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Trump and the Big Stick — 84 Comments

1. Wonderful to have a prez without a mask & look he ‘s offering the iranian people MIGA. He is so mindful of purpose and does not respond to any baiting from MSM or the chicken little demorats. What a refreshing change from wussy Obama & Clinton (what do the polls say?) He is a real leader.

2. He also knows how to cut a figurative victory dance without even twitching a muscle. Must drive the losers kuuuh-razy.

3. Lol sdferr, I don t think there is anything more exhilarating then a populist President who gets things done. Don t the elites hate this? Imagine those hayseed American deplorables rejecting the elites designated choice, & showing them up to boot. Why don t we hear from Comey Clapper Brennan ?

4. I think he’s got too many of this side snowed.

   Trump said he would immediately impose economic sanctions “until Iran changes its behavior,”

   LOL!! Great, Mr. President.

5. The Left’s reaction to the Iran Affair still exemplify Salena Zito’s shrewd observation:
   “The press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.”

   They also still don’t accept that Trump works on the model of the entertainment-wrestling world and look behind his rhetoric to the substance.

   Which is something he knows very well.

6. The REALLY big stick short of war would be “secondary sanctions” in that the US would do no business with nations that did business with Iran.

7. Trump sounded a bit tired and winded at the beginning, but since he picked up strength as he talked, I suspect it was a temporary reaction to possibly being hurried on-stage, rather than due to any illness or physical weakness (just pre-empting a potential MSM talking point).

   This zinger stuck out to me:
   “The missiles fired last night at us and our allies were paid for with the funds made available by the last administration.”

   And this:

   The very defective JCPOA expires shortly anyway, and gives Iran a clear and quick path to nuclear breakout. Iran must abandon its nuclear ambitions and end its support for terrorism. The time has come for the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Russia, and China to recognize this reality.

   They must now break away from the remnants of the Iran deal -– or JCPOA –- and we must all work together toward making a deal with Iran that makes the world a safer and more peaceful place. We must also make a deal that allows Iran to thrive and prosper, and take advantage of its enormous untapped potential. Iran can be a great country.

   They must now break away from the remnants of the Iran deal -– or JCPOA –- and we must all work together toward making a deal with Iran that makes the world a safer and more peaceful place. We must also make a deal that allows Iran to thrive and prosper, and take advantage of its enormous untapped potential. Iran can be a great country.

   Peace and stability cannot prevail in the Middle East as long as Iran continues to foment violence, unrest, hatred, and war. The civilized world must send a clear and unified message to the Iranian regime: Your campaign of terror, murder, mayhem will not be tolerated any longer. It will not be allowed to go forward.

   Today, I am going to ask NATO to become much more involved in the Middle East process. Over the last three years, under my leadership, our economy is stronger than ever before and America has achieved energy independence. These historic accompliments [accomplishments] changed our strategic priorities. These are accomplishments that nobody thought were possible. And options in the Middle East became available. We are now the number-one producer of oil and natural gas anywhere in the world. We are independent, and we do not need Middle East oil.

   Question for debate:
   How many quid pro quos, implicit and explicit, did Trump offer Iran, other terrorist states, and NATO?

8. AesopFan:

   I noticed that, too, at the beginning of the speech.

   The reality is that Trump is not a young man, and although he is energetic he’s under great stress. I sometimes get very concerned about that.

9. Of course, it’s the apparent willingness to use the stick that gets the best results.

   Be that as it may couldn’t help but add the following, sorry:

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paMulmvrlbc

10. AesopFan, we await the offical JCPOA snapback to sanctions and 6 UN Security Council resolutions reimposition. There’s been talk already but no final move. It’s coming, surely.

11. Nice touch. [Neo]

    Yes — or is it just boilerplate, now?

    This is the opportunity to defang Iran of its nuclear program, IMO. Events have brought this issue to a head. If Trump doesn’t proceed on that, will it ever happen?

    This is Trump’s high-water mark. If he doesn’t follow through as he said, my guess is his popularity will never recover.

    “If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran. Never threaten the United States again,” Trump wrote in his tweet Sunday.

    That’s from May 2019. Repeat, May 2019. Iran just shot 13, 14, 15 ballistic missiles at our troops. Hello? I can’t be the only one feeling like an Obamian “red line” is starting to appear. If Trump does not follow through here, the disappointment is going to keep growing.

12. “They also still don’t accept that Trump works on the model of the entertainment-wrestling world and look behind his rhetoric to the substance.” [Aesopfan @ 2:53]

    . . . and Trump doesn’t go to his enemies (the deep state, the media etc.) for their advice, words of wisdom, or approval, but rather treats their disapproval as a victory. I actually thinks that this has much to do with their Trump hatred. They are not the chosen fonts of wisdom and they resent that.

13. https://nypost.com/2020/01/07/the-giant-hole-in-dems-criticism-of-trumps-attack-on-qassem-soleimani-goodwin/

    The giant hole in Dems’ criticism of Trump’s attack on Qassem Soleimani: By Michael Goodwin January 7, 2020
    …
    But if you ignore the noise and focus on their actual words, you notice a giant hole in the criticism. The leading Dems are not arguing that Trump was wrong to drone Qassem Soleimani, nor have they said flatly they would not have approved the mission.

    Their sound and fury, then, amounts to empty screeching and nothing else.
    …
    It was left to Michael Bloomberg to underscore the point his fellow candidates were slyly refusing to make. The former New York mayor said it was “outrageous” for Sen. Bernie Sanders to call the strike an “assassination,” then added:

    “This is a guy who had an awful amount of American blood on his hands. Nobody that I know of would think that we did something wrong in getting the general.”

    Bravo for Bloomberg for daring to say the simple truth. His opponents should be ashamed of themselves.

    In many ways, Trump’s decision on Soleimani and the timid reaction from the gaggle of Dem candidates highlights the difficulties of unseating a bold, activist president. Whatever you think of Trump, nobody ever said he’s an idle seat warmer.

    Whether it’s confronting China and other nations over job-killing trade deals, cutting taxes and regulations or just being vocal on several major topics nearly every day, the president doesn’t hide from the nation’s problems. You know where he stands, sometimes to a fault.

    Indeed, a major reason why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi jumped into the impeachment camp was that the relentless economic expansion and historic low unemployment rates gave Trump critics scarce safe spaces.

    The Dems’ dilemma was best captured by the unforgettable words of Texas Rep. Al Green: “I’m concerned that if we don’t impeach this president, he will get re-elected.”
    …
    Yet few people outside Obama dead-enders believe the [JCPOA] deal’s terms were adequate, and there is little doubt that the money Obama gave Iran and his lifting of sanctions fueled Soleimani’s expanded terrorist aggression.

    Most oddly, Biden faulted Trump for not responding when Iran shot down one of our drones last June, saying it fed “Iran’s sense of impunity.” In truth, Iran’s sense of impunity was something Trump inherited from the Obama-Biden administration, and taking down Soleimani made the point that the game was over.

    That, of course, is the ultimate distinction between Trump and the top Dems. While none dares say he was wrong, it’s fairly obvious that, if any of them were in the Oval Office, Soleimani would still be alive.

    Chalk that up as something else they are afraid to admit.

    The Democrats’ waffling reminds me of the dilemma onto which Christ once thrust the Elites of his day: Jesus’ Authority Challenged –
    Matthew 21:23-27 (Mark 11:27-33; Luke 20:1-8) KJV

    23 And when he was come into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came unto him as he was teaching, and said, By what authority doest thou these things? and who gave thee this authority?
    And Jesus answered and said unto them, I also will ask you one thing, which if ye tell me, I in like wise will tell you by what authority I do these things.
    The baptism of John, whence was it? from heaven, or of men? And they reasoned with themselves, saying, If we shall say, From heaven; he will say unto us, Why did ye not then believe him?
    But if we shall say, Of men; we fear the people; for all hold John as a prophet.
    And they answered Jesus, and said, We cannot tell. And he said unto them, Neither tell I you by what authority I do these things.

