Potential war between US and Iran

[portnoy311]

Obama also partly got elected (and "Change" landed so much with the public) because of Iraq and the public's annoyance with war. W was reelected just 3 years after 9/11 which was the "best" thing for his public approval ratings. There isn't any 9/11 with Iran and I tend to think / hope public opinion is closer to 2008 than 2004 when it comes to costly wars in the middle East. I could be wrong though, Instill can't believe the words "President Donald Trump" when I see them, so who knows.

[El Barto]

But does it win him any new votes? Does it cost him some votes? Neither of those answers work out in his favor, and combined they doom him.

[Dave_Manchester]

And all of these considerations are predicated on the assumption that yet another American war toodles along with masses of death far away but no real impact on the United States of America. America is the only country in the world that is able to think of the genocidal wars it starts in no greater terms than "How will this affect the nuances of our next election?" But there's the very real possibility that this will be a war that isn't just something for American pollsters to factor into their statistics. I think (hope) we are heading towards a world where American voters will no longer be faced with the dilemma of "Oh my goodness, my government killed 40,000 brown people 7000 miles away, I really need to agonise over my vote next year!", but will instead be faced with the reality that their family can be killed over their precious 'democratic' votes.

[portnoy311]

And all of these considerations are predicated on the assumption that yet another American war toodles along with masses of death far away but no real impact on the United States of America. America is the only country in the world that is able to think of the genocidal wars it starts in no greater terms than "How will this affect the nuances of our next election?" But there's the very real possibility that this will be a war that isn't just something for American pollsters to factor into their statistics. I think (hope) we are heading towards a world where American voters will no longer be faced with the dilemma of "Oh my goodness, my government killed 40,000 brown people 7000 miles away, I really need to agonise over my vote next year!", but will instead be faced with the reality that their family can be killed over their precious 'democratic' votes.

To be clear I 100% agree with this. My posts were more meant to show why Trump himself may be dissuaded from a war. I have no doubt he'd do it if he thought it would get him reelected. But, I was laying out why he might do the right thing for the wrong reasons. That Trump is heartless and only cares about the election (in my view) in no way means that's all I care about. Far from it.

[Dave_Manchester]

Trump says he called it off 10 minutes before the strikes were due to happen (I don't for one second believe this, but I'll run with it because I obviously can't prove otherwise). He says that when he was told of the 150 people who would die (why wasn't he aware of this before he signed off on the order to strike?), he decided it wasn't a proportional response to the downing of an unmanned aircraft.

Alright so I'm going to ask you all to brace yourselves for some news that may shock you. Please sit down if you're the fainting kind. You ready? Here goes: it looks like Donald Trump may have lied.

I wrote yesterday that I didn't believe the whole '10 minutes before the strike' story that Trump tweeted out. It just doesn't make any kind of sense. Here is the relevant section of his tweet:

On Monday they shot down an unmanned drone flying in International Waters. We were cocked & loaded to retaliate last night on 3 different sights when I asked, how many will die. 150 people, sir, was the answer from a General. 10 minutes before the strike I stopped it, not proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone.

Shortly after tweeting this out, and desperate to give the impression that this wasn't a case of his being indecisive, Trump confused things even further by insisting that no planes were in the air and no ships were in place when he gave the order to call off the strikes (which, as impressive as the US military is, begs the question of how the hell the strikes were just "10 minutes" away). This claim has since been exposed as false by the New York Times.

Here's the general problem with this whole situation: if Trump's '10 minute' story is to be believed then it points to a breakdown in process; the kind of breakdown that a country like America simply doesn't have, ever, no matter which dipshit is President. To gauge the level of disbelief in Trump's story, consider this: even FOX News hosts are questioning it. Shep Smith was the first to note that something isn't right here, saying this on his show yesterday:

"Yesterday morning at 11:00 a.m. there was a national security briefing. The president was not in it. At 3:00, there was another briefing during which the president would have been given the details of the strike, including a casualty count. It's been reported that he was said to have concerns after that briefing about the casualty count. He then spent some time on the phone and during the 6:00 hour or whenever it was, ten minutes before go, he called it off — because of the 150 that he just learned about. Something is wrong there"

Chris Wallace had similar doubts about the story, saying that Trump should have been informed of possible casualties during his initial briefing with military officials (this was my main reason for doubting the story by the way, because it led to one of 2 scenarios: either the world's most elite and organised military commanders had done a woefully incompetent job of briefing their Commander-in-chief, or else Donald Trump was lying. After consulting Vegas odds on which is the likelier explanation I went with the latter).

