Qasem Soleimani (IRGC Commander) killed in Baghdad

[Straha]

Holy Fuck, from Maggie Haberman:

“They’re allowed to kill our people. They’re allowed to torture and maim our people. they’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural site? It doesn’t work that way," POTUS SAID.

We're fucked.

[Ralin]

So, exactly how impossible would it be for France or Germany or some other European country to arrest Trump next time he goes there and force him to stand trial? Just, theoretically?

[Straha]

On what charges? The entire point is that he hasn't broken the law*. And complementarity means he can't be brought in front of the Hague. (Actually, theoretically he could be if he keeps pardoning war criminals and appointing people like Haspel to positions of power.)

*Excluding the possibility of Deutsche Bank money shenanigans.

[Elfdart]

The Iraqi parliament voted to expel US forces from Iraq. Well, Trump did promise to remove American troops from Iraq...

What's really interesting is what Adil Abdul-Mahdi, the prime minister, told parliament. Mustafa Salim of the Washington Post live-tweeted the address and the reason for having the general whacked looks much clearer now:

“I received a phone call from @realDonaldTrump when the embassy protests ended thanking the government efforts and asked Iraq to play the mediator's role between US and Iran”

“But at the same time American helicopters and drones were flying without the approval of Iraq, and we refused the request of bringing more soldiers to US embassy and bases”

“I was supposed to meet Soleimani at the morning the day he was killed, he came to deliver me a message from Iran responding to the message we delivered from Saudi to Iran”

In other words Soleimani wasn't in Iraq to launch more attacks (he flew into Baghdad on a commercial jet) -he was there to meet with Adil Abdul-Mahdi about messages between Iran and Saudi Arabia. This looks like a replay of the assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam. Diem was killed at the instigation of Henry Cabot Lodge and the CIA because he was sending out feelers to Ho Chi Minh about a possible compromise between the North and South. Uncle Sam wanted a war and got it.

One more thing: If Soleimani deserved to be rubbed out because he supposedly helped organize the Iraqi mobs that threatened the US embassy, then surely Trump, Pompeo and the rest of his junta also deserve to get whacked. They supported the putsch regime in Bolivia (weapons, training, political support) that has sent bands of armed thugs to terrorize the Spanish, Venezuelan and Mexican embassies.

[bilateralrope]

Holy Fuck, from Maggie Haberman:

“They’re allowed to kill our people. They’re allowed to torture and maim our people. they’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural site? It doesn’t work that way," POTUS SAID.

We're fucked.

How many countries is Trump planning to bomb to target sites that he thinks are culturally important to Iranians ?

[EnterpriseSovereign]

This opinion piece is interesting.

Even by the explosive standards of the Middle East, this is an incendiary moment.

One misstep, one miscalculation on any side, could see the region descend into bloody conflict.

The Americans have removed not just a formidable and feared enemy - they have struck at the heart of the Iranian regime.

Qassem Suleimani was the second most powerful man in the country. The head of the military's elite force.

Those astonishing images of his funeral procession in Tehran show that the Americans have united Iranians at a time when the internal opposition to their theocratic rules was growing.

And now, in a region that respects and understands strength, the blood-curdling rhetorical vows to take vengeance will have to be turned into action.

But the when, where and what of their response will have to be carefully calibrated.

They could seek to cripple the world's oil supplies in the Gulf. They could attack US bases in Iraq and beyond.

They might well avoid direct confrontation by calling on the network of fighters that is Suleimani's legacy.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah, funded and backed by Tehran, has already warned it will send US troops in the region home in body-bags.

Hezbollah is capable of striking Israel; though such a move would only come if the situation deteriorates even further.

So far, Iran's most significant step has been to pull out of the international agreement that limits its nuclear program.

That's not quite the provocation it might appear; that will depend on the level of uranium enrichment.

But the next military move is Tehran's to make. Will it goad President Trump into fulfilling his threat to hit Iran hard?

There is only a small window of opportunity to work on diplomatic solutions.

What is easier to see is the region being drawn into the one thing both sides say they want to avoid.

And that is war.

Also, Iraq's leaders are threatening to expel all foreign troops.

[Straha]

Holy Fuck, from Maggie Haberman:

“They’re allowed to kill our people. They’re allowed to torture and maim our people. they’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural site? It doesn’t work that way," POTUS SAID.

We're fucked.

How many countries is Trump planning to bomb to target sites that he thinks are culturally important to Iranians ?

One. Iran is a big country with plenty of culturally important sites. My takeaway is that the US has done a complete 180 on the 'Were the Twin Towers a justified military target' question in the last two decades.

