The Soleimani hysteria
I know that the Left and the media suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome, but holy cow, even I could not imagine that they would openly root for terrorist Soleimani and Iran!
So much gaslighting on this issue, so let's address the myths being perpetuated.
"The U.S. assassinated a foreign military leader. This would be like if Iran killed VP Pence or Secretary Pompeo."
-Soleimani was not a general of Iran's official military. He was the leader of the IRGC, which is a designated terrorist group and acts as "muscle" for the Ayatollah, plotting and sponsoring terrorist activity.
-U.S. military presence in Iraq was approved by Congress as well as the Iraqi government and U.N.
-Soleimani is the mastermind behind the killing of hundreds of American soldiers in Iraq and the attack on U.S. Embassy in Baghdad (which is U.S. soil). He was also planning further attacks on Americans. We also know that he planned a 2011 attack on a café in Washington D.C. to kill a Saudi ambassador, but thankfully that plan was foiled.
"This would not be happening if Trump stayed in the Iran nuclear deal."
-Ridiculous. The nuclear deal allowed Iran to get back funds and become revitalized as a regional power. Iran has cheated on the agreements of the deal and has expanded its scope of state sponsored terrorism.
-Trump's sanctions have crippled Iran's economy. The regime is facing massive internal unrest. Its GDP in 2019 was down 10%, unemployment at 17%, oil production down nearly 50%, rial down 35%.
"Trump violated the War Powers Act by killing Soleimani without congressional approval."
-The War Powers Act of 1973 deals with congressional approval within 60 days when the President sends U.S. military personnel into armed conflict. The Soleimani strike was a strategic airstrike that did not involve deployment of U.S. troops. Just as Obama ordering the raid on Bin Laden was not a violation of the War Powers Act, neither was the Soleimani strike. However, Obama did violate the War Powers Act when he sent U.S. aircraft and other military support to Libya in 2011 without congressional approval.
"The killing of Soleimani, even if morally right, is a strategic blunder because Iran will retaliate ferociously and cause a major war."
-Doubtful. Iran knows that they're toast if they actually launch a full scale war against us. Moreover, the shock of Soleimani's death has drastically raised the cost of attacking Americans, as the Iranian regime now knows that Trump is unpredictable and totally willing to use deadly military force. They will retaliate to save face, most likely a continuation of proxy conflicts and cyberattacks. But the U.S. is ready to respond with force without actually starting a war.
Do you not have real life friends to argue with about politics?
Where are you getting your news from? I actually agree with you, despite us likely having differing political opinions. But others rooting for Iran seems odd. I don't believe you made this up, I'm curious about who is saying this (I also avoid the news by and large).
I can't analyze the strategic objectives for what happened, but objectively it does raise the risk. Is the risk worth killing him? I'm not at liberty to say, I don't stay that informed and even if I did, that's what the Analysts at the CIA are for. They analyze all of this (or I hope at least).
Don't get me wrong, fuck that guy. Blow him up a hundred times over. Fuck. Him. But it puts us in a precarious situation with Iran. Humans are bad at analyzing risk, it just takes a few people to go off the rails and cause destruction far worse than we've ever seen.
Sorry, not worth arguing with people who spew low effort bullshit like this.
There is an certainly an argument to be had, highlighting how unbelievably stupid and short sighted Trump's actions are and how it makes the middle east less stable and Americans less safe, but it's not worth it if you set the stage in bad faith.
"Openly root for a terrorist." Get the fuck out of here.
Retweet
It's Brady, what do you expect? When we end up in full-blown war with Iran, conservative fanatics who were praising Trump for not being a hawk like HRC and for easing our presence in the mideast will flip and praise Trump for being tough on terrorist Iran. It's what fanatics do.
If we actually invaded Iran, I will oppose Trump vehemently. You are falling into the typical cognitive bias of assuming Trump will do something when none of us know for sure what's going to happen.