    Looks like his meaning is still debatable, despite a large consensus.
    https://biblehub.com/commentaries/matthew/21-25.htm

    (Note to the rhetorically challenged: I am not implying that Trump is some kind of God-Emperor, only that the situations of the Jewish rulers & our Democrats are parallel.)

14. we await the offical JCPOA snapback to sanctions and 6 UN Security Council resolutions reimposition. There’s been talk already but no final move. It’s coming, surely. [sdferr]

    Whoa! All right! I take it back. UN resolutions!! Crikey.

15. “I noticed that, too (tiredness), at the beginning of the speech.
    The reality is that Trump is not a young man, and although he is energetic he’s under great stress. I sometimes get very concerned about that.”

    I’m guessing he didn’t go to bed early and read about it in the newspapers in the morning.

16. https://strategypage.com/on_point/2020010722562.aspx

    On Point: Soleimani’s Fatal Arrogance Reveals a Fool’s Contempt for His Enemies by Austin Bay January 7, 2020

    …Ignore the propagandists claiming otherwise. The U.S. had every right to kill the evil man. Soleimani was a terrorist, and the Quds Force of the Iranian Republican Guard Corps he commanded is a terrorist organization.
    …
    Soleimani was killed in Iraq. So? He was waging a war in Iraq and on Iraq using Iran’s “Shia popular militia force” proxies. Getting killed in Iraq is a known risk if you wage war in Iraq.

    Which is why Soleimani’s decision to brazenly arrive at Baghdad International Airport and slide into an SUV strikes me as stupidity bred by fatal arrogance. It indicates a fool’s contempt for his enemies. Soleimani ignored the old saw that every truly smart warrior knows to be bitter truth: Your enemy always gets a vote.
    …
    Perhaps the Iranian mastermind misread President Donald Trump. In June 2019, Trump ordered strikes on Iranian missile sites after the IRGC downed an American drone. When told U.S. reprisals might kill 150 people, Trump scrubbed the missions. He said 150 humans dead was not a proportionate response to a downed unmanned plane. His decision had biblical resonance. Blood for blood when Iran kills Americans. Otherwise, drone for drone.

    In January 2020, the U.S. took blood for blood. Note the Iranian drone raid yesterday on Iraq avoided striking Americans.

    Kim Jong Un, pay attention.

    My six degrees of separation:
    One of Austin’s aunts was among my mother’s best friends, and we occasionally were allowed to swim in her pool, one of the few private ones in my small town; also, I went to college with his wife, both of us being a couple of years behind him.
    Given the circles Austin runs in, I suspect there are more than a few people linking him to top Pentagon levels, so it’s not debatable that I am within 6 degrees of President Trump!

    https://thefuntimesguide.com/six_degrees/

17. Iran & Iraq are not the only countries impacted by the US policy.
    What might happen elsewhere is still up for grabs.

    https://www.meforum.org/60216/new-year-same-chaos-in-syria

    General Mazloum Abdi, commander of the SDF [Syrian Democratic Forces], told me that “if the regime wants us to come back to the centre, then they must fulfil the demands of the people here — Kurds and Arabs. For eight years, the people have had autonomy here and the regime must accept this demand.”
    The general further notes that contrary to initial expectations, the Americans have not completely left. The SDF remain the preferred US partner in continuing anti-Islamic State operations. The remaining US presence may be emboldening the Kurds to take a less compromising stance in the present Russian-mediated negotiations with Damascus.
    Syria today remains fragmented, thoroughly penetrated by outside powers and broken. Fully eight armies of various kinds are active in the narrow space between the Euphrates River and the Iraq-Syria and Turkey-Syria borders. These are the Turks, their SNA allies, the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces, The SAA (regime forces), the Russians, the Americans, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards with their various militia proxies and, of course, the remaining networks of the Islamic State.

18. Good observation:

    https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/iran-is-not-iraq/?itm_source=parsely-api

    …
    But the notion that the United States is now on the precipice of a “world war,” or even another Iraq War, is simply scaremongering. Iran, like Iraq in 2003, is in no position to fight a full-blown conflict with the United States. People have probably forgotten that we annihilated the Iraqi army within weeks. The United States is a military hyperpower with the ability to atomize virtually any fighting force it pleases. (It feels ridiculous writing that sentence. I had assumed most people understood this basic truth. After spending time on Twitter today, though, I realized I’ve been operating under a misconception.) The decade-long disaster that cost thousands of lives and trillions of dollars in Iraq was not a war, but a misguided and mishandled social engineering project and police action that was meant to install “democracy” to the region. As far as I can tell, there’s no evidence that Trump, or anyone else, has any appetite to invade Iran or force regime change. Many brave Iranians are already trying to do that on their own.
    …
    As Eli Lake points out, Trump has effectively erased the distinction between Iran and its terror proxies. It’s about time.

    You might not believe it was worth killing Soleimani. Maybe you’ll turn out to be right. Maybe the consequences will be too severe. But the idea that United States should be inhibited, in perpetuity, from defending its interests abroad because we failed to transform Iraq into a functioning democracy, is both ahistorical and unconvincing. We can’t let the failures of Iraq dictate American foreign policy forever.
    

19. Can’t believe I missed this part when it happened —

    https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/01/humoring_a_demon_top_six_ways_democrats_coddled_soleimani.html

    3. U.S. residency for the kids: Under the terms of the Iran deal, an Iranian official claimed that the children of the elites were jockeying among themselves about who would get U.S. green cards or U.S. citizenship as part of the Iran deal. According to this Fox News report [in 2018], apparently, this was a big deal among Iran’s oppressive elites, getting your kid into the States, same as it is in every third-world hellhole, and we all know that somehow, some of Soleimani’s kids managed to make their way into the U.S. to become citizens. The details are muddy, and the Washington Post assures that it’s all nonsense, blaming Trump rather than investigating why the Iranian official would say something like that, but what’s most telling that the U.S. has never issued an explicit denial.

    Part of those side deals that kept coming out because the Deal was never submitted to the Senate for ratification.

20. Several good points made here. Remember what CNN ‘fessed up to doing in Iraq?

    https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/01/was_that_abc_nightline_martha_raddatz_report_on_iran_actually_journalism.html

    January 8, 2020
    Was that ABC Nightline Martha Raddatz report on Iran actually journalism?
    By Monica Showalter
    Does ABC News have some kind of propaganda agreement with Iran’s mullahs in order to Get Trump?

    It seemed to have an agreement of some kind. That’s the only thing one can conclude after seeing Nightline’s Martha Raddatz report last night, the one with her featured standing in the middle of a raging Iranian mob with her hair very visible, telling us all how angry the Iranians are about the death of its terrorist Quds Force general, Qassem Soleimani, in a U.S. air strike.
    ..
    It was obviously not normal reporting.

    Number one, getting a pass to report in Iran is a difficult and complicated thing. It’s not commonly done; no major news outlets have foreign bureaus anywhere in that country. Somehow, ABC managed to arrange this quickly. Parachute journalists and foreign correspondents who aren’t fluent in the language of the country they cover almost always use “fixers” to set things up for them. Who was ABC News’s fixer? Anyone watching this swift production ought to have his antennae for propaganda up.
    …
    And two, since when do we put female television reporters in the middle of raging Middle Eastern mobs without expecting some kind of consequences? We all know what happened to CBS reporter Lara Logan when she plunged without a veil into a raging Egyptian mob several years ago — she was brutally assaulted as a foreign female not adhering to Islamist norms, and her prominent television reporter status didn’t mean a thing to them. What kind of security did Raddatz have? She had to have had some, owing to Iran’s “whip them” culture on non-conforming females without veils, or even veils that show too much hair. Raddatz has a barely visible excuse for a veil, but her hair is out there. Even if we account for differences of behavior between Persian and Egyptian mobs, or the two women’s age differential, we know that Persian mobs, which once ripped the dead body of the Ayatollah Khomeini out of his coffin during his funeral procession, can do crazy things, and Raddatz was vulnerable. … Did ABC’s security come from the mullahs? Was there some kind of protection agreement? They don’t have much private-sector security to hire in Iran, and in any case, mullahs call the shots there.
    …
    Three, the U.S. has ordered all U.S. nationals out of Iran — all — based on the very real possibility that the mullahs will take and hold some of them hostage. They’ve done it before…Some kind of agreement, some kind of guarantees seem to have been made about this. Iran’s propensity to kidnap Westerners, including reporters from prominent news organizations, is not a secret to any of them.

