US threaten Iran with pre-emptive strike

In fairness, when he made the "liberal case for Donald Trump" how could he have known that Congress would not completely defund the American military https://t.co/0q8xluLEem

— Scott Lemieux (@LemieuxLGM) January 3, 2020

lmao that his last name is bragman

btw given how many twitter embeds i encounter on ilx these days, it's like i didn't quit twitter at all

I've never had a Twitter account but ILX works like a vaccine insofar as its moderately slow drip of embeds has inoculated me against ever wondering 'but what if?'

only raw takes here

which of the Dem candidates wd have done this too?

money on Biden and Booty

I doubt Biden would have given up the Iran deal...

"I really appreciate President Trump letting the world know you cannot kill an American without [sic] impunity.”

what American was killed? what is he referring to? sorry if this is obvious

― L'assie (Euler)

His name was Jamal Khashoggi, and at last we have achieved swift justice for his murder.

real worthless thought experiment xp

new board name

war is what the parties are closest on, as in the Dem House gave up even more of its 'warmaking powers' recently

I did not know about this lol

Anyone else remember when the US lost a fake war with Iran so badly they just hit restart and used a script to make sure they won?https://t.co/2iDHXwKGJQ

— Sean '[yawns]' Oscar (@hauntonaut) January 3, 2020

this is bad as wishing President Gore had started the Iraq War.

yeah the millennium challenge is hilarious and / or terrifying xp

Trump weighs in again with something that no one else has thought of:

“The United States has paid Iraq Billions of Dollars a year, for many years. That is on top of all else we have done for them.”

Why is Iraq so ungrateful for what we did for them?!!? Can anyone answer that?!

it's finally time for the dinar revaluation!!

Jesus Christ

i'd do him

this thread has gotten TMI in the last two hours

btw given how many twitter embeds i encounter on ilx these days, it's like i didn't quit twitter at all

iraq has paid iraq tens of billions of dollars in the form of munitions, delivered directly into the bodies of hundreds of thousands of disgracefully ungrateful iraqis

Lots of propaganda posters and images of Soleimani being shared around Iranian social media right now, quality pretty wildly varying, but this one from Khamenei's office stuck out: a painting, showing Soleimani being received in Heaven. pic.twitter.com/jtfTTQ1Ewu

— Séamus Malekafzali (@Seamus_Malek) January 3, 2020

the forgotten Iranian man

xp he's being greeted as a liberator

The US has been at war with Iran since the CIA overthrew Mossadegh in 1953 and replaced him with the Shah. And as always, it's been a bipartisan production.

— Dennis Perrin (@DennisThePerrin) January 3, 2020

i see that tucker carlson is against all this...because it distracts from the "invasion" of immigrants on the southern border

there should be a thread for dennis perrin tweets

auto-replace like DUMPLINGS! and redskins imo

aw, I thought they had one

one for the idiot thread repository obv

that's a spectacularly bad tweet because the Shah was in power for 26 years after Mossadegh was overthrown and he was a huge ally of the US, so, the US was specifically not at war with Iran during that time.

the US has been at war with Iran since 1979 would be more accurate

Bob Menendez immed quoted in NPR clip on rashness of the Grifter's move here

he also opposed Obama's "deal"

so as always w/ most Dems, it's HOW to fuck them over

that's a spectacularly bad tweet because the Shah was in power for 26 years after Mossadegh was overthrown and he was a huge ally of the US, so, the US was specifically not at war with Iran during that time. it is from dennis perrin

let's say we were allied with the Shah and at war with the Iranians

also stfu fuckos

Lots of propaganda posters and images of Soleimani being shared around Iranian social media right now, quality pretty wildly varying, but this one from Khamenei's office stuck out: a painting, showing Soleimani being received in Heaven. pic.twitter.com/jtfTTQ1Ewu
— Séamus Malekafzali (@Seamus_Malek) January 3, 2020
― Mordy, Friday, January 3, 2020 9:19 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

there's some great iranian revolutionary propaganda art. a few years ago when bodies of the divers who were buried alive by the iraqis during operation karbala 4 were returned there were some great images

it would be just as true to say that the iranian regime has been at war with the iranians - these simplistic narratives are worse than value neutral for conveying information bc they suggest that you know everything you need to know already and look at that it comports with everything you already believed

I used to hateread r/thedonald and the one moment they ever stopped cheerleading trump was when he launched an airstrike in Syria, the libertarian shitposter demographic are pretty anti-war (for all the wrong reasons, but still) and hilariously see trump as an anti-interventionist.

Not sure if this means anything, they are a very small proportion of his base, and surely vastly outnumbered by floating voter war fans, but thought it worth noting anyway.

atm all he's done is assassinated soleimani - i haven't seen the administration making any kind of case for full out war or invasion. i think assassination is probably the kind of thing that libertarian shitposters approve of. all of the war talk i see is coming from the left who is concerned this will escalate into war (or are afraid that the trump WH is trying to start a war but i'm not convinced yet that is true).

'criminals should expect harsh revenge at right time and place'.

The Iranian leadership could hardly say anything else. The groundwork for this assassination was laid when the administration officially listed the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization.

The major difficulty for Iran rn is shaping a retaliation that does not sharply escalate the war that Trump effectively began when he pulled out of the nuclear accord and imposed extreme sanctions on Iran. The now-customary next US step in this war would be Trump ordering up a barrage of cruise missiles on Tehran. Presidents love this gambit. They are given a menu of targets and can dial up any intensity of barrage from a dozen to a couple of thousand, depending on how they feel that day.

What is always missing in these exercises is a sound appreciation of the intensity of the response. Iran had recently been growing restless under the imams, with the young people yearning for greater freedoms and a better life. But wound their national pride deeply enough and they will jump straight back to the intense hatred they felt in the early days of the Iranian Revolution and we've lost them for another generation or two.

the sanctions are hitting pretty hard too. read a thing that iran's economy is going to contract more than any other in the world this year bar a couple of basket-cases like venezuela. feel like if you're an iran hawk but not completely foaming at the mouth you'd be pretty happy with trump?

I liked it when the POTUS said that Soleimani was directly and indirectly responsible for the deaths of millions of people, that was funny.

The now-customary next US step in this war would be Trump ordering up a barrage of cruise missiles on Tehran. Presidents love this gambit.

you're assuming the US wants to escalate but there are very good reasons why they might assassinate soleimani that aren't "looking to start a war." nb i don't have any inside information so maybe you're right and they are trying to manufacture a war but otoh you don't know anything either

xp why was that funny?

Coming from an US prez as a justification for assassination it has a rich tinge of irony

Bush and Obama both had an opportunity to assasinate soleimani but chose not to, presumably out of fear of escalating tensions or causing a war.

Killing soleimani greatly increased the chances of starting a war. Not sure what you’re arguing here mordy

Especially given the context of much of Congress aching for a war with Iran, and trump’s posting of a pixelated American flag in the wake of the news

assassinating soleimani was an act of war

exactly

What if Iran somehow assasinates Espy? Would we think “well, Iran may have had very good reasons to do that, other than wanting to start a war”?