Well, we apparently had the best possible outcome for the US and Iran.
Soleimani was responsible for many terror attacks and he’s been eliminated.
Iran used his death to rally support for the ruling Clerics and quieten dissidents.
Iran saved face by retaliating with a carefully aimed missile strike that didn’t kill anybody.
Hopefully, this incident will lead to diplomacy. It seems obvious that neither country wants a actual war. Iran will continue to be a problem in the region. But no more so than before.
Well we can remember what happened the last time something like this happened. Of course the roles were reversed, but the situation is the same.
First Country A decides to attack Country B. In 2020 it was the US attacking Iran. in 2007 it was Iran attacking the US.
In 2007 there was had Iran, using local insurgents but the key people were Quds forces, attacking a US base and in this case seizing a US serviceman.
About a month later, the following happened:
At the time, it was widely reported that the CIA and/or US military provided the means and motivation for the Zahedan attacks.
Both sides then decided honor had been satisfied and went back to a low level of attacks and counter-attacks.
I expect the same thing to happen in 2020. Don’t ride any buses in the middle east with lots of US personnel for the next several weeks… Of course both sides know this so it will have to be some other form of attack, but something is going to happen. The missile attacks aren’t going to satisfy anyone in Iran. But of course it does honor the public pledge of the Iranian leadership, so it wasn’t a failure from their point of view.
yeah, the news feeds are already said Iran made its point in letting us know they can launch missiles on Iraq anytime they want and dumps already backing down …
I think I heard this morning on NBC that within Iran the news was that they struck American military bases in Iraq and killed a lot of the enemy and did a lot of damage. Of course, their news is tightly controlled so they can say anything they want and paint a picture of devastation, victory, or whatever, even if totally untrue, and the average Iranian will not be exposed to any other views, so there’s that. Perhaps propaganda like this can be used to diffuse the more bloodthirsty elements within Iran.
IMHO, one of the most troubling aspect of this assassination is the speed with which it happened.
There is no real way to know just how well thought out this was. I sure do hope it was part of a plan that was very well thought out and the consequences have been under consideration for a long time now.
I would be very frightened if the truth is that it was launched on the spur of the moment without a whole lot of planning and analysis of the consequences.
As far as a “dirty bomb” goes, my guess is that it would be much easier for Iran to purchase whatever would be required to make some kind of WMD (Weapon of Mass Destruction) instead of making it themselves.
As far as I know, there are many corrupt individuals who have had access to those kinds of weapons that used to be part of some nation’s arsenal but when it was decided to trash them, they may have fell into the hands of some corrupt people (like people who belong to organized crime groups) who would be only too happy to sell them to the highest bidder and wouldn’t care one bit who used them and against whom they were used. (like the Russian mafia).
That prospect should be enough to keep people in North America up at nights in fear of the consequences.
I would like to know what people here think the chances are that Iran could acquire or purchase such weapons and what are the chances that they would then use those weapons in an attack against the USA homeland.
Wow! I was just reading where POTUS has said, “‘Our Missiles Are Big, Powerful, Accurate, Lethal, and Fast’”.
He went on to say, “The fact that we have this great military and equipment, however, does not mean we have to use it”.
I gotta say this kind of talk just scares the living daylights out of me. I can’t believe that people report this kind of talk so matter of factly.
Trump is like climate change, it’s the new normal. You forget that there was ever a time when the country wasn’t always on fire and the president was high on Adderall threatening to kill someone on TV. Think about the kids growing up now, this is the only reality they’ll ever know.
Did anyone else hear VP Pecse talk up how wonderful Trump is defending the US? I believe it was on the morning news. I didn’t watch, just heard it in the background.
The thing that stood out in his talk was how much emphasis he placed on the “real-time” nature of intelligence on the Iranians planning an attack. He repeated that several times.
To me he was telegraphing, intentionally or not I don’t know, that there was a bug in the car carrying Gen. Solimani and the US was listening in to the conversation. I can well imagine that Solimani and the Iraqi militia leader would be discussing such ideas on the drive. I don’t know anything, but this idea leapt out from Pence’s repeated emphasis on the point. I assume the CIA could get some malware on one or both cell phones in the car. Once infected, a phone is a real-time bug sitting right in the middle of the conversation. Such malware was included in the last leak of CIA software a couple of years ago. That software required physical access to the phone though a password wasn’t required (as I remember the media reporting at the time).
If this is the case, with how little real information was shared with the Senate, while Pence spouting off in an interview, I can imagine some Senators being really ticked off.
Not really. I think board rules likely prohibit sharing tips on making nuclear weapons, but you can google “The Radioactive Boy Scout” to see how easy it is to make dirty radioisotopes. Anyway, I’m sure Iran has more than enough leftover nuclear waste to use in that fashion.
Much of the problem with Iran is that they are trying to acquire a real bomb.
According to some expert or other I heard on NPR yesterday, Iran is ten months to a year away from having enough enriched uranium for a Bomb. They have been reneging on the 2015 agreement piecemeal for the last few years, and recently announced that they will no longer abide by it, although they might. Under that agreement they could still develop ballistic missiles, so no doubt they have been trying. So they could do a dirty bomb now, or wait until they have a real Bomb, and developing a ballistic missile capability is more than a matter of a few rocket tests.
The chances of them deploying either against the US mainland are extremely low. For a couple of reasons -
[ul][li]First, they can’t do it. They don’t have the launch capacity, either land- or sub-based. They don’t have any strategic bombers, and any Iranian aircraft who took off and started approaching the US is going to be facing some difficult questions like “who the fuck are you and why are you in our airspace” (the US does not allow Iran to fly any aircraft anywhere near the US).[/li][li]Smuggling a dirty bomb, or even more the real thing, is not straightforward. Enough radioactive waste to be dangerous tends to set off Geiger counters, and the TSA may not be all that but they do pay attention to things like that. Assembling the bomb itself inside the US and trying to blow up the Superbowl or whatever is also not easy - see “bomb sniffing dogs”. Not impossible, but not like in the movies.[/li][li]Plus, this is not a smart move for Iran. If they do it directly - “ha ha Great Satan - we set off a dirty bomb in LAX, Allah be praised!” - their period of rejoicing will last approximately four to six hours before the B-52s darken the skies over Iran and the weather report in Tehran changes to “Fair and sunny with a 90% chance that you are going to be blown into itty-bitty pieces”. The UN can cluck their tongues and regret the loss of life and call for restraint on both sides if they like. If they pass a resolution condemning the attack, the US will veto it and the UN can go pound sand. [/li][li]Even doing it indirectly, thru one of Iran’s proxies - still not a winning move. That’s very difficult to bring off properly. We knew it was Osama bin Laden within a few hours of 9/11, and that involved smuggling twenty fanatical bozos with box cutters onto some planes. Getting a dirty bomb or a nuke onto US soil while maintaining plausible deniability? Good luck with that.[/li]
Plus, think about it. If Trump is so unstable and impulsive as y’all claim to think - do you seriously think he is going to adopt a wait-and-see approach if someone tries to set off a dirty bomb on the US homeland? Iran can holler “we had nothing to do with it - really really!” all they want. They are still in a world of hurt.[/ul]
Iran is in much the same position as North Korea - nukes will work as a threat, but if they ever actually use one, they will be bombed into a Persian rug.