US preparing war with Iran

I shudder to think, what lessons you gleaned from said books.

Why? I have a list of 44 that I've read. It was a preliminary project of mine to list but I got sidetracked.

I'll start a thread.

The Saudis want our help? The fucking Saudis? Don't they have reporters to murder and cover stories to create?

Pompeo and Bolton are on an island, with this business. There is no reason to start a conflict, especially with people demonstrating in the streets against the Regime every day. Where Iran is most dangerous, is Syria. IRGC and Hezbollah are very active there, participating in the forced expulsions of Sunnis, Kurds, Yezidis and others from Syria. However, this does not present a mortal threat to the US. I’m very curious to see the veracity of video that surfaced, of a civilian tanker being damaged by what has been reported as a “limpet mine type device”, off the coast of the UAE. Jury is still out on that shit.

I’d rather you didn’t.

Which is one reason the U.S. is so dead set against Iran building nuclear weapons. If Iran deploys nuclear weapons Saudi Arabia will almost certainly be prone to acquire their own. Either build them or covertly purchase them from Pakistan.

As someone said a decade or so ago, most of the Middle East doesn't really give a damn about the Israelis having nuclear weapons. But having Iran and Saudi Arabia facing off across the Gulf with them...

Too late. Expressing skepticism about what I've read wasn't the path you should've chosen.

Try to keep up. We’ve been doing their bidding for decades. They give us money and oil and we give them weapons and regional power.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...ine-continues-exert-influence-congress-trump/

We recently signed a deal to sell 100 billion dollars worth of arms to Saudi Arabia.

The murdered journalist? We turned a blind eye to it and helped them sweep it under the rug.

And guess who’s the biggest enemy of the Sunni Muslims in Saudi Arabia?

And just what would you suggest the U.S. do about the Saudis? Is there any serious alternative in that region?

Point of order: The US doesn't get the bulk of its oil from the Saudis. We get most of our oil from the Canucks. China, Japan, India, and South Korea all buy more from the Saudis than we do.

See, here's the problem. Trump says the thing, even means the thing, then someone like Ivanka comes along and does the eyeblinky thing, or whatever, and he changes his mind. Remember this NYT op-ed which talked about him being distracted by "shiny objects"? That should have you worried. And while I know that there are a lot of Americans who claim to be "isolationist," I also know that there are a lot of Americans who don't like Trump, didn't vote for him, but yet can't help coming to his defense at the slightest criticism.

Some of whom are right here on this very message board.

What makes you think the US is entitled, required, equipped or competent to do anything?

This.

Absolutely this.

Much as I'm fundamentally opposed to Trump and his nationalism I'm quite prepared to acknowledge when he takes an action I approve of.

This is one of those times.

One thing Trump has shown no signs of being is a warmonger and I've said that all along. On the contrary his entire mindset seems quite dove like in that regard, what aggression he is inclined to is in the financial arena. That doesn't improve the outlook for policies such as the trade war or his isolationism, but it does mean he's unlikely to go to war for wars' sake. More likely is that he will trigger a war by unwittingly destabilising segments of the market and established international relations.

Still, on this score at least he's done the right thing.

I destract trump with star trek online.

So I see Jeremy Hunt has done his usual cave in to the will of whoever looks at him the wrong way.

And, taken a step further, the even older religious struggle between Sunni and Shia Islam.

What's "done" is he has stated a position that's as far as my comment went, sorry if it seemed to be referring to the situation more broadly on the ground. Should possibly have been clearer.

That position may change (in fact given the escalations which appear to be happening amongst the militias that may well be likely), but insofar as Trump has stated his current position it is, as you say, very much in fitting with previous policy decisions. What concerns me more is not what happens today, or tomorrow, but over the coming weeks. Regardless of Trumps' statement Suleimani has met with the leaders of the PMUs to discuss this revelation about the "contingency" and the result is that they are already making moves to prepare mobilisations against western targets in Iraq. Tit for tat rarely fails to escalate and any violence in that arena could well become out of hand in very short order, providing Bolton et al with the justification they can present to Trump for active deployments.

That may not initially be the 120,000 discussed obviously given that we are talking about a different set of circumstances, but those circumstances are potentially every bit as damaging even before we look at Tehrans' response. Destabilise Iraq even further and the US faces two choices. Pull out of the region altogether and face humiliation, or gear up and try to contain the situation which will inevitably have the opposite effect.

If Tehran do choose to take an aggressive stance (thankfully they aren't, not yet) the presence of functioning US bases in the middle east means potentially dragging Iraq and the Saudis into the conflict, putting pressure on Russia (who are also currently taking a very measured approach) to consider their position. At the moment Putin is counselling Tehran to abide by the terms of the JCPOA on the grounds that any move on their part which leads to war will inevitably see them being cast as the aggressor regardless of the provocation from the US. Iran is, however, very much an ally of Russia and Putin can't afford to be perceived by his base of being weak in the middle east, much less of being impotent in the face of what will look like a US led coalition if Iran end up fighting on multiple fronts.

That's a recipe for a proxy war right there.

So this is one of the rare occasions I'm very much a Trump supporter and hope he has the spine (and good advice available) to refuse to back down, especially as the pressure intensifies and visibly "taking action" looks more and more like the thing to do.

It's a strange day indeed when Trump, Putin and Tehran are looking like the adults keeping peace in the house.

In the run up to Gulf War 1.0, my conservative friends were all very isolationist and opposed to the war. The minute shit started getting blown up on TV, they quickly flipped over to the “America, fuck yeah!” camp, with nary a remembrance of their former opposition to the war. Just because they’re making one claim now, doesn’t mean that they’ll stick to it.

Really? No-one posted this yet?

And this is why the fucker should not be in office.

Dayton pos repped this, but nope, not a war monger.

Really? That's the only reason you can think of that the orange moron shouldn't be POTUS?

Why on Earth would you pos rep that????