Last week Bibi Netanyahu made a secret trip to Saudi Arabia to meet secretly with Mike Pompeo and Mohammed bin Salman. It didn’t stay secret for long. As the meeting was getting underway the Houthis attacked a Saudi ARAMCO facility. Which means the Iranians, who the Houthis have turned to for support, have excellent SIGINT fidelity on Bibi’s movements. Bibi should, probably, keep that in mind.
In the wake of this morning’s news, which Cheryl brought to all of our attention, we can now speculate that this morning’s operation was a likely topic of discussion at the secret Netanyahu-Pompep-bin Salman meeting.
Regardless, we need to understand the strategic reality right now that the lame duck Trump administration, as well as Bibi Netanyahu, and Mohammed bin Salman are involved in. And we can do it with pictures!
The Iranians are playing chess*:
Bibi is this guy:
And this is Trump:
As a bonus, the Chinese are playing go, which, I would argue, is even harder to master than chess!
The only good news is that the Iranians are smarter and better at this than Trump, Bibi, Pompeo, and bin Salman. They know Biden will be president soon. And while the Iranians may not have invented the game of chess, they’re willing to absorb the loss of a piece to win the game.
I expect we’ll eventually find out that this is the same in country team the Israelis used to kill al Masri back in July. As always, Bibi is willing to fight Iran to the last American. As I wrote back in August 2018, based on analytical work I’ve done on the issue for the Army beginning in January of 2012, going to war with Iran would be strategic malpractice and tactically stupid.
Open thread!
* Before someone starts, I am well aware that while the name for chess is derived from the Persian/Farsi word shah, meaning king, it is most likely that the game was introduced to Persia from what is now India.
Raven Onthill
Trump has retweeted the news of the assassination approvingly and is sending the Nimitz to the Persian Gulf. The goal may be to leave the incoming Biden administration with a pandemic and an unwinnable war on its hands, which can only cost Biden in prestige – I can just see the Republicans calling President Biden “appeaser” for his entire term.
There’s lots of awful possibilities. Why, oh why, could the Republicans not have removed Trump from office when they had the chance?
Frankensteinbeck
I suspect Trump did not know, did not care, and still does not care. Bibi didn’t need his cooperation, and all Pompeo had to do was go “Woo, great idea! Do it do it do it!”
Yarrow
Trump couldn’t identify Iran on a map if you spotted him the first three letters.
mali muso
So in the Trumpian worldview, a slam dunk.
Jeffro
It’s just very strange, semi-rooting for the Iranians and the Chinese until Inauguration Day.
I think I’ll just rephrase it in my mind as ‘rooting for peace and intelligence until a better solution comes along’, or perhaps ‘rooting against senseless war, trumpov, and MBS’.
Gah!
Adam L Silverman
@Raven Onthill: There’s little appetite for war with Iran among the senior military leadership. As I’ve written here, as well as other places, we don’t have the personnel, we don’t have the material, and we don’t have the funding. Because of rotations we don’t currently have a carrier strike group nor a Marine expeditionary strike group (ESG) in the Mediterranean, the Arabian Sea, or the Persian Gulf. The Nimitz had just been reallocated to the 7th Fleet and is in the Indian Ocean for a training exercise off of Malabar. having them make way for the Arabian Sea as a precaution makes sense. Right now we don’t have anything on the water in the Geographic Combatant Command and if I had to guess, the first thing that happened this morning is that the CENTCOM Commanding General, who is a Marine, got on the phone and asked for the closest assets afloat. And that’s the Nimitz and her strike group.
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: What you’re rooting for is sanity.
Baud
That’s unfair to Ralph.
Tom Levenson
I do not recall a more lucid explanation ever offered me on any subject. Bravo!
debbie
Dammit, I wish more supporters of Israel would realize this.
NotMax
When does QAnon start spitting this out:
Population of Iran and number of votes Biden supposedly received essentially the same.
//
gwangung
This matters not a whit to the orange gibbon. And probably 75% of current Republicans.
Kent
If the Iranians are so smart, why is their per-capita GDP down in the 100th place range below such economic powerhouses as Sri Lanka, Paraguay, and Gabon? Especially when they have the world’s 4th largest oil reserves behind only Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and Canada?
debbie
@Yarrow:
It’s not like his SoS could either.
