Multiple news sources are reporting the assassination, near Baghdad Airport, of Suliemani, the leader of Irans Quds force. Some commentators are saying that this is "bigger than killing Bin Laden". According to the Pentagon, the assassination was at the direct command of President Trump. I am afraid this event, allegedly taken to forestall further attacks on US forces in Iraq, may have unintended consequences.
To me, the logic of Trump in doing this is unfathomable. Did he intend to provoke Iran and the Russians? What did he expect to achieve? Clearly the stress on the Iraqi Government is going to be extreme. How has this assassination improved the security of U.S. forces in the region? What does the Committee think?
Well, it look that Israel will have a war with Iran.
God Bless his Soul, Trump is a coward
Walrus
I agree the stress on the Iraqi government will be intense. Will they force the US out? Did Trump order this expecting that to happen? Or did he order this at the behest of Bibi, MbS and the neocon contingent (Pompeo, Haspel, Esper, Kushner) he has surrounded himself with, not really thinking through the implications.
The one scenario that I speculate that took place is the low-level “warfare” between US forces and the various Iraqi/Iranian/Syrian militias got escalated. And Trump was being “briefed” that it was all Iranian “influenced”. That would have fit his generally anti-Iran mindset and then he was presented with this “target of opportunity” and given seconds to decide and he went with the flow to pull the trigger.
My sense is that while Iran will heat up the rhetoric, they won’t retaliate militarily in a direct and open manner. Instead they’ll pile the pressure on the Iraqi government to expel US forces.
The Mahdi Army is reportedly being reactivated, presumably they have some more combat experience now thanks to the ISIS war. We have some 5,000 troops in the country and God knows how many citizens there along with whatever we have in Syria. The Iranians are pissed and want their revenge. The Iraqis are pissed too as is Hezbollah I’d imagine. I fear that this is going to be bad.
What the hell was Trump thinking…
Who is driving US policy in the region now, who is Trump listening to?
Once again the neocons have pulled off the seemingly impossible, imagine have the power and cunning to have a country use their own servicemen as bait and cannon fodder to serve the interests of a foreign country. Another nail in the American coffin, unfortunately.
I guess all Col. Lang’s effort for the past 2 decades have been undermined. There is no way that the assassination of a member of an Iranian equivalent of JCS will be tolerated. The Iranian government will consider a lack of response to be interpreted as an invitation for more adventurism by Trump admin. The whole talk about covert action is ignorant as the Iranian foreign minister has already stated that there will be consequences.
The dice has been cast and at this point it really doesn’t matter which faction within Trump’s entourage managed to start a conflict: the king-of-gamblers, Sheldon Adelson & the rest of NeoConLibs, got their wish.
Not happy about it but nothing to do to reverse course.
I could it see it playing out in two general ways. Clearly, this could make things much worse, across the entire Middle East. That’s a given. On the other hand…..
It MIGHT be so that there are a lot of people in Iraq, Iran (yes, Iran) silently (for now, if they know what is good for them in the short run) celebrating this hit. A lot of Iraqis and Iranians have been killed by this guy’s forces in the last few months. Alone. Who do we think the people in Iraq and Iran have been protesting against? Al Quds. And there might even be a few people in the Iranian govt who think now is the time to reduce, dramatically, the influence of Al Quds. These facts should not be dismissed out of hand. But again, on the other hand….
it may be deemed unholy and unpatriotic to celebrate taking out this SOB…as the lament might go, ‘he’s an SOB but he;s our SOB!’.
I know this…I would be tempted to evacuate our embassy. Now. Like starting yesterday.
We’ll see. But I shed no tears for this guy. Nor do I celebrate it. Because either way…it is grim. Now, if there was someone like the Col exploiting the vacuum and shock waves certain to come in the wake of this…I would see opportunities. I repeat, a lot of people in the Middle East did not like this guy or his organization…even if they don’t like the US too. But that kind of thing requires a mind that plays chess. And can kill, too. And I don’t see too many minds, and souls, like that in DC anymore.
