What Qassim Soleimani's killing means

georgel

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Meanwhile... Apparently, we've just had a major escalation with Iran. This is an opinion piece, but explained a lot for me.


The U.S. killing of Qassim Soleimani In Baghdad on Thursday ends an enduring threat. At least in the short term, however, it will unleash Iranian retaliation. The leader of the external action arm of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Soleimani long led that regime's efforts to destroy its enemies and expand its revolution.


From an explosive campaign which killed hundreds of American soldiers in Iraq, to supporting Bashar Assad's regime with legions of Shia fighters and IRGC operatives, to conducting a campaign of bombings and assassinations and intimidation across the globe, Soleimani was a master of his very dark arts. He was a serious and continuing threat to American lives and interests. Indeed, Soleimani masterminded a failed 2011 plot to blow up the then-Saudi Ambassador and dozens of diners in a Washington, D.C. restaurant.


Still, Soleimani's killing, apparently alongside Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the Kata'ib Hezbollah leader responsible for recent rocket attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq, is striking. Trump might call it justice for this week's attack on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, or the recent killing of a U.S. contractor in Iraq, or an act to disrupt Soleimani's plotting against America. Regardless, it illustrates a major strategic escalation in President Trump's Iran policy. Soleimani's standing in Iran and the IRGC in particular makes President Bush's 2008 killing of top Lebanese Hezbollah leader Imad Mughniyeh seem irrelevant in comparison. This is a very big deal.


Trump's shift here is hard to overestimate. Until now, Trump had been keen to keep avenues of diplomatic intercourse open towards Iran. Trump had avoided direct military retaliation against Iran even after it downed a U.S. drone last summer. But this killing slams the door on diplomacy in a most public way. Soleimani was a hero of the revolution and will now be regarded as an heir to Husayn ibn Ali, the martyr of Shia martyrs. Revenge will now rise to the very top of Iran's agenda. A global terrorist campaign of uncertain duration is likely. In the context of Iranian domestic political instability and deep economic pressures on the regime, Iran might also use this killing as an excuse to destabilize oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz. Each of those developments would require immediate American deterrent response.


This will also cause short term strife for American political interests in Iraq. Soleimani and al-Muhandis represented a powerful bloc of Iranian aligned interests. But a bloc that was under growing pressure. They'll now seek to unify erstwhile competitors such as Muqtada al-Sadr into punishing America for what has occurred.


Ultimately, however, the U.S. holds the cards here.


If it is willing to tolerate some U.S. casualties, the Trump administration can effectively out-escalate Ayatollah Khamenei's regime and force it into backing down. But while lives have likely been saved by Soleimani's departure, the near term future next won't be pretty.



https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/what-qassim-soleimanis-killing-means
 
It means a higher chance of Republican winds in the 2020 Presidential and Congressional elections. When in doubt, start a war to stir the patriots to the election polls.

#LPNC
#LibertarianParty
I thought about this when I read it. Nothing like a war to distract from everything else.

What it means to me personally is to stay vigilant and carry an extra mag. And stay away from crowded places. ;)
 
I have already seen several articles about him. From everything I have read, good riddance. Long overdue since he's the guy that has been directly responsible for a lot of the violence in Iraq and the ME, and against our troops in particular. He is Iran's military architect and the guy in charge of their insurgency and subversion efforts in the region. That means terrorist attacks. He and the Qud's force that he leads have been on the terrorist list since 2006 if I remember one of the things I read correctly.

And honestly, no, I don't think this will cause a new generation of jihadis. Killing civilians does that. Killing the military leader of an active opposition force, of a country whose people are none too happy about their gov themselves, nah. Most there will probably say good riddance too. They don't want the ayatollah in power and guys like that keep him there.
 
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I think it's better than even odds that Iran will just back down. What can they do? There are several more levels of escalation available to Trump, and I suspect every one of them will be designed to weaken the Iranian regime. If anything at all happens over there, or here, that will be the first place we look, and I don't think Trump will be in the mood for "plausible deniability".

Oh, and I suspect that an attack on Israel would be, how do I say it? Spectacularly suicidal for that regime. They are just itching to knock out Iran's nuclear program, military, and regime. Give them an excuse and they will light up Iran like a Christmas tree. They are limited in their ability to take the initiative because it could set off others in the region, but in self defense? Don't mess with Israel. They won't let a crisis go to waste :)
 
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I think it's better than even odds that Iran will just back down. What can they do? There are several more levels of escalation available to Trump, and I suspect every one of them will be designed to weaken the Iranian regime. If anything at all happens over there, or here, that will be the first place we look, and I don't think Trump will be in the mood for "plausible deniability".