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: My willingness to state it publicly is the reason I will never be able, should anyone be crazy enough to offer me the position, to be confirmed by the Senate to a senior political appointment. It isn’t that I have a problem with Israel or its existence or Israelis. I have serious concerns, however, with its current leadership, the coalition and specific parties that those leaders are members of, and the exceedingly dysfunctional relationship between the US and Israel.
Yutsano
The guy who brought chess to Persia, Khosrau Anushirawan, was quite the shah. He instituted major reforms in the Sassanid Empire as well as beefed up the military so Persia could fight on multiple fronts. The Iranians have been clever for centuries. Keeping up with them is a challenge to say the least.
Mallard Filmore
@Kent: My wild guess is because the USA is preventing most of the world from buying Iran’s oil.
Baud
@Adam L Silverman:
That, and…you know… Balloon Juice.
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
I would bet plenty of Israelis share your concern.
Why hasn’t he gone on trial yet???
ETA: This seeming alliance with MBS cannot be a good thing.
RepubAnon
@debbie: There’s an old joke from the Gulf War:
Q: What’s the official song of the Saudi Army?
A: “ Onward Christian Soldiers” …
It’ll be interesting to see how the Iranians react – I expect they’ll edit until January 21, unless something happens that they can’t ignore.
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: He’s the prime minister. It affords him certain procedural protections.
Adam L Silverman
@debbie:
It is not.
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman: thank you (seriously)
It’s just very weird, knowing that our best chances for peace and the best/least-bad possible outcomes for America…don’t rest with its current maladministration. Not the first time, not the last, but still…
West of the Rockies
Adam, is this sort of extrajudicial (is that the term?) murder illegal? Any chance Pompeo could face charges in the international court?
Raven Onthill
@Adam L Silverman: When did Trump ever pay attention to his advisors? Hopefully “closest assets afloat” is most of the story. But I do not trust the Republican hawks. They don’t need win the war for it to work to their political advantage. They don’t even need to have a hope of winning that war. All they need to do is start it.
And, yes, that’s crazy. But Trump is crazy.
I hope I’m wrong. I hope this is just the monsters in my anxiety closet. But Trump has done so many things no one thought he could do that I do not entirely believe that he cannot or will not start a war with Iran.
Carlo
Unfortunately, US politicians who are willing to articulate the view that US interests are not identical to Israeli interest are rare as hens’ teeth. Nonexistent in the GOP, whose foreign-policy arm is basically a branch of Likud, but not common among Democratic elected officials either. While Democratic International Security professionals are a bit more hard-headed, US policy is very constrained by a set of very idealized and unrealistic views concerning the Middle East that prevail in the public sphere.
Adam L Silverman
@West of the Rockies: 1) I’m speculating about what was discussed at that meeting last week. 2) I highly doubt the US or US personnel conducted this operation. 3) That said, under US law, unless Trump has signed a new presidential policy directive (or whatever his administration is calling them) that reverses Carter’s making it illegal for US personnel to conduct targeted assassinations, then it would be. But, 4) my expectation is that the Israelis did this. It fits the way they operate.
Raven Onthill
@Adam L Silverman: I think so too, and it probably is illegal in Israel as well, but Netanyahu has been flouting Israeli law for years.
Adam L Silverman
@Carlo: Believe me, I am all too aware.
Adam L Silverman
@Raven Onthill: The Israelis were conducting these types of operations before Bibi was born.
cain
@Yarrow:
He couldn’t find Iran if it was circled on the map with a sharpie with arrows pointed at it.
TS (the original)
@Tom Levenson:
I second this comment
Yarrow
@cain: He’d just make a bigger circle with the sharpie.
cain
Why the Christian supporters are looking to start the end times so if the U.S. is a catspaw – that’s quite alright with them. This is their souls they are talking about – and starting a deadly war that kills many people and hopefully ends Israel too means they will get their just reward for killing innocent lives across the world.
SiubhanDuinne
@Yarrow:
“Hurricane!”
cain
@Adam L Silverman: right wing strong men using the U.S. for their own ends. How far we have fallen.
Another Scott
@Raven Onthill: Admirals get in lots of trouble when ships are “lost”.
AlJazeera:
They’re obviously not a blue-water navy, but determined defenders often are creative and determined…
tl;dr – Professionals in the Pentagon aren’t stupid. But these continue to be dangerous times.
Cheers,
Scott.
cain
He’d be angry about the arrows – like it was trying to tell him what to do and will add other arrows going elsewhere and then forget that he was looking for Iran at all.
