[Rancid]

President Donald Trump is a confirmed Russian agent and starting a war with Iran is exactly what Putin wants him to do.

Doubtful he's an agent of Putin. He might be a useful idiot though.

[The Sabbaticus]

In truth, Soleimani should have been killed a decade ago for his involvement in the Iraqi civil war.

Here is an analysis of him:

Abstract: In recent years, Iran has projected its power across the Middle East, from Lebanon and Syria to Iraq and Yemen. One of the keys to its success has been a unique strategy of blending militant and state power, built in part on the model of Hezbollah in Lebanon. The acknowledged principal architect of this policy is Major General Qassem Soleimani, the long-serving head of Iran’s Quds (“Jerusalem”) Force. Without question, Soleimani is the most powerful general in the Middle East today; he is also one of Iran’s most popular living people, and has been repeatedly touted as a possible presidential candidate.

Despite its ongoing economic woes, today’s Iran has fashioned itself into one of the premier military and diplomatic powers in the Middle East—and Saudi Arabia’s principal rival for hegemony over the entire region. It has achieved this with a mix of policies—among them, deft diplomatic maneuvering; a tactical alliance with Vladimir Putin’s Russia; and the provision of arms, advice, and cash to Shi`a militias across a variety of countries. In the latter case, Iran has pioneered a seemingly unique strategy that combines insurgent and state power in a potent admixture—a strategy that is evident today in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.

One man is recognized as the principal architect of each of these policies: Major General Qassem Soleimani, long-time chief of the Quds Force, a crack special forces battalion of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Although revered in his home country and feared on battlefields across the Middle East, Soleimani remains virtually unknown in the West. Yet to say that today’s Iran cannot be fully understood without first understanding Qassem Soleimani would be a considerable understatement. More than anyone else, Soleimani has been responsible for the creation of an arc of influence—which Iran terms its “Axis of Resistance”—extending from the Gulf of Oman through Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Today, with Assad’s impending victory in his country’s calamitous civil war, this Iranian alliance has become stable enough that Qassem Soleimani, should he be so minded, could drive his car from Tehran to Lebanon’s border with Israel without being stopped. And, as the Mossad chief Yossi Cohen has pointed out, the same route would be open to truckloads of rockets bound for Iran’s main regional proxy, Hezbollah.1

This article reviews Soleimani’s career and assesses his contribution to Iran’s regional ascendancy.

[JohnRawls]

President Donald Trump is a confirmed Russian agent and starting a war with Iran is exactly what Putin wants him to do.

Your not far from the truth here because sky high oil prices and more advanced weapons sales is what Putin wants any time, all the time.

[blackjack21]

Don't know whether to laugh or cry....

Global warming is going to end the world in 10 years anyway, so it doesn't really matter.

Although if US will try to occupy Iran then it will not lead anywhere in a sense. Occupying Iran is not possible without WW2 level of mobilisation from the US. Even worse than Vietnam.

Yeah, other than maybe a Marine expedition into a few port towns for some reprisals (which I don't think is a good idea), invading Iran would be folly. It's twice the size of Iraq and mountainous. If the US wants to fight in those types of geographies, it needs to rebase the 10th Mountain Division to the East side of the Rockies in Wyoming or Colorado, and develop many other mountain divisions. Afghanistan is a fraction of the size of Iran and we've been there for 18 years now.

At best, US can turn Iran in to a failed state

Yes, it can most certainly do that. Killing Soleimani actually does a lot to fuck up their foreign military activity too.

Continue to do so and Russia and China if forced to chose sides will chose Iran.

China is in a trade conflict with the US that it cannot afford to continue. Choosing sides with Iran means the US could re-ignite trade tensions, which have not hurt the US economy the way it has hurt the Chinese economy.

Iran is threatening to "remove America from Iraq" and apparently has the support of its middle eastern allies.

Only Iraqi factions could precipitate that action by force. It could be that Iran is trying to mirror Trump's desires and claim that they made it happen. It doesn't seem to be working out for them though. Losing Soleimaini is a high profile loss for Iran by any measure. It would be like losing Petraeus for us when he was still a general.

They're either going to bomb Iraq, or invade.

To try to gain what? They would invite a US military response, and open up Iran to a bombing campaign that Iraq couldn't even inflict during the height of the Iran Iraq war.

Although Iranian involvement in other countries is sometimes 'complex', at the end of the day, he was a war monger, as such, he deserved what he got.

Yeah, I find the sympathy for Soleimani a bit disingenuous. Basically, people have to admit that Trump hit Iran where it hurts and at the same time did so in a very measured way.

Hardly a high five for Trump.

Oh, it most certainly is. That's why people are nervous, because Iran has taken a significant hit--in a very measured way compared to what Iran has been doing.

Even Pompero suggests the US want to de-escalate tensions now although the next move was never theirs anyway.