    If any of these kinds of agreements was done, all one can conclude is that it wasn’t exactly free reporting; it was state-sponsored reporting.

    When you look at the content of the Nightline piece, well, draw your own conclusions.

21. Going to the people who really do have skin in the game.

    https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/01/israeli_think_tank_has_soleimanis_number.html

    Links to this report:
    https://besacenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/168-The-Soleimani-Killing-Initial-Assessments.pdf

    The titles of the essays could have come from any US news media on the Right, but the authors can’t really be accused of meddling in Trump’s re-election.

    Can they?

22. I watched President Trump’s speech today directly televised from the White House. I very much liked what I heard from the President and I was pleased to see him offer the Olive Branch while unequivocally stating that Iran would not be allowed to gain nuclear weapons capability.

    Sadly even tragically I think it will not even in the least deter the Mullahs from continuing to spread terror. Being religious fanatics, violent jihad is for them, a theological imperative. And after this many years there is no basis for imagining that they will suddenly stop.

    Trump brilliantly positioned himself to respond to the certainty of future Iranian aggression, in that by offering the Olive Branch while also clearly stating that he wished peace between our Nations… there will be no legitimate basis for accusing him of being a warmonger. Of course, the dems and MSM will still insist that to be the case but Trump has undercut that argument with his speech today.

    He’s patiently waiting for the Iranian Mullahs to commit suicide. He knows their inherent nature, like the dog returns to its vomit, the Mullahs have to continue their terrorist aggression.

23. Mike Lee didn’t much like the briefing today. Rand Paul also I guess but the video I saw he just stood next to Lee while he ranted.

24. Take a look at the last resolution, 1929 (adopted on 9 June 2010): UNSCR 1929

    These suckers have teeth, and unfortunately are extremely hard to come by. Today they would be impossible to come by. But the cute little “snapback” makes them pert-near automatic. (Iran shudders to think)

    One small piece of Stuff You Get (or compelled) To Do:

    • Iran is subject to a new regime for inspection of suspicious cargo to detect and stop Iran’s smuggling. States should inspect any vessel on their territory suspected of carrying prohibited cargo, including banned conventional arms or sensitive nuclear or missile items. States are also expected to cooperate in such inspections on the high seas.

    • Once prohibited items are found, States are now obligated to seize and dispose of the items.

    • States are required not to provide critical support services (e.g., fuel, water) to ships suspected of carrying prohibited cargo.

    Let’s just say they’ll be very useful to DJT’s stated intention to stop Iran getting nukes, all kinda ways.

25. Neo
    what was going on in Iraq at the hands of the Iranians. I had planned on viewing for more than a few minutes, but I couldn’t stand it and turned it off pretty quickly

    Neo, could you tell us why you “couldn’t stand it”?

    did Trump offer Iran, other terrorist states?

    Before Trump, President George W. Bush in his State of the Union address on January 29, 2002, used The phrase (Axis of Evil) one of them Iran.

    Let read bit from the book Conversations with Terrorists: Middle East Leaders on Politics, Violence …

26. Back to that dilemma thing:

    https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/01/iran-lies-about-its-counterstrike.php

    The significance of the regime’s false report, intended for domestic consumption, is obvious. The mullahs knew that they would be seen as humiliated if they made no meaningful response to the Soleimani killing. On the other hand, they knew that if they did attempt a meaningful response, President Trump would reply in kind–or, as he said, disproportionately–and they themselves might not be safe. So they did the prudent thing: they launched a harmless attack and lied about it to their own people. As many predicted, Iran’s regime has chosen to de-escalate.

    Of course, we can’t rule out the possibility that Iran may in the future try to do us harm in a spirit of vengeance. But Iran has been trying to harm the U.S. and our allies for a long time; this is nothing new. And Trump’s strong response to Iran’s attack on our embassy in Baghdad makes future adventurism by the mullahs less likely, not more likely.

    STEVE adds: Back during the 1973 Israeli-Arab War, when the Syrian and Egyptian governments were claiming every day to have destroyed dozens and dozens of Israeli aircraft and battle tanks (when the actual number was close to zero), then-Governor Ronald Reagan called up Henry Kissinger and suggested that we supply Israel with exactly as many warplanes and tanks as the Arabs claimed publicly to have destroyed. Kissinger liked the idea. I imagine Trump might like it too: We’ll kill one Iranian military official for very American they claim to have killed in their rocket strikes.

    Steve’s note helps explain why the populace (not elites) elected Reagan twice.
    As for the utility of that response: sometimes our kids would whine that we “never let them do X” when they didn’t get enough of some desired activity; or that we “always made them do Y” when trying to dodge chores.

    Our reply was that what they claimed wasn’t true, but we could make it so.
    Usually ended at least that round; eventually (late HS?) they got the idea.

27. BTW, not just lying to domestic audiences.

    https://www.newsweek.com/iran-says-it-has-concluded-its-response-us-strike-does-not-seek-escalation-1480956

    After Iran launched a missile attack against air bases in Iraq that housed U.S. and coalition forces, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif tweeted that Iran was finished fighting and was not actively pursuing any kind of escalation to the conflict.

    “Iran took & concluded proportionate measures in self-defense under Article 51 of UN Charter targeting base from which cowardly armed attack against our citizens & senior officials were launched,” Zarif tweeted. “We do not seek escalation or war, but will defend ourselves against any aggression.”
    …
    Zarif told CBS News Tuesday that unlike Trump’s administration, which he described as “a regime that has no respect for international law [and] threatens to commit war crimes,” Iran would only respond against what Zarif referred to as “legitimate targets.”
    …
    [I guess that depends on how you define “legitimate” — so far that has included lots of civilians, and people in countries not actively engaged in the Middle East conflict; but then, that was all done by somebody other than Iran]
    …
    Zarif also denied that Iran engaged in backing proxy forces to commit violent acts throughout the Middle East region.

    By the other way, Zarif and Khomeini don’t seem to be in sync here:
    https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/01/iran-strikes-back.phpe:

    Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameni commented: “Last night, they were given one slap,” he said in a speech in the Qom broadcast live on state television. “Such military actions are not enough as far the importance of retaliation is concerned. What’s important is that their corruption-creating presence should end.”

28. On another way altogether, there was some debate about why Iran struck from its own bases, rather than those it controls in Syria and elsewhere.
    That may have been to bolster Zarif’s denial that they had proxy forces.

29. Sadly even tragically I think it will not even in the least deter the Mullahs from continuing to spread terror. [Geoffrey Britain]

    Me, either. Trump has now said the same bluster three years running. Thankfully, he directed our forces to blow up the terrorist plotters. But stopping there is not going to do the job. New faces will appear soon enough. Iran will be hit bigly if….. if what, they shoot 14 or 15 missiles at our troops? No, apparently not. So Trump’s threats now fall into the bluster category, and (I fear) bluster only. I am surprised that discerning folks here seem so ready to accept that.

    Sdferr, your faith in UN resolutions is based on what — how well they have worked in the past to stop the nuclear program? And all the other terrorism in half a dozen countries? But maybe they will work even better in the future.

30. Further on Sen. Lee’s rantings and ravings (and that is how they came across). He is mad the admin wouldn’t answer a bunch of hypotheticals which is ridiculous anytime. Never answer hypothetical questions. But further in this time of insane leaking anything they said would be on CNN in about an hour so that may be why they are so reticent.

    And can you ever imagine a Dem senator acting that way after an Obama briefing. Right or wrong this is a major reason why Republicans lose so many of these political fights.