Adam L Silverman
@cain: We’ve always had an “Our Bastard” problem. The reality and then legacy of the Cold War is a sweet tooth for hard right and religious authoritarians as they aren’t Communists. There was always some question as to which way the direction of control in the relationship went. We ran them, but they clearly manipulated us while doing so. The problem now is that they’re both running and manipulating us.
Spanky
As I said on Cheryl’s thread this AM:
And now comes word of the Nimitz heading there. Jaysus.
Yarrow
@cain: But he’d make the circle big enough to include Saudi Arabia and then tweet a bunch of times about how SA was really Iran and he was right about that all along.
Geminid
I don’t think Russia was more than observer of today’s assassination in Iran, or the recent Israeli airstrikes in Syria. But the Russians seem to be partners and rivals of both Israel and Iran. And they have air defense assets in northeast Syria that bear not just on Syria and Lebanon but parts of Turkey, Iran, and Israel as well as the eastern Mediteranean Sea. Would you care to comment on Russia’s posture regarding today’s events, and the region in general?
Adam L Silverman
@Geminid: Putin will play all sides against each other. He’ll present as protector where he can, mediator where he can’t protect, and agitator where it is in his interests.
topclimber
@Jeffro: I am rooting for what Obama was trying to do: Take an even handed approach so that neither the Saudi-Israeli orbit or the Iranian one dominates in the Middle East. If they must engage in proxy warfare, let us keep ourselves and other big powers out of it.
Personally, I have more faith in Iran’s future–where at least they have approached moments of representative government–than in the Saudi kleptocracy or Netanyahu’s apartheid regime.
Downthread I suggested suspending any Saudi arms sales and closing the embassy for safety reasons as a way for Biden to let our dysfunctional “friends” contemplate their shortcomings.
Check it out, Silverman!
Kent
Well, of course. That’s part of it. But they are not helpless victims. They have chosen paths that have lead them to this point. But also their ossified political structure squelches most innovation within the country and devalues the contributions of half their population.
I’m just saying when you step way back and look at the big picture, Iran’s leadership doesn’t exactly look like a bunch of geniuses. The country is a mess and much of it is their doing.
With a different set of choices their economy and country could have looked like say…South Korea right now instead of the basket case that it is.
cain
Yes, well said. We are still paying for this cold war and will continue to do so I feel.
cain
@Yarrow:
Shhhhhhh… don’t give him any ideas!!
topclimber
@topclimber: embassy in Jerusalem. Move it back to Tel Aviv, where I understand most of it is, but in clear counterpoint to Dumbass Donnie.
cain
@Kent:
They really need to change things around. Right now, they are an oppressive govt to their own people. More conservative than the population. Hardly representative.
Iran is what the U.S. could turn into – a minority controlling the majority.
Bill Arnold
Israeli team, or a proxy like MEK? This was a suicidal op, if not a suicide op.
e.g. NBC: Israel and MEK Responsible for Murdering Iranian Scientists (2012/02/11, Kevin Jon Heller)
Insane and arrogant. Somebody, Biden or team, should make it clear that starting US-Iran would be considered [the functional equivalent of] treason, or an act of war against the US if done by another country, including Israel.
Kent
@cain: my point exactly. Letting religious fundamentalists run your country is a horrible idea everywhere. In the US, in Israel, and in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and India.
Kent
@Bill Arnold: What proof is there that this was a suicide op? And not say the masterminds cleaning up loose ends?
Kristine
@Tom Levenson: Agreed!
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman:
Ain’t that the truth.
Bill Arnold
@Kent:
This is true, but the relentless economic blockade, of varying levels over the last several decades but really strong right now, has seriously damaged Iran over time, and empowered the authoritarian leadership, who are strengthened by an undeniable external enemy. Imagine how the US would fair if it could not trade with the rest of the world. High tech would collapse, etc. We don’t make a lot of things, and for some, have forgotten how.
J R in WV
@Kent:
Well, their Theocratic patriarchs appear to do a better job than OUR Theocratic patriarchs, at least currently. Both full of hate, neither capable of improving their people’s lives. But the Republicans, just wow.
I wonder if anyone still in the Military and Intelligence communities remembers the Millennium Challenge 2002 war game?
Wherein a retired Marine general took the side of Iran, sank a Carrier battle group AND a Marine expeditionary group, and beat the US Military soundly in about 3 days.
Then the Pentagon refloated their fleet, changed the rules to prevent the Marine general from using asymmetric tactics, at which point the US forces could win. How embarrassing for the US.