Oh, and I suspect that an attack on Israel would be, how do I say it? Spectacularly suicidal for that regime. They are just itching to knock out Iran's nuclear program, military, and regime. Give them an excuse and they will light up Iran like a Christmas tree. They are limited in their ability to take the initiative because it could set off others in the region, but in self defense? Don't mess with Israel. They won't let a crisis go to waste :)


Indeed. I don’t think this has huge impact on homeland. A $h!&hole country on other side of the world losing a rabid dog MAY cause a bit more instability in Middle East. But that place already more volatile than nitroglycerin. That’s those governments problem for most part.

largest impact will be minor troop build up if any to support Israel in its efforts to crush Iran if they dare to wake that dragon .

I see no need to concern myself with extra mags in N.C. over some dead scum in Iran. I’ll keep that pocket for sweet, delicious vape pen.mmmm
 
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Now they are playing the Benghazi game, fact is Trump was at the White House and made the decision, while World Famous JV ex POTUS BHO was in Vegas fundraising and Zero for Two Pant Suit lied about Sid Bluemthal running guns out of Benghazi.
 
Soleimani was directly responsible for planning attacks that killed 600+ us troops in Iraq from 2003-2011...his death was long, long overdue.

Pleasantly surprised to see POTUS follow through on his New Years Eve threat.
 
He needed to be taken ot.
Re jihadists, Islam makes jihadists, not anything we do. We, as a country, have know this since the day Thomas Jefferson was told by the Tripoli ambassador to England that the attacks on our merchant vessels was because we're not a Muslim nation.

And thing, the assault succeeded because Trump didn't tell Schumer or Pelosi.
Those two would have called Iran.

Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk
 
And honestly, no, I don't think this will cause a new generation of jihadis. Killing civilians does that.
Before reading your statement I was wondering what effect a 20 megaton air-blast over Tehran would have on their ability to do squat.

if we go that route we’ll probably have to rinse and repeat a few times until there’s not enough of those goat humpers left.
 
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These countries in the Middle East are never going to be stable nor cease the violence. Time is on their side. If it takes 100 years they are going to continue until they unite into one nation of power. That has always been the goal. Divided they cannot seek ruling the world under Islam.

I see a escalation of United States forces headed to the region much bigger than just the 750 that left this week. My son is in the Army and my daughters boyfriend recently finished his Ranger and Airborne training with his next month move to Fort Bragg. I see a long assignment in the Middle East for both. Frankly I’m surprised they haven’t been summoned back to their bases from vacation here in North Carolina.

I just don’t see how we can continue to spend on these conflicts without crashing the economy. I’ve always thought it was a bad idea to have constant human presence at Embassies in volatile areas. Technology and travel is too abundant to spend tens of millions at each location which have to be protected.
 
The short answer is no one knows what the impact is going to be. Of course Iran is going to rattle the sabres, it's what it does. It doesn't matter if we called Iran's mother dirty names, they would vow to go to war with us.

Long-term is where it starts to get dicey. I think right now American interests overseas and Israel are at heightened risk for attacks, and I think if you wear the American flag anywhere in the middle east you are now a target.

We will see what Iran chooses to do. Right now it is they who hold the cards. They can be reasonable and do nothing and realize that the booger-eater shouldn't have been there in the first place. That would be a win-win for everyone.

But I also think it is at least likely response.
 
I'm just over here thinking that this happened just in time to boost Neocon election numbers and distract people from the Afghanistan papers. Nothing to see here folks, move along, move along.
 
A few random thoughts:

Muslims hate us and want to end us and our way of life. Could they really hate us more? What are they going to do? Piss on us after they blow us up? Screw ‘em.

Would anyone outside of the DC Beltline care if a CIA Boss was killed organizing violent mobs and terrorist attacks in a foreign country? Would the Dems and Int’l Community mourn? Screw them all too. I don’t care what they think.

Play stupid games win stupid prizes.

So we identified, targeted and killed the head of a foreign nation’s special military unit in one perfectly planned rocket attack, but we can’t eliminate a handful of cartel bosses south of the border? Yeah, ok. o_O

Maybe I’ll have a big fat pork sandwich today in Mr. Raghead’s honor. To mourn his passing of course.
 