31. Kai Akker, the Pres. says outright his desire is to have Iran come back to the negotiating table to work out a deal to remove their nuclear program, clean up their mess and rejoin the family of normal nations. This is what we see. It’s where we are. Just look in good faith. It isn’t my choice. It doesn’t have to be yours. It just is. And the UNSCR’s help do that. They were primarily responsible, with sanctions, for getting Iran to the table before. We can reasonably suppose they’ll work again — until, that is, other measures become necessary.

    So. Doesn’t mean I want it. Doesn’t mean I know they’ll work. Just means it looks like the next or part of the next step.

32. AesopFan on January 8, 2020
    international law ………………….,” Iran would only respond against …. “legitimate targets.”

    What are “legitimate targets.”?
    Why not target US targets in the Gulf? in sea or US targets in Afghanistan or elsewhere?

    His Country fired missiles on another country (Iraq), this is a violation of international law? isn’t?

    His Country support its proxy inside Iraq to storm US Embassy this also another
    violation of international law.

33. That’s it? We have done our bit of justice and now we think Iran will begin to act responsibly? Finally, at last, this time? Help, remind me who is president now; is his name Obama? Iranian Islamists will never make a serious deal to remove their nuclear program — if they signed such an “Agreement,” would you believe it? There is really only one way to get rid of their nuclear program. And if we took out the other 51 targets, it would be even better, IMO. If anyone knows this, it is Trump. To listen to him begin to dither is disturbing in the extreme.

34. Jonah Goldberg has had a lot of good things to say about a lot of subjects, but I parted company with him on Donald Trump back in 2016.

    Up for debate: Jonah’s latest claims about the fracas in Iran, which don’t break any new ground for his psychological crystal-ball reading of the President’s mind.
    I think Jonah is just incapable of understanding that “left brain” people (read the reports and briefs!!) simply don’t work the same way “right brain” people (go with the flow & consider the gestalt) do — and that they can both still function with underlying consistency, it just doesn’t look that way to the other brainers.

    https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/01/iran-foreign-policy-president-trump-following-his-gut/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=top-bar-latest&utm_term=thirteenth

    FWIW, I’m a die-hard left-brainer (and I hate that association with the political left), but I can still appreciate that Trump works from a normal right-brain perspective that is perfectly valid.

    https://testyourself.psychtests.com/testid/3178

    Of course, there has been some back-tracking on the brain-split dichotomy, because it isn’t a 100% truism, but it is a handy idiom for shorthand discussions of personality.
    Go to the Meyers-Briggs Type Inventory or other instruments for more detail.

35. Another point in the story is that a SAM nose cone was found in the debris field from the Ukraine airliner shot down.

    A Tor M1 SAM nose cone.

36. Completely, utterly, undebatably OT:

    Maybe this will be an enjoyable diversion for a minute and a half.

    The sight of a fast, fast horse winning one of the biggest sprints in the world, the $3-million Dubai Golden Shaheen sprint last March 30.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cI4mUsy-mw

    A great start and a great finish.

    RIP X Y Jet.

37. dither

    So now you fight with phantoms? C’mon. Trump shows the cards he wants to show and not those he doesn’t. The hidden (but known, intelligible) cards are purposed for contingencies to come. We know what these are. We’ve discussed them the last couple of days. They’ll be used when needed. Right now, they’re not. Think of these new days as shaping the battlefield, if that makes you feel better. I see little use in making stuff up though. The bottom line will remain what it has to be. Hold fast.

38. I see a way to bring down the rabid dogs of Iran without drones and cruise missiles. Simply announce secondary sanctions. Any nation doing business with Iran may not have access to our markets, including financial markets. We have an enormous advantage as the largest market and economy on the planet.

    3 months tops and their faltering economy collapses. We are energy and food independent, we can weather any blow back. Note: This not my original idea. Others have been floating this idea since 1979.

39. On that “zinger” —
    https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/yes-obama-helped-fund-the-iranian-regime/

    Yes, Obama Helped Fund the Iranian Regime
    By DAVID HARSANYI January 8, 2020 3:59 PM

    In his address to the nation this morning, Donald Trump asserted that the ballistic missiles that targeted the al-Assad and Erbil bases in Iraq yesterday were paid for using “funds made available by the last administration.” Few things irritate media fact checkers more than Trump’s accusation that Obama helped fund the Iranian regime and its terror apparatus. Probably because it’s completely true.

    Now, we don’t really know that Obama’s ransom payments to Iran in 2016 subsidized those specific ballistic missiles, but we do know that money is fungible — especially when you have access to small denominations of European cash — and that the military, IRGC, and Hezbollah were the major beneficiaries of the replenished coffers of the Iranian state. Distinctions over the details of the exact allocation of funds would be completely irrelevant in any conversation not involving Donald Trump. Yet Andrea Mitchell and CNN, and all the usual suspects, immediately rallied to Obama’s defense to also explain that actually Trump is talking about money we owed Iran.

    We never “owed” the Islamic Republic any money.
    …
    Reporters like to point out that “$150 billion,” the amount Trump likes to claim Obama transferred to the Iranians, is almost surely the high-end estimate, or likely an exaggeration. But we don’t know for sure because institutional media didn’t mobilize its considerable resources to find out.

    The MSM is repeating many of the same talking points they used at the time, and they weren’t believable back then either.

    The “fact checking” Harsanyi cites reminds me of Snopes fact-checking The Babylon Bee.

40. AesopFan @6:00 PM

    Jonah Goldberg, the author of Liberal Fascism, has gone rabidly never trump because he and his pals are the true conservatives. Male bovine feces. He just wants invitations to DC dnc cocktail parties. I will never click on his and his buddies articles for as long as I live. I shun them as shameless eunuchs.

41. Geoffrey Britain
    I think it will not even in the least deter the Mullahs from continuing to spread terror.

    Agreed, you perfectly put.

    Senior American officials held confidential talks with Iran about Iraq’s future in advance of the United States-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, and secured a promise that the Iranian military would not fire at United States warplanes that strayed into Iranian airspace, according to a new book by a ranking Bush administration official.

    The previously undisclosed meetings, which were held in Geneva with Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations and future foreign minister, continued even after American troops seized Baghdad in April 2003.

    U.S. Conferred With Iran Before Iraq Invasion, Book Says
    By Michael R. GordonMarch 6, 2016

    The 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq marked the moment when the U.S. lost control of its own bloody chess game. The chaos unleashed by the U.S. invasion allowed Iran to gain a level of influence in Iraq that was unfathomable during the reign of Saddam. Secret documents from the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security, obtained by The Intercept, give an unprecedented picture of how deeply present-day Iraq is under Iranian influence. The sovereignty once jealously defended by Arab nationalists has been steadily eroded since the U.S. invasion.

    THE CHANGING OF THE OVERLORDS

42. I didn’t like the Trump Talking Loudly, especially when I wasn’t reading his tweets myself.

    I still don’t like listening to him for more than a couple of minutes of highlights; tho I can imagine going to a rally, in order to be part of the HUGE rally of enthusiastic folk he seems to always be drawing.

    America loves a winner. And the Big Stick, when used, allows the user to WIN.
    (Bigly!) There are no comic book heroes who talk so loudly, tho now I think Han Solo was sort of a loud braggart. Our culture, and I, aren’t so keen on it.

    But nice quiet losers are NOT as attractive as Loud Obnoxious Winners, when the Loud Winners are on your side. Easier to hate when they’re on the other side.

43. AesopFan: There’s no question Trump relies heavily on intution, honed for decades in competitive business deals, plus whatever his natural gifts may be.

    But in my mind I can’t make an exclusively gut instinct model work for Trump. It just seems his results would regress to coin flips or thereabouts after a while. That’s what I expected of him. However, I can’t think of any really bad decisions he has made beyond tweets I don’t like or policy choices I question.

44. Kai Akker:

    He doesn’t think it for a moment.

    He is extending the olive branch to show it’s available. But the stick is what he knows they will notice and care about.