Bill Arnold
@Kent:
None, that I know of. (point in time) But it was a close-range attack on a harder target than previous assassinations, so death was a big possibility, so it was suicidal at least for the close people. We lack details, though.
Geminid
@Adam L Silverman: Well, in the last Israeli election, Netanyahu put up billboards featuring him and trump. In the next election, maybe Netanyahu will use social media to microtarget first and second generation Russian immigrants with pictures of himself with Putin. Considering how trump has worked to marginalize the U.S.’s role in the region, those ads might appeal to Israelis in general.
Kent
@Bill Arnold: And in the alternate history where the US cozies up with and allies with Iran over the past half century, what do you get? Saudi Arabia or Norway ?
I think you rather overestimate the ability of the US to affect the path taken by other nations.
Aleta
@Bill Arnold: No coffee. We’d be on our knees by the 4th day of the blockade.
PPCLI
It’s good to see you back, Adam.
Bill Arnold
@Bill Arnold:
A few years from now autonomous vehicles as car bombs will be a thing. Probably not now, in Iran, though. There was a case of an unmanned motorcycle bomb though. I don’t know how that worked, perhaps a dismount after pointing it. There were also reportedly previous assassinations of scientists using magnetic bombs attached to cars by motorcyclists.
I have not yet seen a detailed description of the assassination, e.g. was a bomb involved? Did it explode?
trollhattan
@Another Scott:
This particular Iranian ship seems more comical than intimidating, but perhaps it will nevertheless fulfill it’s mission: “…the purpose of ensuring sustainable security in maritime routes and rescuing trade vessels and fishing boats of Iran and regional countries.”
Bill Arnold
@Kent:
Well, for example, if we’re talking alternative histories, what would Cuba be like today if it had had free and open trade and movement with the US since the 1960s? (What would Florida be like?)
trollhattan
@Bill Arnold: From what I read, combined bombing and gunfire. They really wanted him dead.
Kent
@Bill Arnold: self driving cars means self driving car bombs. Self driving trucks means self driving truck bombs. That is a scary prospect.
Mike in NC
Reading “A Very Stable Genius” and came to the chapter that deals with Trump meeting with senior generals and admirals in the Tank in the Pentagon to complain about lack of ‘winning’ in Iraq and Afghanistan. He threw a trademark tantrum and called them “dopes and babies” before storming out. Just a few more weeks of this nonsense.
Kent
@Bill Arnold: probably about like Costa Rica or Guatemala or the Dominican Republic. We would have just fucked the place up in other ways. That’s what we do.
trollhattan
@Bill Arnold:
I was confused with what we did WRT moving our Israel embassy–did we downgrade Tel Aviv from embassy to consulate and upgrade a Jerusalem consulate to embassy? Was a Trump hotel involved? Can those changes simply be reversed?
raven
@Mike in NC: And if he gives them the go sign?
Another Scott
@trollhattan: “Necessity is a mother.”
Cheers,
Scott.
Matt McIrvin
The fundamental truth that every foreign leader who deals with Trump, everyone in our civil service and everyone in our military must know is that Trump is going to be gone in a couple of months, but they’ll still be around to deal with whatever follows. I can only imagine that this is conditioning any responses to his behavior.
Anoniminous
@cain:
<blockquote>right wing strong men using the U.S. for their own ends. How far we have fallen</blockquote>
Not very far at all, I’m afraid.
Truman, based on his in-depth knowledge of Chinese internal politics and modern history gained by decades of selling men’s underwear in Kansas City, Missouri, spurned the advice of the China US delegation and turned US China policy over to the corrupt thugs of the Kuomintang and their Right Wing lickspittles in Congress. Or you can go back further and use the inseparable US foreign policy in Latin America and the business interests of the United Fruit Company. Or, more on point, the British and American supported coup against the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh* when he had the audacity to demand an investigation of the books of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.
* The US has a LONG history of over-throwing democratically elected leaders in favor of right wing thugs when the first get in the way of plundering the country’s natural resources and the latter are OK with it, as long as they get their cut.
Bill Arnold
@trollhattan:
Adam’s turf, really. I’m not aware of a hotel. Pretty sure that the embassy could be moved unless Congress objected strongly some e.g. funding. There would be a domestic political price.
