What if killing Soleimani was the right move?

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@iiandyiiii

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”.

Why don’t you think this has any chance of making the situation better?

Don’t you think that this will dissuade iran? I mean their lame response (shooting rockets at our camp after giving us several hours notice so we could clear everyone out) seems to indicate that we have in fact succeeded in inspiring an attitude adjustment on their part.

Which of our allies have praised this action? I’m not sure if a single one has. I don’t think even Israel did!

Who has condemned it? Which alliances have we strained (other than iraq)?

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.

They were not wrong about what it would take to topple the regime. The Saddam regime toppled in a few weeks. They wanted to occupy Iraq on the cheap. Do you remember shinseki?

If we just bomb them and leave. Rinse and repeat until attitude adjustment is achieved.

Leaving sounds good to me.

Yep, we can bomb them from here if need be.

I thought it was pretty widely publicized: Funeral of Qasem Soleimani - Wikipedia

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.

I agree, he was popular with the folks in Iran that generally support the current regime. They were never really big fans of ours.

Sure, this would be as easy as getting rid of Iraq’s WMDs. Sure I believe you, Mr. Rumsfeld.

If we had just bombed the shit out of those WMD sites, we would be better off right now.

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 Kind of like the deal that actually would have prevented Iranian nukes had Trump not withdrawn for no reason and with no benefit to the US?

I think reducing the number of people with nukes is a good idea. I suspect that you think likewise. If you want to criticize Trump for fucking up the iran nuclear deal, I’m right there with you. Fuck trump for reneging on an iran deal that iran by all accounts seems to have been abiding by. But regardless of the pretext, if iran starts building nukes, lets blow that shit up. If Iran kills any americans I am not going to sit there and just take it because I’m afraid that iran is going to take their ball home and start building nukes.

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.

If we can be indifferent to the suffering of others as long as we remain safe then I say we should just drop a bomb on every supreme council member’s head if they try to build a nuke and then just see if they get the message. If they don’t then drop a few more bombs on their leadership’s head. The USA and USSR did a pretty good job of threatening the members of their half of the cold war into not developing nuclear weapons, some of it with assassinations, allegedly.

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.

So we have to kill them up close? That seems worse. I suspect that if all we did was kill saddam hussein and left the region, the region would be in better shape than it is right now.

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.

Fortunately out civilian and military bureaucracy if fairly well protected from partisan turnover and so most of the smart people are held over from administration to administration.

What exactly is the point of killing americans that you can’t take credit for? And plausible deniability might work when you’re getting impeached, it doesn’t work when it comes to getting killed because we think you did it. Plausible deniability might work if you are russia or maybe china but we can strike back at any iranian bullshit with relative impunity. and it appears that we are willing to do so now.

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’m pretty sure that you’re wrong but we will see.

[iiandyiiii]

@Damuri_Ajashi

Why don’t you think this has any chance of making the situation better?

Why would it? I still don’t get it. I don’t buy the idea that Solemaini was some irreplaceable strategic genius. And if he was just another Iranian general (even a talented one), he’ll be replaced with some other Iranian general (probably another capable one).

Don’t you think that this will dissuade iran?

Why would it? What’s the downside for Iran? Right now they’ve got a lot of sympathy, because they’re the country that Trump attacked seemingly out of the blue. If you haven’t noticed, the vast majority of the rest of the world hates Trump. Trump attacking someone out of the blue makes them look better.

I mean their lame response (shooting rockets at our camp after giving us several hours notice so we could clear everyone out) seems to indicate that we have in fact succeeded in inspiring an attitude adjustment on their part.

What attitude adjustment? Attacking us with missiles (even in a restrained way) is worse than not attacking us with missiles. It also makes us look ineffectual – not responding to a missile attack (we shouldn’t, by the way – that would make things even worse… but this is a no-win situation that Trump put us in).

Who has condemned it? Which alliances have we strained (other than iraq)?

Our entire policy with Iran has strained our alliances with Germany and other European allies. I doubt Canada is feeling great about us after we triggered chaos that resulted in a bunch of dead Canadians as a 2nd order consequence. Who feels better about us? Certainly not Iraq.

They were not wrong about what it would take to topple the regime.