After quoting a national security official who said that Trump's explanation "doesn't add up", Chris Wallace said this:

"So the idea that the president, ten minutes before the actual go - The New York Times is reporting that the ships were in place, the war planes were in the air - that ten minutes before you're learning for the first time that there's going to be 150 casualties seems unlikely, and certainly not the way it’s been done in the past."

The Washington Post published a report yesterday that said officials within even his own Administration are disputing Trump's public account of what happened, because the version he gave presents potential problems for the military (aside from making US decision-making look disorganised and aimless, he's given insights into how he thinks and what things guide his decision-making, which is a mistake in this game).

Most of Trump's (over 10,000) lies since assuming office don't matter all that much beyond pointing to a man who can't get through a day without lying, but this lie matters in my opinion. He's been a bit sheepish today by his standards, he's tried to bury his '10 minute' tweet beneath random retweets from his son Eric's account about the size of the crowds at his Orlando rally last Tuesday and stuff about his wall. I've a feeling someone (Dunford maybe? Word on the grapevine is he's pretty much the only one left who isn't afraid to talk straight with Trump) has chastised him for his reckless statement about the strikes.

Meanwhile, Trump today stated he would like to "Make Iran Great Again" (because a 5000-year-old culture loves listening to an American president talking about becoming a 'Great' country, they don't consider it patronising at all) and has been tweeting the same idiotic shit he tweeted out to North Korea (about how they can become a 'great' and 'prosperous' nation!). This is what happens when you lack all understanding of the historical nature of this conflict.

New and harsher sanctions will be imposed on Monday (retaliation for the drone). I 'WhatsApped' my friends in Iran today and asked them about the feelings on the ground over there. Generally anti-Trump but not anti-America; I've said before, the new generation over there are as pro-Western as you could reasonably hope for, and given time they would have changed their country themselves if Trump hadn't gone about his mad crusade to erase the black guy from history.

It's still a very dangerous situation. Iran isn't going to just sit back while its economy crumbles, as Trump is hoping will happen, and they sure as shit aren't going to take him up on his offer to talk. I think next week there'll be shenanigans in the oil shipping routes. We'll see.

[Harmony]

And all of these considerations are predicated on the assumption that yet another American war toodles along with masses of death far away but no real impact on the United States of America. America is the only country in the world that is able to think of the genocidal wars it starts in no greater terms than "How will this affect the nuances of our next election?" But there's the very real possibility that this will be a war that isn't just something for American pollsters to factor into their statistics. I think (hope) we are heading towards a world where American voters will no longer be faced with the dilemma of "Oh my goodness, my government killed 40,000 brown people 7000 miles away, I really need to agonise over my vote next year!", but will instead be faced with the reality that their family can be killed over their precious 'democratic' votes.

So I've sat with this post for about 24 hours now and it still hurts, like the truth usually does.  I should thank you, Dave, because your perspective is important and I am as guilty as anyone else about losing sight of the bigger picture.

I knew on election night that Americans were about to get so bogged down and "cocked" and loaded about domestic issues at the expense of international issues.  Trump is brilliant at stirring those pots and Americans are so easily lead to the trough of bullshit that it isn't funny at all.

I can only say that the deaths and injuries to people 7000 miles away really does matter to me.  I won't lose sight of that part of this even when my attention is distracted by the shiny objects du jour.  I just know that by history, Adami is correct.  War typically only helps the party in power when it is begun even if it all falls to shit over the next POTUS' watch.  I hope that you and EB are right and that if Trump continues us on the path toward war that the American people will not stand for it and vote his ass out.  But by then, the damage could already be irreversible. 

Alright so I'm going to ask you all to brace yourselves for some news that may shock you. Please sit down if you're the fainting kind. You ready? Here goes: it looks like Donald Trump may have lied.

And this is it in a nutshell.  Nobody expects anything less now.  It isn't newsworthy because it is a daily occurrence and people have become numb to it.  Just like with school shootings, rape allegations, and concentration camps.

[Adami]

Just browsing through previous presidents...

Harry S. Truman, George W. Bush, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, etc. already seemed to get relected despite wars.

The exception to the rule seems to be Vietnam. Presidents that went into election AFTER a war, however, don't usually do so well.

But if Trump goes to war with Iran anytime soon, the election will be mid-war. Which, as I showed above, historically, seems to help the person get re-elected.