Netanyahu and the Israeli right have been openly and covertly meddling in American politics in the pro-Trump direction, and for that they should (will) pay a price that actually hurts them, but Israel itself should not be conflated with them, IMO, even though it has been voting for the right/center right.
catclub
They would if they knew that israel’s battle hymn is onward christian soldiers. Also Saudi Arabia’s
ThresherK
“Before someone starts, I am well aware that while the name for chess is derived from the Persian/Farsi word shah, meaning king, it is most likely that the game was introduced to Persia from what is now India.”
Obligatory:
catclub
I think Obama was working yet another alternative history. Not cozying up to iran versus SA, but treating them both as independent actors in the middle east.
Anoniminous
@J R in WV:
Those type of war games are well known to produce support for the policy the high command is supposedly testing. The German Imperial Army regularly provided a double envelopment victory for Kaiser Willy 2. The Japanese Navy conducted “four days of scripted silliness” (Parshall and Tully, Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway) before turning the core of the Japanese naval fighting force into fish habitat.
CarolPW
@trollhattan: Consulate Jerusalem was the center for diplomatic relationships with the Palestinians (I think originally established as a consulate to the Ottoman Empire). It was one of the oldest US diplomatic programs . Department personnel posted there learned Arabic; those posted to Embassy Tel Aviv learned Hebrew.
The Consulate has been reduced and subsumed by the Embassy, becoming a “unit” within the Embassy to Israel now located in Jerusalem. The location in Tel Aviv conducts diplomatic functions because that is the political seat of Israel and where nearly all other Embassies are located. Jerusalem seems to be a theatrical location for Republican junkets.
I hope the Consulate can be reconstituted but have no idea how hard that would be.
J R in WV
@Anoniminous:
You must have reading comprehension problems. The war game I discuss resulted in a comprehensive defeat for the US Navy and Marine Corps in a matter of a few days.
Then the Pentagon brass stopped the game, re-floated their ships, and resumed the war with rules that guaranteed a win by the U S. Thus proving that the policies of the “high command” were completely inadequate in the front in question.
Maybe you should click the link and read about the war as it was fought?
Anoniminous
@J R in WV:
Maybe you should learn what you are talking about. MC02 wasn’t about a US/Iranian conflict.
“MC02 was meant to be a test of future military “transformation” – —a transition toward new technologies that enable network-centric warfare and provide more effective command and control of current and future weaponry and tactics.”
After the high command got the results they wanted they went ahead with nary a look back.
“Navy Captain John Carman, Joint Forces Command spokesman, said the war game had properly validated all the major concepts which were tested by Blue Force, ignoring the restrictions placed on Van Riper’s Red Force that led them to succeed. Based on these findings, Carman stated that recommendations based on the war game’s result on areas such as doctrine, training, and procurement would be forwarded to General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”
cain
Yes, you are correct – and the United Fruit Company is a good example of that. We messed up central america right and proper – and of course that turned aruond and bit us. I’ve noticed though other than Truman that a lot of that nonsense always happens quite a bit more under a Republican president. It happens under Democratic presidents too.
David Anderson
@Baud: go skull fuck a kitten
Another Scott
@J R in WV:
Task&Purpose (from November 2019):
When the country is at stake, …
Cheers,
Scott.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Another Scott:
I think the lessons are similar to the results of the Google search for instructions on deep frying a turkey that you wrote yesterday.
“Step one: Don’t.”
JaySinWA
@Adam L Silverman: Ben Wittes and John Sipher discuss the legalities of this on In Lieu of Fun today.
Ruviana
@David Anderson: All internet traditions!
cain
@Geminid:
It’s unbelievable that slippery fuck was able to retain being prime minister. He’s still holding on by a thread. If that thread breaks he goes to jail.
Maybe both Trump and Bibi can spend life in prison – that would be wonderful.
Jay
@Kent:
When the Shah was overthrown, a lot of the Middle Class, Students and Upper Class, fled the country because they were key enablers/ supporters of the Shah’s corrupt regime and feared they would be held accountable in a democracy.
That’s when the first Western Sanctions started.
when the Mullah’s defeated the Reformers and installed an “Islamic Democracy”, many more of those who could flee, did, and more sanctions were imposed.
then there was the Iran-Iraq War in which most of the ROW backed Saddam, while adding more sanctions on Iran.
Iran had 3 generations decimated by that war, and many of those who survived, attribute their survival to the will of Allah and the Mullahs.
