That is known as an Infinite Game. You are winning if you are playing. You have lost if you are not. There are no other outcomes.
I have a legit question. Given that Qud is a well-organized, deeply entrenched organization, how would taking out Soleimani be a pre-emptive strike? Qud has already named his successor, and if the planned attacks against US military personnel, etc., were already in place, how would Soleimani’s death pre-empt anything? I’m trying to understand the reasoning.
This is exactly my question, too. Soleimani had already developed the infrastructure to commit these planned attacks at any time of Iran’s choosing. How does taking out Soleimani prevent them occurring in any way? Seems to me that Iran has even more impetus to order attacks against Americans now than they had before, not less.
One possible explanation is that by taking out such a high profile target, the US is demonstrating that it not only has the power but the will to escalate, not just with sanctions but with military force. It also sends a message to the proxies as well: anyone’s a target.
In the short run, yeah, it’s a strategy that could indeed intimidate Iran and its proxies and make them think twice about further escalation. But in reality, Iran is just going to expedite work on its nuclear weapons program, reach out (and probably get) more political support from Russia and China, and they will bide their time and work out what to do next. Iran’s character is not to let something like this go unanswered: they will fight back and there will be a further escalation. And depending on how desperate they feel their situation is, that escalation could be quite serious.
I’m not sure this was a mistake. Trump is perceived by the world as erratic and capable of almost anything. When a guy like that is in control of one of the most powerful military forces you don’t want to piss him off.
I suspect Iran will threaten and posture but won’t retaliate in any significant way.
If this were true, we’d have been blowing up airports and assassinating brown guys since Jan. 2017 to make sure the whole world knew we were not to be fucked with, right? But we haven’t been. Why is that?
It doesn’t. Or at least, there’s no reason we should take the word of a wholly dishonest administration about the reason for the strike. They’ve lied again and again; chances are they’re lying now.
War isn’t about the narrow question of which military can beat the other military. It’s about achieving foreign policy goals. If we send the military on a campaign and they win every military engagement, yet we didn’t achieve our foreign policy, then WE lost the war. Not just the military, the entire United States.
In Germany and Japan our goal was to completely pacify those nations. They now remain pacified because we did the work of rebuilding and partnering and forging alliances. But the United States lost Vietnam, we lost Iraq, we lost Afghanistan. It’s pointless to salve our ego by saying we threw better punches or had better form. All our foreign policy goals failed in those countries, or they led to other catastrophic unforeseen policy outcomes, so we simply lost. The criteria are perfectly clear.
We lost because, in the run-up to war, we base our chances of success purely on the likelihood of destroying the other country’s military. Things will surely go our way once they have no tanks or airplanes! But it never goes that way. We’re doing it again, right now, here in this thread.
Trump is perceived in the world as a coward who will do anything to save his own skin. This is the absolute only way he’s been 100% predictable.
Everyone also knows he’s terrified of the price of oil going up, that he’s terrified of high interest rates, that he’s terrified of incurring US casualties in war, that he’s terrified of having his misdeeds exposed. When confronted with strength, he always makes blustering threats and backs down. There’s nothing unpredictable about him except how he responds when faced with several things that terrify him about the same amount.
This calculation isn’t going to work forever, but there’s no reason Iran shouldn’t expect it to continue working for them. They know they can’t win a war against the US, but they can inflict enough pain to make the US lose.
Well, then, maybe we need better goals: how about, instead of leading off with talk about how we’re out “to completely pacify”, we helpfully declare at the start that we’re looking to smash their military and then, y’know, call it a day?
That’s what I’m asking: can we say, in advance, that once their stuff gets smashed, that’ll be the indicator that things sure went our way?
Sure, for future conflicts, but you can’t use that as a post hoc rationale for “winning” Korea, Vietnam, etc as merely breaking things wasn’t the stated policy goals.
As evidenced by gatherings of world leaders that include the Donald, he’s the subject of ridicule.
Speaking of, y’all have lost The Game. Again.
I don’t see any “goals” at all.
So much war-stopping and de-escalation happening tonight:
During Saddam Hussein’s tenure, he closed the border to Iranians, who have a yearly ritual which requires pilgrimage to Najaf and, I believe, Karbala. Iranians tend to be Shi’a; Hussein was Sunni.
Have there been any accusations that the impeachment process is an unnecessary diversion from this escalation of hostilities yet?
This is only going to make the Iranian regime more popular.
Or he could just swap places with Dimitry Medvedev for a term and rule the country from the Prime Minister’s office.
It is so strange, disconcerting actually, that I find myself rooting for Iran in all this.
As weird as it makes me feel, and as irrational as I know it is, I suspect I’m not the only one having such a nauseating epiphany.
One more reason Trump sickens me.
For all of the speculation about the myriad ways in which Iran might retaliate, it seems the most obvious and easiest thing for Iran’s government to do for the moment is to destabilize Iraq and turn people against the US-leaning government. It would put pressure on Iraq’s government to step back from US support, and things get out of control, it would endanger the security for the 5000-6000 US troops still there, which could force the US out once and for all.