Is this proof? Of course not. Probably a number of other variables as well. But if nothing else, being in war didn't hurt anyone's chances (except for Vietnam).

[Harmony]

~Side bar~

Are we giving credit to Kennedy for Vietnam or Johnson?  My history may not be up to snuff here, so I throw myself on the mercy of those with more knowledge here.  If Kennedy - then we simply cannot say whether or not the war would've hurt or helped his re-election chances.  And while Johnson most definitely suffered for Vietnam in the end, I can't think that it hurt his election all that much in '64.

My fuzzy memory of the excellent Ken Burns documentary is not helping me here.  When was Vietnam officially declared a war?

[El Barto]

~Side bar~

Are we giving credit to Kennedy for Vietnam or Johnson?  My history may not be up to snuff here, so I throw myself on the mercy of those with more knowledge here.  If Kennedy - then we simply cannot say whether or not the war would've hurt or helped his re-election chances.  And while Johnson most definitely suffered for Vietnam in the end, I can't think that it hurt his election all that much in '64.

My fuzzy memory of the excellent Ken Burns documentary is not helping me here.  When was Vietnam officially declared a war?

I don't think it was ever declared a war. In grade school it was referred to as a police action, for what that's worth. As for who's on the hook for it that would mostly be LBJ. The thing snowballed for quite some time, but he was responsible for most of the escalation and president when the major events we associate with the war took place. Gulf of Tonkin, Rolling Thunder, the deployment of ground troops, the Tet offensive, etc.

As for the greater point, the reason Vietnam is an exception is because it was very unpopular. It was a war nobody wanted that didn't actually help the rank and file. WWII and Korea were actually somewhat popular. Gulf War II was pretty unpopular, but politics were in a different place post-2000. I suspect he won 2004 despite the war rather than it helping him in any way.

[Harmony]

Thanks EB.  That was a good refresher.  Though IIRC, Nixon got reelected during the Vietnam war.  And again thinking back to the Burns doc, he campaigned on ending it but behind the scenes was pushing to keep it going.

What I recall from '04 was there were a lot of supportive hawks out there.  And we can't forget about all the war profiteering.  I honestly think the war helped him more than harmed him.  I could probably be convinced otherwise.  I can't pretend I have many good things to say about GWB.  That said, I'd take him back in heartbeat over Trump.

[Stadler]

The Gulf of Tonkin incident was 1964; prior to that, our presence downplayed (and outright denied in several of the countries bordering Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos).  For anyone interested in this aspect of Vietnam, the documentary "The Fog Of War" about Robert McNamara is essential.

As for the rest, there's more I disagree with than agree with in the analysis here (this continued notion that Trump's supporters are a bunch of drooling, ignorant, racist war-mongering simps is, in my view, dangerously misleading on a couple levels, but I guess stereotypes play when it's the "them" of the "Us vs. Them") but the most important is that not a single word has been offered about the most important thing that Dave wrote (among what I find are many important things):

No US army general wants this, in my opinion. They don't want to get into a war against Iran (which means Iran, Russia and China, given my understanding of Putin's comments yesterday)...

I think any alliance of China and Russia against U.S. interests - broadly defined - is simply put the gravest threat to the American hegemony that exists today.  Donald Trump can lie 1 time, 100 times, or a 1,000 times - all bad, by the way, not condoning it - and it doesn't rise to the level of the threat we face from an alliance of China and Russia.  All the quibbling about Mueller - did he or didn't he? - is interesting, and perhaps unsettling, but it doesn't rise to the level of the threat we face fro man alliance of China and Russia.   I might be willing to argue "degrees" (we have more, and, perhaps, better) but if there is a workable political/economic alliance between China and Russia going forward, there is little NEED for the United States in that scenario (and with Turkey willing to introduce Russian technology into the NATO/Europe equation, the Eurasia scenario as well). 

[Dave_Manchester]

Trump's announced new sanctions on Iran, this time focussing on the assets of Iran's leadership including Khamenei himself. It isn't clear whether these sanctions have been imposed as retaliation for the drone attack last week, because yesterday in an interview with Jake Tapper Mike Pence said that the reason the President "ordered back" the strikes was because he wasn't convinced the hit on the drone was authorised by Iran's leadership. Which begs the question of why they're being punished for it via sanctions. As always with this dysfunctional administration, who the fuck knows why things are done, and who even has the energy to bother trying to figure it out anymore?