I'm just over here thinking that this happened just in time to boost Neocon election numbers and distract people from the Afghanistan papers. Nothing to see here folks, move along, move along.

If that’s is so then you’d have to believe that our gov’t also organized the protests and attacks on the embassy so they could make this response. So somehow the Deep State Neocons convinced Iran to send their top dog to Iraq, organize some protests and attacks on our embassy, at exactly this time so they could fire a rocket and kill that top dog to cover up the story about Afghanistan from 2 weeks ago that 99.9% of Americans don’t care about or haven’t read?

Wow, we are so screwed. Them neocons are devious MF’ers. :p
 
Wow, we are so screwed. Them neocons are devious MF’ers.

So we identified, targeted and killed the head of a foreign nation’s special military unit in one perfectly planned rocket attack, but we can’t eliminate a handful of cartel bosses south of the border? Yeah, ok. o_O

Now you're getting it!
 
Those goat humpers have been fighting each other since time begin, they will continue to fight each other when time ends. They have nothing to do but fight each other all day, every day. Russia, China and other contributory countries are going to continue to feed them just to piss us off and just to keep us busy. Nothing we do or continue to do will stop that. Israel needs to find another place to move to. They are like a flea crawling up an elephants leg with rape on its mind and are nothing but sitting frickin ducks. To be sure they are bad asses but when you're but a pimple on the ass of a hippopotamus eventually you're gonna get popped.

We need to pull the hell out and see how long the supposedly good friendly towel heads last. They need to quit building these damn taj mahal buildings in Dubai , *******indoor ski slopes and put their money and asses on the line against the bad guys. Gather up all their POS troops and pull a Cochin Reservoir against Iran and stop their bullshit.

Bring the damn kids back and wrap them all around the good old US of A because one day the subject of this book is going to get real and we're gonna have all our shit in the shit hole countries fighting pricks that have nothing to do but fight.
s-l500.jpg


Now you have to ask yourself "SELF, WHY THE HELL ARE WE STILL THERE? "SELF SAYS "FOLLOW THE MONEY." It ain't about terrorism, I call bullshit. It's about the damn oil which we have plenty of.

Rant over, you're now returned to you previously scheduled programming.
 
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Also lends credibility that the POTUS is a Zionist sympathsizer but whatevs.
That's ridiculous. I remember the chants from Trump's 2016 campaign rallies: "MOVE THE EMBASSY! MOVE THE EMBASSY! MOVE THE EMBASSY!"

So he was just fulfilling the American people's high priority of moving the American embassy to Jerusalem.
 
In case no one has been watching, we have been at war with Iran since the 1970s! When they took over our Embassy and Carter did nothing, it emboldened them to continuously try to play chicken with the US. They've had their hand in almost every terrorist activity that's been committed for the last 45 or so years! If we don't quit stomping on the ants as they look for mischief and start killing the head cheeses, this will go on forever! They send their minions out to do the dirty work and when they get smacked, no big deal. Start smacking the planners, the department heads, the heads of state that approve this terrorist activity and they'll eventually get the message!
 
That's ridiculous. I remember the chants from Trump's 2016 campaign rallies: "MOVE THE EMBASSY! MOVE THE EMBASSY! MOVE THE EMBASSY!"

So he was just fulfilling the American people's high priority of moving the American embassy to Jerusalem.
Sure thing. But now they have a coin with his head on it. Comparing him to Cyrus of Persia o_O
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...n-coin-following-us-embassy-move-to-jerusalem

We're certainly continuing to fight Israel's wars for them pretty effectively.
 
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I don’t have a crystal ball to see what will come. So before I get into the “we are going to war in the Middle East again”, I am going step back and see how it plays out. The man is the same that was responsible for the marine barracks that were bombed in the early 80’s, he is behind the recent embassy attack. I heard the Secretary of State saying that this was to sideline an imminent attack that they had intelligence for that he was planning. I for one am glad he is in front of his maker.

After the USS Cole, or the World Trade Center truck bombings if we would have eliminated Bin Laden a lot of deaths around the world (and New York), could have been prevented. Many always fault leadership for not eliminating a terrorist when we have them in our sights, same ones fault us for doing when we have the chance. We did not just cause Iran to declare war on us, they did that decades ago.


At least we aren’t giving them pallets of money.
 
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