# US assassinates commanding general of Iran Quds force **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 3, 2020, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-assassinates-commanding-general-of-iran-quds-force/845821 "2020-01-03T02:01:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 20
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2020, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-assassinates-commanding-general-of-iran-quds-force/845821/381 "2020-01-06T05:15:37Z")
> [@Chisquirrel](#): > > Then maybe we should declare war, instead of unilaterally assassinating foreign leaders in such a way that the entire world goes “WTF!?” The Quds force is a terrorist organization, not a foreign government. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2020, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-assassinates-commanding-general-of-iran-quds-force/845821/382 "2020-01-06T05:21:28Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > Shut down the Straight of Hormuz for a few weeks, and the global economy would go into a tailspin. Forgot to mention how important of a point this is and how emphatically the US Navy will act to keep this very important shipping lane open. It’s the black goop, stupid. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2020, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-assassinates-commanding-general-of-iran-quds-force/845821/383 "2020-01-06T05:22:10Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > The Quds force is a terrorist organization, not a foreign government. The Quds Force is a unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, itself a unit of the Iranian Armed Forces. Yes, it is designated a terrorist organization, but one that is officially and operationally part of a foreign government, in the same way that for example Kidon is a unit of Mossad within the Israeli government, or Seal Team 6 is part of the US government. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2020, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-assassinates-commanding-general-of-iran-quds-force/845821/384 "2020-01-06T05:27:44Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > Graveyards are full of indispensable men. Think about it. They’re more full of expendable men. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2020, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-assassinates-commanding-general-of-iran-quds-force/845821/385 "2020-01-06T05:35:31Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > BOOM. And there’s the truth. The US Navy is the single most powerful projector of force we have, and we have a LOT of Navy. The rest of the nations of the planet COMBINED cannot defeat it. Oh, [I don’t know about that](https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/study-submarine-it-destroyed-us-navy-aircraft-carrier-war-game-49997)… ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2020, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-assassinates-commanding-general-of-iran-quds-force/845821/386 "2020-01-06T05:36:57Z")
It is very likely that if Iran decides to respond in a very aggressive way, it will mostly come in the form of terrorist attacks and other asymmetrical forms of warfare like cyber-warfare. Iran needs its military too much to throw it into an American meat grinder. Mining the Strait of Hormuz, using their subs to blockade the strait, terror attacks on Americans, attacks on Israel, forcing Iraq to eject the U.S. military, attacking Americans throughout the ME to make it hard for Americans to work there…that’s the kind of stuff we should expect in response. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2020, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-assassinates-commanding-general-of-iran-quds-force/845821/387 "2020-01-06T05:38:00Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > But you know what they can do? They can push the US out of Iraq – actually, that’s about to happen. Good. I am certain our troops don’t want to be in that hellish environment, and their presence isn’t really required anymore. > [@asahi](#): > > You know what else they can do? They can grind the flow of global energy supplies to a halt for up to weeks or even months and send the global economy into a tailspin. This to me is a very important crux to the matter. Why are we messing around in this part of the world anyway, again? Oh yeah…black goop. Since I no longer have the awesome power of issuing bets, I will offer a guarantee: There is literally NO WAY that the US will allow ANYONE to shut that strait down. It’d be the foundation of WWIII. That Navy I mentioned comes into play, not to mention the interests of other nations waiting for the same black goop. Iran risks actual utter destruction pursuing this line of reasoning. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2020, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-assassinates-commanding-general-of-iran-quds-force/845821/388 "2020-01-06T06:10:31Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > This is what I’m getting at in this thread. > > Everybody wants to pretend we can smash Iran’s military, and go home, and declare victory. We don’t want to admit we have other goals, but we do, that goal is to deter the unconventional warfare. > > I’m here to tell you that direct military action against Iranian conventional forces will not slow or halt the unconventional warfare. On the contrary it will get activated in ways we haven’t seen yet. Then we’ll have to admit this provocation was a really stupid idea. > > War is not too horrible to contemplate as long as the the higher-order effects don’t happen immediately. We can smash Iran’s conventional