Iran is far larger, more advanced, and more unified than Iraq under Saddam. This would be much harder than Iraq was.

If we just bomb them and leave. Rinse and repeat until attitude adjustment is achieved.

Yep, we can bomb them from here if need be.

No thanks, Rumsfeld. Explosions and death won’t make this better.

If we had just bombed the shit out of those WMD sites, we would be better off right now.

Even better would have been doing nothing. “Not blowing shit up” doesn’t seem to occur to you as a possible course of action.

I think reducing the number of people with nukes is a good idea. I suspect that you think likewise. If you want to criticize Trump for fucking up the iran nuclear deal, I’m right there with you. Fuck trump for reneging on an iran deal that iran by all accounts seems to have been abiding by. But regardless of the pretext, if iran starts building nukes, lets blow that shit up. If Iran kills any americans I am not going to sit there and just take it because I’m afraid that iran is going to take their ball home and start building nukes.

If we can be indifferent to the suffering of others as long as we remain safe then I say we should just drop a bomb on every supreme council member’s head if they try to build a nuke and then just see if they get the message. If they don’t then drop a few more bombs on their leadership’s head. The USA and USSR did a pretty good job of threatening the members of their half of the cold war into not developing nuclear weapons, some of it with assassinations, allegedly.

You’re a warmongering idiot, just like Rumsfeld (and Trump, apparently). “Blowing that shit up” will just make things worse, and make Iranian nukes more likely. There are tons of mountains and caves in Iran – bombs can’t reach all the places that they could make nukes. All we can do is harden their resolve and make nukes more likely.

Your Rumsfeldian thinking can only make America weaker and poorer.

[Chisquirrel]

@Damuri_Ajashi

We’re bigger than you. Make us.

We?

[orcenio]

Out of many, if there’s one concept that I’m certain Damuri Ajashi is incapable of understanding it’s the old proverb “You gotta fight your own battles!”

[asahi]

@Damuri_Ajashi

Typo on my part. I am NOT opposed to war under any circumstance. I think that you need justification for war.

How did we violate Iran’s sovereignty? Did we invade?

Not yet, but we imposed sanctions and we used economic coercion to compel other countries to cut off trade with Iran, for the express purpose of changing their regime. We might be technically operating within the scope of international law, but the intent to change a regime is a violation of a country’s sovereignty, and some sort of backlash is inevitable. We had a multilateral anti-proliferation framework that gave both the US and Iran a face-saving way out of this decades-long standoff. It was Trump, not Iran, who decided to tear up that framework, over the objections of our allied partners.

@Damuri_Ajashi

If we left after killing Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, we would have been out of there a decade ago. It’s the “sticking around to try fix things because it’s the right thing to do” part that is causing direct issues for us.

Nah, not quite; it’s the foreign policy of imposing American will on regimes that don’t play ball with the US that’s causing direct issues for us.

@Damuri_Ajashi

I agree, the messy part is trying to manage things without setting the middle east on fire. And there are two tricks to that:

Not give a shit if the region is on fire and just shoot some missiles there whenever a regime starts to threaten us. This would make us monsters.

It would also be stupid because missiles alone won’t eliminate the dangers that we would face.

@Damuri_Ajashi

Just take over like we did with countries like Germany or Japan after the war, don’t even pretend that we are just there to help out. You are now a US territory, your athletes can still compete under your own flag at the Olympics but we have rescinded your sovereignty. This would make us about as almost as bad as the Nazis.

Problem is, we probably can’t afford to do that for very long. It requires domestic political will and money that we don’t have. So let’s try this again.

@Damuri_Ajashi

Fortunately the politician’s (including the theocratic politician’s) instinct for self preservation is going to prevent this from happening. It is not likely that the 99 pound weakling acts unreasonably when confronted by the 800 pound gorilla.

The longer we threaten a regime’s existence, the more likely it is that they behave unreasonably out of a sense of desperation. I’m not a fan of the Iranian regime but I blame the US for Iran’s behavior, as Iran is clearly acting out of self-defense.

[Ann_Hedonia]

@Damuri_Ajashi

And another poster blaming america for a plane that Iran shot down. We made them do it?

