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Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War / Say Hello to the New Boss

Say Hello to the New Boss

by | 97 Comments

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Apparently Qasem Soleimani was a key leader in the Iranian military:

As leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Quds Force, the 62-year-old bore responsibility for Iran’s clandestine operations abroad, quietly extending the military reach of Iran deep into foreign conflicts such as those in Syria and Iraq.

In the process, he earned himself near-mythical status among his enemies and idolization by his Iranian hard-line supporters.

Analysts have complained that Soleimani had more diplomatic clout than Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and pondered whether he would eventually seek top political office. Some compared him to Karla, the fanatical, but fictional, Soviet spymaster in John le Carré’s Cold War novels.

Killing him was a major provocation, and certainly it will have some effect on the morale and capabilities of the Quds Force, but is it going to have any long-term effect? My guess is that it won’t, for two reasons. First, military and paramilitary organizations are designed to be resilient to loss of command since one of the major risks of war is, obviously, death. Second, the command structure of any quality military organization is going to be full of ambitious and talented officers who are capable of taking the place of the top leader.

In other words, there are half a dozen Karlas waiting in the wings to replace this guy. The history of this endless war is replete with the killing of some #1 or other that probably causes some short-term chaos, but changes very little in the long run. I think part of the reason that the US is constantly “decapitating” enemies is that we can do it with precision airstrikes rather than a commitment of ground troops, so it is a relatively easy gesture that shows we’re “doing something”.

Well, now we did something. As much as Trump, Pompeo and the rest want to do more, that next steps are a hell of a lot more militarily and politically risky than a targeted airstrike.

Reader Interactions

97Comments

  2. 2.

    Kay

    I don’t know anything about Iran or Iraq but I do know the Trump people lie constantly, and they’ve already lied about this. Which puts the public in an impossible situation, as far as real information.

    The lying is treated as tangential to that administration but it’s always been the central problem, and it’s a huge problem. It gets worse when there’s more on the line but it’s the crux of the rot. It all springs from it and there’s no way around it. They’re not credible. We’re adrift not because they’re poor managers (although I think they are) we’re adrift because they are incapable of telling the truth and without that we have nothing. We have competing narratives.

  3. 3.

    Another Scott

    Reposting from downstairs, as it fits better here.

    Who is Esmail Qaani:

    The new head of Iran’s Quds Force will face an uphill task projecting an aura of invincibility as his high-profile predecessor whom the US military killed in Baghdad on Friday.

    Hours after the killing of Qassem Suleimani, who mastered propaganda but may have underestimated America, Iran’s clerical leadership appointed his deputy Esmail Qaani as his replacement.

    As a unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Quds Force oversees an array of militant proxies and organises Iran’s operations abroad.

    In announcing Mr Qaani’s new role, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said he “has been one of the most prominent commanders in the Holy Defence and has served in the Quds Force with the martyr commander [Qassem Suleimani] in the area for many years.”

    The Quds Force’s agenda “will be unchanged from the time of his predecessor,” he added.

    While Mr Suleimani was focused on the Arab Middle East, Mr Qaani has been involved in activities related to Pakistan and Afghanistan, where Tehran has a different set of priorities in dealing with the US.

    But Mr Qaani has played a major role in running Liwa Al Fatimioun, a legion of Afghani Shiiite militiamen in Syria and Yemen that was formed by Iran in 2014, according to Iranian opposition sources. In Syria, they fought on behalf of the Assad regime; in Yemen, to support the Houthi rebels.

    […]

    At a ceremony held at a Shiite shrine in the city of Mashhad in 2017, Mr Qaani exalted Liwa Al Fatimioun “martyrs” as “having known no boundaries when it came to defending Islamic values.”

    Mr Qaani and Mr Suleimani shared the experience of having fought in the 1980-1988 war with Iraq.

    […]

    Qassem Suleimani: A loss too big for Iran to leave unanswered

    A report by the American Enterprise Institute said Mr Qaani’s record during the Iraq-Iran war “does not display the same degree of distinction as Suleimani’s.”

    While Mr Suleimani “was a charismatic leader universally loved by the men under his command,” Mr Qaani was not seen as a popular officer.

    Mr Qaani was Mr Suleimani’s deputy for almost two decades, a successor in waiting amid occasional speculation that Mr Soleimani could have switched to politics.

    The American Enterprise Institute described Mr Qaani as “uncharismatic and a less distinguished military commander than Mr Suleimani”.