Trump doesn't want to escalate tensions or he would have ordered air strikes after Iran hit a US drone. Taking out Soleimani tends to precipitate a response from Iran, but Soleimani would have been the most likely person to orchestrate the response.

Trump doesn't know what he is doing. This cannot be ME strategy as he clearly has done this alone.

Killing an opposing general on the field of battle hurts the enemy substantially and saps the enemy's capability and morale simultaneously.

I can only think it has to do with gaining a few percentage points in his election campaign by stoking nationalism from is core base.

I doubt that is the primary calculation. Trump actually gains more overseas.

Both the Saudis and the Israelis wanted Soleimani dead. The US has had reason to do this for well over a decade now.

Not only did that not happen, we later cut a deal with them that kept them for making nukes.

Like the deal we cut with North Korea? Countries do not adhere to such deals. They only serve as a bit of Xanax for worried liberals.

It seems Iran might really be considering outright war with either Iraq, Israel or Saudi Arabia.

Not a bright idea when your best general just got killed.

The guy was going to be the next president, he was a national hero.

So you are saying that Trump's minor air strike was a major injury to Iran's body politic, right?

If I were the guy that replaces Soleimani, I would be very paranoid.

Well, I think overconfidence in proximity to US forces isn't something Iranian generals are going to exhibit any time soon. The fact that it was so easy to nail Soleimani suggests that they thought Trump was as impotent as Obama. It was a grave miscalculation.

Further, it's interesting that the US didn't take a quiet approach to killing him through some CIA balckop or whatever. I guess they really wanted to make a point.

Obama was humiliated by both Benghazi and his "red line." I said at the time that US adversaries should attack, and eventually Russia did annex Crimea. The US media constantly covered for Obama's weakness, but when he did things like make fun of Putin as acting like a tough guy or being the bored kid in the back of the class, he did that after having been humiliated in Benghazi and Syria. Iran killed a US soldier and then taunted Trump. They had this coming to them. The DoD let it be known that the attack was at Trump's direction.

That part, I'm sure, was for the 2020 election - Trump wants to be an international strongman, unafraid to kill his enemies.

Iran directly taunted Trump. They thought his non-response to the drone shoot-down made him like Obama--a coward. They were hoping to humiliate him. Now they are humiliated. As weird as it sounds, humiliation is a big deal in the Middle East.

I think the prime purpose is to be seen to be aggressive; it's a bonus for the USA that one of the guys they killed was, by all accounts, very competent, and unlikely to be replaced by someone as clever.

It's a coup de grâce for sure. Frankly, I don't think Iran saw it coming. That Soleimani was confident to be riding around in convoys after organizing an attack on a US embassy illustrates that they had a psychological profile of Trump as no different from Obama, and it was disastrously wrong.

The Trump family is as reckless as ever with security:

Maybe. Maybe not. This was before the attack on the US embassy. So maybe they used Trump to send a message foretelling events of which he knew nothing.

To be fair, the only person to benefit here will be Putin when Iran start buying Russian defence systems and fighter planes.

That would be a defensive measure that would have no effect on Quds operations. Not a single Russian weapon system would have stopped Trump's attack. The bottom line is Iran got cocky and got smacked down.

In truth, Soleimani should have been killed a decade ago for his involvement in the Iraqi civil war.

I find it interesting that Trump detractors miss this rather obvious point. He's directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of US soldiers. So it's more than a fair retaliation, and quite a gut punch to Iran.

Your not far from the truth here because sky high oil prices and more advanced weapons sales is what Putin wants any time, all the time.

So does Trump. The US isn't "over a barrel" anymore when it comes to energy.

[Code Rood]

Now, of course, the regular propaganda parrots on this forum will come here claiming, as above, that "zionists are of course happy for this news"

That's because nobody but Zionists and a couple of retarded boomers with a lot of thirst for blood are really celebrating this news in the West. Normal people are tired of this BS in the Mid-East and want their own country back on track.

[Patrickov]

While I am not sure whether a certain Trump advocate is right, his words inspired me to notice the following event happened almost exactly 1015 years ago:

Chanyuan Treaty

The treaty was signed after China fended off an invasion by (somewhat luckily) ambushing and killing the invaders' lead general.

Albeit unlikely, Trump's tweet has a taste of this intention.

[Nonsense]

You didn't respond to what I was saying.

Iran is not putting a big effort into developing nukes. I suspect they are leaving the door open for a return to JCPOA.

Israel isn't going to strike Iran. They just aren't that dumb.

To put it simply, Israel has the back of all right thinking democratic government's, even if their policies on threatening countries doesn't accord with some.
There is an unalienable right for every country, of self-defence against any threat upon it, including planning, also, as in this case, the actual threats of revenge or retaliation by the Iranian leader, Hassan ROUHANI, for which he is now a legitimate target.

Just because there is little 'noise' on Iran's continuing nuclear weapons development, it is still advancing, in the same way as N. Korea is doing, both countries are only able to pursue that course because of a Pakistani nuclear physicist, Abdul Qadeer KHAN, who stole American nuclear secrets & sold them onto those countries.

