A top Iranian military leader — Qassim Soleimani,
commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force — has been killed in an airstrike on Baghdad ordered by Donald Trump. Soleimani was an incredibly popular and powerful political figure; this is a political assassination that will inspire violent retaliation and could very well lead us into a full-scale war with Iran.
Why would Trump do this? It’s not too hard to guess — during Obama’s term Trump repeatedly charged that Obama would launch an attack on Iran for political gain, and history suggests that Trump’s accusations are almost always projections.
Trump’s only explanation for the assassination so far? He tweeted a blurry clipart US flag.
I think it’s safe to say we’re all in deep shit now.
Open thread. No trolls.
Send tips to dfutrelle at gmail dot com.
We Hunted the Mammoth relies entirely on readers like you for its survival. If you appreciate our work, please send a few bucks our way! Thanks!
It’ll be a minor god damned miracle if this doesn’t drag us all into a world war. Trump will bang the war drums to get countries like my Canada involved in this.
Not even 2 days into 2020, and this prick starts this crap.
I regret that I have already taken my daily Xanax dose limit.
What the fuck is any one of us supposed to do with this? What do we do with this?
Fuck.
I don’t see any way Trump starts a war. Don’t forget, he’s a coward.
More to the point, he is terrified of losing his reelection, and he believes, maybe rightly, that his base will not tolerate any military adventure in the Middle East.
Look at this record so far: A limp rocket attack on Syria, and a stupid retaliation raid in Iraq that I guarantee you he is already regretting. Look what happened at the embassy in Iraq. He will do little to nothing about that because he doesn’t have any idea of the players and the stakes, and he knows it. Wars are like Kryptonite to him.
He will puff and strut and spew nonsense, and that’s as far as it will go.
Something tells me it’s a good thing Andrew Scheer isn’t Canadian Prime Minister right now.
I can’t have any anger in my heart right now for trump or any other politicians that start wars they don’t intend to die in. My heart is full of to much dread and worry over my husband, my cousins, my friends, The people I love. The people that make waking ever day on this planet beautiful and worth something, and all I can see is their mangled bodies being returned to me in a box with a flag that will mean nothing to me but brokens heart, broken dreams, and death. That’s what my heart is full of right now. And it has pushed out any other feelings that might want to work their way in.
I’ve been predicting this since day one of the administration, but I’m still somehow finding it shocking.
Fuck last decade and fuck this decade too.
I don’t know what America’s relationship with Iran is these days since after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, except I think in the past they were indirectly involved in its events leading to said revolution (mainly they and the UK wanted to install the Shah for oil). I wonder if someone could give me more context here since I refuse to listen to the news. It makes me depressed and angry that I can do nothing about this repressive and violent world we live in.
“Decades” in a conceptual sense don’t necessarily neatly line up with the actual year numbers. If we’re lucky, it’s a sign that the 2010s aren’t quite over yet… though we’d be even luckier if, you know, dumb things like this didn’t keep happening because it was over. If we’re unlucky, it’s a sign that the 2020s actually started a few years earlier.
I think he already has. Iran will retaliate, the US will respond, both sides will escalate with each new step and soon we’ll be in a full scale war.
I mean, I hope that’s not what happens but I really don’t see how it could go any other way given the people in charge in each country.
@jsrtheta: I really hope you’re right.
@tim gueguen: Please explain for non-Canadians like me.
I didn’t even have ‘starts war with iran’ on my bingo card of ways to distract from impeachment. Is it possible that’s part of it too? As noted, the Syrian response was feeble – so why now why this?
There’s a theory that he often starts controversy intentionally just to distract the media and public from political goings on, which currently would be his impeachment. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, but you can’t with Trump. A complete lack of empathy just seems to explain him too well. If he wanted to go to war with Iran for the usual reasons it would have happened years ago. Though he might try to get out of it, obviously a large scale retaliation could make it hard for him to weasel his way out. Regardless of whether he is a coward, he knows he can’t let people see him as a coward. People make fun of his masculinity, small hands, cowardice, but I think many are drawn to his machismo. Moments where he backs down can also be explained by a total lack of principles and extreme shortsightedness. When the media cycle moves on, so does Trump. If he can look aggressive and tough for a moment and then quietly pull out once the moment is passed, he will do so. However there are a lot of people in both America and Iran who want war.