What's important is that Trump announced 2 things today -

Number 1: "Iran can never have a nuclear weapon!"

If only there were some kind of exhaustively-monitored deal drawn up by leading experts and agreed upon by the USA, China, Russia, UK, France, Germany and the EU with the aim of preventing this very thing; an agreement that Iran has been proven to have been complying with, and was considered to be the first essential step in improving diplomatic ties and trust between the different nations; an agreement that was ripped up by renowned nuclear scholar Donald Trump PhD for absolutely no other reason than his obsession with ridding American history of every single thing the black guy ever signed his name to, regardless of how 'good' or 'bad' it may have been. "Iran will be a great and prosperous nation as soon as they learn to trust the word of a government that has just unilaterally torn up an agreement".

For a man who thinks every historical conflict can be solved by his trusty 'people skills', he might want to stop breaking agreements so much and destroying whatever trust in the United States government the world may once have had.

Number 2: "Iran must stop sponsoring terrorists".

So this is a very common demand when America imposes sanctions, because "terrorists" are defined as "Any group that opposes US economic interests" (it's only 7 years ago that the good folk who are now John Bolton's choice to bring freedom, democracy and the raping of wealth to Iran - the MEK - were high up on America's terror list after Human Rights Watch issued a report that accused them of running prison camps - yay for America's 'pro-democracy' insurgents!). "They were sponsoring terrorists" is the US government's version of a cop's "I feared for my safety and had to ventilate the sleeping young man, your honour".

But nevertheless, condition number 2 has some nice context today, because just one day before the American President demanded that Iran stop its wicked, inhuman, barbaric ways in the Middle East, he had this to say when interviewed by Chuck Todd on Meet the Press when asked why he won't ever hold Saudi Arabia to account for their crimes against humanity:

"They buy massive amounts, $150 billion worth of military equipment. Saudi Arabia is a big buyer of American product [note from Dave - 'American product' means 'American weapons', which are then used to commit genocide in Yemen]. That means something to me. It’s a big producer of jobs [note from Dave - he means the military industrial complex]. I'm not like a fool that says we don’t want to do business with them.  Take their money. Take their money, Chuck".

"Take their money". That about sums it up. Kill whoever you want in this world, chop up journalists, bomb buses of school children, whatever the fuck you want, so long as you're paying us for the right to do it.

It takes an extraordinary confidence that you're addressing a dumbed-down population that you're able to sell your Iran policy as a defence against "human rights abuses" while literally hours earlier saying that Saudi Arabia will never be held to account for their war crimes, genocide and sponsoring of terror groups around the world because you're "taking their money". But I guess when you're the Leader of the Free World and the self-described World's Greatest Democracy, you can get away with that level of shameless hypocrisy.

[Adami]

So apparently the guy who personally saved Iranian lives by stopping America from bombing them because 150 lives lost is just too high price to pay.....just said that if Iran does anything at all, it will be met with overwhelming force, which may mean obliteration.

[El Barto]

Somebody's upset at being called mentally retarded.

[Adami]

That tweet, thus far, is the most extreme example of Carlin's "Bigger dick foreign policy theory" at work.

[Dave_Manchester]

Yesterday he put out this tweet, which is the kind that fascinates me the most because it offers a glimpse into his lack of understanding of geopolitics (or, being charitable to him, the lack of understanding he believes his base has):

China gets 91% of its Oil from the Straight, Japan 62%, & many other countries likewise. So why are we protecting the shipping lanes for other countries (many years) for zero compensation. All of these countries should be protecting their own ships on what has always been a dangerous journey. We don’t even need to be there in that the U.S. has just become (by far) the largest producer of Energy anywhere in the world! The U.S. request for Iran is very simple - No Nuclear Weapons and No Further Sponsoring of Terror!

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1143128642878410752


2 things are going on in this tweet. Well actually 3, the 3rd being his consistent inability to correctly spell 'Strait' (he fucked it up a few days ago and someone took down the tweet and corrected it for him, but this time they've decided what's the point and left it up. It's like "their" and "there"; he just doesn't get the difference and never will so they've given up correcting it).

But anyway, leaving aside the American President not knowing the correct name of the world's most important oil shipping route, it's fascinating to me to wonder at how much panic goes on in America's corridors of power when they read imbecilic things like that tweet.