    But Mr Qaani’s “battlefield experience, network within the IRGC, and long history of acquaintance with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei” qualify him for succeeding Mr Suleimani, the report said.

    Mr Qaani also lacks his predecessor’s penchant for self-promotion.

    Mr Suleimani’s touting of his achievements in Iranian media and on the Internet, most recently in an Iranian documentary highlighting his role in backing the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah in its 2006 war with Israel, annoyed others in the Iranian security apparatus.

    According to Iranian intelligence documents leaked to the New York Times in November, other Iranian operatives saw Mr Suleimani’s overtly sectarian approach in Iraq against the country’s Sunni population as benefiting the US.

    But ideologically there may be little to distinguish the sectarian persuasion of the two men, with Liwa Al Fatimioun having participated in the siege warfare and depopulation of Sunnis from rebel areas of Syria.

    Ideological purity is as much of a factor as ability in the promotion to a position as crucial as the one Mr Qaani has just assumed.

    (Emphasis added.)

    So much for decapitating the leadership… :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  4. 4.

    Roger Moore

    @Kay:

    We’re adrift not because they’re poor managers (although I think they are) we’re adrift because they are incapable of telling the truth and without that we have nothing.

    The lying and the poor management are of a piece; you can’t really separate them.  They lie all the time to cover for their incompetence, and part of their incompetence is an insistence that their lies are actually the truth.

  5. 5.

    Cheryl Rofer

    I suspect that part of the motivation is that Trump is incapable of understanding the larger context but desperately wants an OBL moment. He’s practically begging us to recognize him that way this morning.

    Say Hello to the New Boss

  6. 6.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Cheryl Rofer: he’s probably asking Kellyanne to call the King of Sweden to suggest that Sheldon Adelson be allowed to fund a Nobel Prize for Assassination.
    “Tell him we used to pretend to be Swedish after the war, he’ll like that. And Lara is Danish. That’s the same thing, isn’t it?”

  7. 7.

    Tim C.

    @Cheryl Rofer: He’s really that dumb?    I mean really?  I know the answer is “yes”  but come on.  OBL committed a horrifying terrorist act on live television.   There’s no way to get an OBL moment on some Iranian general that nobody but the most dedicated war watchers have heard of.  This does not compute.

  8. 8.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Tim C.: Look at his reaction to the death of al-Baghdadi.

    I agree that there is nobody comparable to OBL that he can obliterate.

    And I think that’s only a part of it, but a part that others could use to manipulate him into the decision.

  10. 10.

    15 flush mistermix

    @Tim C.: I agree with Cheryl – he’s mainly a narcissist and his fragile ego demands that everything he does be recognized as more important than what Obama did.  That makes him easy to manipulate, but also it’s dangerous for the manipulators, because he’ll be constantly dissatisfied with them when their promises of adulation don’t come to fruition.

  11. 11.

    Another Scott

    @Cheryl Rofer: The Pentagon yesterday was saying hundreds.  Donnie turns it into thousands, then morphs it into millions.

    Why he was obviously worse than Stalin and Hitler and Mao combined!!11ONE.

    (groucho-roll-eyes.gif)

    Cheers,

    Scott.

  12. 12.

    chris

    It’s Oh, shit o’clock and all is well!

    New U.S. travel advice for Iraq:-Depart Iraq immediately-Depart via airline “while possible” -Failing that, to “other countries via land” (what other countries? Iran? Syria?)-U.S. citizens should not approach the embassyhttps://t.co/xt5HgQbetd— Liz Sly (@LizSly) 3 January 2020

  13. 13.

    RepubAnon

    Do the war hawks think they’re living in a comic book, where the bad guy’s organization collapses if the leader is killed?

    This reminds me of the way WW1 started, with Austria eager for a quick war with Serbia – to teach the Serbs a lesson. This did not work out well for Emperor Franz Joseph.

  14. 14.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    clicking around twitter, I’m seeing people treated as experts (I have no means of evaluating their credentials, academics, think-tank types, higher-brow pundits) split between the idea that this will unleash hell on earth, and those who say Iran and its gov’t are too weak to hit back hard. I don’t know what to think, but I don’t trust the crew in the White House or at Mar-A-Fucking-Lago

  15. 15.

    Kent

    So serious question.   Is it in the Iranian state interest to see Trump re-elected or defeated in 2020?