So we should have just let this guy keep killing american personnel and syrian civilians.

I don’t see a lot of iraqi americans marching in protest of this guy’s death.

I see syrian americans celbrating it.

When did you first become aware of the existence of General Soleimani?

If more it was than a week ago, tell me about how long you have felt he needed to die and the reasons for your feelings at that time.

[elucidator]

Said to my son when we got the news, that Trump made a mistake killing somebody no one had ever heard of.

[asahi]

A 50% of this country - maybe slightly more than half the population - has been anything from concerned to outraged over the apparent meddling in our elections by a hostile foreign power in 2016. We’re outraged not just because it’s an assault on our democracy, but more to the point, it’s an assault on our sovereignty. Russia didn’t fire bullets or drop bombs, but they undermined our sovereignty nevertheless. Those who are claiming that the US had some divine right to take out Soleimani are completely missing the broader context in which his killing took place. When you attack a country’s sovereignty, whether with bombs, cyber attacks, or organizing a global embargo, then you’re asking for a response of some kind. The US just expects nations like Iran to roll over, which is dangerously naive.

[The_Tooth]

I really don’t see how attacking, unprovoked, another sovereign nation then refusing to provide justification to even its own lawmakers can be seen as anything other than the actions of a rogue government. It may have the approval of a loud minority, it may even further American interests although I don’t see that as a factor when determining the rightness of an action, but the free world - the nations the US constantly claims to lead - decided decades ago that attacking other nations unprovoked is not the right move.

[Knowed_Out]

@orcenio

He’s so cute and we all have a thing for daddys.

Thank you for that. That restored my faith in humanity.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@iiandyiiii

Why would it?

Because punching a bully in the nose has that effect.

I don’t buy the idea that Solemaini was some irreplaceable strategic genius.

He doesn’t have to be. People just have to know that we will kill you if you behave the way Suleimani did.

Iran is far larger, more advanced, and more unified than Iraq under Saddam. This would be much harder than Iraq was.

There is NO QUESTION about how quickly and completely we would destroy their country. None.

No thanks, Rumsfeld. Explosions and death won’t make this better.

Depends on how badly Iran behaves. If they try to develop a nuclear weapon, targetted missile strikes would absolutely help keep it from getting worse. At some point they will run out of people capable of running a nuclear program. Sure it would have been better if Trump didn’t back out of the Iran nuclear deal but regardless of how they get there, if they start building nukes we have to destroy that capability.

Even better would have been doing nothing. “Not blowing shit up” doesn’t seem to occur to you as a possible course of action.

I agree that not invading iraq would have been better than invading iraq. But if our concern was WMDs and THAT was the reason we were actually going in, then we could have just blown up the suspected WMD sites. That would have been better than invading. I think you probably agree with that.

You’re a warmongering idiot, just like Rumsfeld (and Trump, apparently). “Blowing that shit up” will just make things worse, and make Iranian nukes more likely. There are tons of mountains and caves in Iran – bombs can’t reach all the places that they could make nukes. All we can do is harden their resolve and make nukes more likely.

Your Rumsfeldian thinking can only make America weaker and poorer.

And you’re just an idiot. We cannot let Iran get a nuclear bomb, even if that means dropping a bomb on the Ayatollah’s head and then on the head of each of his successors until they get the point or they run out of people willing to be the Ayatollah.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@orcenio

Out of many, if there’s one concept that I’m certain Damuri Ajashi is incapable of understanding it’s the old proverb “You gotta fight your own battles!”

Not sure what you mean by that. Would you care to expand?

[Fiveyearlurker]

If it had been the right move, then they wouldn’t currently be lying about what led up to it.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@asahi

Nah, not quite; it’s the foreign policy of imposing American will on regimes that don’t play ball with the US that’s causing direct issues for us.

So we shouldn’t have gone after Osama bin Laden?

And I agree that we shouldn’t have invaded Iraq but if we were willing to leave it a smoldering mess after the invasion, it would be fine right now with a baathist government running the place without a Saddam and with a healthy respect for our ability to go in there and punish them at will.

It would also be stupid because missiles alone won’t eliminate the dangers that we would face.