My suspicions advise this has something to do with the Norks.
You have travelled through out the Middle-East (not talking Israeli beaches nor hotels in UAE & Saud-land) that you have such intimate knowledge of the local people’s mood? Just google the mourners Kerman and Kerbala. The crowd is a little bit bigger than the 50 paid demonstrators on behalf of the murder.
A lot of Iraqis and Iranians have been killed by this guy’s forces in the last few months. Alone. Who do we think the people in Iraq and Iran have been protesting against? Al Quds.
This is a fiction of your imagination. They have been protesting the corruption of the Rouhani government, and an abrupt 300% increase in the price of gasoline. Also, something like 79 “foreign nationals” from “a Persian gulf nation” were arrested (that number presumably includes their local agents) inciting riots in the areas where violence broke out. The vast majority of the protests were peaceful, and Rouhani set free any arrestees who weren’t carrying weapons.
Suleimani had an 86% approval rating among the Iranian public, was deeply respected by his military peers, and seemed like a possible candidate in the next Presidential race–only nutjobs like the MEK will be celebrating his death. Everyone else will mourn, and the same will be true for most Iraqis, as well.
The Quds force was there to kill ISIS and Al Qaeda, which it did extremely well and at great cost to itself to avoid killing Iraqi civilians. The US shelling and bombing of Raqqa killed far, far more Iraqi civilians than the Syrian or Quds forces ever have in their bid to retake urban zones. Check out the before and after pictures; they tell an obvious story.
The link below is from the Asia Times, a news outlet based out of Singapore, and its reporting on US wars, the Middle East, Iran, India, and China is generally objective and unbiased. Pepe Escobar has a long and accurate track-record in his reports.
https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/12/article/what-really-happened-in-iran/
A terrible, stupid mistake. Trump is all in with the neocons now.
There is no logic to this that I can see unless, of course, Trump has grown impatient with proxy wars and wants to start a shooting war with Iran.
How that can be good for the USA is, well, I have no idea.
It’s what Israel wants, of course. And Saudi Arabia too.
Is there any possibility that the intel about Something Big In The Pipeline that justified this execution came from a 3rd party that just so happens to have skin in the game?
1. Washington has begun its last foreign war
2. Trump has handed his future to Tehran
Questions
Given that so many Israelis have dual citizenship, how many do you think will still be there when hundreds of rockets start falling?
What will Washington do when (not if) the Iraqi government tells all US troops to leave?
Was this Trump’s decision or the Borg’s? What difference does it make?
Will Tehran’s response surprise Washington? Astound Washington? Absolutely stun and gobsmack Washington?
I have been trying to envision how an Iraqi might see this. From an Iraqi point view, the Iranians and the US might fill similar roles. As Americans we are proud that we “saved” Iraq from the ISIS onslaught. But we tend to forget the period right after the fall of Mosul when the US was still pondering what to do. The Iranians (specifically General Soleimani) went immediately to Baghdad to begin mobilizing resources and reorganizing the Iraqi military for a defense of the city. Both they and we have not been very popular recently but we both have claims on Iraqi memory. It is a mistake to think that people there will see us as “good” and them as “bad”. Or vice versa. We have both earned gratitude and blame in large measures.
I guess Trump’s tired of being president.
“Worse than a crime, it was a blunder” Fouché
take aq look at all Trump appointees. The common denominator is that they are all rabidly anti Iran.
One wonders, why now? If he could be located so easily and so precisely, there must have been opportunities in the past, and there would have been more in the future.
Breitbart, a place I glance at from time to time to take the pulse of a large segment of American opinion, has logged above 20k comments on their main Suleimani article.
