Lets Do This Then

[jazz]

Regardless of Suleimani's record of attacks against western interests who can say that Trumps decisions were wise or not just a distraction from domestic politics?

All of those factions in the Mideast use the US just as much as they use them. If they become an US ally that means getting help ousting a tribal enemy with the hopes of the US losing interest and then moving into that vacuum. That's exactly what the kurds were, iraw, iran, saudi.

That's why getting out of there is the final goal. Trump has the US one foot out already.

[chuckChuck]

The hope is Iraq will have the capability to keep the ISIS type factions at bay. The US and Canada are there to support and train.

Who knows what will happen now. Is destabilization in anyones long term interest? I don't think so.

[jazz]

Who knows what will happen now. Is destabilization in anyones long term interest? I don't think so.

The mideeast is tribal religious, not political. An Islamic state is the goal with sunni and shite factions fighting each other about how that will look while oppressing Christian minorities and scheming for the end of the jewish state.

That is the forever model for this region and nothing will change that. The western system is a square peg. Once the US is out they will turn on each other pretty fast and likely war. Saudi and proxies and US arms vs Iraq and proxies and Russian arms. let them fight.

[jazz]

G&M: Donald Trump is right on Iran

If there is a single consensus that has emerged in the wake of President Donald Trump’s decision to authorize the attack that killed Iran’s top general, it is that the United States and its Middle Eastern nemesis had been heading toward a confrontation of this sort for some time.

Where the experts, politicians and armchair quarterbacks disagree, however, is on what made the drone strike in Iraq that eliminated General Qassem Soleimani inevitable, if not desirable.

Even setting aside the threat of an imminent attack on U.S. targets being planned by Gen. Soleimani evoked by the Trump administration to justify the timing of last week’s strike, there is no doubt that Iran’s top military strategist had plenty of American blood on his hands.

At some point, he had to be stopped. The real question is why it hadn’t happened sooner.

Mr. Trump deserves to be second-guessed for his decision. Since becoming President, he has done everything to lose the trust of U.S. allies and the American public on foreign-policy matters. He has endlessly dissed his own intelligence officials and chosen to ignore their advice on countless occasions. He has been erratic and incoherent in the exercise of U.S. authority.

None of that, however, means that he is wrong on Iran. Indeed, when it comes to defining the core problem that Iran represents, there is plenty to suggest that he is right.

No, Mr. Trump did not order the attack on Gen. Soleimani to create a distraction as the U.S. Senate prepares for the President’s impeachment trial. You would have to be desperate to believe that the Pentagon would have invented the pretext of an imminent attack on U.S. targets to carry out Mr. Trump’s wishes. No president is that powerful, much less unaccountable.

Mr. Trump’s critics have allowed their disdain for the President – or their desire to cover for their own failures – to condition their reactions to the killing of Gen. Soleimani. Writing in The New York Times, Susan Rice, Barack Obama’s former national security adviser, blamed Mr. Trump’s move to slap economic sanctions on Iran, after he pulled out of the nuclear deal that her former boss signed, for leading Tehran to “lash out with a series of increasingly bold military provocations.”

The chronology is important here, and Ms. Rice has it backward. While it was laudable for Mr. Obama to seek a deal with Iran to halt its development of a nuclear weapon, the agreement signed by his administration in 2015 was a roll of the dice. Mr. Obama had rather naively hoped that by removing sanctions, Iran would start to behave. But instead of encouraging Iran to abandon its terrorist activities across the Middle East, the sectarian regime in Tehran used the windfall it pocketed from the removal of sanctions to sow even greater chaos.

“Iran’s hostilities substantially increased after the foolish Iran nuclear deal was signed,” Mr. Trump insisted on Wednesday, in his first remarks after Iran’s surgical attack on two U.S. bases in retaliation for Gen. Soleimani’s killing. “The missiles fired last night at us and our allies were paid for with the funds made available by the last administration.”

Gen. Soleimani lashed out, all right, but long before Mr. Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal in 2018. He stoked a civil war in Yemen, propped up Bashar al-Assad’s butchering regime in Syria, funded and armed a Shia militia in Iraq and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and inched closer to directly attacking Israel. Some of Gen. Soleimani’s military manoeuvres were conducted under the guise of the war on the Islamic State. But the latter would never have existed in the first place if Iran hadn’t thrown its weight behind Iraqi Shia leaders in their attempts to squeeze out that country’s Sunni minority after Mr. Obama pulled U.S. troops out of Iraq in 2011.

To suggest otherwise, as Ms. Rice seems to, is to attempt to rewrite history. That can’t be allowed to happen if the world is to avoid a repeat of the strategy that Mr. Obama pursued with Iran. By temporarily neutralizing one future threat – Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon – Mr. Obama’s nuclear deal enabled the materialization of a host of immediate ones.

And for what? Iran did not abandon its nuclear ambitions, nor did it destroy its centrifuges. It merely put them on ice, all while intensifying a campaign of terror throughout the Middle East that has left thousands of innocent Syrians, Yemenis, Iraqis and others dead.

Eventually, someone in Washington had to stop Gen. Soleimani and put the theocrats in charge in Tehran on notice. It should have been done years ago.

[dmlfarmer]

The mideeast is tribal religious, not political. An Islamic state is the goal with sunni and shite factions fighting each other about how that will look while oppressing Christian minorities and scheming for the end of the jewish state.

