I’m unsure if you understood my post, to be honest. Because, to me, the simplest explanation is that Trump fucked up in a fit of pique, ordered the attack, and got lucky on several counts that this didn’t spin out of total control with a much harsher, or simply a more fucked up Iranian response that would have pretty much force Trump to take further military steps and blow up the entire region…a region that much of the global economy depends on. You seem to be ascribing 3-dimensional chess like brilliance along with Trump channeling RDJ in Sherlock, being able to anticipate the future and not only the moves and counter moves Iran would take, but also know they would actually be able to pull it off, to not fuck up and accidentally kill some Americans (like they fucked up and killed a bunch of civilians on that air plane and then fucked up further by denying it…unlike the US, when WE killed a bunch of civilians and just said, well, we thought it was an attack plane, let’s give out some medals!). Sorry, but I think my scenario is the simplest and less likely to phase Occam OR his razor.
Can you walk me through your logic? I know this is the Pit and all, but this seems a decent enough discussion, and I’m genuinely curious. I mean, to me IF Trump was playing 3-dimensional chess, he would have WANTED the Iranians to attack back, and then used that as an excuse…casualties or no casualties…to do, at a minimum, a Syria level strike back to show dem Iranians who is boss AND to play to his base. As it is, most of the criticism I’ve seen post-Soleimani assassination has been from his own side, saying he fucked up by letting the Iranians off the hook and hot punishing them for striking some tents and damaging a helicopter. I also read that Trump was given a range of options (standard for a president) wrt Soleimani, and he chose the harshest. From what I read, several of his staff were in fact surprised and tried to talk him out of it…but Trump being Trump he knew what’s bestest for all and did what he did. That really sounds like pique and, IMHO, someone who didn’t bother to even find out the details of who this guy was or why other presidents didn’t hit him when they could have. This is all standard Trump, so not seeing how this makes Occam cry or that it some sort of convoluted and Byzantine evolution to speculate this on my part.
BTW, I never said anything about ‘imminent attack’ or any sort of justification horseshit. That was bullshit and everyone could see that.
I’m saying that we only have to infer multi-dimensional chess if we think Trump had any military or geopolitical goals in mind. That takes a lot of mental effort to square.
You’re suggesting that Trump got pissed and lashed out in a state of pique. That’s not a crazy theory, but I think that even a military bureaucracy has enough players that something like that is unlikely to happen.
I’m suggesting a lens based on Trump prioritizing his political survival, and optimizing how he looks on the TV. We know Trump wants to avoid impeachment, we know his ego can’t tolerate bad press. These are the most obvious things about him. He wanted to avoid looking weak, he wanted to distract the news cycle from impeachment. There are even reports that Trump chose his course of action to curry favor among impeachment jurors who are also Iran hawks. That link is MSNBC, it actually came out in the Trump-fawning WSJ first but I can’t put hands on that link right now.
If we view it in these terms, it’s a fairly simple and smart calculation that Trump made. The only obstacle to believing this is thinking that Trump wouldn’t possibly be that cravenly self-serving. (Spoiler alert, he is).
If we try to discern a military strategy here, that’s what requires 11-dimensional chess. I’m proposing that the 1-dimensional chess of Trump’s own ass-covering is the likeliest story here.
I’m not as sanguine as you. Crush Iran’s military handily in any confrontation? Yes. Regime change? I’m less sure of that - the Iranian government may not be overwhelmingly popular, but unlike the late Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein, it actually does have a real constituency. And Iran has far more of a national consciousness than Iraq. Attacks on the whole tend to cause nationalistic people to rally against the attacker. Threatening to hit “cultural centers” is not going to endear you to even the most ardent internal enemies of the mullahs.
Not saying it isn’t possible. But I wouldn’t assume a foregone conclusion like that.
It isn’t necessarily or entirely what Iran will do. This sort of commentary is worth paying attention to IMHO. It isn’t all missiles and assassinations. There is a lot of tricky realpolitik to navigate here and the United States can really( has really, arguably )shoot itself in the foot diplomatically. Serious consequences could potentially reverberate down years, not just necessarily days, weeks or months.
Iran could win politically what they could never win militarily. And that will be substantially on the Trump administration’s head.
I could be wrong but I find it highly unlikely that he’s coincidentally killed and that we didn’t know he was there, considering how notorious he was and how intelligence had their eyes on him for over a decade.
A better question is whether Trump really wanted to go through with this and whether he understood the implications, and my guess is that the answer to both questions is no and no. This was a hardliner move, designed by hardliners within the administration (most likely Pompeo) to intimidate Iran.
Trump is surrounded by people who believe in regime change. If you want regime change with Iran, it would be great if you could avoid an all-out war, which would be very messy. Regardless of however unrealistic and naive it might be to hope that Iran’s regime might simply capitulate to US demands, that’s what Pompeo et al hope for.