[MKSheppard]

Someone raised a point elsewhere:

People can both be HVTs and "Culturally important".

I wonder if Khamenei has a PAVEWAY LGB assigned to him?

[MKSheppard]

So, exactly how impossible would it be for France or Germany or some other European country to arrest Trump next time he goes there and force him to stand trial? Just, theoretically?

Funny thing is Soleimani was under UN travel ban:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russ ... KM20150807

From 4 years ago:

LONDON (Reuters) - The head of Iran’s elite military Quds Force, who is subject to a United Nations travel ban, has met senior Russian officials in Moscow, an Iranian official said on Friday. Qassem Soleimani, chief of the force which is an overseas arm of the Revolutionary Guards, has been subject to an international travel ban and asset freeze by the U.N. Security Council since 2007.

So I guess we enforced that ban.

[Straha]

Someone raised a point elsewhere:

People can both be HVTs and "Culturally important".

I wonder if Khamenei has a PAVEWAY LGB assigned to him?

Yes, because the thing this needs is to escalate the violence by killing the head of state of Iran for... what reason again?

A generation of post-Cold War theorists took exactly the wrong lessons from Kahn et al. Letting their love of weapons get in the way that escalation is dangerous and must be controlled whenever possible.

Iran will win this conflict because they know that (and know what winning looks like) while the United States seemingly has no clear strategic objective besides trying to make people forget the loss of prestige that American hard power has gone under since the '90s.

[MKSheppard]

Yes, because the thing this needs is to escalate the violence by killing the head of state of Iran for... what reason again?

I don't know, why should we kill hundreds of low level people just trying to make a living, including the janitors sweeping the floors at the Iranian Defence Ministries, when we could instead target the HMFICs?

[Batman]

I dunno. Why did you kill hundreds of thousands of civilians in Iraq over WMDs that everybody knew didn't actually exist?

[MKSheppard]

The United States has denied a visa to #Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif for the United Nations Security Council session.

[Prannon]

A better question is why target any of them at all?

I might be a dumb idiot, but honestly, this all reeks of personal grudges - of many types - that a bunch of old people want to settle before they die.

<soapbox>
Of all the countries in the Middle East, Iran is a far better partner to have than any of the others except maybe for Turkey and Israel. Or could have been. Potentially. Maybe. Distantly. With some actual leadership, diplomacy, and a strategy.

It's a country of institutions, elections, councils and what not. Fragile and hollow, but they're there. Those things have some sort of continuity when people pass out of office and/or die. Maybe they could have been encouraged, respected, and built upon in time in a less isolated Iran. Maybe the more repressive parts of the regime could have been reformed away. Iran's not above electing reformers after all. Most of the rest of the region are a bunch of repressive theocratic monarchies that'll flip this way and that as soon as the throne passes from one person to another.

Buuut no. That isn't going to happen now. We gotta settle the scores I guess and ruin our geopolitical position in the region to satisfy some 50 year old grudges. :/ All at the same time that the powers that be dismantle the current economic order of things. Also at the same time that climate change is about to get really really real. Great environment to go starting a personal vendetta war in. Just great.
</soapbox>

[Straha]

Yes, because the thing this needs is to escalate the violence by killing the head of state of Iran for... what reason again?

I don't know, why should we kill hundreds of low level people just trying to make a living, including the janitors sweeping the floors at the Iranian Defence Ministries, when we could instead target the HMFICs?

Just because you failed when you tried doesn't mean you should cheer on the people who can actually finish the job.

This is pointless violence that will beget even larger, and far more destructive, currents of violence with no end. There is no goal from the Americans who are starting this macabre display and there is no possibly productive end to this, nor are there people in place anywhere in the American (or western) power structure who can help to salvage this disaster. Calling for it to escalate for the sake of escalation is lunacy beyond comprehension, and, frankly, sickening.

[ray245]

Yes, because the thing this needs is to escalate the violence by killing the head of state of Iran for... what reason again?

I don't know, why should we kill hundreds of low level people just trying to make a living, including the janitors sweeping the floors at the Iranian Defence Ministries, when we could instead target the HMFICs?

Just because you failed when you tried doesn't mean you should cheer on the people who can actually finish the job.

This is pointless violence that will beget even larger, and far more destructive, currents of violence with no end. There is no goal from the Americans who are starting this macabre display and there is no possibly productive end to this, nor are there people in place anywhere in the American (or western) power structure who can help to salvage this disaster. Calling for it to escalate for the sake of escalation is lunacy beyond comprehension, and, frankly, sickening.