That is the forever model for this region and nothing will change that. The western system is a square peg. Once the US is out they will turn on each other pretty fast and likely war. Saudi and proxies and US arms vs Iraq and proxies and Russian arms. let them fight.

So Jazz, how does Israel fit into your analysis? And what happens when Iran becomes Nuclear?

[jazz]

So Jazz, how does Israel fit into your analysis? And what happens when Iran becomes Nuclear?

Israel probably ceases to exist at some point, demographics are against it. Probably someday looking at that population being reabsorbed into EU, USA, Russia. 15m wont stand against 1B no matter how good your army is. To defend that sliver of land you need to accept that you are going to nuke several capitals in the arab region.

My fear of nukes is greatly diminished after what I have seen from Iran and NK. They have barely perfected precision guidance, haven't even created a functional warhead yet, haven't miniaturized it and have shown no evidence these weapons are ready for high altitude use. They have a long way to go. US probably has energy weapons perfected by that time.

[ajl]

Wow even a far left rag like the grope and flail has recognized that president Trump is right and talking heads wrong. That is quite the feat. Of course they have to put nonsense in like "president Trump has alienated allies and the american public blah, blah, blah" which of course destroys their own credibility but at least they got the first part right. Reality is that the president was simply not going to appeal to empty heads anyways and they are not allies. Kudos to you president Trump for once again masterfully handling the Iran situation and making the world a wee bit safer for the rest of us.

[dmlfarmer]

Israel probably ceases to exist at some point, demographics are against it. Probably someday looking at that population being reabsorbed into EU, USA, Russia. 15m wont stand against 1B no matter how good your army is. To defend that sliver of land you need to accept that you are going to nuke several capitals in the arab region.

My fear of nukes is greatly diminished after what I have seen from Iran and NK. They have barely perfected precision guidance, haven't even created a functional warhead yet, haven't miniaturized it and have shown no evidence these weapons are ready for high altitude use. They have a long way to go. US probably has energy weapons perfected by that time.

Wow. You are really naïve. You think Israel, which likely has 80 nuclear bombs, is going to disappear without a fight? Do you really think the Jews or Christians are any more willing than Muslims to give up their holiest site on the planet?

Nor do nuclear bombs need to be delivered ballisticly. The only two atomic bombs actually used in battle were dropped from a plane, not by missile. Or they could simply be loaded on a truck or boat for delivery to a port or city. Miniaturization is not a requirement. The technology for building the actual bomb is readily available, if is obtaining the highly refined fissionable material that is the major stumbling block and is what the treaty with Iran attempted to prevent. Now that treaty is gone, Iran is already ramping up refinement to 20% - still a long way from bomb grade but good enough for a dirty bomb.

And you ignore the fact that NK has already exploded nuclear devices and continues to stockpile bomb material and is back testing missiles. NK played Trump like a fiddle and Iran's response has already resulted in Trump backing down.

[ajl]

Christians do not actually have a holy site on earth. Jesus himself makes that clear in John 18:36: where He states "My kingdom is not of this world" There are places in Israel where the events of the Bible did take place on earth but there are not holy sites so that is why Christians have not defended them. This is one of many things that makes Christianity distinct from the rest of the worlds religions.

[Oliver88]

U.S. military now confirming Iran shot down passenger plane that had 63 Canadians.

It’s now Skippy’s move.

[TSIPP]

The bearded lady’s going to do nuffin

[agstar77]

Well now we have the unintended consequences.

[dmlfarmer]

Christians do not actually have a holy site on earth. Jesus himself makes that clear in John 18:36: where He states "My kingdom is not of this world" There are places in Israel where the events of the Bible did take place on earth but there are not holy sites so that is why Christians have not defended them. This is one of many things that makes Christianity distinct from the rest of the worlds religions.

Apparently you have never heard of the Crusades. You must be unaware that in religious wars "Jerusalem has been destroyed twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, and captured and recaptured 44 times." I assume you are unware that Christians have been making pilgrimages to Jerusalem and Bethlehem for the last 2000 years. I encourage you to visit and study how the old city of Jerusalem was divided into the 4 quarters for the 4 religions who do consider the site holy, including the Christian quarter.

Jesus said a lot of things that even deeply religious people do not always follow to his word, like render unto Caesar what is Caesar's or you cannot love both God and money. So to claim that because Jesus said my kingdom is not of this world means that there are no Christian holy sites is absurd.

[jazz]

Wow. You are really naïve. You think Israel, which likely has 80 nuclear bombs, is going to disappear without a fight? Do you really think the Jews or Christians are any more willing than Muslims to give up their holiest site on the planet?

This isn't the crusades anymore. Without the US or NATO as an ally willing to lay devastation to the region, Israel faces some severe challenges.

First they have a growing muslim minority right in their population. That will be their first challenge. You have proxies right on their doorstep and you have growing regional powers like Turkey who has a comparable army. When you start nuking muslims by the millions the blowback is going to be pretty swift and without the US in there, not sure how Israel could survive a wave like that. The first attack might be a suitcase nuke in Tel Aviv.

[Taiga]

We have seen how Trump/US responds to aggression and terror, let’s see how Trudeau/Freeland/Canada responds to the Canadians killed in the shot down plane.

Unfortunately past history does not indicate much reason for optimism (paying terrorists, bringing them home, tweeting empty threats that do more damage, disappearing in silence, etc).