For this cogitating codger, though I duly note and am impressed by the criticisms of our Committee, I loathe being in accord, however tangentially, with freaks like Rose McGowan: https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2020/01/03/rose-mcgowan-i-do-not-side-with-iran-i-definitely-dont-side-with-the-usa/
This assassination was an act of extreme recklessness on the part of the administration and taken without regard to what the actual consequences going forward would actually be. The fact that the Pentagon is using the words” defensive” and “deterrent” to describe its actions covers over the truth about how we got to where we are in the first place. The proximate cause of the escalation in tensions between the US and Iran was the Trump Administration’s adoption of the “maximum pressure” policy of sanctions and withdrawal from the JCPOA. More short term factors include the mysterious attacks on PMF bases in Iraq during the summer which were attributed to Israel and also blamed on the US by factions inside Iraq. The series of attacks on Iraqi bases housing US troops by Kataeb Hezbollah may have been in retaliation for those strikes.
The roots of the current crisis extends further back, however, to the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, which dismantled the Iraqi state and its security services and created a vacuum which was inevitably filled by Iran.
As for why Trump did it, it’s been obvious to me that Iran was always a weak spot for Trump, and with the pressure on him from the impeachment, he may have decided that he needs the support of every Republican, including the crazy neo-cons, in order to beat it back, making him vulnerable to the “advice” of berserkers like Lindsay Graham. The split in the responses in Washington to the assassination, with Graham, Rubio and Bolton (among many others), backing it while Democrats, including Biden, criticizing it may be an indication of what pushed Trump into making the decision he did.
And Trump was being “briefed” that it was all Iranian “influenced”.
otherwise his long term anti-Iranian position and actions were fake news?
A tempest in a teapot.
A general ( not a politician ) has died and already been replaced.
A situation has been faced and defused.
There will be no major war because Iran is incapable of projecting power much further than the red sea.
But, the action by the US will allow a lot of wailing and moaning and gnashing of false teeth by the various mayors who will now have yet another attack of the vapours over the Iranian suitcase nukes or the Afghani frogmen or some such movie imagining; and by the oh so supercilious talking heads and news readers of the great American megaphone and infotainment industry.
This is a big mistake, in my opinion.
The consequences are impossible to calculate, but could include a violent uprising in Iraq, a forced US troops withdrawal in Iraq (or would the US defy such a withdrawal request and effectively declare war against Iraq again?), Iranian assassination attempts on US politicians or military leaders anywhere in the world, attacks on Middle East oil infrastructure, attacks on tankers, the outright closure of the Hormuz strait for tanker traffic and skyrocketing oil prices, and so on.
Why did Trump do it? I have no idea, but I think it fits to this strange Iran obsession he already had for a long time and which contrasted with his less interventionist views on Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. I think it shows that he has no comprehensive strategic view of the region and is just regurgitating incoherent talking points, i.e. “Iran bad”, “we must withdraw from Syria”, and so on.
Good for Israel, bad for everybody else in the world.
Suleimani was in Iraq fomenting violence against Americans and, who knows who/what else. Trump could stand down and take what was coming or he could kill Suleimani and be proactive and show that he is prepared to fight and fight hard. I think Trump was wise to do the latter. It shows his resolve to Iran and the rest of the world. Yes Iran will have to do something in reaction, but they may think twice about it and how far they go.
Too many America haters here always assuming Iran is innocent, benevolent and peaceful. It is possible for Suleimani to fight to ISIS and to fight the US. Things are not black and white.
I’m going to be intrigued by Iran’s response,which I guess will have to be asymmetric.
By all acounts QS was not the most hawkish of them… they will follow.
@fredw
Pretty unlikely that anyone in Iraq will see the US as the good guys after they destroyed a car with their Iranian target person Suleimani and also an Iraqi military commander in it.
Some tankers are going to the bottom of the Hormuz Staight. It will be closed. There are many indirect ways Iran can retaliate.
I think Trump is a man of the 80s, and the attack on the Green Zone probably recalled slides of Carter and the hostages.
voila. Iraq tells US to leave. US leaves. End of the Iraq adventure, and near-end of the war-with-Iran dream.