I said there were 2 main things going on. The first is Trump's standard all-purpose spiel about how America is being 'ripped off' and is spending its money to protect other nations' interests (a useful right-wing tactic when explaining to low-income and low-educated people why they live the way they do in the World's Greatest Democracy: "foreigners are scamming us!"). This, of course, is absolute fucking bullshit, America doesn't spend one cent in this world that does not directly benefit its own economic and security interests*, but he knows his minions won't know that (I want to believe that Trump is not that stupid and does to some extent know it). 

The 2nd thing going on here is Trump's ignorance of why he inherited a world order that is composed the way it is (almost everything that was done before him is criticised by him as being the stupid actions of people who had no idea what they were doing). If Trump is cool with China and Russia just rocking up to the Strait of Hormuz with a few nuclear subs and placing some fighter wings on Iranian airbases to, *ahem*, "protect their own shipping" as Trump thinks of it, then by all means, the USA is more than welcome to leave the region. Vacate Egypt too while you're about it, we'll happily 'look after' the Suez Canal in your absence. 


(*Of all the impoverished countries in this world, which country scores highest on the list of countries America gives the most "foreign aid" to? Yup, Israel, at $3.1 billion a year. Which country comes 2nd? Surely some destitute, war-ravished, starving central African country, no? You're correct, the answer is "no". It's that hellish den of poverty Egypt, at $1.39 billion, and almost every cent of this goes to securing US interests around Suez. Of all the questions that flood my mind whenever I see an idiotic tweet like this from Trump, one of the first ones is always: is he honestly this ignorant of US interests and why things are set up the way they are, or is this just an act for the MAGA crowd? And 2ndly, when Trump screams at his rallies about the US being "ripped off" by other countries who look to America for "protection", why does he never name for the crowd which countries those are exactly? I think they may find it enlightening).

[cramx3]

That tweet, thus far, is the most extreme example of Carlin's "Bigger dick foreign policy theory" at work.

 

[Dave_Manchester]

Let's take a short break today from what seems to be impending US military action against Iran for a stroll down memory lane:

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

Donald Trump, November 29th 2011

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/141604554855825408


2. Now that Obama’s poll numbers are in tailspin – watch for him to launch a strike in Libya or Iran.  He is desperate.

Donald Trump, October 9th 2012

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/255784560904773633


3. Don't let Obama play the Iran card in order to start a war in order to get elected--be careful Republicans!

Donald Trump, October 22nd 2012

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/260421157201784832


4. I predict that President Obama will at some point attack Iran in order to save face!

Donald Trump, September 16th 2013

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/379717298296086529


5. Remember what I previously said--Obama will someday attack Iran in order to show how tough he is.

Donald Trump, September 25th 2013

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/382923478157910016


6. Remember that I predicted a long time ago that President Obama will attack Iran because of his inability to negotiate properly-not skilled!

Donald Trump, November 10th 2013

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/399731975432728576


(Addendum: as it turned out, Nostratrumpus was wrong and Barack Obama never attacked Iran. He did however pain-stakingly put together a nuclear agreement which had been agreed to by the US, Russia, China, Germany, France, UK, Iran and the EU; an agreement Trump ripped up despite not understanding a word of it for no other reason than the black guy did it)

Anyway let's now get back to the present, where on an entirely unrelated subject, Donald Trump is threatening Iran with obliteration as he begins his 2020 re-election campaign.

[Dave_Manchester]

A new leak of diplomatic cables from the former British Ambassador says that Trump tore up the Iran nuclear deal for no other reason than because it had the black guy's name on it.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-48978484

Which, of course, has been absolutely fucking obvious to everyone all along, but it's nice to have the highest ranking British diplomat confirm it. Trump ripped up a deal that had been pain-stakingly put together by the governments of USA, Britain, France, Russia, Germany, China and Iran, despite having no idea what the deal was, no idea what its aim was, and no idea if it was being followed. He did it, as the article says, "to spite Obama".

I'm sick to death of this. Tankers being seized in the Strait of Hormuz, Iran speeding up its nuclear programme again, the Middle East yet again on the brink of a new series of wars. Why should the rest of the world have to keep on restructuring its affairs because of the whim of this fucking idiot whose only consistent and predictable political action is: "American history must be decontaminated of anything the black guy ever touched while he was President". And the grim hilarity of it is that Trump wonders why governments have zero interest in making deals with him. Why should America ever be trusted again when any deal they make can get torn up by the next President against the advice of its allies for no better reason than: "I want to flip the middle finger to my predecessor"?