggest terrorist attacks only pose a tiny threat to most Americans, so it is/was stupid to start a giant war over it.
It seems like we’ve already decided to risk war, but we should still try to remember that it’s virtually impossible the terrorists will hit your home on 123 Elm Street, so it’s appropriate for the US to be prudent and restrained in its response.
If anything, its an argument that 9/11 was a stupid nothing and we shouldn’t have gone in to Afganistan or Iraq because of it. I had no more fear of terror attacks on 9/12 then I did on 9/10 and even if you did you should have realized in the last 20 years that it doesn’t impact your day to day life. Getting rid of security theater and homeland security would be a huge benefit to the country.
As far as a defence of the administration, it was a stupid action by a stupid president but it doesn’t do anything to change the relative security of a person living in the US.
Wouldn’t want to be on a tanker in the strait of Hormuz. Wouldn’t want to be in Iraq or Dubai. Other than that, odds of Iranian response affecting me personally are very low.
My biggest concern is how quickly this could escalate. Iran and Hezbollah have their tentacles in Syria and Iraq. They’re supporting the PLO in the West Bank. Maybe Libya too?
Can’t do much now except wait for the Iranian response.
I agree troops on the ground is not a acceptable option. Any war would most likely be fought with airstrikes.
I think we’ll see some sort of response quickly. There are already reports indicating the Baghdad embassy will probably come under a sustained assault of low-quality unguided rockets as early as tomorrow.
I also think about “dirty bombs” as a wildcard. We know Iran was far enough in their nuclear program not to produce a bomb, but definitely to produce some extremely dirty nuclear isotopes that they could release in public places. Again the physical danger wouldn’t be great, but the social and political consequences would be staggering.
Beyond that I think it will be drips and drops of escalation that could take years to fully emerge. There’s no telling what will really happen, but we know we just opened up a bunch of uncertain outcomes and some of them are really bad.
The embassy is hardened against those kinds of attacks. The range is limited and at max range (say from Sadr City) they are very inaccurate. I don’t see how they can have a sustained attack without getting a Hellfire up the ass. In the past rocket crews would try to get around being victims of counter battery fire by setting them up on timers. That only caused more firing failures. They set up their rockets in densely populated areas because Petreus ordered that the sites couldn’t be fired on without positive ID. I don’t think Trump isn’t that interested in COIN.
As for something like a dirty bomb, I hope the leadership there isn’t delusional like Kim. They have to know something like that is not going to end well for them.
Cool, so in summary, we’re going back to war in Iraq as well in Iran, and we’re firing on civilians. This will go well.
Escalation deterrent theory depends on both sides knowing that escalating isn’t going to end well for them. It seems to be failing in bigger ways by the day.
But, I don’t know what’s going to happen. All I know is that diplomacy and non-military options keep getting subtracted from the mix, while lethal possibilities are getting added, and some of these outcomes are really bad for the US. Not all of these outcomes are going to happen, but we seem to be making every possible choice to add chaos to the situation.
Considering how long we’ve been in the region already? AFAIC its pretty much just another day. It could make things worse, it could make no difference; all I’m sure of is it won’t make things any better.