And there’s a lot of “no more Benghazi” and “Trump’s tough unlike that wimp Obama” in the Twittersphere.
I believe our general staff better increase their security. This wasn’t just some perfumed prince they killed. There will truly be “Hell to pay.”
Personally I voted for Trump- I did not vote for him to possibly start a third world war.
Elora Danan
“if there was someone like the Col exploiting the vacuum and shock waves certain to come in the wake of this. Ah! You think I am some sort of propagandist? Well, good! little pilgrim, think what you like.
As expected the Neocons on FOX and their regular guests are grinning ear to ear, ‘Iran won’t dare respond militarily because they are too weak, the only thing they can do is more of the same, nothing we can’t handle’.
I think the Irnanians will want to show that they can do more than light a few dumpster fires, they will also want to avoid causing Iraq more trouble and if possible, even try to drive a wedge between between the U.S. and the Gulf states.
Possibilites, an actual terrorist attack on U.S. infrastructure to show us they could have done this anytime but never have, a missile attack on a U.S. base in Syria to show that they have some good weapons, an assassination of a U.S. officer, or maybe try to pick off a U.S. naval boat. Something that we don’t actually expect.
These are all terrible, awful, horrible things to do but so is bombing a civilian airport and both a local official and a visiting official who was coming to attend funerals.
There is no eleven dimensional chess, no master plan here.
Trump appears weak, stupid, reckless and easily manipulated because he is in fact weak, stupid, reckless and easily manipulated.
This is not difficult, and has been obvious for a long time.
Evidence, please.
The impeachment has Trump stressed out. Just like with the Russia investigation, Trump likes to throw Israel a bone when he’s under pressure.
This is a major deal. No telling where this is gonna end.
The script for this was laid out in the War on Iraq.
Americans, Team D and Team R, will be practically masturbatory at the prospect of another war, at least until the body bags start rolling in, gas prices skyrocket and stay there, and there’s no end in sight.
At about that time, Team D will insist that they could have done it so much better, but are traditionally real light on the details. See: Kerry, J.
All
I would think that the footage of Iraqis celebrating in the streets is footage of Sunni Arabs. They have reason to celebrate.
It was a gift to his son-in-law, to Bibi, and to his neocon donors.
The risks to Iran for the neocon dream of regime change just went sky-high. The risk to Trump that if the one thing likely to prevent his re-election – assassination – just went sky high too. Not that Iran would do that; they are the last ones to do so now. However everyone with an axe to grind against Trump has a giant incentive to pin such a thing on Iran since that would keep the inevitable societal exposion from such an act from being directed at them.
Keep listening to the propaganda coming from Pompeo. Suleimani was in Iraq to attend the funeral of the 39 Iraqi soldiers/policemen killed by the US strikes on December 29th.
You have a real talent for saying so much in so few words.
Patrick Armstrong, the Monsey event served to seal the deal that Jews in USA shall be protected, and that what ADL labeled “hate” — speech and antisemitism, then “hate crimes” then “domestic terrorism” shall now be dealt with on the same plane as “international terrorism.”
Adam Schiff introduced legislation several months ago.
https://schiff.house.gov/news/press-releases/schiff-introduces-legislation-to-create-a-federal-domestic-terrorism-crime
Dual citizens pre-positioned their protection in the USA.
All the same, I would not want to be Jewish in the USA: indeed, a few days ago a Jewish woman called C Span to voice the (seemingly) heartfelt belief that Israelis have been treating Palestinians and Muslims throughout the region horribly.
Too little Too late?
Trump is already impeached. That cannot be taken back.
The Senate will not vote to convict or remove from office under almost any conceivable scenario.
Trump did this because he wanted to. Whether that was because he is easily manipulated or because he is really really stupid is academic.
Just as civilians killed in drone strikes are not less dead because Obama felt sad before he ordered their deaths.