45. “I think Jonah is just incapable of understanding that “left brain” people (read the reports and briefs!!) simply don’t work the same way “right brain” people (go with the flow & consider the gestalt) do”

    Treating Jonah like any sort of serious intellectual is a mistake but that dynamic does help to understand the deranged attitude toward Trump from some. But it’s not just that they don’t understand, it’s that their sense of self-worth is tied up in being “left brain” people. That’s why, for example, NONE of Trump’s successes over the last three years had made a dime’s worth of difference to Jonah and other NeverTrumpers. No success by Trump will ever be valid in their minds because he doesn’t achieve it the “correct” way.

    Mike

46. If you read enough Military History you eventually learn that a threat – or feint – can pin attention and troops to a meaningless location.

    Especially when action is being taken on another front.

    That seems to precisely what President Trump and the NCA is doing here. The Iranian regime is now so focused on the military aspects of its policies that it is dropping the ball on the diplomatic front.

    Maybe President Trump really does play hyper-dimensional chess while his opponents are playing checkers.

47. Mohammad Ali Abtahi, Iran’s former vice president and ranking cleric under Muhammad Khatami, confirmed the regime’s stand in a discussion with me last month during a visit to San Francisco. He explained that Iranian leaders fully understand that to attempt to obtain nuclear weapons, at least at this point in time, is suicide for the regime. Thus there is no desire for a nuclear weapons program that would have irreversible consequences – ending in a bloody war and destruction of the country.

    Ironically, Iran has ultimately benefited from the U.S. attacks on the Taliban and Iraq because these efforts have weakened Iran’s top two enemies; however, Iran has suffered from the animosity between it and the United States since the Islamic Revolution, which has resulted in the loss of economic development opportunities. As a result, Iran’s Arab neighbors are enjoying rapid economic growth, while Iranian leaders are facing economic crises, including unemployment, inflation, lack of foreign investments, and are suffering the consequences of the U.N. sanctions, which are undermining Iran’s economy.

    Are Iran and the U.S. ready to bite the bullet?

48. I think Trump’s secret weapon is commonsense.

    He doesn’t see around corners; he notices the corners are not there.

49. C’mon. Trump shows the cards he wants to show and not those he doesn’t. The hidden (but known, intelligible) cards are purposed for contingencies to come. [sdferr]

    Obviously I cannot deny your statement, nor can you demonstrate whether it’s true. But I think we’ve seen the full extent of Trump, now. I don’t think there’s any more there. This is what we saw in North Korea, and this is what we saw in China, and now this is what we’ve seen in Iran (plus one dramatic takeout).

    He talks from a position of strength and expects he will automatically win the negotiation. But if you look at it, it hasn’t worked in North Korea, it hasn’t worked in China, and I doubt it will work in Iran. Don’t you notice this, sdferr? Neo? Others who are satisfied by what Trump’s saying and doing?

    If he takes more dramatic action, you can tell me you told me so, except if you seriously think negotiations and resolutions will accomplish anything. If you buy that, you will never be able to tell anyone I told you so!

50. huxley & MBunge – I think we agree on Trump’s common-sense vision, and, I would add, he HIRES the left-brainers to read the reports and give him the bottom-line, or let him know what he needs to know when he proposes an action — you can see it in how the WH operates, if you look for it.

    I wonder if Jonah would like Biden any better, though?
    https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/01/biden-hedges-on-soleimani-attack.php
    by Paul

    Biden is neither a hawk nor a dove. If he were one or the other, he would, like a broken clock, be right at least occasionally about foreign policy.

    Biden has no fixed, coherent view of the world. He’s just a hack who relies on a combination of political expediency, conventional wisdom, and a small dose of his own judgment to form his foreign policy/national security positions.

    It’s that small dose of judgment, I assume, that keeps him from nearly ever being right.

    I suspect that Trump looks like Biden to some people, including Goldberg, but The Donald has a life-time of business & social experience that Uncle Joe lacks; plus, IMO, he is basically smarter.

51. “Why haven’t they changed their minds on this?”

    I think it is indisputable that the real target is us. The Deplorables. Trump is just an obstacle for 1 or 5 more years. We, on the other hand, are permanent.

52. Obviously I cannot deny your statement, nor can you demonstrate whether it’s true.

    I cannot demonstrate what has not happened, yes.

    I can, however, make a kind of test case or hypothetical which goes a way toward what you appear to want.

    So: step 1) Let an American die or suffer serious injury in the coming days at the hands of either Iranians directly or their proxies’ hands indirectly and then — step 2) Pres. Trump will initiate the 52 sites campaign people have been panting to see.

    I think that’s how this works. I think the Pres. expects Iran to screw up like this, he just has the couth not to blurt it out loud as I have done.

    If, however, Iran’s Supreme Leader has thought things through, and isn’t personally suicidal, perhaps we all get a surprise and the Theocrats come to the table to strut their negotiating stuff. Pres. Trump believes in his negotiating game skills and wants to show them off. So then, that.

53. “But if you look at it, it hasn’t worked in North Korea, it hasn’t worked in China, and I doubt it will work in Iran.”

    Wait. Is the standard that Donald Trump has to completely solve in three years problems that America’s foreign policy establishment didn’t solve in 30 years?

    Mike

54. perhaps we all get a surprise and the Theocrats come to the table to strut their negotiating stuff

    I hope they bring the Tooth Fairy with them.

    Look at the budget. in 2017, Trump signed another in the long line of budget-busting bills and said, I will never sign another bill like that again. Grrrr.

    Except he has since signed two more just like it without a peep.

    You are in the wishful-thinking stage with this man, IMO. There is a lot of talk. There is occasional action. There are very few long-term results on the big issues.

55. Mike, the first two cases have gone absolutely nowhere. Trump bought some time with NKorea, esp by flattering the Leader and crossing the DMZ. Only Trump could have done that. But they seem to be back to their old tricks.

    China will continue to weaken of its own doings. Central planning, insane overleverage, and one-child. But nothing from Trump’s negotiating.

    At some point, even supporters — like me — have to ask, is there any there there?

56. The budget? Have you heard the man called a populist? This, to me, is the essence of that term. If a great mass of Americans were clamoring for yugely less spending narrowing the budget or deficit, Trump would focus his efforts and promises on that. In the absence of such a motion in the popular masses? He takes their lead, doing what he perceives they desire. That’s populism for ya.

57. Now, I’m tired, and so retire here a time.

58. “I think it will not even in the least deter the Mullahs from continuing to spread terror.” Geoffrey Britain

    “Events have brought this issue to a head. If Trump doesn’t proceed on that, will it ever happen?

    This is Trump’s high-water mark. If he doesn’t follow through as he said, my guess is his popularity will never recover.

    Trump has now said the same bluster three years running. So Trump’s threats now fall into the bluster category, and (I fear) bluster only.

    Iranian Islamists will never make a serious deal to remove their nuclear program — if they signed such an “Agreement,” would you believe it?

    I think we’ve seen the full extent of Trump, now. I don’t think there’s any more there.” Kai Akker

    I agree that the Mullahs will never sincerely sign a peace treaty, will never voluntarily cease their aggression. That said, IMO you greatly misunderstand Trump. His ‘bluster’ is the result of a hostile, disloyal opposition and a seditious MSM. Political considerations are, IMO solely responsible for his not yet lowering the boom on Iran. He has to have a “Casus Belli”, one that derails the left’s criticisms in the minds of the independents and liberal useful idiots. He has to have evidence that supports him acting solely to protect American citizens from a deranged, mortal threat.

    IMO, in his speech today he brilliantly set himself up for the meme of the ‘reluctant warrior’. The coming meme being that the Mullahs have forced him to wield the “Big Stick”.

    Today, AFTER Trump’s comments from the WH; “Rocket Attacks Hit Baghdad’s Green Zone, Balad Air Base: Iraqi Military”

    “I see a way to bring down the rabid dogs of Iran without drones and cruise missiles. Simply announce secondary sanctions. Any nation doing business with Iran may not have access to our markets, including financial markets.” parker

    Given the interdependence of the First world’s economies, there’s the very real possibility that would gravely affect OUR economy negatively. Which could affect Trump’s chances of reelection… especially given the lying characterization that the dems and MSM would spread about any decline in our economy. I fear that not enough Americans would accept that decline as necessary.