    On the one hand, one could argue that any new Dem administration is going to provide a better negotiating partner than Trump and that relations would be more likely to normalize. So perhaps the Iranians (or at least the Iranian people) might want to see a new Dem administration.  But what about the hard core in the government?

    On the other hand, one could argue that Iran has been in a decades-long geopolitical struggle with the US for influence in the middle east and that a chaotic and incompetent Trump administration that alienates US allies across the region is to the long-term benefit of Iran.  The US pullout of Syria and abandonment of the Kurds, for example.  The US green-lighting of the worst Israeli impulses is another example that further increases Iranian influence in the region.  The Iranians may view Trump as the Russians do.  As an incompetent actor that furthers their long-term interests in the region.

    Because honestly, the Iranians have the ability to influence the 2020 elections against Trump by manipulating the price of oil.  Which would also help Russia as a major oil exporter.  $6 gasoline in the agricultural heartland during planting and harvesting season this summer would not bode well for Trump’s re-election.  They could also fluff Trump by giving him an October surprise victory.

    I fucking hate this timeline and the idea that Iranian mullahs have a vote for our next president.

  16. 16.

    JustRuss

    @Tim C.: There’s no way to get an OBL moment on some Iranian general that nobody but the most dedicated war watchers have heard of.

     

    Fox News says “hold my beer”. Actually, I have no idea what Fox is saying, but my guess is they’re thanking Jesus for Preznit Trump protecting our freedoms.

  17. 17.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @RepubAnon: You read the Atlantic interviews with the generals; Trump really think a Micheal Bay movie is how war works.  More to the point, “comic book villain” is Trump’s form of leadership and all he understands.

  18. 18.

    15 flush mistermix

    @JustRuss:

    Actually, I have no idea what Fox is saying, but my guess is they’re thanking Jesus for Preznit Trump protecting our freedoms.

    Probably most of them are, but last night Tucker Carlson went off script and shat all over the killing, though he said it was Trump’s manipulators what done it.

  20. 20.

    Boris, Rasputin's Evil Twin

    @RepubAnon: From my reading and bitter experience, I maintain that anyone who advocates a fast, cheap war with an easy victory in sight should be taken out back, shot in the back of the head as needed, and hung on the fence with a sign around his neck that says why he’s there. It didn’t work for Franz Josef, it didn’t work for Hitler in Russia, it didn’t work for us in Iraq.

  21. 21.

    Patricia Kayden

    I'm waiting for all of the idiots who *couldn't* vote for Hillary Clinton because they said she'd be a warmonger to step forward with apologies for being dead-ass wrong.— BrooklynDad_Defiant! (@mmpadellan) January 3, 2020

  22. 22.

    Mike in NC

    I can guarantee that these bellicose Trump tweets were prepared by Stephen Miller and/or caddy Dan Scavino. Our lazy Fat Bastard has no clue what “Quds Force” is since he avoids CIA briefings like a cat avoids a bathtub.

  24. 24.

    Tim C.

    @15 flush mistermix: That’s really interesting.   Tucker was one of the ones, according to reporting last may, talked Trump down off the ledge last time.   I think Tucker is a shyster, but knows that a major war in SW Asia is a big loser.

  25. 25.

    WaterGirl

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    I suspect that part of the motivation is that Trump is incapable of understanding the larger context but desperately wants an OBL moment.

    Yep.  I’m sure he thinks if he can have that, his impeachment will go away and be virtually wiped out of the history books.  It’s a sad day  week  month  year decade when a malevolent child holds the office of President of the United states.

  27. 27.

    Yutsano

    @germy: Who drops these names to him? Does he honestly think* this will increase his standing with the military? The military resents the fucking Blackwater style contractors. It wouldn’t surprise me if he did something that stupid.

    *I know I know I know…

  28. 28.

    Cacti

    Muqtada al-Sadr today:

    “As the patron of the patriotic Iraqi resistance I order all mujahideen, especially the Mehdi Army, Promised Day Brigade, and all patriotic and disciplined groups to be ready to protect Iraq,”

    For those who don’t remember, the Mahdi Army is the militia group that inflicted about 3,000 U.S./Iraq Security Force casualties during the Shi’a uprising of 2004 in Iraq.

  29. 29.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Yutsano: I’m pretty sure he thinks it’ll get him points with racists and people that like it when soldier/police kill ‘deserving’ civilians.

  33. 33.

    Tim C.