The United States is losing in Afghanistan. Can the Taliban project power all the way to the US? Seems that they do not have to do so in order to win.
For that matter, Iran can shut down the Straits of Hormuz, which will send oil prices skyrocketing. Think that will not affect anyone?
Exactly. Trump owns this. Not his advisers, not Bibi. Yes, Trump is stupid. Yes, he is weak. Yes, he is ill-informed. Yes, he is reckless. Yes, he is easily manipulated.
All granted.
The buck still stops at the commander in chief’s desk.
Not so simple.
The United States will not leave, even if ordered to do so. “Make us”. It’s the logic of a robber, but it’s the only language that Empire understands.
Moreover, the US will (with the help of its Saudi masters) try to forment Sunni discontent. That basically means the return of ISIS, but with different business cards this time.
War on Iran has been a neo-conservative priority for decades. In 1996, they wrote “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for the Realm,” (led by Richard Perle & David Wurmser), long before PNAC. They do not want an Israeli war on Iran — for them, it has to be an American action. This may be their time, after having failed several times before.
I have been a neo-conservative tracker since Perle, Wolfowitz and the boys were somewhat lowly Congressional staffers with Scoop Jackson and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. They have been in and out of power circles many times, but somehow, almost miraculously, have stuck together pushing policies that sometimes take decades.
In 1999, largely “out of power” during the Clinton Administration, they used Congressional connections to engineer a resolution in Congress (the late Stephen Solarz was a key ally) to state that regime change in Iraq was the policy of the United States. The resolution was non-binding, couldn’t pass on its own, and was passed as an amendment to a spending bill. After 9/11 that resolution became the propaganda underpinning for “Overthrowing Saddam Hussein IS the policy of the United States”. In 2003, they got their invasion of Iraq — the sowing of dragon teeth.
The neo-cons have waited a long time for war against Iran. In 2004, some of them hoped the quick overthrow of Saddam Hussein would lead to regime change in Iran. It did not, they continued to maneuver. In 2006, Dick Cheney made an end-run trip to Saudi Arabia to try to get the Saudis to join in supporting the war on Iran. Cheney was exposed, the backlash was enormous — the bombing and war against Iran didn’t happen. The neo-cons never lost faith or focus. Cumulatively, thousands of books, articles, talks, think-tank blather, videos and daily TV news diatribes have made it possible to see the war on Iran come to fruition.
I don’t see anyone in the Trump administration who will stand up against this act of insanity in the Soleimani assassination, and prevent an escalation.
But I believe that this Committee of Correspondence can make a difference. Many of you in the committee know the costs of war first-hand unlike the neo-cons, chicken hawks, President Trump, and his #1 West Pointer. That matters.
Eric Newhill,
“Fighting ISIS” is used as a cheap propaganda term for every side in this conflict. ISIS was the only nonattached entity in this entire conflict, fighting Iran,Russia,USA,Turkey and allies at the same time, and partisans of either side will display selective amnesia to diminish/eliminate the role of other participants and to assuage the cognitive dissonance. They can not reconcile the fact that, for example, Qassem personally fought against IS in Tikrit in early 2015 under US aircover and no doubt with SOF aid. Or again in Homs a couple years later. The fact that the US airstrike campaign in Iraq/Syria was the most effective factor in the elimination of the group will be totally ignored or mocked by Russian, Syrian, and Iranian supporters alike. For Americans the fact that the Russian campaign was instrumental in eliminating the IS lifeline along the Iraqi/Syrian border and the pacification of Anbar(something the americans failed to attain over a decade) , and further allowing the Kurds to make any real gains in the MERV will be ignored. Jordanian, Syrian, Iraqi and Turkish, Iranian soldiers were burned alive and beheaded in the same manner, IS did not discriminate amongst the murtaddin. and the Russians/USA would have burned equally too if IS had ever had the opportunity.
re: … Iraq tells US to leave. US leaves. End of the Iraq adventure, and near-end of the war-with-Iran dream
… and then likely will immedialtely congratulate himself and tweet that it was a maga super and awefully awesome extremely gigantic VICTORY of himself and in Iraq – and that it was he ending the Iraq war and not George Bush II and especially Obama
who utterly butterly stutterly failed failed failed to do that.Then he’ll likely have a gallon of icecream and a dozen burgers and play some golf, in the company of a handful of fawning courtiers (including his daughter and Kushner) telling him how wonderful and successful he is, and that non-arbitrariness or rationality are a sign of weakness.