military forces and satisfy our war boner, but we’ll find that its extraterritorial forces are as strong as ever, unharmed, and mightily pissed. > > If you think I’m wrong on this, consider Afghanistan. We’ve been in there 18 years because the enemy forces there were supposedly so feeble and inadequate, and 18 years later we’re about to run home with our tail between our legs because we couldn’t manage it. Iran is 20x harder than Afghanistan. You’re right that engaging Iran’s conventional forces gets us nowhere which is why we probably aren’t going to do it. War takes many forms, and while war with Iran is possible, as in overt war rather than the last 40 years of covert war, it’s going to look an awful lot like the covert war, except no one will bother denying what’s going on. They’ll kill some of ours, we’ll kill a lot of theirs and it will all be fought anywhere but in Iran or the US. If Iran decides to take the battle to US soil, that’s where things get crazy. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2020, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-assassinates-commanding-general-of-iran-quds-force/845821/389 "2020-01-06T06:11:33Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > No, war is not the only way to stop Iran’s unconventional warfare. How about peace? > > Iran wants peace. It’s the US that walked away from the negotiating table for no reason except that Trump wanted to show how macho he was. It’s the US that’s the war monger. > > Unacceptable price? How about a doubling of oil prices and a meltdown of the global economy that will make 2008 look like a picnic? Is that a price the US is willing to pay? Iran was willing to pause their nuclear program. They have never expressed even the slightest willingness to stop waging war all over the world. It’s basically their whole reason for existing. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2020, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-assassinates-commanding-general-of-iran-quds-force/845821/390 "2020-01-06T06:14:19Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > It is very likely that if Iran decides to respond in a very aggressive way, it will mostly come in the form of terrorist attacks and other asymmetrical forms of warfare like cyber-warfare. Iran needs its military too much to throw it into an American meat grinder. > > Mining the Strait of Hormuz, using their subs to blockade the strait, terror attacks on Americans, attacks on Israel, forcing Iraq to eject the U.S. military, attacking Americans throughout the ME to make it hard for Americans to work there…that’s the kind of stuff we should expect in response. All that is possible, and all that will involve Iran paying a higher price than we do. We’ve been letting them get away with this nonsense for too long. If this isn’t a turning point then it wasn’t worth doing. It’s also possible that Iran now gets the message and will behave better. At least until we elect a new President, in which case they’ll see how far they can get with him or her. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2020, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-assassinates-commanding-general-of-iran-quds-force/845821/391 "2020-01-06T06:49:20Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > All that is possible, and all that will involve Iran paying a higher price than we do. We’ve been letting them get away with this nonsense for too long. If this isn’t a turning point then it wasn’t worth doing. We’ve already told the mullahs that our goal is to destroy them. How much higher a price will they have to pay? When you back somebody into a corner, you have to expect they will come out swinging. The US thinks we’re in this for cheap oil and national prestige; the mullahs think they are in this for their very existence. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2020, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-assassinates-commanding-general-of-iran-quds-force/845821/392 "2020-01-06T08:32:03Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > It’s also possible that Iran now gets the message and will behave better. At least until we elect a new President, in which case they’ll see how far they can get with him or her. Oh, like bombing Pearl Harbor was Imperial Japan’s show of force to discourage the Americans from getting involved in WWII? How did that work out? The “message” Iran got from this is that the US now feels it is OK to assassinate whomever they don’t like, wherever they may be. That is _not_ going to lead to submission, quite the contrary. It would not surprise me if the Iranians now start conducting their own targeted assassinations. As already stated - the US is in this for oil, the Iranians are in it for their very existence. Who is more motivated? I get the impression your definition of “behave better” is “Middle Eastern nations let the world powers run roughshod over them, giving no resistance to others exploiting them”. We wouldn’t stand for that, why would they? ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2020, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-assassinates-commanding-general-of-iran-quds-force/845821/393 "2020-01-06T08:40:11Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > The only people who really and truly care about Iran’s nuke capabilities are Israel and the hardcore imperialists in Israel and the US would insist on imposing their will on everyone else in the region. That’s not true, and it has nothing to do with Iran. No government in the world wants any country other than their own (if that) to have nuclear weapons. You think that if, say, the Netherlands wanted a nuclear program, the rest of the world wouldn’t try to get them to stop? If the United States could, it would prevent \*anyone \*from having nukes, including its allies; Russia, China, UK, Israel et al would do the same. It’s just common sense. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2020, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-assassinates-commanding-general-of-iran-quds-force/845821/394 "2020-01-06T08:48:52Z")