    @MisterForkbeard: Yeah,  but he’s already got those.    Here’s what I wonder.  Let’s say for the sake of argument, there’s the long known 27 percenters that we talk about here a lot.   Trump’s at 42%  So that’s 15% of the country, give or take, that really hate Democrats, Liberals, etc,  but also know Trump is a human garbage dump.   Those people are with him because the economy is hot, they are getting their CCC-level racist buttons pressed or they think holy Jeebus works in mysterious ways and now we can take away the girl’s slut-pills.      He’s putting that 15% in a position to jump ship if this goes badly.  Likewise, there are no anti-Trump votes out there that will flip to him. ever.   This is a dumb dumb move for him on all levels.

  35. 35.

    Immanentize

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Too weak to hit back? ZOMG that is stupid. They still have a very large modern military. They also have many war hardened militia forces to call upon. Moqtada al Sadr is re-commissioning (if that’s the right word) his Shia Militia in Iraq.

    Then, there are the soft Trump targets around the region and the world without even getting to the question of shipping.

    Too weak to strike back?

  36. 36.

    Sam

    The Iraqi govt will try to expel us; imo we should accept but we probably won’t.  Militias will attack us.  Question is whether Iran tries to extend the battlefield to the us and Europe.  I think they will if they can.  The ME will be a bad place to be, but attacks in US or Europe will up the ante.

  37. 37.

    sdhays

    @Kent: The Iranian state is very cash-strapped. I’m not sure not selling oil is an actual option for them. And with sanctions and decline oil production, I’m not sure they have the ability to affect oil prices to the extent you suggest without doing something to affect others’ oil production (like closing the Strait of Hormuz, which would be very, very bad for lots of reasons).

  41. 41.

    JoyceH

    Hey, is it just me? Last night, the news several times showed that clip of Trump on NY Eve saying that Iran didn’t want to go to war with us and that it would be a short war. The talking heads all compared the remark to the mindset of the world leaders at the outset of WWI and pontificated about how wars are never as quick and easy as the leaders think they’ll be and how naive Trump was to think that.

    But I didn’t have that reaction at all. When I heard Trump talk about how it would be a short war, my instant reaction was, “OMG, he’s talking about nukes.” Anyone else come away with that impression?

  42. 42.

    WaterGirl

    Washington Monthly: Martin Longman  (excerpt below)

    Trump is Now Guilty of Reckless Endangerment

    We tend to exaggerate the importance of terrorist leaders, falsely suggesting that they are irreplaceable. In this case, Suleimani’s singular genius was such that it’s probably true. This won’t make the world a safer place in the short term, however. If anything, Suleimani’s Quds Force is more dangerous without his savvy and often restrained leadership. They are just as lethal as they were with Suleimani alive, but more likely to be used in reckless ways that will escalate things to an inevitable final showdown between America and the Iranian regime.

    Iran will feel duty-bound to exact revenge, and a commensurate level of revenge would involve assassinating a major American leader, such as a commanding general or member of Trump’s cabinet. If they feel that this would be suicidal, they will opt for lesser targets with more plausible deniability.

    In the short term, they will try to force the Iraqi government to ask for the removal of all American troops. They will surely contemplate actions in the region against allies and soft targets that prudence prevented them from considering in the past. Simple national pride will lead them to take risks that were previously unimaginable.

    Suleimani’s reach probably extends to the American homeland, too. So we shouldn’t rule out that there could be potential reprisals here, although that would make it very easy for people like John Bolton to rally the nation to a war that might not otherwise have broad public support. The problem is, hardliners in Iran might not care.

    This is a tremendous amount of risk and a ridiculously momentous decision to take without first consulting leaders in Congress or our close allies. It’s not like Suleimani was some illusive target that might disappear for another decade if not killed when the opportunity arose. He traveled openly in the region, usually unarmed.

    Things will almost definitely escalate out of control now, but the international community should still step in to do what they can to restrain the Iranians and to convince America to avoid more provocative actions. Potentially millions of lives are at stake, as well as the health of the global economy.

    With this decision, Trump has removed the solitary argument in his favor, which was that he was reticent to wage more war in the Middle East and Central Asia. He just created an almost unimaginable amount of danger for Americans and our allies. That’s precisely what a lot of his supporters did not want.

    Now we’re forced to mitigate these dangers in the midst of an impeachment trial that would remove our leader from office as unfit. Perhaps that played into this decision as well.

  44. 44.

    Immanentize

    @Yutsano: you know who else hates the Blackwater Killers?  Iraqis.  Really really hate them. Seems we might want Iraqis to not hate all US forces just now?