“I think the Iranians will want to show that they can do more than light a few dumpster fires.”
Agreed. The record for the Iranians so far is that they may be crazy but they are not incompetent. We shouldn’t expect them to jump into a war they know they can’t win. But they will do something. And based on their record we can be sure of one thing: It will hurt!
Whatever they do will be done done with skill and pushed hard. The balance of force may be very much on the US side, but a US “win” will not come cheap. Anyone who thinks it will has not thought very hard.
The ONLY relevant question to ask and by which to interpret so-called “American” foreign policy is this:
Does it benefit Israel?
And yes, yes it does in fact.
Colonel,
There aren’t too many of those left in Baghdad, and those that remain are beaten down enough to the point where a public demonstration of any type is unthinkable
Agreed. I cannot imagine how Iraq can continue to allow the US military to remain in Iraq after the US bombs its security forces and drone strikes its military leaders, along with an ally leader, at its international airport. All the US has done is reinforce the belief that the US is an enemy of Iraq.
This most likely also means the end of our Syrian adventures, The US bases in Syria are supplied via Iraq. I doubt Iraq will allow the US to move supplies over Iraq after this. Without supply lines through Iraq, these bases must be abandoned.
As to what Iran does, who’s to say? Same as we wouldn’t overlook if Iran assassinated General Petraeus, I’m sure they will think of something unpleasant for us and/or our allies in the area.
What I can say is that Trump’s assassinating these military commanders is about the stupidest and most counterproductive thing he could have done. His bad decision making has been evident ever since he lost the fortune his father bequeathed him. He’s way over his head.
Err, the Iraqis made us leave once already when we had 100,000 troops there. The 5,000 there currently cannot stay without the Iraq government’s help. Please note that Russia has decimated ISIS in Syria and ISIS no longer has a safe haven there. If ISIS comes back Iraq can ask the Russians for help.
Trump is a man of Israel. This is a 100% Israeli-styled response to what amounted to a brief embarrassment (the embassy riot.)
your moron in chief just made EVERY high ranking murican a target😉
the prez just changed the rules of engagement and not in a good way for the destroyers of peace aka murcan regime solidiers.
Does anyone know an how many 82nd Air Born soldiers are now
headed to Iraq & what is their mission? I think I’ve read numbers
ranging from 800 to 5,000
Prawnik,
America left Iraq, last time. When Obama let the generals negotiate the failed SOFA. [Lots of contractors and “trainers” remained. But everybody else did leave.]
So we (most likely) will leave again, if asked. After all, we still do not have a SOFA.
Not that it makes much more than an academic difference at this point, but I suspect Trump was suckered by the war party. “Gee boss, we’ve int that he’s plotting something big”and he’s in our sights” “OK. Shoot”
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/03/politics/donald-trump-iran-statement/index.html?utm_content=2020-01-03T20%3A40%3A05&utm_source=twCNN&utm_medium=social&utm_term=link
FYI – Breitbart is a weak pulse: its comments are among the most heavily moderated (supposedly with JIDF ‘assistance’) of extant comment sections.
Yeah, there is no inherent historical tension between Arabs and Persians. No Iraq Iranian war in the 80s. no tension between the Sunnis and the Shia. Its all part of my limited and uniformed imagination. Pepe Escobar says so.