Iran and the US are essentially playing the same game. It’s not ‘dick waving;’ it’s a low-scale war already in progress. Both sides are trying to fight and win this low-scale war without triggering a response that leads to all-out war.
From Iran’s side, as madmonk has pointed out on other threads, the Iranian regime wants to potentially divide the US and weaken domestic morale to maintain their presence. And as several others have pointed out, if the Iranians can politically and militarily drive the US out of Iraq first and other regional bases later, then Iran wins - that’s what Iran wants.
OTOH, the US wants to cripple Iran economically, but this assassination adds a somewhat new dimension: it demonstrates that the US is willing to use brute force against Iran directly. In the short term, I agree with Trump’s supporters: it does deliver the intended message and it does rattle Iran’s regime – but only in the short term. Over the long term, though, the fact remains that Iran’s regime understands that it’s fighting for its survival, and this will motivate them to strike back. It’s just a question of how and when they decide to retaliate.
So the bottom line is that no, I don’t see how having an ideologue bait an ignorant president into a symbolic act of assassination really works to the president’s advantage. More than anything, it has put Iran in a position of being forced to retaliate. Had Iran reacted in haste and done something rash like say attacked the US mainland or blocked Hormuz, then perhaps this would have been a strategic win for the US. But every day that Iran shows restraint makes Soleimani’s assassination look like an American transgression, and it makes Iran look more sympathetic.
But is the United States justified in policy that violates Iran’s sovereignty and makes war more likely in the first place?
You acknowledge that we may not be able to put the country back together again - don’t you think that’s a pretty important consideration consider what a mess we got when law and order collapsed in Iraq and Syria? Any lack of stability in Iran would almost immediately spread to Iraq. The entire region would be on fire.
Then they are justified in retaliating and bearing whatever consequences that retaliation will provoke. Just like we were justified in killing Suleimani. And bearing the consequences of rocket attacks against empty bases.
Iran is a stinking regime that deserves to be wiped off the face of the earth - this is a regime that has just shot down an airliner, denied it, said it was ‘scientifically impossible’ interfered with the wreckage well outside of the protocols of air accident investigation and continued in its denials right up until that position became untenable in the light of information that was gathered outside its ability to control, and finally admits its role.
They knew the facts from the moment the missile left the ground and the aircraft hit it, and it they had been able to suppress that information they would surely have done so - and this in the light of non-provocative interpretations by the international community.
Iran is a terrorist nation, feeding terrorism all over ME and one of its leaders who was on a ‘humanitarian mission’ meeting the head of one of the militia groups is dead - good.
The only thing these sorts of regimes ever understand is force - Qaddafi got a bit too loose, supplying the IRA with weapons to cause mayhem in Northern Ireland and supported terrorism all over the place - would his neck in good and proper when his aircraft were taken down and his tent destroyed - sure he moaned about it but he was never as bold after that. This is the only language that these terrorist nations understand.
Iran is a vile spewer of hate in its quest for world theocracy, we cannot compare it to military actions of western nations because it sees itself as completely unaccountable to its own population - we have the right to criticise our leaders and we do so loudly and frequently, go to Iran and try that, see what happens.
You people flip out if someone doesn’t perform the proper rituals in front of cloth. You also invade countries under false pretenses, put children in concentration camps, and want to force women to bear children against their will out of superstition. You elected a leader who sees fit to torture prisoners and murder their families. Sit down.
Perhaps you have iiandyiii, Monty, Snobaorder Bo, Little Nemo, Big T, Der Trihs, and many others on ignore because that is exactly what they are doing.
They are all criticizing the killing itself. They don’t think the killing itself was worth it. They are saying that we are better off if this guy was still alive today. We can reach the conclusion that this was a justified and necessary killing regardless of how horrible a person Trump is.
So were the terrorists he inspired.
“A CBS/The New York Times poll taken after bin Laden’s death showed that 16% of Americans feel safer as the result of his death while 60% of Americans of those polled believe killing bin Laden would likely increase the threat of terrorism against the U.S. in the short term.[169]”
Two things:
Who’s gonna make us leave? They didn’t ask us in and if we feel it is our national security interest, I doubt we will care if they ask us out. If it is not in our national security interest and it has more to do with regional politics then it’s dealers choice.
That is not a risk that Saudi Arabia can afford to take for anything less than an existential threat to their regime.
This is mostly about people who are so mad at trump that they are not able to see past that anger and recognize when he does something right for a change.
Not that you are cognitively aware of it but, the crazy spectre of war that Trump capriciously plunged everyone into cost us American-Iraqi support, Irainian negotiations, and (this is a big one) a plane of people.