  46. 46.

    Kent

    @sdhays:@Kent: The Iranian state is very cash-strapped. I’m not sure not selling oil is an actual option for them. And with sanctions and decline oil production, I’m not sure they have the ability to affect oil prices to the extent you suggest without doing something to affect others’ oil production (like closing the Strait of Hormuz, which would be very, very bad for lots of reasons).

    That’s exactly what I’m talking about.  Blowing up a few tankers and oil facilities in the Gulf would absolutely spike oil prices.  Maybe not permanently but at the right time it could affect an election. They did the same thing last year with the drone attack on Saudi’s facilities that was claimed by Yemen but that everyone thinks Iran was behind.  It is in their playbook.

  48. 48.

    Archon

    @Kent:

    Blowing up tankers would me a massive escalation that would negatively effect billions of people, including lots of Americans that hate Trump. That would be a major miscalculation on Iran’s part IMO.

    Iran’s play is to ramp up their proxies in the region while publicly portraying Trump and the United States are an enemy to global stablility.

  49. 49.

    Immanentize

    @Yutsano: What a Bizarro World, eh?

    Today I was forced to have this thought:. “Well, my 18 year old son, the Immp, can’t be called up. He has no stomach for the military.”

  50. 50.

    Calouste

    @Sam: I doubt Iran would want to extend the battlefield to Europe. The Europeans have been treating them fairly regarding the nuclear treaty, unlike the imPOTUS. A split between the US and Europe would be to their benefit.

  52. 52.

    Chris Johnson

    @15 flush mistermix: Whoa, that’s very interesting… since I’ve been suspicious Tucker Carlson works for Putin or those like him. I think he goes places he shouldn’t and carries messages in his role as ‘trusted right wing mouthpiece’ and is much closer to a literal working spy than Trump could ever be. He’s McConnell-grade treacherous.

    It looks to me like somehow Trump got war actions through the military’s chain of command, but obviously these are catastrophic actions.

    Not in that Iran will hurt us: that’s not the game being played here. We’re being set up to become in literal fact the unaccountable global threat, the monsters of history, that hard leftwing folks have long thought we already were. We are NOT the cops of the world, we’re not peace, we’re not stability. We fuck with people for benefit or just lulz and we will kill you and we’re not safe to have around.

    Russia wouldn’t directly take us on, but is delighted to see us become an obvious threat to the whole rest of the world starting with Iran. That’s the end goal, isolating us from what friends we had. (much like online social manipulation: see Contrapoints’ new video on ‘cancel culture’, to someone familiar with this stuff it’s obvious she is marked for destruction by Russia as someone who calls out what they do. They are mostly doing it for political reasons, not ‘trans rights’ reasons)

    What interests me is that Hannity did an abrupt unexplained flipflop. Did he get briefed? Did Trump violate what Putin expected of him, but in a way that can be turned to Russia’s advantage by undermining US standing abroad?

    Trump is the wrecking ball, but I think he exceeded himself this time. I don’t think anyone expected this. The only reason Putin can be happy about it is, it can be turned against the US.

    I don’t even want to LOOK at Twitter or any of the other places that are known to be heavily controlled and manipulated information. I would remind you folks, balloon juicer friends, that this is still an information WWIII and well underway, and they do not have to bomb everyone and nuke the planet if they can make us BELIEVE that someone has nuked the planet and we’re all dead. So, the trolls will be heightening panic. I don’t want to look at them, nor will I believe everything I see.

  53. 53.

    gene108

    @Boris, Rasputin’s Evil Twin:

    From my reading and bitter experience, I maintain that anyone who advocates a fast, cheap war with an easy victory in sight should be taken out back, shot in the back of the head as needed, and hung on the fence with a sign around his neck that says why he’s there. It didn’t work for Franz Josef, it didn’t work for Hitler in Russia, it didn’t work for us in Iraq.

    Did work for us in Grenada and Panama.

    Game, set, match libtard

  54. 54.

    Martin

    The Straight of Hormuz is gonna be lit. Wonder if we’re going to shoot down another passenger airliner after entering Iranian waters?

    Reminder that Iran can’t turn this into a war. They simply don’t have the reach. They’ll retaliate, as is their want, and we can recognize it as such, or we can escalate. Only the US can turn this into a war.

  56. 56.

    Martin

    @JoyceH:

    But I didn’t have that reaction at all. When I heard Trump talk about how it would be a short war, my instant reaction was, “OMG, he’s talking about nukes.” Anyone else come away with that impression?

