By now, I'm sure all or almost all of you have seen the news about Iran (summary here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/leader-of-iranian-re…). I'm curious to know what WSO thinks.
My quick take (disclaimer: I do not claim to be an expert in ME affairs, but I'm reasonably studied in foreign policy): Iran has been testing US resolve for some time now, primarily through proxy militias such as Hezbollah (more specficially Kata'ib Hezbollah, essentially Hezbollah's Iraqi arm) by striking oil tankers, downing a US drone, striking bases with American soldiers, and (again, via proxy militia) killing an American contractor and injuring 4 American service members in a strike in Iraq. Then, over the holidays, they were believed to have been behind the attack on the American embassy in Iraq. Trump, not wanting to be seen as weak or have a "Benghazi moment," as well as having drawn a red line with Iran being the harm of Americans, wanted to demonstrate resolve. Iran has promised retaliation. The key question is: What happens next? What is Iran's response, and will this escalate further, or will both sides take a step back and realize that the other is not kidding around, and that it would behoove all to come to the table to de-escalate?
As far as whether this was justified, it's hard to say since the nature of proxy warfare has complicated modern conflict so much. I think a lot will hinge on what we learn about the intelligence supposedly used to justify the strike, that Iran was planning another imminent attack on Americans. To the extent that that intelligence is rock solid, my leaning is that Iran had lost plausible deniability and finally gone too far.
For reference, a good take sympathetic to the strike: https://freebeacon.com/columns/trump-calls-the-ay…
And a non-sympathetic take: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/01/02…
Iran may escalate, but they have to be very careful. If they escalate into full scale war, the inevitable result is the end of the Islamic Republic and the leadership's execution.
No question that Iran does not want a full scale war with the US, but there are other strategic steps they will likely take that could avoid war but accomplish their objectives (to dominate the Shiite ME), which would be to leverage Iraq's potential resentment at this strike to make it hostile territory for the US and test the US's willingness to face up against a united (at least from an official regime level) Iraq, Iran, and Syria (not to mention smaller potential players). Their bet at that point would be that the Trump administration would prefer to retract more from the ME, which would provide Iran more breathing room to accomplish their regional-level ambitions
That's all fine and well in theory, but the Mullahs are struggling to maintain power at home and their regime is struggling to finance its own existence, let alone finance international religious exploits. Iran can dominate whatever it wants internationally, but if the regime collapses at home all of those gains will be lost in an instant.
Everyone quick short airline stocks!!!!
Fucked up man
I think this had to do with higher oil prices...higher jet fuel costs. None of the airlines have hedged for like 10 years now.
For the record, Trump has long since changed the US' stance towards Iran. This is back and forth escalation as Trump continues to be in a standoff with, basically, the world.
Everyone keeps talking about what this dude has done in the past decade, without recognizing the US' involvement in escalation over the course of the past half century.
We can argue until the cows come home who has the moral high ground in what context based off the geopolitical machining of the last 40+ years. There's plenty of low ground to go around. This isn't meant to sound pointed, but what would you do if you had incontrovertible evidence that Iranian officials were planning attacks on American citizens/soldiers, on top of them having done so consistently over the last year?
First, you have to determine the nature and goals of Iranian extremism. Because of the nature of their religious practice, they do not seem interested in waging endless holy wars
I would look more into evidence of how the past half century has taken shape between the US and Iran, and why those involved were there in the first place.
I do think there is probably some middle ground that can be reached. The Shiites are attacked by Sunni muslims, which represents the majority, as much as Christians. Why wouldn't we attempt to make an ally of such a potentially large power broker in the region?
I think it was a really, really dumb decision. We already prevented another Benghazi. The rioters backed down. What we just did almost certainly guarantees no peaceful solution to the Iranian nuclear issue and the end of non-military US presence/influence in Iraq. Super glad a couple thousand American kids (and probably 100,000+ Iraqis) got smoked for fucking nothing. This sort of shit is how people become completely jaded with our government.
This is the most naive statement I think I ever read. Who really believes there is a "peaceful" solution to Iran's nuclear ambitions? They are not the Soviet Union, which was a secular autocracy. They are religious fanatics who desire mass murder, up to and including non-Shiite Muslims.
Then why bother with sanctions just carpet bomb them then.
wartime presidents are popular. president d'ump might see himself as more re-electable if us-iranian tensions heat up.
Trump's presidency is a laundry list of actions we will ultimately be tying to negative consequences in the future.
Unfortunately I worry about who will be holding the bag when it all goes to hell. Although I disagreed with how Obama handled quite a few things, I genuinely think he had good intentions and tried to help. I like him as a human.
I think he got passed the bag of shit when the music stopped (2008) and I work with many people who believe he solely caused the financial crisis. This rhetoric will continue to whoever is next in office when the hangover from Trump happens, and they will take the blame. The Catch 22 is that if Trump is re elected we deal with more of this shit. Even if it blows up while he's in office, it's the secret plan of the Dems that caused it.
American politics are no longer news, it's beyond entertainment, it's sport. Your team vs my team. I fear it will remain this way for the foreseeable future.
yeah, he's really clogged america's proverbial toilet. almost too horrifying to be schadenfreude.
Outrageously short-sighted, and predictably for this administration, executed without properly consulting Congress.
We know what this is really about though. As support for impeachment and removal from office continues to climb, Trump needs to do something to bump up his re-election chances. [He's only tweeted about it nonstop] (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/01/03/what-trump-has-said-…).
Fake news. Obama taught himself advanced code and hacked Trump's account and worked with the LIBERAL company that is Twitter to falsify the date stamp on that. Twitter works with the DEMS and the LIBS to just hate on the second coming of Christ, Donald JESUS Trump.
If I didn't know any better...
Taxes well spent huh
What's funny to me is that the British literally tricked Americans into overthrowing Iran's democratically elected government back in the day in order to protect BNP from being nationalized. Well, it worked...for a while, but now you have a theocracy run by lunatics exporting terrorism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat
Iran is basically Saudi Arabia but they don't buy American weapons (lol)
It was rightly justified as they need to be held accountable for their actions and takeig back seat” approach by talking it out doesn’t work. Have to show global leaders that they don’t want no smoke.
All jokes aside this was definitely a political move for Trump though
Here is what I know:
Finance Bros better get prepared for the draft.
Sort of related to the thread- I'd be interested to hear people's opinions. Would people join up/ wait to be drafted/ or strongly oppose the draft?
I'm conflicted. I very much believe in the need to serve the country if able and if needed, but would a draft be serving the country or serving the ego of some man who can't stay off Twitter?
No one is going to get drafted. The last drafts was for the Vietnam War, highly doubtful it will be enacted again.
I would strongly oppose a war with Iran and this the draft. Why should I risk my life fighting for a stupid useless cause.
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