US threaten Iran with pre-emptive strike

What was that other Trump quote? About how Iran had never won a war? That'd warm the cockles of anti-regime Iranians, for sure.

Some of those cultural sites

I'd like to visit Isfahan in a free Iran pic.twitter.com/jIA2ntwBQ1

— David Frum (@davidfrum) January 4, 2020

i need to look this up again, but i think the iraqis killed alongside soleimani were some of the shia militia leaders responsible for retaking mosul from ISIS. the past several weeks had seen iraqis protesting -- and getting killed by! -- their own government and the influence of iran for the rotten state of life, and now that dynamic has completely changed

xp you could have picked a better person to link from lol

I know who I linked it from

seems bad!

پاسخ کاربران ایرانی به انتشار تصویر پرچم آمریکا توسط ترامپ. pic.twitter.com/fWU2jVkSxL

— روزنامه ایران (@IranNewspaper) January 6, 2020

About how Iran had never won a war?

Idle curiosity with be the death of my free time:

Iraqi Civil War (2014–2017), Syrian Civil War (2011–present), Iraq War (2003–2011), Dhofar Rebellion (1963–1976), Iran-Azerbaijan Crisis (1945–1946), Persian invasion of Georgia (1795), Nadir Shah's invasion of India (1738–1739), Afsharid–Ottoman War of 1730, Russo-Persian War of 1651, Mughal–Safavid War of 1649, Mughal–Safavid War of 1622, Ottoman–Safavid War of 1603, Persian-Uzbek Wars (1502–1510), Campaigns of Timur (1380–1402), Byzantine–Seljuq wars (1048–1308), Second Perso-Turkic War (588–589), First Perso-Turkic War (588–589), Ethiopian–Persian Wars (570–578), Seleucid–Parthian Wars (238 BC–129 BC), Battle of Pelusium (343 BC), Revolt of the Satraps (372–362 BC), Corinthian War (395–387 BC), Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), Conquest of Egypt (525 BC), Conquest of Babylonia (540–539 BC), Conquest of Lydia (547 BC).

They punch about their weight class.

Well do I remember that Ken Burns documentary about the 4th century Battle of Pelusium

To answer my question (mostly to myself) above:

Juan Cole:

What Trump did was give the pious Shiites of Iran and Iraq a martyr, and folk artists are already depicting Soleimani at Karbala

ZenPundit:
The martyr Soleimani embraced by Imam Hussein
https://zenpundit.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Soleimani-embraced-by-Imam-Husein-731x1024.jpg

i think for the iranians there is only one adequate answer to the murder but i doubt they will be able to give it.

Claims that the funeral crowds in #Iran are forced into the streets betray a basic lack of understanding of Iran. I lived in Iran for 3 yrs, and I did see the state occasionally corral ppl into rallies, but not on this level. That’s impossible. The grief/anger is real

— Sune Engel Rasmussen (@SuneEngel) January 6, 2020

a Persian friend of mine told me today that lots of people he knows who have been protesting or totally opposed to the Iranian regime have also been outraged by the killing of Soleimani, even with Soleimani's record of shutting down protests

in short, Soleimani was a man of contrasts

in short, Iran is not, like so many others, a synthetic nation cobbled together by colonialist powers, but a proud people with a long history and complex culture, and when they are attacked, they unite.

Not to mention mocked and goaded by possibly the biggest moron to lead a nation since some inbred Hapsburg from back in the day.

Iranians, please don't assassinate Trump until he is out of office and disgraced. Then be discrete. The last thing we need is a moron martyr cult.

They should blow up Petraeus

New Yorker, 2013:

In a report to the White House, Petraeus wrote that Suleimani was “truly evil.” Yet at times the two men were all but negotiating. According to diplomatic cables revealed by WikiLeaks, Petraeus sent messages through Iraqi officials to Suleimani, asking him to call off rocket attacks on the American Embassy and on U.S. bases. In 2008, the Americans and the Iraqi Army were pressing an offensive against the Mahdi Army—Moqtada al-Sadr’s Shiite militia—and, in retribution, the militia was bombarding the Green Zone regularly. Suleimani, who sensed a political opening, sent Petraeus a message lamenting the situation and saying that he had assigned men to apprehend the attackers. Petraeus replied, “I was born on a Sunday, but it wasn’t last Sunday.” Eventually, Suleimani brokered a ceasefire between Sadr and the government.

Bibi's response to the assassination is really interesting. I wonder if Pompeo and Pence kinda know that they fucked up.

well, yeah

Urgent law for designation of the US army as a terror organization has just approved by the Islamic Consultative Assembly (Iranian parliament)

Translation to follow.. pic.twitter.com/gbqXLYKt6j

— Aleph ᴼⁿ ᴴⁱᵍʰ ᴬˡᵉʳᵗ 🕯️ א (@no_itsmyturn) January 7, 2020

#BREAKING Iraq PM confirms received US 'withdrawal' draft letter Monday pic.twitter.com/yfr4UqCpgo

— AFP news agency (@AFP) January 7, 2020

We evaluated the relevant risks and the opportunity that we thought might present itself at some point,” he said Tuesday, naming the massacre in Syria and violence in Lebanon and Iraq as Soleimani’s handiwork.