The JCPOA should have changed things, but it didn’t, because the US refuses to let anybody do even the most benign business with Iran.
opiejeanne
Balloon Juice keeps me aware of what’s going on in the world, catching me up on things I missed. This morning I read that the Iranian Nuclear physicist assassination attempt was unsuccessful. I missed the update, doing other stuff.
Another Scott
@Jay: The JCPOA did change things for the better, until Donnie decided to break it.
E.g. The Boeing and Airbus sales.
It’s not hopeless to restore the JCPOA, but Donnie (and Bibi and Bonesaw) are doing their best to make it as difficult as possible.
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@JaySinWA: Like me, neither Ben Wittes nor Jon Sipher are lawyers. Sipher is top notch. I expect Wittes is in a permanent state of being chafed given his constant fence straddling.
Kent
Yeah…..that’s why the middle class fled Iran in the 1980s for the US and western Europe. Because they feared democracy.
Sloane Ranger
Saudi Arabia and Iran are engaged in a fight to see who will end up as the regional power and SA is willing to accept backing from anyone in furtherance of their claim, especially if they’re willing to do the heavy lifting.
Netanyahu knows that being tough on Iran helps him politically and, probably indirectly, legally. Although having US support and increasingly Arab acceptance means that Iran isn’t really a serious threat.
Pompaio wants the Rapture, although trying to force God’s hand is extremely poor theology.
Trump, if he was told anything, just wants to leave as many metaphorical dog turds on the Oval Office carpet for Biden to clean up as he can.
JaySinWA
@Adam L Silverman: Wittes agrees with your assessment of Israel being behind the assassination. Sipher thinks it is likely MEK pulled the trigger at the behest of Israel. On the legality, Wittes is pretty clear that this would not be legal under US law
Wittes is not a lawyer and never claims to be but has reported most of his life on legal issues. There are two segments about the assassination. The more substantive part is around 35 minutes in.
sdhays
@Anoniminous: Truman let the KMT in Taiwan twist in the wind a long time while trying to establish a decent relationship with the PRC. The problem was Mao didn’t want a relationship with the US. He was close to Stalin and mistrusted the West, with good reason. When the People’s Liberation Army intervened in the Korean War and pushed the Allied forces nearly into the ocean, Truman gave up on good relations and retaliated by sending the US Navy into the Taiwan Strait, ending any hope Mao had of retaking the island. The rest is history.
If Mao hadn’t been quite as crazy an ideologue, or if US commanders in Korea had followed orders and not kept pushing towards the Chinese border, who knows how history would have worked out.
Another Scott
@sdhays: Also too:
Imagine how different the world would have been without that.
Cheers,
Scott.
Poe Larity
Bibi doesnt need carriers. He just needs the hangers at DHF and our tankers.
Plenty to start a real war.
Anne Laurie
Off-topic, except tangentially: Adam, if you’ve never watched the Hikaru no Go anime, I suspect you’d love it. Strategy, slapstick, philosophy, and most of all: A great teacher who eventually gets the reward he never realized he’d earn…
Uncle Cosmo
Too true, too true. If there’d been any “truth-in-advertising” laws worth a damn in postwar Western Europe, all those “Christian Democratic” parties would’ve had to change their names to “Catholic Falangist.”
Jay
@Kent:
many of the ones that came to YVR were SAVAK. Even their grandchildren can’t go back to Iran. A lot of their children died in the gang wars of the 90’s over control of the cocaine and heroin trade.
Fleeing to another country to avoid criminal charges is not uncommon. The trick if you are Iranian, is to pick a “Western Democracy”, because we have never had extradition treaties with Iran, even when it was”Our Guys” in charge.
Uncle Cosmo
Which took them all of a month, without breathing hard, IIRC. There were no “reformers” – the entirety of the resistance to the Shah was Khomeini and his clerics in exile.
Sarcasm noted and approved. Once the Pahlavi regime collapsed it was either the clerics or the Khalq (communists) & the latter were a joke – all the Knucklehead of the Frozen North’s Bullshit-Bolshevik wet dreams about a “socialist” revolution to the contrary.
(I note in passing that it’s not just the USA that Knuck likes to shoot his mouth off about without knowing a fucking thing about the subject.)
Citizen Alan
Do any of those “idealized and unrealistic views concerning the Middle East” include the widespread believe among Evangelicals that Israel must be allowed to expand to its Old Testament borders in fulfillment of prophecy before Jesus will return and exterminate all the non-Christians?
burnspbesq
@Jay:
That sounds nice, but it’s completely ahistorical. Anyone who was familiar with Khomeini’s writing would have known that democracy was not within the range of possible outcomes.