Trump had actually shown restraint with respect to Iran. He did not order a military strike after Iran seized oil tankers or blew up our military drone. With the latter, Trump said that he did not want to kill innocent Iranians because they brought down an equipment. The Soleimani strike was justified as he not only killed hundreds of our soldiers, he masterminded the attack on our embassy and was planning on killing more Americans. If you think Trump, given this information, should NOT have killed him, that is your right to believe that, as misguided as you may be. But the gaslighting about WWIII is simply hysteria.
Look at the mainstream media coverage. Washington Post referred to Soleimani as a revered military leader while not discussing his many atrocities. The same outlet also referred to Baghdadi as an "austere religious scholar." News networks had Iran apologists who flatly lied about Iran's activities since the nuclear deal. In addition, there were protests throughout cities where protestors openly showed solidarity for Soleimani and Iran. This is not to say that all liberals hold this view, but to argue that this sentiment is pure fiction is disingenuous.
Who said there aren't risks? Every freaking policy action has risks, and no one knows what will exactly happen. So let me pose this to you. If you were President, would you refuse to kill Soleimani because you are afraid of what Iran might do? It's fine if you believe that, but by that line of reasoning, we should never kill prominent terrorist leaders because of potential repercussions.
Agreed... the far left loser professors really know how to make kids drink the kool aid per this thread. When y’all start to earn money and want to be in a lower tax bracket. You’ll reevaluate your loser professors teachings.
Because stability is not a matter of yes or no, black or white, on or off, etc. Yes, the middle east is generally an unstable region, but there are things that make it more stable and things that make it less stable.
Trump's actions have undoubtedly made it less stable. That doesn't mean it was stable before - it just means that it is less stable now.
When the post starts with "the left and media", you know what will follow.
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Agree that the Iranian government is hostile to American interests, but withrespect to this portion: " there is no such thing as peace when there are regimes in the world who want/provoke conflict due to the HATE of our society, what we stand for, and how we operate.", this is a total cop-out that people use to justify aggression towards many regimes in the Middle East. This was used when the US invaded Iraq and Afghanistan. I know tons of people from the Middle East and the consensus seems to be that most of the people who are opposed to America in these regions aren't opposed to us because "they hate our freedoms" or "they hate what we stand for", they hate America because tons of people, including many of their loved ones and friends, have been killed by American bombs and military intervention over the past several decades. Dismissive attitudes like this are a massive contributor to support for truly fucked-up entities like ISIS. It's easy to radicalize someone when they were at a wedding where an American bomb killed half the wedding party, and then they're branded by the West as a "dirty terrorist who hates our freedoms!!1!"
This is next level neocon delusional bullshit
This administration has been incompetent from top to bottom since Day One. Today they mistakenly issued a draft letter to the Iraqi government falsely declaring they will be withdrawing all U.S. troops. And you want these clowns to navigate a conflict in the famously-complex Middle East?
It's like the Right has learned nothing in the last 20 years since the Iraq War started.
I would trust Bush and Cheney infinitely more than Trump to handle this situation in Iran...
...and those guys lied about WMDs to go to war in Iraq and got us into a two-decade quagmire in Afghanistan.
Eh getting into Iraq was the right move for many reasons. The problem was it was so poorly thought through that it turned into a horrific quagmire. And that is the problem with murdering General Soleimani. Nothing in Donald Trump's life or Presidency indicates he thought about this beyond "it'll make me look good in tomorrow's news." Which drastically increases the chances that there is no plan to mitigate any blowback from Iran, which makes this particularly terrifying.
Invading Afghanistan was stupid. Should have gone after Pakistan.
Short: America being sane Long: Northrop Grumman
Add Lockheed Martin to the long list too..
Best part about this is that it showcases that the MAGA crowd is an utter fraud. Very America First-y to torpedo our relationship with Iraq while giving a fracturing Iran a martyr to rally behind for at bottom no real reason. Great job you fucking morons.