It's pointless to argue with him. He's been locked in into a mentality based on racism, imperialism, and tribal-sports mentality. Once you've locked in to that kind of thinking, a person is no longer able to see a different or bigger picture. He can only see the primary objective, because he had developed tunnel vision.

[Effie]

A better question is why target any of them at all?

I might be a dumb idiot, but honestly, this all reeks of personal grudges - of many types - that a bunch of old people want to settle before they die.

<soapbox>
Of all the countries in the Middle East, Iran is a far better partner to have than any of the others except maybe for Turkey and Israel. Or could have been. Potentially. Maybe. Distantly. With some actual leadership, diplomacy, and a strategy.

It's a country of institutions, elections, councils and what not. Fragile and hollow, but they're there. Those things have some sort of continuity when people pass out of office and/or die. Maybe they could have been encouraged, respected, and built upon in time in a less isolated Iran. Maybe the more repressive parts of the regime could have been reformed away. Iran's not above electing reformers after all. Most of the rest of the region are a bunch of repressive theocratic monarchies that'll flip this way and that as soon as the throne passes from one person to another.

Buuut no. That isn't going to happen now. We gotta settle the scores I guess and ruin our geopolitical position in the region to satisfy some 50 year old grudges. :/ All at the same time that the powers that be dismantle the current economic order of things. Also at the same time that climate change is about to get really really real. Great environment to go starting a personal vendetta war in. Just great.
</soapbox>

The "more repressive parts of the regime" have been quite willing to gun down and disappear protesters before now, and they maintain, through the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, a means of exerting power and engaging in violence that is outside the purview of the secular state. They have also been consistently willing to do the exact same things that left-wing people rightly castigate Saudi Arabia for- fund brutally violent governments in their efforts to crush dissenters (Syria), fund and support violent paramilitaries that exploit hostility towards Israel to carry out campaigns of more general terror (Lebanon), attempt to hijack civil government through the use of violent paramilitaries and the deliberate stoking of a civil war (Iraq)- the list goes on.

Broadly speaking, the fundamental problem with American foreign policy in Southwest Asia and North Africa is that we operate under racist axiomatic principles. For someone like MKSheppard, this means that Iran is quite simply clay to be molded as we wish. For less bloodthirsty people, this means that we look for kinder, gentler oppressors who will keep the masses of the Muslim world (as we understand it) from achieving political power and using that against us. And thus, the emphasis on how Mohammad bin Salman was a "reformer", the insistence that Iran and the US are "natural allies", the American support for Hosni Mubarak and the Assads...

The only way out, then, is to side ourselves with the people and not with the states, both as individuals and as political actors. Which in turn would demand that we take positive actions beyond just negative actions like blowing people up or sending troops out to shoot them. That is to say, we need to be willing to work as helpers towards the liberation of oppressed people, not as saviors wielding a flaming sword or judges come to pluck out new leaders to set over the people.

[Straha]

It's pointless to argue with him. He's been locked in into a mentality based on racism, imperialism, and tribal-sports mentality. Once you've locked in to that kind of thinking, a person is no longer able to see a different or bigger picture. He can only see the primary objective, because he had developed tunnel vision.

I'm less interested in changing his mind than in calling a spade a spade. This board has had a tradition of engaging in massive amounts of milwank and reflexively calling for state violence. This instinct should be called out for the racist murderous bullshit that it is.

[ray245]

It's pointless to argue with him. He's been locked in into a mentality based on racism, imperialism, and tribal-sports mentality. Once you've locked in to that kind of thinking, a person is no longer able to see a different or bigger picture. He can only see the primary objective, because he had developed tunnel vision.

I'm less interested in changing his mind than in calling a spade a spade. This board has had a tradition of engaging in massive amounts of milwank and reflexively calling for state violence. This instinct should be called out for the racist murderous bullshit that it is.

That tradition has effectively died though. Shep is pretty much the last of them.

[Mange]

The IGRC has announced that "The revenge has begun" and the U.S. military has confirmed that three American bases, including the main base at Ain Al Assad, are under sustained rocket/missile attack from Iranian territory. No word on casualties yet.

EDIT: ABC News is breaking the story: ABC News

Iran threatens to fire at countries from where American retalitory strikes against the operation the IGRC calls "Martyr Soleimani" are launched.

[Prannon]

The "more repressive parts of the regime" have been quite willing to gun down and disappear protesters before now, and they maintain, through the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, a means of exerting power and engaging in violence that is outside the purview of the secular state. They have also been consistently willing to do the exact same things that left-wing people rightly castigate Saudi Arabia for- fund brutally violent governments in their efforts to crush dissenters (Syria), fund and support violent paramilitaries that exploit hostility towards Israel to carry out campaigns of more general terror (Lebanon), attempt to hijack civil government through the use of violent paramilitaries and the deliberate stoking of a civil war (Iraq)- the list goes on.