It could have also easily ran into a full-blown war, but you seem unfazed by any of this.
Due process? What kind of due process do you think we should have engaged in here?
Which government thinks that this killing was unjustified, other than Iran and maybe Russia? Which of our allies think that Suleimani didn’t do the things that the pentagon says he did? And this is with a president that has burned his international credibility down to zero.
The Syrians I know are celebrating in the street. They think of him as a butcher of civilians.
There is little room doubt on this matter. If we didn’t care about cleaning up the mess the actual overthrow of the Supreme Council in Iran would be over in a week. It would grossly irresponsible and inhumane to the civilians in Iran but the fact is that we have overwhelming firepower compared to Iran.
I think that leaving country after country a living hell on earth would be a bad way to conduct business but the notion that Iran would pout up much of a fight is pretty hard to support. And killing him was not about fixing the middle east. I am pretty tired of losing people trying to fix the middle east. Noone wants us there, from Israel to Iran, noone. We should just leave and wish them luck.
Do you have a cite for this international outpouring of sympathy for Iran? I mean aside form people like you. I have not heard any of our allies denouncing the killing as unjust of a war crime or anything like that.
Do you have a cite for this increasing popular support for the iranian government? Right now there are protests in the streets demanding the resignation of the ayatollah over the downing of the airliner. Wouldn’t a groundswell of support recognize (like many do here in america) that the airliner’s destruction can be laid at the feet of Trump? That this was the direct consequence of Trump’s actions and not the iranian actions?
We have missiles and bombers to destroy the sites that are used to develop nuclear weapons.
And yet there are protests in the streets, against the iranian government. There have been protests there all winter.
I agree, lets just leave and engage in missile diplomacy. Just shoot their uranium enrichment facilities with missiles whenever we detect them and continue with the embargo. Our prior policy position of giving them shit so that we don’t have to attack them doesn’t seem to be working very well. Precise limited strikes against their nuclear research facilities seems like the way to go.
Well we don’t really need their oil anymore so, I can’t disagree. Heck everyone including Israel wants us out of there so I agree, we should just leave.
So when Bashar Assad was killing his own people, we should have said “none of our business?”
Well, why not. it’s not like we invade north korea to alleviate the inhuman conditions over there. If we don’t need their oil any more, how much of a national security concern are they?
What about the pentagon?
I think you may be projecting a bit. I don’t think this is so clearly a fail as you might think.
We can just leave any time we want.
We have smart people too and now Iran knows that if they get caught there will be consequences. After our reaction to 9/11, the chances of a state actor sponsoring something like that against us are vanishingly small. The ayatollah is not suicidal.
We shouldn’t have engaged in irrational, incompetent flailing. Any sort of “due process” is better than “let’s kill this guy when it has no chance of making the situation better”.
Which of our allies have praised this action? I’m not sure if a single one has. I don’t think even Israel did!
Apparently you have the Cheney/Rumsfeld/Bush view of military action. If you believe “overwhelming firepower” is enough to win this kind of war quickly, then I don’t know what to tell you. It’s nonsense. They’d dig into difficult terrain and it would take lots of time, effort, and blood to get them out. And I suspect that the American people wouldn’t have near the patience, and rightfully so, for all the cost in blood and more this would take.
Soleimani was quite popular in Iran. As far as protests against the regime, the news I’ve seen have shown minuscule protests compared to the funeral turnout.
Sure, this would be as easy as getting rid of Iraq’s WMDs. Sure I believe you, Mr. Rumsfeld.
Sounds like more idiotic Rumsfeldian thinking. How about the radical idea of not blowing shit up? Maybe trying explosion-free negotiation and interaction could be something we try? Kind of like the deal that actually would have prevented Iranian nukes had Trump not withdrawn for no reason and with no benefit to the US?
Barring an international coalition led by regional partners, yes. There’s nothing we could have done to make things better. Rumsfeld and co. are wrong – that kind of thing just can’t be fixed by armed outsiders. All we could have done is make things worse.
You haven’t offered anything more than Rumsfeldian thinking as to why this could possibly be a win. “Killing the bad guys” from afar largely doesn’t actually make the world a better place. It usually just makes things worse.
What smart people do we have now? No one at the top, and increasingly it seems like no one near the top. Idiots advising idiots, and no wonder they do idiotic things. Iran knows that killing Americans abroad, unlike 9/11, almost certainly wouldn’t spark a full scale world. Especially if they can arrange plausible deniability, which they are probably smart enough to arrange.
I expect lots of Americans will die for nothing at some point in the future because of this pointless action by Trump. I hope I’m wrong; we’ll see.
I can think that the world would be a better place if someone was dead without advocating killing them or even thinking that killing them is a prudent course of action. I think this a lot, about a lot of people.