If the Iranians truly think the message is that we are going to take them out, then they’ll be making it a self-fulfilling prophecy. Personally though, I think they have more sense than that. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2020, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-assassinates-commanding-general-of-iran-quds-force/845821/395 "2020-01-06T09:03:08Z")
Honestly, I’m at a loss as to why any SDMB board members would think we’re out to eliminate the mullahs. We might get to that point, but do you two honestly believe that US policy? ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2020, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-assassinates-commanding-general-of-iran-quds-force/845821/396 "2020-01-06T09:14:06Z")
The United States\* has a policy\*? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2020, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-assassinates-commanding-general-of-iran-quds-force/845821/397 "2020-01-06T10:45:10Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > War with Russia was too horrible to contemplate, plus we were willing to give as good as we got in the proxy wars, however long it lasted, and we were prepared to fight those proxy wars forever. > > Iran is a different dynamic. We don’t want war, but war is not too horrible to contemplate. If war is the only way to stop Iran’s worldwide campaign of unconventional warfare, then that’s what will happen. And we aren’t actually willing to play proxy war for 60 years with Iran. We’ve got better things to do then have a cold war with a weak nation. They’ll either cut it out or they’ll pay an unacceptable price for their actions. It’s amazing to me that this kind of neocon thinking isn’t totally extinct. It’s nuts to think this could possibly improve things. Rumsfeld and Cheney and Bolton were and still are wrong. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2020, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-assassinates-commanding-general-of-iran-quds-force/845821/398 "2020-01-06T12:29:18Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Iran was willing to pause their nuclear program. They have never expressed even the slightest willingness to stop waging war all over the world. It’s basically their whole reason for existing. This is the sort of right-wing blindness and stupidity that drives me nuts. No, we didn’t make a deal with Iran that requires them to stop being a bad actor across the Middle East. That deal wasn’t going to happen. What the last _sane_ President and his Administration rightly figured was that if Iran was going to continue to be a bad actor, it was far better for it to be a bad actor _without_ nukes than a bad actor _with_ nukes. So we negotiated the JCPOA, Iran stopped working towards having nuclear weapons (a fact which the JCPOA allowed us to routinely verify), and otherwise continued to be a bad actor in the Middle East. The Nutcase Party, aka the GOP, crapped all over this deal because it didn’t keep Iran from being a bad actor. So their Nutcase President pulled us out of the deal, and now Iran’s out of the deal too. So now they’re a bad actor that’s back on the road to having nuclear weapons. Winning! ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2020, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-assassinates-commanding-general-of-iran-quds-force/845821/399 "2020-01-06T12:40:48Z")
The GOP apparently believes that merely by being sufficiently macho and threatening towards Iran, we should be able to make it stop doing anything we don’t like. Oddly enough, this is a repeat of our relationship with North Korea under a previous sequence of Dem/GOP Administrations. NK was on the road to nukes, but Clinton negotiated the Agreed Framework with them, and they ceased their nuclear weapons development. Then Bush and his crew came into power, and they decided that the Agreed Framework constituted appeasement (IIRC, it included food aid to NK), so they pulled us out of it. Again, the idea was that we were big and powerful, they weren’t, and we should be able to dictate terms to them. NK had nukes before Bush left office. How anyone can believe that the GOP is the stronger party with respect to issues of defense and national security is beyond me. That may have been true 25 years ago, but a lot has happened since then to demonstrate that this is no longer the case. Yet the notion persists, which boggles my mind. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2020, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-assassinates-commanding-general-of-iran-quds-force/845821/400 "2020-01-06T12:46:57Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > It’s amazing to me that this kind of neocon thinking isn’t totally extinct. It’s nuts to think this could possibly improve things. Rumsfeld and Cheney and Bolton were and still are wrong. Not sure what you’re arguing here. That we SHOULD just have a Cold War with a vastly inferior power? Or not fight back at all against their proxies killing our citizens? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-assassinates-commanding-general-of-iran-quds-force/845821.md?page=19) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-assassinates-commanding-general-of-iran-quds-force/845821.md?page=21)