    Taking out Iran’s port facilities and ability to wage war beyond the level of the AK47 is the path I favor. Then, arming the Iranian resistance so that sane Iranians can take out the mad Mullah’s regime.

59. Kai: As I mentioned in another thread, I haven’t commented much on this as I am outside of my comfort zone on this topic. That said, with what is known now, I believe that Trump is taking a wiser course than you are suggesting he should have.

    There’s no doubt that the US military can turn Iran into smoking rubble. The question is how wise that would be. Yesterday, were you hungrily looking forward to the US blasting various things and people in Iran into oblivion in response to … missiles intentionally hitting nothing to speak of on Iraqi bases? I wasn’t. I was seriously concerned as the news began trickling in that Trump would do exactly that. He had waited for the circumstances that led to an attack on our embassy (including a US death) before obliterating General S. with a textbook surgical strike that, so far as we know, didn’t harm a fly outside of the bad guys in the car. It was a display of mastery, of power. Because of the subsequent back-and-forth bluster – and the fears that even we harbor that Trump is an impulsive loose cannon – I worried that he would lose focus and crater Iran just to show ’em.

    But, no. In a move that I have to admit impresses me, he watched the ineffective activity and took no action. The next day, he stood up and said to the people of the world, “Hey Iran, we welcome peace. We want you to have the good future you deserve.” In the aftermath, it clearly makes Iran the loser in this confrontation. Not to presume that I have inside knowledge of how the leaders of Iran are thinking, but I can surmise: they would have dearly loved to make a meaningful attack on us, but they knew perfectly well that Trump would have responded with force. So instead, they opted for firing a handful of missiles that were never intended to hit anything of material value to US interests, to give themselves something that they could hop around and crow about, with the extra added bonus that maybe they could goad Trump into firing on them – which would have generated nothing but positive PR for Iran.

    It was a complete loss for Iran. Not only did they not accomplish anything with the attack – beyond looking pathetic – they now have the albatross of the Ukrainian jet crash hanging on them. It was a bad day for Iran.

    I don’t think for a second that they’re suddenly going to have a change of heart and become nice guys. Nobody does, certainly not Trump. But for Trump, given what we know right now, it was huge win. When – and it’s a when, not an if – Iran kills another US citizen or attacks US soil – I fully expect a military response, and Trump will get to order it from a sympathetic position – having established that we are doing everything we can to avoid conflict. It was indeed the most impressive presidenting I’ve seen in my lifetime.

60. Perhaps it is just me, but has anyone seen Artfldgr and AesopFan in the same room? AesopFan uses capitalization and better punctuation, but otherwise, both post many, long as in tedious comments about information we all have at our fingertips. I guess both think we are all dumb and lacking the ability to educate ourselves. Boorish comes to mind along with condescending.

    Sorry to hurt your feelings, but not really.

    parker the small before my betters

61. It was indeed the most impressive presidenting I’ve seen in my lifetime. [KyndyllG]

    “Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

    Kyndyll, I hope you are right about the future on Iran. But, while they have the albatross of the Ukrainian jet crash, 176 people have it a lot worse. The mullahs can go back to that terrorism and avoid giving Trump a clear reason for retaliation. We will see what they do.

    Geoffrey, I read your post with interest. I hope you and Kyndyll and sdferr and Neo, and others, are all right. But I can’t shake the feeling that this was the opportunity; and it may slip away in inertia and mundaneity. Furthermore, we do not know how long we will have Trump with us. These are only feelingz, but my feeling is that it’s going to be downhill from here for this President.

62. parker:

    Iowa winter got you down already? Some post long but not always; that is what the scroll is for if you know it all, already.

    I’ve heard that brevity is the sole of whit, or something.

63. USS IOWA (BB-61), “The Big Stick”

    [KU 79 – ISU 53]

64. “At some point, even supporters — like me — have to ask, is there any there there?”

    I believe Trump has gotten more out of NK and China than his three predecessors and unless you think Obama’s deal with Iran was the key to peace, it’s no worse than a push on that right now. He also got Mexico and Canada to agree to an improved trade deal. You can give Clinton and Bush a bit of a pass on that but Obama didn’t even try and I don’t think there was any sign Hillary would have either.

    It’s fair to say Trump doesn’t have any towering foreign policy accomplishments, though what he’s doing with our southern border is coming close. What’s most important, however, is that he hasn’t set the world on fire like all his establishment critics promised he would do.

    What matters with Trump is that while his critics haven’t been proven absolutely wrong about absolutely everything, I don’t think there’s any doubt that three years in they’ve been proven very wrong about some very important things. If Reagan was “The Great Communicator,” Trump is “The Great Conservation Starter.” He’s demonstrating that the way things have been isn’t necessarily the way things have to or should be.

    Mike

65. parker on January 8, 2020 at 9:09 pm said:
    Perhaps it is just me, but has anyone seen Artfldgr and AesopFan in the same room? AesopFan uses capitalization and better punctuation, but otherwise, both post many, long as in tedious comments about information we all have at our fingertips.
    * * *
    Glad to see you’re keeping up.
    Artfldgr is the tall one.
    I’m the reincarnated cat.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uq-gYOrU8bA

66. https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/01/trump-pins-some-blame-on-obama-for-missile-attack-should-he-have.php

    Comments dissing Paul for his rhetorical question are what you might expect, if you go there often, but here’s a good graphic one of them posted.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/81ae8dcfb0d53b1c97e7c8d35010b3166c7fb0864b52cae77b50c91d257cc715.jpg
    “Not all the bombs exploded.”

67. Griffin on January 8, 2020 at 4:34 pm said:
    Mike Lee didn’t much like the briefing today. Rand Paul also I guess but the video I saw he just stood next to Lee while he ranted.
    * * *
    I didn’t have this reference at my fingertips, so I looked it up.
    Lee is mad that the Senators were told Trump’s actions were not debatable.
    No, really.

    https://www.deseret.com/utah/2020/1/8/21057526/trump-iran-war-mike-lee-mitt-romney-briefing

    SALT LAKE CITY — Sen. Mike Lee fumed Wednesday over a briefing on last week’s U.S. airstrike that killed an Iranian general, calling it the worst he’s ever seen.

    “I had hoped and expected to receive more information outlining the legal, factual and moral justification for the attack, was left somewhat unsatisfied on that front,” the Utah Republican told reporters after the 75-minute, closed-door meeting.

    “This, however, is not the biggest problem I have with the briefing, which I would add was probably the worst briefing I’ve seen at least on a military issue in the nine years that I’ve served in the United States Senate,” Lee said.

    He found the message to not discuss or debate the appropriateness of further military action against Iran so distressing, that Lee said he now favors a Democratic resolution to limit President Donald Trump’s ability to act without congressional approval.

    “I walked into the briefing undecided, I walked out decided, specifically because of what happened in that briefing,” Lee said.

    Senators were told that talking about further military action would embolden Iran and weaken the American cause, making the country less safe, he said.

    “I find this insulting and demeaning,” Lee said, adding not personally but to the office of senator and to the Constitution.
    …
    “It is not acceptable for officials within the executive branch, I don’t care if they’re with the CIA, with the Department of Defense or otherwise, to come in and tell us that we can’t debate and discuss the appropriateness of military intervention against Iran,” he said. “It’s un-American. It’s unconstitutional and it’s wrong.”

    Lee said the government owes the American people the “decent courtesy” of following the Constitution before sending troops into harm’s way.

    “These powers are not ours. They don’t belong to any of us,” he said. “When we allow them to be exercised through the wrong branches of government, with the wrong process, when you don’t have debate and discussion, you don’t allow the process itself to correct itself for the American people who will be most affected by these decisions to weigh in,” he said. “I find it completely unacceptable.”

    I agree with Lee that this was a ham-handed directive by the brass, because they are not the bosses of the Senate.
    I agree that the legislature, and through them the people, ought to be the ones deciding whether or not to declare war, or authorize hostile action.
    But, the Congress, including the Senate he’s served in for 9 years, have consistently and determinedly passed that buck to the President for decades, because they are afraid of losing their sinecures.

    Good luck fixing that.