    Of course. Trump being amoral sees nukes as an efficient and expedient option. He always has. We are once again at the mercy of the so-called adults in the room. Anyone want to put money on whether the generals will disobey that order? I don’t.

  57. 57.

    Brachiator

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    clicking around twitter, I’m seeing people treated as experts (I have no means of evaluating their credentials, academics, think-tank types, higher-brow pundits) split between the idea that this will unleash hell on earth, and those who say Iran and its gov’t are too weak to hit back hard. I don’t know what to think, but I don’t trust the crew in the White House or at Mar-A-Fucking-Lago

    I tend to instantly distrust anyone who claims that Iran is “too weak to hit back hard.” But apart from that, and being wary of anything coming out of the White House, I don’t know how best to evaluate these “experts.”

  58. 58.

    James E Powell

    @RepubAnon:

    Do the war hawks think they’re living in a comic book, where the bad guy’s organization collapses if the leader is killed?

    Oh yes, absolutely. And not just the war hawks. Probably a majority of Americans.

  59. 59.

    Bill Arnold

    @Cheryl Rofer:
    The scariest aspect for me is that this is yet another move towards normalizing state-level political assassination. There are only a few countries that do this; most do not, yet.
    When state level assassination is normalized, the evil often spreads down to targeting the general citizenry, and not just by states.

  61. 61.

    Felanius Kootea

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: The way I think about the Iran situation is “how would the US react if an adversary killed the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff with a drone strike shortly after he landed in Turkey?”  Iran doesn’t have the military reach of the US, obviously, but Iran will react. It has to. Will it do so by playing to the sympathies of the rest of the world, currently uneasy about 45: “the US has become a danger to us all because it’s run by a narcissist sociopath who is unpredictable and cannot be controlled from within” or by striking militarily at soft US targets overseas? We’re about to find out.

  62. 62.

    Kay

    @Roger Moore:

    I know I harp on the lying but it seems so central and profound to me, and it’s treated as just a personality quirk. It’s a big deal. Our sheriff here is currently embroiled in a scandal – it’s complicated but what it has boiled down to legally is his lying under oath. It’s front page news and has been for months.

    That’s ONE person and it’s local government so checked by at least three layers on top of it. This is just about every member of the Trump Administration and it’s checked only the Democrats in the US House.

    These people aren’t credible. Nothing they say can be believed. You just can’t build anything real on top of that. It’s corrupted at the source.

  63. 63.

    Bill Arnold

    @Boris, Rasputin’s Evil Twin:

    From my reading and bitter experience, I maintain that anyone who advocates a fast, cheap war with an easy victory in sight should be taken out back, shot in the back of the head as needed, and hung on the fence with a sign around his neck that says why he’s there.

    I’d prefer that they be shot with 1000 micrograms of LSD, daily, until they repent.

    ETA saw Watergirl’s comment, and maybe this too is a little harsh. Sorry, warmongers set me off sometimes.

  64. 64.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Bill Arnold: Yes. Not much has been said about assassination as a tool of statecraft yet. I think there is an international convention or somesuch that the US has signed on the subject, promising not to do it, but highly specific munitions provide a big temptation.

    I haven’t had time to look into it in detail, but it is one of the bad things here, although Trump is not the first to use it.

  65. 65.

    Yutsano

    @Felanius Kootea:

    how would the US react if an adversary killed the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff with a drone strike shortly after he landed in Turkey?

    Can we make this Pompeo?

  66. 66.

    Archon

    @Martin:

    I do think the military would refuse an order to pre-emptively use nuclear weapons on Iran.

    The fact that it’s even a concern though show’s how far down the rabbit hole we’ve gone.

  67. 67.

    MobiusKlein

    @Immanentize: I am thinking the same about my 18 year old son.

    He may have forgotten to send back his draft registration card.

    For once, his procrastination may help him.

  68. 68.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Chris Johnson: What interests me is that Hannity did an abrupt unexplained flipflop.

    Were is the mystery in that; wog bashing is always popular and Hannity is about being popular.  It reads more like the rest of the consertivs think this is the 80s movie climax were the villain gets killed and Carlson was the odd man out who realizes this is real life.

    I am sure Carlson will walk that back by Monday.

  70. 70.

    Mnemosyne

    Am I the only person assuming that the initial Iranian retaliation will be against Saudi Arabia? That seems like their best bet, strategically speaking, plus it doesn’t really allow the US to declare war.

