They haven't really infiltrated the Iraq government. I refer to my earlier post regarding religious affiliation and ethnicity. Rather the Iraq war removed boundaries for political groups and affiliations to join across borders, and in Iraq these affiliations have won power via elections. That isn't infiltration, as much as it is assimilation.

At any point in ME politics and conflicts, you can never just look at borders. You also have to look at demographics.

Killing Soleimani to "send a message" would be piss-poor strategy. Sending a message implies that you want them to get off the warpath, and if that was the desire - the US and Iran had working diplomatic relations just a year back. Secondly, it's a big escalation for a message.

The only truly good rationale for taking out Soleimani would be that you have actionable intelligence, verified by several reputable sources, that he and forces under his influence was going to undertake direct attacks against US personnel.

But of course, that such forces would be planning such attacks in the first place was in part invited by a US strategy that refused diplomacy, but also rolled over several times in the face of Iranian aggression afterwards.

For Iran's part, I suspect the bombing will give them the political oomph at home to deal with their recent civil unrest, which has been at problematic scales, and probably also can give their war-hawks the final support they need to push the moderates aside. The key issue you want moderates for in terms of foreign relations is of course nuclear weapons development.

As for "slapping the **** out of them", nobody sane really questions the outcome of a large-scale conflict between the US and Iran. That has never been the big issue. The big issue has always been how much risk you are willing to gamble in the relations, and how stupid respective war-hawks could potentially be. Iran has got some pretty stupid war-hawks, so your analyses better be good.

Of course, the "clever" response from Iranian conservatives and war-hawks at this point is not direct aggression.

Instead they should use this incident to consolidate political support domestically, tackle civil unrest, move even more resources away from the Iranian army and over to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and build broad acceptance and budgets for asymmetric strategy in the region (proxy warfare, disrupt shipping, intelligence actions, propaganda warfare).

If they can keep their fingers away from nuclear weapons development, they'll probably be able to pull these things off without too much international condemnation that actually amounts to anything. The US is a fickle and unreliable ally these days, and many of their traditional partners are probably not very willing to lend open support to US operations as long as Iran doesn't hit any big buttons. Few states want to end up like the Kurds in Syria.

Note that I use "clever" lightly. I don't actually think Iranian war-hawks are very clever as a group, it is more clever in the sense of actually achieving something that coincides with their goals.

These 2 posts back to back. Literally spit out my coffee. You guys just never learn.

Donny dove and Hillary da hawk.

So no one thinks the answer to "why now" might be wag the dog? It certainly has grabbed the news cycle away from impeachment, impeachment, impeachment.

Or is such a thought just too crude to contemplate?


PairTheBoard

Eh it feels like impeachment is barely a story at this point, the outcome is already known and most Americans have already moved on.

This just seems to me to be Trump seizing on an opportunity (attacks on embassy) to show strength and take out a HVT.

Trump is also easily goaded and there was a lot of democrats saying the recent embassy attacks show that no one in the ME fears us anymore, etc.

@tames

You have a different read on Iran than I do. I'm not sure why folks give Iran the benefit of the doubt, as to motivations.

I don't really think I do give them much benefit of the doubt?

I've been pretty open (both in this an other threads) about my disdain for Iranian conservatives, the clergy-controlled revolutionary guard and political war-hawks, which I think are pursuing a dangerous, stupid and unethical agenda.

Soleimani has both genocide and terrorism on his list of accomplishments and is no big loss to humanity.

But I tend to approach these things with a frame of realpolitik. Policy at the level where huge risks and costs are involved shouldn't primarily be emotional, it should be functional. And with an administration at the helm which I doubt knows the bare-bone minimum about this region and which repeatedly refuse expert advice, I would be very careful about accepting their decisions lightly.

Thing about it is, Trump would not know the difference between Zarqawi and Soleimani, not to mention that Zarqawi has been dead for a decade. This target was presented to him. The US intelligence community do not normally provide targets that will result in the loss of intelligence sources. This guy has been on the radar for awhile, and has been a threat for years.

It might be difficult to understand, but we killed him while he was moving in a convoy, and he was targeted. That requires significant intelligence. The type of intelligence that would be better served by keeping it flowing.

This was so far from an emotional action...this was calculated.

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For what I meant, Iran has infiltrated the government, and they did it on purpose, and it was not due to Sunni-Shia tribal stuff.

lol

You are confusing the strategic element with the political element and policy element. Of course an operation like this doesn't happen because someone presses a magic button. There are also plans for many other contingencies and routes.

But even if we ignore that, the strategic decision still takes place in a foreign policy mess carried out with no competence or direction. Like a drunk driver which has to chose between the family of five or the lone man, neither solution is absolution.

so is the deal that the US president, with no input from Congress or our allies abroad, gets to just decide who lives and dies in foreign countries via drone strike?

i don't like that

Americans are just completely brainwashed about this stuff and accept whatever the government tells them (the official version is printed in the ny times) with only marginal questions, because they all buy into the premise that the US has a divine right to throw its weight around and slap the **** out of whomever it doesn't like.

Of course Iran is a terrible theocratic oligarchy. Not sure that's much better than a godless gangster capitalist oligarchy.

This thread nails it:

Really hard to tell whether this is good or bad but it’s definitely provocative as ****. It feels like I would need a doctorate in ME studies to actually suss the ramifications. I guess we’ll see. Seems like there’s a lot of bad takes floating around on the inter webs though from people talking out their ass. I guess I should start getting used to that.

I don’t really have an issue with the President making this kind of call though. Are we really to expect the President should consult with Belgium before making a drone strike?

Was that an issue brought up somewhere, that he didn't consult with Belgium?

here's what you need to know about the situation internally..

if a country assassinated our vice president or secretary of state while he was abroad, do you believe that would be an act of war?

trump should have went through congress for this act. he effectively started a war with iran because he wanted to say benghazi a bunch..

Slighted, he was a military officer engaged in coordinating attacks against Americans. A Private in the US Army would not need Congressional approval.

It's almost offensive to the dead Americans you don't think the US military does not has a right to attack combatants who are killing our people, without a Congressional approval. I'll give you a pass, because you are just ignorant.

It's like you don't even know Iraq is designated as a war zone since 1991, and that EO survived multiple administrations.

lol

Bakes mentioned “allies abroad” and maybe I’m misinterpreting what he means by that but regardless the point still stands that I don’t think the Pres should have to consult with a foreign country to order a drone strike. Should he in some situations? Sure. But I don’t think it’s a prerequisite.

lol. no.

There's a real Boy Who Cried Wolf situation going on with the democratic clutching of pearls here.

How can anyone take the bitching about this seriously? This triggered whining is nigh indistinguishable from the rest of the incessant triggered whining that's been going on for the past 36 months.

You've got supposedly serious people in the media today trying to scare women and children in Columbus, OH by telling them they're legitimate targets for Iranian retribution.

Whatever serious discussion could've been had on this is lost in the quagmire of blind hatred for Trump. Then we've got Slighted over here, all upset that this didn't go through the motions of consultation with the House? Who are you people!?

Lol dead Americans. If you don't want to be a dead american then don't join the army and don't ship to the middle East. Play stupid games win stupid prizes.

feel free to link evidence of the first claim you made..


man, who is this dude slighted who wants the crazy dumb vindictive narcissist president "going through the motions" to start a war... who is this guy that thinks assassinating high ranking state officials to get a bump in his polls isn't a well thought out strategy..

How'd not joining the military work out for the civilians on September 11th, 2001, who also happened to die by terrorists? Or the Iraqi civilians this guy was responsible for killing.