68. Some Washington colleagues, including Kentucky congressman, believed he was little more than an erratically tempered hick with dictatorial impulses.

    The Kentucky congressman was Henry Clay, and the president was Andrew Jackson…

    of which Jackson said that his only two regrets “that I have not shot Henry Clay or hanged John C. Calhoun.”

    “As long as our government is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the rights of persons and of property, liberty of conscience, and of the press, it will be worth defending”

    and Teddy? trash talked McKinley… and said “McKinley had no more backbone than a chocolate eclair.”

    He called President Woodrow Wilson “a Byzantine logothete backed by flubdubs and mollycoddles.”

    Harry S. Truman on General Dwight D. Eisenhower: “The General doesn’t know any more about politics than a pig knows about Sunday”

    Lyndon B. Johnson on Gerald Ford: “Jerry Ford is so dumb that he can’t fart and chew gum at the same time.”

    Herbert Hoover on Franklin D. Roosevelt: “[A] chameleon on plaid.”

    Thomas Jefferson on John Adams: “A blind, bald, crippled, toothless man who is a hideous hermaphroditic character with neither the force and fitness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.”

    President, LBJ, on Nixon: “I may not know much, but I know chicken sh*t from chicken salad.”

69. The Bee is on a roll.

    https://babylonbee.com/news/hillary-clinton-slams-trump-for-not-taking-a-more-hands-off-approach-to-embassy-attack

    https://babylonbee.com/news/thousands-of-panicked-terrorists-surrender-as-trump-deploys-jack-wilson-to-middle-east

    https://babylonbee.com/news/iranians-to-outsource-propaganda-to-msnbc

70. BTW, in another briefing that Mike Lee didn’t find insulting, the brass answered one of the conspiracy theories making the rounds this week.

    https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/2051321/press-gaggle-with-secretary-of-defense-dr-mark-t-esper-and-chairman-of-the-join/

    GEN. MILLEY: Yes. I mean – I mean to answer your question and your question, when we looked at this operation we knew there would be consequences. We knew there’d be risks. We knew that ahead of time.

    We didn’t take any of it lightly. And the forces, White and those that work for him in theater and the CENTCOM theater, and we knew we would have to adjust their posture, force protection posture, in the immediate aftermath of this particular strike operation. So the short answer to both of your questions is yes.

    SEC. ESPER: By the way, let me – let me elaborate on his answer because I know there’s another question floating around out there. We didn’t put any option on the table that we didn’t believe in and that we – we knew that – that we couldn’t execute.

    And with each option we present the pros and cons, the cost and benefits. That’s what we do all the time. That’s my duty, my obligation. That’s his duty and obligation as well.

    If you don’t have that conspiracy at your fingertips, let me know.

71. Babylon Bee was spoofing about this:
    https://www.redstate.com/nick-arama/2020/01/08/msnbcs-chris-hayes-tries-to-justify-spreading-iranian-propaganda-it-does-not-end-well/

    MSNBC spread an unverified rumor from Iranian media about the Iranian missile strikes on U.S. forces killing 30 Americans.

    Now they couldn’t verify and said so, but ran with it anyway. It was of course picked up and spread everywhere on social media.

    At about the same time, U.S. officials were releasing their initial reports and saying that there had been no casualties.

    So of course, what did MSNBC run with? The Iranian propaganda.

72. Granted, this meeting was probably in the works before the current round of attacks by Iran, but still… it may explain why the Dems are so reticent about cheering Trump’s icing of Soleimani.

    https://freebeacon.com/national-security/warren-sander-hosting-call-with-pro-tehran-lobby-group/

    Adam Kredo and David Rutz
    JANUARY 8, 2020 5:25 PM

    Democratic presidential contenders Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) are slated to host a conference call with an Iranian-American advocacy group that has been accused of acting as Tehran’s lobbying arm in the United States.
    …
    Along with Reps. Ro Khanna (D., Calif.) and Barbara Lee (D., Calif.), Sanders and Warren are scheduled to speak Wednesday evening with members of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC). The group played a central role in what former Obama national security adviser Ben Rhodes called the administration’s pro-Iran Deal “echo chamber,” spinning journalists, lawmakers, and citizens.

73. Doc Zero hits all the bases.

    https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1213135800747081728.html

    …
    The American people aren’t going to think warmly of Democrats for betting against the U.S. and settling on a political strategy that only works if Iran kills a bunch of us. They’re making it much too obvious, too quickly. They should have saved the “buts” for a bit later.
    …

    https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1214190652323446784.html

    …
    Iran’s proxy network is, on paper, the antithesis of everything the U.N. and “international community” stand for. It’s a deliberate effort to escape accountability, exactly the way gangsters use cutouts so murders can never be traced back to the big bosses.
    Gangster tactics like this are the opposite of civilization – in fact they are tools of anti-civilization, designed to destroy civilization by leveraging its virtues and rules against it. Iran gets the respectability of a nation-state without any of the responsibility.

    RTWTs

74. Ah, the tears, fears, frustration and gnashing of teeth in the House of Representatives, though fortunately, no one’s been—at least, yet—trampled to death given the impressive outpouring of grief….

    (And not just the House of Representatives….)

    Here’s a former British ambassador to the region, who examines the “situation” from a refreshingly sober, sane (and articulate)—British—perspective and who is definitely NOT mourning:
    https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2020/01/soleimanis-assassination-has-exposed-the-eus-big-weakness/
    (H/T: Col. Richard Kemp twitter feed)

    The whole thing is worth reading. Here are some of the key grafs:

    “…You can’t plead ignorance about what Soleimani was up to, or what he represented any more. Just read the obituaries and watch the reaction of the Iranian leadership, Hezbollah and his Iraq allies. Watch also how those who hated him in the region celebrate.

    “It is now being claimed in some quarters that Soleimani was only in Baghdad that day on some kind of recherché peace mission – to try and de-escalate tension between the Saudis and the Iranians. A moment’s pause to consider the lethal effectiveness of Soleimani’s region-wide network should be enough to show how preposterous this idea is. A latter-day Kofi Annan he was not.

    “Soleimani was a devout family man – a softly-spoken thug, for sure. But he was prepared to cajole, threaten, intimidate and commit murder if he was crossed. He had the blood of hundreds or thousands of Syrians, Iranians and Iraqis on his hands. And the Iranian leadership loved him precisely because he brought them power and influence.
    . . .
    “Sometimes, as when we have joined with our EU partners in trying to find ways around US financial sanctions in order to benefit Iran (so that we can “keep the JCPOA alive”), it looks as though we prefer the EU.

    “But there really is no EU foreign policy to speak of. There is EU development funding. There is the covert pursuit of national interest under an EU flag. And there is the usual nonsense the European left like to spout about a distinctively European contribution to peace, mutual understanding and brotherly love. In practice, all too often this means trying to do the opposite of what those “nasty” Americans do. This gives high representatives the chance to cut a dash at international conferences. Unfortunately, it doesn’t amount to much in the real world….”

75. I think he’s got too many of this side snowed.
    Trump said he would immediately impose economic sanctions “until Iran changes its behavior,”
    LOL!! Great, Mr. President.

    How big a pile of dead Iranian babies would satisfy your bloodlust?

    *NO* dead Americans after Iran’s latest reprisal. Killing Iranians in response to a bloodless attack constitutes an escalation. To what end?

    Economic warfare against the Iranian regime has been more effective than you are willing to concede.

    Sanctions are undermining Iranian economic and political stability. Iran’s ability to project its power to the rest of the region has been attenuated. Protests are becoming endemic.

    According to Reuters, up to 1,500 people may have been killed in a fortnight – compared to around 70 in the 10 months after the 2009 protests.

    The killings – reportedly on the direct orders of Khamenei – succeeded in restoring order. In doing so, though, the regime may also have killed off whatever remained of its own legitimacy.

    The architect of their regional aspirations… who was also likely their next president.. is dead. The mullah’s hegemonic dreams are dying, too. Iran’s regional enemies, Israel and Saudi Arabia… are triangulating against them.

    Time is *not* on their side.