  72. 72.

    Felanius Kootea

    @Mnemosyne: Targeting Saudi oil facilities with some plausible deniability as they’ve done before wouldn’t surprise me.

    I also wouldn’t visit a Trump hotel outside the US anytime soon. They’d probably wait a few months to take that step.

  73. 73.

    Another Scott

    @Sam:

    AlJazeera:

    […]

    Iraq’s muted response

    Although Iraq’s caretaker government, which has Iran’s backing, issued a muted response to the events, Prime Minister Abdul Mahdi said the killings on Friday were “a dangerous escalation that will light the fuse of a destructive war in Iraq, the region, and the world”.

    “The assassination of an Iraqi military commander who holds an official position is considered aggression on Iraq … and the liquidation of leading Iraqi figures or those from a brotherly country on Iraqi soil is a massive breach of sovereignty,” he said before adding that the US strike violated the terms of the US military presence in Iraq.

    Abdul Mahdi said that US troops were in Iraq to train Iraqi security forces and fight the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (the ISIS or ISIL group). Some officials and parliamentarians have already called for the expulsion of US troops from Iraq following the attack.

    Chatham House’s Mansour said Iraq would witness changes in the coming days.

    “The Iraqi parliament will most likely ask US forces to leave Iraq, while the US may become antagonist vis-a-vis the Baghdad,” explained Mansour.

    Iraq’s parliament has representation from Tehran-backed armed groups, including Iraq’s PMF, a grouping of mostly Iran-backed Shia militias that is led by al-Muhandis and that helped security forces retake a third of Iraq from ISIL.

    The groups’ troops were later incorporated into Iraq’s official armed forces.

    Happy 2020!!1

    :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  74. 74.

    Barry

    @Gin & Tonic: “Wonder how Gina Haspel is sleeping tonight.”

     

    I would guess that she’s not sleeping much, but is likely very happy.

    War has been good for her.

  75. 75.

    MisterForkbeard

    @JoyceH: I’m reminded of stories about the Civil War, in which people thought it would be so quick and simple that civilians packed picnic lunches to go see the opening battles.

    These days, we’re so much more powerful than our enemies that “war” is pretty quick and easy. The problem is that literally everything after we finish our initial objectives is very hard.

  76. 76.

    Bill Arnold

    @Felanius Kootea:

    They’d probably wait a few months to take that step.

    They need not take that step at all; just make a little suggestive noise about it, then wait. Years, decades. Iranians are known for patience.

  77. 77.

    Felanius Kootea

    @MisterForkbeard: “Quick and easy?” 18 years and counting. The war is everything, not just the initial battle. And very much the unintended and unanticipated consequences.

    I hope there is no John Bolton equivalent in Iran. Same crazy impulses with a much more limited budget and reach.

  78. 78.

    Barry

    @Kent: “On the other hand, one could argue that Iran has been in a decades-long geopolitical struggle with the US for influence in the middle east and that a chaotic and incompetent Trump administration that alienates US allies across the region is to the long-term benefit of Iran. ”

     

    The problem here is that Iran has serious skin in the game.  Their risk is getting hammered in a horrible war in the meantime.

    China, for example, merely has to cope with a more chaotic situation.  Their risk of destruction is low.

  79. 79.

    Chief Oshkosh

    “…Americans in the region are much safer after the demise of Qasem Soleimani,” Pompeo said.

    Even so, the State Department issued an advisory instructing U.S. citizens to leave Iraq “immediately” and avoid the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad…

    –Military Times 3 Jan 20;

    https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2020/01/03/pompeo-on-soleimani-death-the-risk-of-doing-nothing-was-enormous/

    Which is it, Mikey? If Americans are much safer, why is your State Dept instructing Americans to leave immediately and avoid the US Embassy? Could it be because Americans are now much LESS safe? Could it be because you and your boss have no plan for what to do on the very next day? And how are Americans supposed to leave? You bombed the airport.

    Oh, I see from the State Department website that you’re suggesting that they go by road. So which route to which country might be safe for that? Since normally US citizens would get that information from the local Embassy, and you’re telling them not to even approach the Embassy, what the fuck are they supposed to do?