Jay
https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Iranian+gang+war+is+moving+across+Canada.-a0208133885
sab
@debbie: I personally think that Bibi doesn’t give a rats ass about anything but Bibi. Things less important to Bibi than Bibi is the welfare of his own country.
ColoradoGuy
A fun alternative history is Nixon winning in 1960. It was a very close election, after all.
In that scenario, the CIA Bay of Pigs invasion goes forward, fails as it was designed to do, and then the full scale of the US military invades Cuba, using BoP as a pretext. The overthrow of Castro, the defeat of the Cuban army, followed by an occupation and installation of a US puppet government would have kept the US military busy for a number of years, and very likely have put Vietnam on the back burner. Havana would have regained its status as the capital of the US mafia, and a lot of US development dollars would have flowed in to stabilize the puppet government.
To give an idea of the scale of American investment in Cuba pre-Castro, Cuba had one of the first color TV systems outside the USA in the late Fifties. These were astronomically expensive to build back then, and that investment wouldn’t have been made unless Cuba was seen as major profit center for US businesses. (Cuba had three TV networks, all using American technology, and one had rolled out NTSC color in Havana.)
History would have been very different with no Castro in the picture, and the USA funneling investment money to Cuba that in our world went to the development of Asian countries like South Korea or Thailand. It’s also a good question if the US military would have been so enthusiastic about Vietnam if they were busy “pacifying” the population of Cuba, which is a lot closer to the USA and of more direct interest to the business community.
Jay
@burnspbesq:
y’all shouldn’t have teamed up with the Brits to strangle Iranian Democracy in it’s cradle, just because your Corporation’s oil happened to be under their country.
Of course, they arn’t your Corporations any more, they own you.
Didn’t work out well in 2003 either, did it?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interim_Government_of_Iran
funny thing how revolutions often eat their own.
Jay
@Citizen Alan:
yes.
Jay
In a time of thanksgiving, I an so thankful for the pie filter.
sab
@Jay: Super Pure Canadians voted for Stephen Harper for twelve years. I like y’all, but feet of clay like the rest of the world.
Jay
@sab:
yeah, we do. That whole trickle down tax cuts bull shit along with a large segment of “we have to be globally competitive”, allied with FUIGM, really fucked up most Western Democracies.Then there was that whole “Western Alliance” bs where we helped fuck over Haiti and Libya, amongst others.
we, for the most part have “leaders”, 20 years behind the times.
Evictions start in BC next week. Food Banks are tapped out. Covid is exploding, ( for us, here), mask mandates only started last week, and 10.7% of eligible workers are unemployed. Oh, and EI benefits are being slashed.
but, we don’t have a 40 year old hate on for Iran.
sab
@Jay: We are having evictions now, in November in NE Ohio. Shelters cannot possibly be safe.
I do not understand why people even feel entitled to go to church anymore.
Jay
@sab:
you are in Ohio,
I am in BC under a “dipper” majority,
but they can’t print money,
Only the Bank of Canada, can.
and they have stopped printing “Covid Bucks”.
It’s not rocket science, slash the Corporate subsidies by 3.2%, and pay every Canadian $1200 a week to stay home for 6 months.
funny how math is hard.
Mikeindublin
On par for the course. Remember this? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_War_(2008–2009)
Israel loves to stir up shit right before a Democrat takes office with the blessing of Republicans as a way to say FU, deal with it.
TTT
@topclimber: The embassy move passed both houses of Congress with nearly 100% support, was signed into law by Bill Clinton, and all subsequent candidates of both parties ran on moving it. Once elected they claimed there were threats to U.S. interests so they didn’t move it. Trump moved it and it turned out there were no threats to U.S. interests. Moving it back now would be literally against the law, in addition to having no benefit whatsoever for us.
Vhh
@topclimber: Good points. Iran has a history as a civilization (Persia), now with oil, who can make stuff and have a real military. Unfortunately ruled just now by a religious death cult (not so unlike the present US regime btw). Saudi Arabia is a bunch of cross married sheiks with oil money who buy everything, incl US soldiers, and pretend to be part of a religious death cult to stay in power. Israel is an apartheid quasi democracy with a intrepid military who are playing off the Iranian, Saudi, and US death cults off one another as a strategy to get them to the next century. Kinda like traditional British strategy, actually.