Broadly speaking, the fundamental problem with American foreign policy in Southwest Asia and North Africa is that we operate under racist axiomatic principles. For someone like MKSheppard, this means that Iran is quite simply clay to be molded as we wish. For less bloodthirsty people, this means that we look for kinder, gentler oppressors who will keep the masses of the Muslim world (as we understand it) from achieving political power and using that against us. And thus, the emphasis on how Mohammad bin Salman was a "reformer", the insistence that Iran and the US are "natural allies", the American support for Hosni Mubarak and the Assads...

The only way out, then, is to side ourselves with the people and not with the states, both as individuals and as political actors. Which in turn would demand that we take positive actions beyond just negative actions like blowing people up or sending troops out to shoot them. That is to say, we need to be willing to work as helpers towards the liberation of oppressed people, not as saviors wielding a flaming sword or judges come to pluck out new leaders to set over the people.

Indeed. I don't really disagree with much that you've said here.

I would only add these things:

• It's very true that Iran is a repressive regime that has quashed popular protest with violence and death, and has supported violence and death elsewhere in the region, even after the nuclear deal was signed. I'm making a zero-sum assessment, though, between Iran and our actual partners in the region, and I'm concluding that they would be a better one than most based on their structure of government. It has enough give to permit some (not much, but _some_) degree of liberal reform.

• I'm also aware that _any_ potential partnership, or anything constructive with Iran would have required a loooong ass time of intense "positive action" as you put it. Diplomacy, respecting Iranian sovereignty, trust building, dealing with their repressive moves as I mentioned before. And I'm willing to acknowledge that it likely would have been impossible to overcome all of the complicating factors (Syria, Israel, Saudi/Iran cold war, Yemen, etc). Like I said, it's a "distant" hope at best.

Of course, all of this is moot. It's not going to happen now. I mostly say this to highlight the potential that has been squandered, and only to satisfy Trump's personal ego (by destroying Obama's legacy) and the grudges of some white-haired Republicans who have a vendetta to fulfill.

[Mange]

The IGRC has announced that "The revenge has begun" and the U.S. military has confirmed that three American bases, including the main base at Ain Al Assad, are under sustained rocket/missile attack from Iranian territory. No word on casualties yet.

EDIT: ABC News is breaking the story: ABC News

Iran threatens to fire at countries from where American retalitory strikes against the operation the IGRC calls "Martyr Soleimani" are launched.

Unconfirmed reports of a second, more intense, wave of attacks are coming in.

[Mange]

The IGRC has announced that "The revenge has begun" and the U.S. military has confirmed that three American bases, including the main base at Ain Al Assad, are under sustained rocket/missile attack from Iranian territory. No word on casualties yet.

EDIT: ABC News is breaking the story: ABC News

Iran threatens to fire at countries from where American retalitory strikes against the operation the IGRC calls "Martyr Soleimani" are launched.

Unconfirmed reports of a second, more intense, wave of attacks are coming in.

Sorry for the DP, but there was no second wave (seems to have been bluster). There were fortunately no casualties and if Trump has some sense he won't retaliate.

An Ukrainian airliner (a 737) with 170 people aboard crashed in Tehran soon after takeoff with no survivors. Data from Flightradar shows a normal ascent to some 7,000 feet when data was lost. A purported video shows that the plane was engulfed in flames before crashing and some local media claims it was (accidentally) shot down, but as of now the reason is said to be because of technical reasons.

[Broomstick]

On what charges? The entire point is that he hasn't broken the law*. And complementarity means he can't be brought in front of the Hague. (Actually, theoretically he could be if he keeps pardoning war criminals and appointing people like Haspel to positions of power.)

So... if, hypothetically, he is removed from office by the Senate (I know, I know, stop laughing and go with it for a minute...) and thus is no longer PotUS could he be arrested while visiting one of his foreign properties and then brought before the Hague?

[Broomstick]

Iran threatens to fire at countries from where American retalitory strikes against the operation the IGRC calls "Martyr Soleimani" are launched.

I had the impression pretty much everyone is trying to back away from this mess as fast as possible - I don't expect any (former) allies to cooperate with Trump's dick-waving and murder.

Even this Iranian operation is specifically targeting American military bases in Iraq. The Iranian government seems to be acting a lot more rationally here than the US government, and a lot more carefully.