    Oh wait, I see from the State Dept webpage that they’re supposed to get an appointment with the U.S. Consulate General in Erbil. Mikey, didn’t anyone tell you that Erbil is in Iraqi Kurdistan? Shit, sure would be nice if we hadn’t stuck the knife in the Kurds’ backs, eh Mikey? Sure would be nice if we had some allies up there in Erbil just about now. And get a fucking appointment? Shit, are they even answering the phones in Baghdad or Erbil?

    Oh wait, I see from the State Dept webpage that US citizens stuck in Iraq are supposed to “Monitor local and international media for updates ” since apparently the State Dept won’t be providing much information.

    Mikey, you’re a goddammed idiot.

    https://iq.usembassy.gov/security-alert-u-s-embassy-baghdad-iraq-january-3-2020/

  80. 80.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Barry: My point, of course, is that by the rules now set by the Trump administration, her assassination by Iran is fair game.

  81. 81.

    Frankensteinbeck

    I’ve been thinking about what serves Iran’s interests.  The best thing I can think of for them* would be the US being removed from Iraq.  They’re likely to get that.

    *That could possibly result from this, anyway.  They’d rather Saudi Arabia collapse than anything else, but there’s no visible path from this event to that result.

  82. 82.

    RaflW

    Seeing news that 3,500 service-members are being deployed to Iraq. Not surprised, since the embassy is shut and vulnerable. No plan to evacuate anyone in the country not attached to the US government (if even those who are attached have evac options).

    This thing was both anticipated (see Bolton, John and his Twitter boner), and thoroughly unplanned. Trump to a horrifying T.

  83. 83.

    WaterGirl

    @Gin & Tonic: I say again that Trump is too stupid to comprehend what he has done. In nearly said that might be the scariest part of all this. But no, there are about 10 scariest things about this.

  85. 85.

    RaflW

    @Tim C.: Among the many tactical errors by the T WH, not briefing Schumer, Burr etc but telling Graham (at the insecure as fuck Mar a Lago, no less) means that even a chimeral gleam of bipartisanship is gone.

    Tucker is a racist, a creep, and a scoundrel. But he grasps that when caskets start coming back, it will be 100% on the GOP.

  87. 87.

    WaterGirl

    @RaflW: interesting!  If you merged your online nym on all your devices, which one would you use? Sounds like Raoul?

  90. 90.

    Hoodie

    It seems that the Iranians would have plenty of options for retaliation in Iraq or Syria.  Of course, they could simply target US military or civilians.  However, perhaps a smarter thing for the Iranians to do would be not to treat this as an act of war, but rather a rogue, criminal action that the US president conducted without proper Congressional input.  I can’t imagine that the Iranians are not aware of Trump’s current political predicament and they could spin this quite effectively, at least outside of the US, as a ploy by a beleaguered politician to save his position.  They could, for example, take American military or diplomatic personnel in Iraq hostage (e.g., using Iraqi proxies) as part of an action to enforce justice for the Soleimani assassination, based on a claim that the attack was, essentially, an illegal murder ordered by Donald Trump for which these personnel are accomplices.    That could put Trump in a real vise, having Americans held hostage in a situation in which the US probably would be hard pressed to free them (especially if they’re extradited to Iran for holding) and would not have a lot of sympathy from the international community, especially since Trump obviously escalated this beyond a normal proportional response.  Killing an Iranian general who was visiting Iraq in such an open manner is not like killing an insurgent leader.

  91. 91.

    J R in WV

    @Mnemosyne:

    Diagnosed ADHD makes one 4-F, which is making me very relieved for some young men I know.

    And my nephew, on the spectrum, and really odd to be around, even when medicated, has been trying to enlist in the Army since he got old enough. Can’t with his medical history.

    So instead he enrolled in the  Law Enforcement Academy, got a license to be an armed peace officer. Has trouble looking me in the eye, who cares for him, yet wants to be pulling illegal vehicles over in the middle of serious nowhere in the dead of night — how is he going to tell when someone looks way off? Can’t with his medical history.

    Sad! But at least he won’t be a special operator in Iran.

  92. 92.

    Cermet

    By most accepted definition this was an assassination, not just a killing; i.e. killing by surprise a high level government offical for payback or for political reasons.  So, wondering, except for the killing of the Iranian Premier back in the 50’s, when was the last time we targeted some country’s high level offical, and assassinated one previously?

  93. 93.

    chopper

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    and i mean, ignoring the differences between al-baghdadi/suleimani and OBL, the former two were killed with drone strikes. getting bin laden was a dangerous call, and it could have gone to shit a hundred different ways. it was a much tougher operation in every single aspect.

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