“We know what happened at the end of last year in December, ultimately leading to the death of an American,” he continued. “So if you’re looking for imminence, you need look no further than the days that led up to the strike that was taken against Soleimani and then you, in addition to that which we could clearly see, have continuing efforts on behalf of this terrorist to build out a network of campaign activities that were going to lead potentially to the death of many more Americans.”

Sorry. “He” is Pompeo, describing the imminent threat that led to the assasination.

Pompeo should start slipping “...you fucking dumbasses...” into his official statements

Is there still a debate happening regarding whether Iranians are faking their outrage about all this? The people who got trampled to death at his funeral were very convincing actors

crisis actors

what do you think it proves that 50 ppl were trampled to death????

Pompeo is really fucking hard to watch, that condescending smirk just begs to be punched.

50 people trampled to death as a result of millions of people trying to crowd their way closer to the funeral procession. Um, it proves to me that popular Iranian outrage about the assasination is not a state-sponsored propaganda campaign.

Makes sense. If Iran assasinates Espy I’m pretty sure a lot of Americans would be viscerally angry.

It’s barely a whole decade since the green revolution protests and people turned out en masse despite state violence against them...I don’t understand the logic of thinking Iranians need to be paid to protest, and as I said yesterday it’s the principle. I’d probably want to protest myself if the US did that to a fellow citizen, and they’re not threatening to bomb Ireland anytime soon!

there are some key American figures I wouldn't mind testing this hypothesis out with, just to be sure

I don't know, real or no, decades of "Death to America!" has kind of inured me to Iranian outrage. The fact that (reportedly) anti-American billboards were put up after the assassination shows that the Iranian government is not exactly letting this play out on a strictly grassroots level. I do assume a good portion of that country does not see themselves in these protests/riots/funerals, etc., but I have no idea what they're thinking right now or how they would show it.

Secretary of Defense Mark Esper to @camanpour: “We are not looking to start a war with Iran, but we are prepared to finish one" pic.twitter.com/16tlfOX4fS

— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) January 7, 2020

Just like we finished the hell out of that war in Afghanistan!

when we the last time we even actually finished a war?

was

I don't know, real or no, decades of "Death to America!" has kind of inured me to Iranian outrage.

whenever i get inured to the outrage i try to remember that they had a democratically elected leader who was overthrown in a CIA/MI6 coup in 1953 so that we could instead install a stooge who would ensure the profits of BP for another 25 years. trying to imagine the US would react to that kind of event, seems like we'd be pretty angry about it for a while

when by chance the VERY SAME COUNTRY murders one of the leaders of the country, 67 years later, it's not hard for me to imagine people being angry. i'm sure someone will find an article indicating that a portion of the crowd is deeply connected to the deep state of iran or whatever, but it is very, very easy to imagine the real outrage among the rest of the country, and i don't feel that i need to "prove" something that is very obvious

Mark Esper looks like a guy trampled on many times in high school.

An old saw, I know, but I highly promote the notion of airdropping these telephone tough guys right on to the front lines of whatever conflict their words help foment. Let's see how macho you can be when your jaw gets ripped off by shrapnel, dickhole.

xxp sure but you can’t effectively leverage what’s not there! Pretty sure decades of American policy towards Iran did that job already. You don’t have to be a hard liner to think the actions of the US wrt flight 655 were despicable.

“We are not looking to start a war with Iran, but we are prepared to finish one"

When people imitate Hollywood characters in the belief that this is how real people are supposed to talk.

Like that’s going to be in living memory for lots more people than the overthrow of the Shah, and the captain was awarded medals ffs. 290 civilians dead, 66 of whom children, nothing amounting to an outright apology. It’s not abstract.

xp

some real people do talk like that (or at least hold views that align with that)! i guess i'm just thinking of people like macarthur.

reading a history of the Korean War right now, and it's interesting how often, on all sides of the conflict, everyone thought it would be a very quick and easy war

xp:
Its a slogan for domestic consumption. Slogans work, whether they're Deutchland uber alles or al-mawt li-ʾamrīkā or make America great again. Repeated often enough, they remodel default mode networks.

Before the Soleimani assassination, Iran was beset with domestic unrest over reductions in fuel subsidies (yes, that's just the proximate cause), with riot and political police killing hundreds. Iran's rulers don't have to worry about that for some time now that the U.S. has gifted them with an external locus for their anger.

reading a history of the Korean War right now, and it's interesting how often, on all sides of the conflict, everyone thought it would be a very quick and easy war

― But guess what? Nobody gives a toot!😂 (Karl Malone), Tuesday, January 7, 2020 1:27 PM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

See also: every war ever, conducted by people who apparently failed to read up on every prior war.

i wonder if Judith Miller read any of her old shit

Yeah, flight 655 matters a lot. The west was pretty clearly on the side of Iraq as well in the eighties, which was pretty despicable as well.

Whether it was 'despicable' depends on the measurements you are using. From the POV of western morality, there was no side to favor in the Iran-Iraq War, but in terms of pragmatic politics, it was obvious that the west would favor Iraq and would do so no matter how many times you ran that scenario.

the west was just happy for it to keep going, with most major western countries supplying both sides at some stage