The thing is though, aren’t the Iranian rank and file going to see right through this ruse and call it for what it was (a tame response)?
Why would they? Many Americans, especially Fox News viewers, don’t see through the bull of this current administration. I imagine that Iranian State TV is even more influential there than Fox News is here.
When Trump, for example, lies and says he has accomplished more than any other president, I’m sure Fox News viewers eat it up and don’t see through his ruse. Same thing in Iran, I would imagine.
Surely some do, yeah, but bear in mind they have been asked by the chief to be patient, and to expect far more in due time:
It seems to me that while the “slap in the face” line has been widely reported, the context has been lost. The way I read it, at least, Khamenei isn’t saying “we totally humiliated them,” but rather “yeah that was a mere trifle, but believe you me this is only the beginning.”
Iranian state TV is reporting that 80 Americans died in the strike last night. I doubt any Iranians are in a position to call bullshit on that.
What’s going to be harder to hide is Trump’s promised additional sanctions (if those even materialize). Unless it’s targeted at certain elites, the people are going to feel it.
For all the threats and tears, I can’t help wondering if much of the Iranian leadership weren’t quite relieved to be rid of Soleimani, given his growing power base and popularity in recent years.
One hope to a no-war situation would be to follow up the assassination with a quick attack on Iran itself, along with a strongly broadcast message that a) Soleimani was about to attack America for no reason and b) the Iranian government has brought this on to the people of Iran, and hope that you can convince the people to rise up against the government and force them to deal with that.
One reason for the attack may have been to keep the US pinned down and unable to follow up with anything like that.
Uh…that’s literally war.
Iran was closer on the casualty count. They just left out the bit about General Soleimani having a hand in the deaths of 56 of his supporters.
Contrary to what many think, Iran isn’t crazy. They’ve been weakened due to sanctions and they know that, militarily, they don’t want any part of an all-out assault from the US if that can be avoided.
In a way, this type of retaliation (if the so-called ‘stand down’ reports are accurate) is actually a smart move, because it sends a message to people within Iran that they intend to fight back but it doesn’t intensify the escalation.
Iran is probably still stinging from the assassination of Soleimani, which they most likely assumed the US would never have the balls to do. They now know that Trump isn’t just capable of sanctions but much worse.
As I’ve said on previous occasions, Iran most likely assumes that they are in an undeclared state of war with the US – whether this is actually our perception or intention means nothing because that’s how they perceive it. So they are acting like a country that knows its regime is under attack and no less important they know that they cannot win a military confrontation. Moreover, they also know that, over time, they probably cannot win a combined strategy of economic and political warfare against us either.
What Iran has been doing since at least the early part of 2020 is attempting to bait the US into making a series of mistakes that lead to consequences we’re not prepared for, so that it will put more political pressure on us to leave the entire region. Interestingly enough, one Iranian assumption that’s no longer operative is that they’re dealing with a president who wants to avoid a full-on military confrontation. That assumption can no longer be made. That leaves Iran in a potentially more desperate assumption, one in which they have to exert some form of pressure without provoking a massive military response. They now also have to consider how they will behave if the US initiates a major war against them, not unlike North Korea. And that, my friends, is why we’re going to see Iran racing like hell to build its nuclear weapons, which in itself will ignite tensions.
Do you mean the deaths due to stampedes at his funeral?
That’s a shame, too.
~Max
Okay, seriously: has that ever happened? We spent years bombing Nazi Germany night and day, and it didn’t “convince the people to rise up against the government”. Then we did it again with North Korea, North Vietnam, and Iraq. Has it ever worked?
there were over 20 attempts on Hitler’s life. When he wasn’t busy surviving that he brutally put down anyone who got in his way.
The current leader of Iran is just another Shaw in Shia clothing. He isn’t universally loved and maintains power through political brute force.
Yeah. Of all those, can you tell us who actually ended up popping his grape? I forget.
Of those 22 “attempts”, 15 are dated (or started, in the case of Romer) before any significant bombing of Germany - 11 of them were actually in peacetime. Of the seven that are dated during the war, most were ideas that didn’t actually happen, and they’re all attempts by army officers to stage a coup, and from postwar documents it’s clear that had any of them succeeded, they had no plans to unconditionally surrender and end the war, but instead intended to seek a peace with the Western Allies recognizing German conquests and continuing the war against the USSR.
So no, that’s not really a good example of bombing a country and having ‘the people’ take over and solve the problem - there were more attempts before the bombing started then after, and had one of them succeeded, Germany would still have been an aggressive military power using massive slave labor on conquered territory and prosecuting a major war. They might have even been better at waging war with someone less fanatic at the head.
It was the one where they parachuted into Berlin with motorcycles to save the staff at a beleaguered U.S. consulate. The best part is they had virtually no notice about the mission and planned the entire thing during the flight!
Universal love is a high bar to meet. One can imagine though, as with the Castro regime in Cuba, that while “the people” may not be fond of their government, they really hate the US government even more.
So your best counter-example is a case where, no, it didn’t work. Here’s a hint: Hitler himself didn’t “brutally put down anyone who got in his way”; he had a lot of loyal supporters who did that for him.
Why continue fighting the Russians? I thought the military thought that was a very bad idea. Perhaps there was no way out of it.
I just want to say that “pop his grape” is a new phrase to me and I’ve been chuckling about it ever since I saw this. I don’t know why, but i just find it hilarious.