[Code Rood]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/03/baghdad-airport-iraq-attack-deaths-iran-us-tensions

The Guardian, lol, already whining a little at the end to criticise President Trump.
This is definitely a big achievement.
Do not fuck with America.

I'm glad that my biggest fan on this forum is happy, but achievements like this one or the embassy move are not the type of things that people desperately wanted when they voted for Trump.

[Prosthetic Conscience]

The Trump family is as reckless as ever with security:

Maybe. Maybe not. This was before the attack on the US embassy. So maybe they used Trump to send a message foretelling events of which he knew nothing.

No, Eric tweeted that after - 3:44pm, Eastern time, Dec 31st - after, for instance, Centcom was tweeting about it:



CNN had a report on it online by Dec 31st, 6:44am, ET: https://edition.cnn.com/middleeast/live ... index.html

[Politics_Observer]

As of today, we are sending more troops to the Middle East. I am assuming this is in anticipation to any Iranian responses. They are sending in the 82nd Airborne Division! When the President dials 9-1-1, the 82nd Airborne Division picks up on the other side gets ready to have boots on the ground to any location on the globe within 18 hours.

[Rugoz]

This step-by-step escalation by the US reminds me of the WMD farce leading up to the Iraq war.

[Politics_Observer]

@Rugoz

Nah, this isn't the same thing given that it was Iran who started this fight. Iran killed some of our citizens in the Middle East and the guy we assassinated was responsible for the deaths of US service members. That is not a made up pre-text to invade a country like WMD was for the Iraq War.

[Code Rood]

As of today, we are sending more troops to the Middle East. I am assuming this is in anticipation to any Iranian responses. They are sending in the 82nd Airborne Division! When the President dials 9-1-1, the 82nd Airborne Division picks up on the other side gets ready to have boots on the ground to any location on the globe within 24 hours.

You're a terrific person if you support blowing up muslim countries, but you're a bad person if you don't want more (muslim) immigration. Both the GOP and Democrats support blowing up muslim countries, and both the GOP and Democrats want more (muslim) immigration.

[Rugoz]

@Rugoz

Nah, this isn't the same thing given that it was Iran who started this fight. Iran killed some of our citizens in the Middle East and the guy we assassinated was responsible for the deaths of US service members. That is not a made up pre-text to invade a country like WMD was for the Iraq War.

This tit-for-tat started before that. Not saying Iran isn't playing its part, but the Trump admin was out for confrontation for a while.

[late]

To put it simply, Israel has the back of all right thinking democratic government's, even if their policies on threatening countries doesn't accord with some.
There is an unalienable right for every country, of self-defence against any threat upon it, including planning, also, as in this case, the actual threats of revenge or retaliation by the Iranian leader, Hassan ROUHANI, for which he is now a legitimate target.

Just because there is little 'noise' on Iran's continuing nuclear weapons development, it is still advancing, in the same way as N. Korea is doing, both countries are only able to pursue that course because of a Pakistani nuclear physicist, Abdul Qadeer KHAN, who stole American nuclear secrets & sold them onto those countries.

To put it simply, they're not that dumb.

If Iran wanted nukes, they would already have them. They wouldn't have signed off on the JCPOA. They've left the door open for a negotiated settlement.

[late]

@Rugoz

Nah, this isn't the same thing given that it was Iran who started this fight.

Yeah, it was awful the way they broke the nuke deal, slapped punitive sanctions on us, and talked trash.

Just awful..

Obama had them settled down. Now look...

[Zionist Nationalist]

Seettled down

They never gave up on their nuclear weapon program they only paused it for a while
Obama was a pathetic coward who gave Iran a free ride. Trump is doing the right thing. the sanctions are working and now one of their most important figures is dead and they have no proper replacement for him

[late]

They never gave up on their nuclear weapon program they only paused it for a while


Trump is doing the right thing. the sanctions are working and now one of their most important figures is dead and they have no proper replacement for him

You were expecting divine intervention??? That was the most thorough inspection regime ever. If we had continued, we could have gotten it renewed.

Yeah, here we are on the brink of war, and ain't it great.

Cray cray..

[Zionist Nationalist]

You were expecting divine intervention??? That was the most thorough inspection regime ever. If we had continued, we could have gotten it renewed.

Yeah, here we are on the brink of war, and ain't it great.

Cray cray..

That

No intervention choke them with sanctions and let them act of disparity (like they do now) and bring their own doom on their doorstep
The Islamic republic is a theocracy its not a peaceful regime they need to be taken care accordingly
many Iranians within and outside Iran agree with me

[late]

No intervention choke them with sanctions and let them act of disparity (like they do now) and bring their own doom on their doorstep
The Islamic republic is a theocracy its not a peaceful regime they need to be taken care accordingly

I could care less if you and yours want to go to war.

Just leave me and mine out of it...

But, that's not what's goin' on heah, now is it..