    A more likely long-term fate… is what one Iranian journalist colleague describes as a “Venezuela-isation” of Iran

    The only thing Venezuela ever credibly threatens is *collapse*.

76. Mike Bunge, good points at 10:40 p.m.

    Mentus, above — you are so right! Great argument, esp on the facts….. I promise to finally stop beating my wife.

    But the “end” is the end of their nuclear program and the destruction of one of the greatest threats to lives. C’mon. That wasn’t that hard to see.

77. BTW, the nickname for the USS Theodore Roosevelt (nuclear aircraft carrier CVN-71) is “The Big Stick”. The sailors there are understandably proud of that nickname.

78. There’s something about this latest kerfuffle that, perhaps, I didn’t understand.

    The only reason that the Iraq and Afghan wars were costly to the United States was the fact that we bothered putting boots on the ground for the purpose of controlling territory.

    Had we merely broken all the useful national assets in a hard-to-fix way and then left, the cost of doing so would have been nigh-on-undetectable in the U.S. budget, and the American lives lost would have been close to zero, barring mishaps.

    I don’t see any evidence that Trump is willing, now or ever, to try to put boots on the ground for the purpose of controlling territory in Iran. So if this were somehow to escalate into a serious war — if, to be precise, we were to suddenly start making efforts to damage Iran, proportionate to our ability to do so, which were equivalent to Iran’s efforts to damage us since 1979, proportionate to its ability — I don’t see why anyone should expect it to cost us much.

    We could sink every watercraft down to the medium-sized fishing boat, send Hellfire missiles through every inch of pipeline, well, and refinery, topple every building exceeding two floors, eliminate every water-processing plant, and destroy every police-station and jail-cell in the country, for a tenth of what we spent on Iraq, and still have no boots on the ground other than the special forces teams using laser designators to improve the accuracy of the ordinance.

    In response, their best tactic would probably be to try to sneak in and do some shootings in churches and shopping-malls in the U.S. That would be very bad. But considering that we’d have reduced 83 million Iranians to cannibalism and cholera, I don’t see their best-possible response as much deterrent.

    What deters the United States from doing that is simply our moral character: We don’t inflict misery on helpless civilians if we can avoid it. Given the constant (if mostly ineffectual) attempts of the Iranians to wage war against the U.S. since 1979, we’d have slain the Ayatollahs fifteen times over if it weren’t for the fact that they’re holding their population hostage.

    So they’re using our good moral character as a shield against us. Good for us that they can do so…but it wouldn’t hurt if, every now and again, they had a crisis of confidence about whether we were really as “soft” (to use their term for it) as they previously assumed.

    That, I think, was the greatest benefit of the lesson Trump gave, in the Solemani affair: It made them say, “Have we misunderstood the Americans?” All to the good.

    I started this post wondering whether there wasn’t something I misunderstood. My question is this: Am I missing some area in which the Iranians can cause us pain that we’d feel anywhere near as keenly as the pain we’d make them feel, in the event of an escalation? It won’t be the boots-on-the-ground cost, as stated above; but is there some other area of concern?

    If not, then all this fluttering was much ado about nothing.

    But maybe I missed something?

79. …the “end” is the end of their nuclear program and the destruction of one of the greatest threats to lives. C’mon. That wasn’t that hard to see.

    Can I speak with your underpants gnome supervisor? Cuz I’m still a little hazy about step 2…

    Think you can take out Iran’s nuke program without boots on the ground?

    Think you can get a congressional AUMF, U.N. security council resolution in the current political climate with the facts in evidence?

    lol when we invade Iran, will they welcome us as liberators?

    How long will the conflict last? How do we know when we’re done in Iran? Could the conflict spread to other theaters in the region? Where does it all end? Is there some reliable limiting principle?

    Shall we invade and occupy North Korea, too; or are North Korean nuclear bombs not a threat?

    Shall we invade and occupy Pakistan as well?

    What about Israel? Are they allowed to have a nuke program? They did attack us in 1967…

    At what point does Kai Akker declare *Mission Accomplished*?

    All ribbing aside, I don’t want the mullahs to have nukes either; I just don’t believe we can achieve our objective solely through the use of conventional military force.

80. Iran supported those who terrorized portions of Russia but apparently Russia likes Iran because they cause us problems. I often think that if Russia, China and the US could work together on world wide actual terrorism, it could be destroyed as was done during WWII to defeat Germany. But lacking that solidarity, we have to do what we have to do.
    The real test will be when Iran has an actual nuclear weapon, even if it is not deliverable by missiles, it can be delivered by other means in international commerce. A horrible thought, but if the leaders of Iran fear destruction of their nuclear facilities as is seemly promised once we know they have an operational bomb, and truly believe world wide chaos is needed for the return of the 12th Imam, they would do it. A lot of “what ifs” but who would have believed that in the war with Iraq, Iran would spearhead its attacks on Iraqi tanks with two young people on motorcycles with the passenger having an anti-tank weapon.
    Their thinking is beyond our imagination and culturally we have difficulty combating such warfare, as with their terrorism. We had to learn how to fight our Japanese enemy in WWII, which when seeing some of the charges against our military members that reality has been forgotten.

81. Richard Fernandez, of Belmont Club, once asked if our enemies could put us into a position where the only way out was something we could not make ourselves do.
    During the Iran/Iraq War, the Iranians got a bunch of kids, gave them cheap plastic keys (to The Kingdom) and sent them against Iraqi positions over minefields and to get iraqi weapons to unmask.
    Suppose American troops are faced with the same thing except the kids each have two hand grenades….
    John Foster Dulles once remarked that a blockade is morally the same as gassing maternity wards. Financial sanctions may have the same effect, except the blame seems to the population to result from its own government (inflation, energy shortages, food shortages) while, naturally, the big shots don’t miss a meal. So a blockade could be leverage without directly shooting anybody. You get the other guy’s government to shoot their people.

    I’m concerned about the proxies. Those are usually local talent recruited and supplied by Iran. Their goals and Iran’s goals may be similar but not identical, if only in terms of timing and emphasis. How does one turn off a proxy? Or be seen to do so while not doing so?
    What are going to be the arguments when a local cell of some name nobody ever heard of fires mortars into an embassy? Was it on Iran’s orders? Not? Against Iran’s orders? How much intel do we need to react? To convince, among others, the neverTrumpers? Does taking out the cell cause Iran any pain, which is to say is the prospect that the cell will be taken out a deterrent?

    Just for grins, and to show how it’s so easy that the locals don’t need Iran, here’s how you shoot mortars into an embassy.
    You get some version of the medium mortar–like our 81mm. Weld or bolt the base plate to the bed of a pick up truck. Find a location…quarter of a mile, whatever, maybe behind another set of buildings. Check the range card for charge and elevation. Check the range from your chosen location. Set the elevation and the charges–pulling off as many as the range card tells you–and wheel up to the chosen location. Drop the rounds into the tube as fast as they are fired. One every three or four seconds. When you run out, hop into the getaway car and leave the pickup truck there. You don’t need Iran for that. But if Iran did provide the wherewithal…what then?

82. … the locals don’t need Iran… [b]ut if Iran did provide the wherewithal…what then?

    what then, indeed… (puffs on meerschaum pipe)

    If Soleimani hadn’t been in Iraq… meeting with Iraqi Shiite militia leaders… he’d still be in one piece and Iran would have the same plausible deniability for the embassy attack as they currently have with #PS752.

83. … it wouldn’t hurt if, every now and again, they had a crisis of confidence about whether we were really as “soft” (to use their term for it) as they previously assumed.

    Once that happens, once epistemology becomes an issue… they become conscious of the fact that they are gambling.

    Hey… you ever see the Merry Melodies classic Early to Bet? It’s the one with the gambling bug and the penalty wheel.

    That little gambling bug is like a Trump tweet. It bites the cat on the ear and suddenly… against his own better judgement… the cat is ready to gamble. Which he does. And he loses every.single.time.

    The cat gets so mad at himself once the penalty is administered. “Never again!”, he seems to say… until the bug bites him again lol

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