What dangers would we face that we wold not otherwise face by doing nothing?

Problem is, we probably can’t afford to do that for very long. It requires domestic political will and money that we don’t have. So let’s try this again.

We can finance it with the oil we take from them, that will go a long way towards building the political will.

The longer we threaten a regime’s existence, the more likely it is that they behave unreasonably out of a sense of desperation. I’m not a fan of the Iranian regime but I blame the US for Iran’s behavior, as Iran is clearly acting out of self-defense.

I blame the US for overthrowing their democratically elected government and installing a shah but that was the cold war and we did a lot of really fucked up shit.

But we are where we are.

Regimes do not commit suicide out of desperation when there is an out. All they have to do is abandon the pursuit of a nuclear weapon.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Ann_Hedonia

When did you first become aware of the existence of General Soleimani?

If more it was than a week ago, tell me about how long you have felt he needed to die and the reasons for your feelings at that time.

Why does that matter? There is a long list of ISIS and al Qaeda leaders that I never heard of before that we killed under Obama. The question isn’t whether or when I KNEW he was a bad guy that deserved killing. The question is whether or not he actually was a bad guy that needed killing.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@The_Tooth

I really don’t see how attacking, unprovoked, another sovereign nation then refusing to provide justification to even its own lawmakers can be seen as anything other than the actions of a rogue government. It may have the approval of a loud minority, it may even further American interests although I don’t see that as a factor when determining the rightness of an action, but the free world - the nations the US constantly claims to lead - decided decades ago that attacking other nations unprovoked is not the right move.

I’m pretty sure that the pentagon has laid out all the ways that this guy provoked us into killing him. Did you miss it? Did you think we just killed some random Iranian official for shits and giggles?

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Fiveyearlurker

If it had been the right move, then they wouldn’t currently be lying about what led up to it.

Who is lying and how? Do you have a cite?

If Trump is the one lying then that is about as convincing as the sun rising in the east.

[iiandyiiii]

@Damuri_Ajashi

Because punching a bully in the nose has that effect.

LOL at the idea that Iran is bullying the US. That’s too absurd to even contemplate.

He doesn’t have to be. People just have to know that we will kill you if you behave the way Suleimani did.

LOL at the idea that, out of the blue, killing one bad guy out of thousands will dissuade the other thousands upon thousands from doing bad things.

There is NO QUESTION about how quickly and completely we would destroy their country. None.

LOL at your Rumsfeldian certainty about the ease of defeating a large Middle Eastern country. You’re really stepping up your comedy game here!

Depends on how badly Iran behaves. If they try to develop a nuclear weapon, targetted missile strikes would absolutely help keep it from getting worse. At some point they will run out of people capable of running a nuclear program. Sure it would have been better if Trump didn’t back out of the Iran nuclear deal but regardless of how they get there, if they start building nukes we have to destroy that capability.

LOL at the idea that missile strikes can prevent nuclear weapons in a large country with diverse terrain and plenty of mountains. Where’d you learn this stuff, Trump University’s School of Military Awesomeness, featuring Professor D. Rumsfeld?

And you’re just an idiot. We cannot let Iran get a nuclear bomb, even if that means dropping a bomb on the Ayatollah’s head and then on the head of each of his successors until they get the point or they run out of people willing to be the Ayatollah.

God what stupidity. It would just harden their resolve and pretty much guarantee they get nukes. Sorry Rumsfeld, but this veteran isn’t going for the armchair military idiocy you’re peddling.

[iiandyiiii]

@Damuri_Ajashi

Did you think we just killed some random Iranian official for shits and giggles?

Basically, yes. Trump has all but admitted to this (along with his other dishonest post-hoc justifications). Solemaini was bad, but there are plenty of bad people out there, in Iran and elsewhere. This was done because Trump was afraid of looking weak (too late for that, obviously), jealous that Obama killed OBL, and worried about impeachment. Not because a living Soleimani is somehow uniquely dangerous to the US.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

@iiandyiiii

LOL at the idea that Iran is bullying the US. That’s too absurd to even contemplate.

Perhaps you’ve forgotten that Republicans are ALWAYS the REAL victims! :rolleyes: Even if they started it, it’s because the other person started it first.