US threaten Iran with pre-emptive strike

The defensive actions the U.S. has taken against #Iran & its proxies are consistent with clear warnings they have received

They chose to ignore these warnings because they believed @POTUS was constrained from acting by our domestic political divisions

They badly miscalculated

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) January 3, 2020

"defensive actions"... lol. I guess the GOP line is that our drones are defending the Baghdad Airport from its own generals?

Welp

what political leader on earth would think that POTUS is constrained by anything

Oh great

In order to get elected, @BarackObama will start a war with Iran.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 29, 2011

i didn't even think about that. why did obama do this? why today?

oh wait - in order to get elected for an illegal 3rd term!!

my dad was right

it's been nice knowing y'all

Iran doesn't yet have nuclear weapons. Of course, they are not much more than an insurance policy against a repetition of the Iran-Iraq War, or against a bombing attack by the Israeli Air Force. I guess they could rig up a dirty bomb on short notice to spread radioactivity where it was detonated. But Iran is not an existential threat to the US or Europe.

thank you for clearing that up

Thread displaying Eric Trump's deleted tweet & market manipulation:

1. A tweet from Eric Trump that was quickly deleted.

Note the date and time. pic.twitter.com/GFEft4x5Da

— Arianna (@_Arianna_D) January 3, 2020

These dipshits...

In case you want to know who the US just killed: The Shadow Commander https://t.co/lE3RPOeSUs

— Jane Mayer (@JaneMayerNYer) January 3, 2020

Cool cool, guess which country the US and Iran will use as a battlefield yet again to fight each other? Iraq will be fucked, again.

One of Iraq’s top commanders was killed with Suleimani and the US has apparently arrested two major Iraqi militia leaders - the Iraqi government has framed it as “an attack on Iraq as a state, a government and a people”.

Yeah, the militia leader killed is Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, whose group are Iran-backed.

Democratic members of Congress stripped these from the NDAA because they wanted to give Trump the power to start a war without their having to vote for it. This is their plan working. https://t.co/vRy1MD6RZD

— 'Weird Alex' Pareene (@pareene) January 3, 2020

This was good, BBC Two need to re-TX it ASAP to get it on iPlayer:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0003871

I think it’s pretty clear based on the timing that this was meant to get the news media off the steady trickle of incriminating Ukraine information and on to some red meat for the base to get excited about. Or maybe it’s an olive branch to Bolton to keep him quiet.

9. Iranians are more disillusioned with the regime than ever. But Soleimani’s death plays into the regime’s hands - a timely distraction to be used to rally & unite Iranians against the US

— Ramita Navai (@ramitanavai) January 3, 2020

10. What next? Who knows. But Tehran will - at some point - retaliate. The regime can’t afford a war - it is not financially or militarily equipped. It can easily step up its proxy wars in Iraq, Syria, targeting the US & hit back in Israel.

— Ramita Navai (@ramitanavai) January 3, 2020

Geraldo: Don't for a minute start cheering this on, what we have done, what we have unleashed --

Kilmeade: I will cheer it on. I am elated.

Geraldo: Then you, like Lindsey Graham, have never met a war you didn't like.

Kilmeade: That is not true, don't even say that. pic.twitter.com/1VZ3tZJPRb

— Lis Power (@LisPower1) January 3, 2020

did Geraldo support the war in 2003?

If he did, we must face the terrifying possibility that Geraldo has learned something

Geraldo is human garbage but he is occasionally on the right side

It’s been one day since Melania told the press her New Years resolution was “peace on the world.”

— Bess Kalb (@bessbell) January 3, 2020

wut a hypocrite

she was misquoted, she said "piss on the world"

#prepositionalmalfunction

Makes a change from pissing on the President.

this assassination is extremely ominous

cool

BREAKING: Iranian Security Council announces that 'criminals should expect harsh revenge at right time and place'. https://t.co/eOGMK3kTw2

— Conflict News (@Conflicts) January 3, 2020

good morning!

drone strike trump imo

It just struck me - really hit me hard - how unimaginable life would be without this board and this community.

there's always Campari!

people that are not geraldo, who have learned NOTHING

Iraqis — Iraqis — dancing in the street for freedom; thankful that General Soleimani is no more. pic.twitter.com/huFcae3ap4

— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) January 3, 2020

i agree Raymond.