And no, I have not been to the Middle East. But I have not died, either. However, I could still write an obituary. You want to sell me on the idea that Suleimani had an 86% approval rating? Really? Not an 85% rating. Or a n 87% rating. No, an precise figure….86%. the polls say so. Pathetic. And you want to lecture me. Sure…..
Sir, if you were Esmail Ghaani, what are you recommending to El Supremo?
As far as I can tell, something like three-quarters of the Democrat base and something less than half but more than a quarter of Republicans have no appetite for any sort of a war at any time for any reason save another 9/11.
And even then they will want it all to be done via airmail.
Pardon me while I slip on my pedantic-pants, but if the Americans say “Make us” then how, exactly, is it possible to keep pretending that this is not a belligerent occupation?
Hague Regulations, 1907: “Territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army. The occupation extends only to the territory where such authority has been established and can be exercised.”
If US military personnel refuse to leave then, axiomatically, the Iraqi govt has lost its “authority” over its own territory, and that authority now resides with the US Army.
” The fact that the US airstrike campaign in Iraq/Syria was the most effective factor in the elimination of the group ”
Obama may have been shooting a line but he stated “The reason … that we did not just start taking a bunch of airstrikes all across Iraq as soon as ISIL came in was because that would have taken the pressure off of [Prime Minister Nuri Kamal] al-Maliki.”
https://www.investors.com/politics/columnists/isis-obama-iraq-christians-yazedis/
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/09/opinion/president-obama-thomas-l-friedman-iraq-and-world-affairs.html?_r=0
Elsewhere the advance of IS was not halted until the Iranians and particularly the Russians came in. My understanding was that Western action against the Jihadists was ineffectual until that time. There’s also the consideration that we put many of them there in the first place.
I’m willing to be corrected but my impression is that our actions were not the most effective.
Israel tried to assassinate Sulieimani back in October last year, but the plan leaked so the plot failed.
Trump’s assassination of Suliemani is simply his Jews ordering him to do the job and take the blame.
In their Clean Break Plan the US invasion of Iraq was suppose to make Iraq the launching pad for war on Iran.
So here we are, right back in 2003.
Marines, weren’t they?
Hearing first news of this left me thought-stopped. For now, all I can say is that Trump is a Big Boy, he wanted the Big Job, and he is the Final Decider who owns the Final Decisions . . . however much Trump fans may want to absolve Trump of responsibility for Trump’s final ownership of this decision by noting all the various manipulators who could have “made him do it.”
This sounds like exactly the sort of “Clinton in Syria” action which Trump purported to run against all through his campaign.
Thanks for that.
I live outside the US, and have noticed how a lot of my fellow citizens labor under the falsehood that the US was a key hero in defeating ISIS/ISIL.
I do not understand how anyone could possibly come to that conclusion.
The US provided significant support to the Iraqi forces in a few key operations. Also, general and minimal support to the Kurds. Arms sales to both–and also ISIS/ISIL/Al Qaeda. Beyond that, I don’t remember US forces were much involved.
Where on earth did you get that idea?
Obama is the only president to be at war for every day of his presidency, and he’s Minority Jesus to most Dems.
I wonder if Trump got the “intel” directly from Netanyahu.
Regardless of their feelings about Suleimani there are plenty of nationalistic Iraqi Sunnis who will be outraged by this act as it makes a complete mockery of any pretence of Iraqi sovereignty.
I have questions which nobody asked here – why did USA admit that it has killed Soleimani. Was it necessary? And why did they do it on the ground in Iraq? It would have been much easier to shoot down the plane he was flying from Lebanon. The Iranians would have “no leg to stand on” to claim that Americans did it, there would be foggy talk about, “possibly by ISIS, or by mistake by Iraqi”, etc etc) It would have been so easy to say, as Israeli do, “we do not comment” after they assassinate someone. Another question – why there is no connection made between killing of Kashoggi and Soleimani? Both killings were perpetrated by “allies in arms”. SST articles and comments show how important it has become to have it, as Decameron hopes in his previous comment.