And now Russia has a more established presence and vital interest in the area. An interest that is at odds with the US. And China is only too happy to sell weapons to fuel the conflict.
What’s that movie line about things getting out of hand and being lucky just to survive it?
True–all this because the only thing Trump cares about is his image. He wants to look “tough” because that’s all his base can understand.
None of the geopolitical stuff matters (and he’s too lazy to learn about it anyway). He’s been waiting for an opportunity to do something like this. It’s just more of his show–his performance.
Saying there’s a high likelihood isn’t the same as saying he’ll pull it off, but he has every survival-related reason to do it, and has given overt hints that he’d be interested in trying.
I have been fired due to my age and will be out of here on Saint April Fool’s Day. Any bets if things will hold off until then?
Oh we do. But since this particular mess has created by YOU guys, you get called out on it.
No one is blaming you for the fucking Naxalites. Or Muslim-Sikh riots.
All right, that’s enough.
I was on the fence enough to talk about your casual swipes in your earlier post, AK84. But doubling down after I said knock it off just a few posts earlier?
Warning issued.
First, any Iranian war would be a naval/air war. Why would we invade? There’s absolutely nothing in it for us. It’s not like their navy has become MORE capable since the last time we wrecked it, and we’re very likely to be dominant in the air as well. Plus, their economy is highly dependent on oil, which means that they’re dependent on tankers and oil pipelines, both of which are easy to spot and capture/destroy.
Iran is a second rate at best power. Probably more like third rate when you get right down to it. They are not a serious threat.
Didn’t see it. Fine. Will not talk on this topic again.
Except the U.S. was at war with Japan at the time, so a military leader was a legit target. We’re not at war with the nation-state of Iran – yet :smack: – and so killing this guy isn’t the same as taking out Admiral Yamamoto then or an AlQaida or ISIS leader now. It’s a pretty clear casus belli if the Iranians want to run with it.
When you get down to it, the United States military hasn’t conclusively won a war in 7 decades, and has never, ever won a war without massive allied support which exceeded that… especially in body count… the US’s contribution.
Your faith in our military’s ability to win a war is grossly misplaced, it seems to me.
“Underestimating the other fellow is a rookie mistake.”
–Some colonel at War College.
In addition, they are hobbled from serving under a President who has done nothing but smear and attack our intelligence community, our military leaders, as well as our allies, including NATO and the Kurds.
Again, the US military is $800 billion of smoke and mirrors which hasn’t conclusively won a conflict with true geopolitical consequences and changes since 1945.
You haven’t contradicted anything I said here; on the contrary you’ve reinforced my statement that the US wins in the short, kinetic timeframe. Just as they did in Iraq and Afghanistan, and went on to get shredded in the insurgency/terrorism battle.
Iran is probably the most capable/decentralized/experienced foe the US has ever faced in this regard.
The US couldn’t even defeat the Taliban FFS, how do you think they’re going to face a Quds apparatus that operates from Tehran to Lebanon?
Oh come off it. The merits of the decision (or mistake) may have been foolish, but he was a senior officer of an adversary inside an active war zone and hence a perfectly legitimate target under any rule of war you can think off.
Now, the flip side is that so are US Generals.
Before we all jump on the bashing Trump bandwagon and being a foreigner to US military policies, how likely is that Trump just woke up in the morning and said to his Generals to take the guy out or in the other hand, the generals came to him and exposed a plan a reason why the guy should be taken out now and Trump agreed to it based on that?
He also had another secret phone call with Putin 2 days ago. That’s just as likely a reason.
If by “of consequence” you mean that it wasn’t something like a world war, that’s true but also sort of okay by me - since we haven’t lost any of those either.
We did win the Cold War and one might argue that the coldness is a pretty decent measure of quality in our military. Similarly, the lack of World Wars could be viewed as a measure of success.
And, we certainly won Operation Desert Storm and could have “won” both Iraq and Afghanistan if we had the same level of goal as we did with Operation Desert Storm.
I wonder if the caption on this comic wouldn’t work in Hebrew as well as English…
When I look at look at Putin’s Russia and Trump’s USA in 2020, I’m not nearly as confident in that statement as you seem to be.
Putin is alright with anything that helps maintain the status quo, in terms of helping to support a player or knocking them down a peg. But he doesn’t want more than that - small balancing acts. He won’t want an actual war.
I’ll throw in to my previous prediction that if Putin does stop the war from escalating, secretly, there’s a good likelihood that Congress will remove a sanction or two (probably on a business or person close to Putin) as a thanks.