It just struck me - really hit me hard - how unimaginable life would be without this board and this community.

― Lactose Shaolin Wanker (Raymond Cummings), Friday, January 3, 2020 10:35 AM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

one of my resolutions for this year is to stay off Politics Twitter so this board is going to have to serve as my primary means of following The Discourse.

it's not necessarily any less stressful but there are fewer people screaming

selected discourse on the golf course:

While House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) rails against President Donald Trump for approving a fatal attack on Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani without consulting Congress, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said that he got a special early briefing while golfing with Trump in Florida.

“I was briefed about the potential operation when I was down in Florida,” Graham said Friday morning on “Fox and Friends.” “I appreciate being brought into the orbit. I really appreciate President Trump letting the world know you cannot kill an American without [sic] impunity.”

Graham was spotted golfing with Trump earlier this week at the President’s West Palm Beach golf club.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), a member of the Gang of Eight, was not briefed on the attack before it happened, according to HuffPost. Pelosi is demanding a full congressional briefing before the administration makes any more moves.

killing without impunity: us politics 2020

I appreciate being brought into the orbit.

god i can hear his tongue moving around in trump's anus

sorry

I love your emoji, Karl.

god i can hear his tongue moving around in trump's anus

― american bradass (BradNelson)

what the

I love your emoji, Karl.

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

i stole it from a twitter troll, via ilx

I quit twitter so I'll be on here more, sorry in advance

when did you quit?

it's probably a good idea. :-/

Awesome, thanks

Does anyone have a take on what's the future of this Shia crescent idea - are the Iranian government still trying to create a land link with Hizbollah? Were they in fact doing so as per the BBC doc on Soleimani?

The US government certainly fears this. Some US spec ops that remain in Syria are astride Hwy 2 through Syria's Eastern desert, presumably to interdict this land route from Iran through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon. The area is uninhabited (as in 200 mi to the next gas station uninhabited), has no oil, no surface water, there's literally nothing else of strategic interest in the area. Iran certainly has good practical cause to want this land connection, to facilitate logistics and trade with Syria and Lebanon.

Last night I listened to a podcast with Armin Navabi in which he said even secularist Iranians are fond of the idea of such a Shia crescent, as it would match the contours of the Sasanian Empire. According to Navabi, Iranian secularists have a romantic affection with pre-Muslim Persia, collecting Zoroastrian, Ancient Persian, Parthian, and Sasanian artifacts (all empires that encompassed a current Shia crescent). Also Trump's tweet about bombing 52 cultural sites was the absolute worst thing he's said or done with respect to these natural opponents of the mullahs.

so maybe it wasn't a strike carefully calibrated not to hurt any americans

BREAKING: Eleven US Troops Were Injured in Jan. 8 Iran Missile Strike https://t.co/ffcpz4AuUh via @defenseone

— Kevin Baron (@DefenseBaron) January 17, 2020

Loud blasts followed by sirens were heard in the Iraqi capital. The Iraqi military told Reuters that two rockets had fallen inside Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses government buildings and foreign missions, causing a fire but no casualties. At least one fell 100 meters from the US embassy.

Whodunit

https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2020/01/22/Basij-militia-commander-killed-in-Iran.html

Power moves in a power vacuum I reckon?

the arab minority in south-western iran is a bit restive, there's been attacks on military etc. last few years. there was a massacre of troops in maybe 2018 for instance.

it's such a closed society if you took the regime's word for it there are no problems their grip is total etc

'Sanctions' is a polite way of describing a brutal form of collective punishment that intentionally decimate entire societies. https://t.co/qKMzHCXzi0

— Louis Allday (@Louis_Allday) January 15, 2020

The Defense Department said Friday that 34 American service members have traumatic brain injuries from Iranian airstrikes on Al Asad Air Base in Iraq, contradicting President Trump’s dismissal of injuries among American troops this week.

Well, they were only injured in the brain, which he assumes to be a nonessential body part

brains are what bored people came up with to explain instinct

The brain is the most important organ - according to the brain

Brain and brain, what is brain?