I love watching American politics from a distance. Anytime their foreign policy comes in to action (speeches/funding/military/etc.), everyone becomes a top-tier geo-political expert.
just in here to see who is the first middle eastern expert after 2,000+ years of confusion
also another friendly reminder of not letting your portfolio get scared: https://fortune.com/2020/01/03/iran-us-conflict-stock-market-oil-prices/
Quickest World War we’ve ever had, 1/03/20 to 1/08/20.
In seriousness, once you understand that the #1 goal for despotic regimes is to remain in power you’ll start seeing things differently. The Ayatollah was never going to take action that put the regime at risk; but at the same time he needs to satisfy the “true believers” in his government, hence this face-saving but ultimately toothless attack.
Similarly elected leaders want to get re-elected so thus act accordingly.
The predictions for a world war or even large regional one were absurd and hysterical. I don’t think I need to be Henry Kissinger to point this out. Countries very rarely start wars that result in existential destruction if they are almost certain to lose.
They were also 99.99% memes.
No one actually thought it was going to be a world war. They were concerned about yet another middle eastern war without a purpose or an exit plan.
The selective service website crashed lol:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/03/politics/military-draft-selective-servic…
But for real, maybe people were being hyperbolic, but isn’t that kind of my point? People were either acting hysterical or were embellishing the situation for partisan reasons.
Surely it’s a little too late to say “it was just a joke”.
Also, for anyone ready to praise Trump for this series of events and consider the matter resolved (do you really think Iran considers the killing "avenged" because they hit a few empty buildings?, may I remind you of one of my favorite WSO threads ever. The whole Trump WSO cult in one spot tripping over themselves to give Trump the Nobel Peace Prize after he exchanged a few love letters with a dictator, thinking he had solved the North Korea crisis
https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/trump-nobel-prize
Couple of points here since you suffer from an acute case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.
The game with North Korea completely changed one it was revealed in 2017 that they had functional nuclear weapons that can strike the West Coast. At that point, North Korea went from being a fanatical hermit kingdom to a significant military threat to the U.S. Given that Kim is a madman, Trump concluded that it is to our advantage to get him to the table, offer basic terms of a potential deal, let him know that we are negotiating in good faith, and thereby putting the ball in his court. I don't think Trump seriously believed that Kim would roll over. Rather, the purpose was to defuse the situation and to buy us time. As for the Nobel Peace Prize, I certainly was not advocating one for Trump, but what the hell did Barry Hussein Obama do to win one? Lol. Come on, man.
Iran has been war with us since 1979, engaging in countless proxy terrorist attacks (e.g. 1983 Beirut marine attack, khobar towers, just to name a few). So the notion that things were hunky dory with Iran until ORANGE MAN BAD became President, is a delusional liberal fantasy. As I iterated in a response above, the Iran nuclear deal (which was never formally ratified by the Senate) revitalized Iran, allowing them to reasser themselves as a dominant regional power. The regime used the billions of dollars the Obama adminstration released to them (by the way, the money belonged to Shah Pahlavi before the Carter administration froze it so that Ayatollah Khomeini did not get it) to fund proxy attacks, with Soleimani serving as the sole mastermind. General Petraeus said that he was stunned at how much military and foreign policy power Soleimani had.
The Soleimani strike achieved two objectives: first, it took out a critical figure who is not easily replaced, and second, it significantly raised the stakes for Iran, which is the central point of deterrence. Iran realized that Trump was unpredictable and has no qualms using U.S. military might to strike. As such, Iran knew that actually killing Americans in response would result in consequences they cannot accept, thus resulting in the strike last night which was its way of saving face. MSNBC parroted Iranian state media talking points by irresponsibly suggesting that 30 Americans were killed. In reality, no U.S. casualties. Iran was able to tell its people that they got "revenge," and Trump waited for all the facts on the ground before making a decision. Trump ran on a platform of non-interventionist foreign policy, and he is very reluctant to use U.S. ground troops unless absolutely necessary. Trump's actions thus far demonstrate that he is honoring that platform, and more importantly, that he is far more rational and stable than people think (much of Trump's crazy bombastic persona is intentional on his part as a means of trolling the media and to distract from policies; of course, the Left and their media enablers fall for it like sheep).