Damn…. is it depressing for me to confess when Trump became the president of the United States that I deep down suspected that Trump would likely, somehow, start an actual, legit war and said as much to pretty everyone that I knew at the time because I knew what kind if dingus Trump was and how dangerous it was having him in control of state and military affairs, among other problems?
Because… I feel beleaguered of the fact that I will have to be the guy who now have to tell everyone in my social circle that: “well I called it didn’t I”: and not being happy at all about it.
*Sigh* But alas: I called it. And not even 3 day’s into the new year of 2020 either.
Time for another SNAFU day of the same stuff in a brand new FUBAR year in the making.
To all the lovely Mammothers holding the line; Stay Frosty.
Jamie, Chretien wisely kept Canada out of Bush’s1 Iraq War. And Trudeau has no incentive to follow Trump. Trump has insulted and alienated all the NATO allies.
But many innocent civilians may be murdered in terrorist attacks in the states.it could explode in unexpected directions. Hell, and my family lives less than 1/2 hour from the border. Not good.
Personalpest- Scheer was the wanna-be conservative Canadian version of Trump, (minus the frontotemporal dementia which makes it worse somehow) who lost in the last federal Canadian election last fall to Justin Trudeau. He was the kind of nit who would have joined Trump’s crusade. Whatever his faults, like blackface at parties before social awareness, Trudeau isn’t that much of an idiot.
Now maybe John Bolton won’t testify against Trump.
War with Iran won’t be popular in the UK, but that won’t stop Boris Johnson being a reliable poodle and doing whatever the US wants.
The fact it might start a war and the fact it’s probably for electoral gain make it a bad idea regardless of any other factors.
That being said, the guy who died was a PoS that is better dead. He is among the rare person I would mourn even less than Trump. (and Trump dying would similarly provoke a war).
Is that a consolation for the hundred of thousand iranian civilian and the hundred or thousand of US soldier that will likely die because of that ? Well, not really.
Will the death of that specific PoS help anything ? Probably not. I mean, maybe his successor will be less competent, but I can’t see him being any less bloodthirsty.
In short, a very bad news, but even more badder because it’s Trump.
This in from Reuters
Iraq will hold an emergency parliament session on Saturday to discuss the US airstrike in Baghdad that killed Iran’s top military commander and Iraqi officials, Reuters reports.
Iraq’s deputy parliament speaker, Hassan al-Kaabi, said it is time to put an end to US recklessness and arrogance, adding that Saturday’s session will be dedicated to taking “decisive decisions that put an end to U.S. presence inside Iraq.”
The outgoing prime minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi had called for an emergency session, saying the US presence in Iraq is limited to training forces to fight terrorism. He described the attack that killed Qassem Soleimani and the Iraqi officials a “violation” of conditions for the US troop presence.
So some of the commentators in the military and security field are suggesting that Iran might just sit still, let Iraq throw out the US troops, and thus consolidate Iran’s hold on the region.
@Alan Roberstshaw : make sense. Realistically, Iran have 0 actual chance to repel an American invasion, so unless Russia or China want a world war, they have better to exploit this for PR but not poke the bear too much.
Whether Russia and/or China want a world war is another topic. I think they don’t.
I’m also a bit worried that MAGA chuds statewide are going to use this as an excuse for violent terrorism against anyone who opposes the war. Imagine the whole “love it or leave it” thing but with more open fascists.
Iran is Russia’s ally, though. I’m sure Putin will yank on Trump’s leash before he goes too far.
@ ohlmann
Indeed; but now it might be that the US lose Iraq at least as a forward assembly area.
And I suppose it’s appropriate to recycle this old one…
Ohlman: Looking at Iraq, I would say that Iran has a very high chance of repelling a US invasion if you are looking at it on a longer time scale. Sure the US can bomb Iran all it wants but invading and occupying the country is a very different prospect.
Just been chatting to a friend who works in the region and has a bit of an expertise and local knowledge. She says it’s a real dilemma for Iraq. There’s a growing possibility of a ‘Persian Spring’; fuelled to an extent by the relationship between the current Iraq Govt and the presence of US forces. But the Govt needs certain US assets because of something that’s brewing in Kirkuk and Anbar.
But she thinks that face saving might win the day so the Iraq govt may feel compelled to publicly stand up to the US (whatever happened behind the scenes).
@Alan Robertshaw
What if there was a war in public view but it was all orchestrated, and behind the scenes there was an agreement and no real war? It sounds very Orwellian, in an “Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia” sense.