If you're gonna stick me with the TDS label, we need to invent a term for people who retroactively try to apply 8D-chess! mastery logic to all of Trump's bumbling decisions in between his Twitter rants, TV dinners, and countless rounds of golf. There is no logic, there is no strategy - he thinks 10 seconds ahead about whatever will boost his popularity and garner favorable chryons on Fox News that night. He has no idea who he killed, why, or what the potential ramifications may be. He has no interest in learning either.
I mean, under one of your many old user names, you once started a thread titled "Fellow Conservatives, How Alarmed Are You By Trump's Rise?" https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/fellow-conservatives-how-alarmed…
which included this comment:
Just...golden. Which one of us has become deranged due to Trump again?
Your point of Iran not feeling avenged is a feature, not a bug here. Their options are now even more limited - if they launch a second strike they are now the aggressors and a response is completely justified. They kinda had one shot here.
You’ve got to give credit where it is due - this worked out beautifully for the US here. We killed two militants in a single strike with no collateral damage whatsoever and Iran basically sit there and took it. They now know we can find and kill their top military commanders if they meddle in affairs outside Iran.
You can say this was given to Trump on a silver platter, but you can’t say he somehow came off worse here. Not only was it a huge blow to the Iranian regime, it caused liberals to go way too far in expressing sympathy with a brutal Iranian regime.
We totally won. Iraqis want absolutely nothing to do with us. Iran now (understandably) ramping up their nuclear program. More than likely commit troops to the region for the foreseeable future (very America First, very anti-forever wars). Give rulers of ME nations further reason to distrust us (see Libya, see Syria). Total victory.
So being critical of someone's actions implies you openly root for terrorists. Ha ha ha.
This is a mess of a post and thread, starting with the title.
As an aside, trump's speech today raises more questions. The man does not seem well. He is more consistently slurring his words; what's causing his sniffing?; he demonstrated some involuntary movements; he seemed to rely heavily on support from that podium.
Trump slurred his words ("accompliment," "tolerided") throughout this address and seemed both completely out of it and somehow sweaty and out of breath from...walking to the podium. His hand motions were stilted and not his usual and he was doing some weird thing with his tongue. The deterioration of his mental state is truly the most frightening thing of his presidency. He sounded intelligent in his interviews a decade ago.
My goodness! How dare a 73-year old man with the world's toughest job who probably got very little sleep due to the Iran crisis, mispronounce words! A moral travesty!
Just 24 hours ago, I thought we were on the verge of WWIII and liberals going nuts over Trump getting us into a full-scale war against Iran. Interesting how things have shifted. But man, Trump slurred his speech. This really is the end of the world now!
Somebody has been watching too much Fox and listening to too much AM radio.
Let me get this straight, we take action to take out Soleimani and agitate the region. Then, we declare we want NATO to take on more responsibility in the region.
Senator Mike Lee (R) just called the Iran briefing the White House provided "probably the worst briefing at least on a military issue I've seen" and added that it was "insulting" to be told not to debate the merits of taking action. As a result, he has changed his mind on Tim Kaine's (D) war powers resolution and will be supporting it.
Rand Paul (R) also called instructions not to debate military action "particularly insulting." Apparently the Senators were told they could not discuss certain classified information even though they were sitting in a designated secure area. They were also told they could not dissent from Trump and if Trump needed justification to go to war "I'm sure we could think of something."
Mike Lee was furious. Fox News cut away from his interview so their viewers wouldn't see the full thing.
The Trump Administration is comically inept. Bumbling authoritarian idiots.
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