On Friday night Jan 3, 2020, President Trump directed a successful strike killing IRGC Commander Gen. Qassem Soleiman at the Baghdad International Airport. Four AGM-114N Metal Augmented Charge (MAC) Thermobaric Hellfire missiles launched from an General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper turned Soleiman’s SUV and his accompanying security SUV into funeral pyres. [1]
See full story at this Daily Mail link:
Some in the media have compared this strike to Operation Vengeance, the American military operation to kill Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto of the Imperial Japanese Navy on April 18, 1943.
The Trump Administration drone strike was in fact far more consequential than Operation Vengeance. If only because of how much more of the IRGC Quds force senior chain of command were eliminated compared to the Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto strike. And how much more important Gen. Qassem Soleiman was to Iran than Yamamoto was to Imperial Japan.
Also killed in the strike were Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis also known as Jamal Jafaar Mohammed Ali Āl Ebrahim, the commander of the Iraqi Shia Kata’ib Hezbollah militia and mastermind behind the December 1983 bomb attacks on U.S. and French embassies in Kuwait.
In additional to Soleiman and al-Muhandis/Āl Ebrahim, also killed were IRGC Brigadier General Hussein Jafari Nia, Major-General Hadi Taremi, LTC. Shahroud Mozaffari Nia and Captain Waheed Zamanian. Nor does the list end there as senior pro-Iranian Iraqi Shia PMF militia leaders Heydar Ali, Muhammed Reza al-Jaberi and Hassan Abdul Hadi, were in the second SUV struck by one of four AGM-114N Hellfire guided missiles fired by the MQ-9 Reaper.
IRAN’S RED NAPOLEON
IRGC Commander Gen. Qassem Soleiman was to Iran what Heinrich Himmler, Gen Oberst Kurt Daluege, Gen Ernst Kaltenbrunner and Gen Sepp Dietrich were to Nazi Germany, all rolled into one.
In many ways Gen. Qassem Soleiman ran Iran’s foreign policy and strategy as principal adviser to the theocratic leadership. Soleiman made his bones in the 1990’s suppressing Iranian student riots in the style of Belisarius and the Nika riots. Post 9/11/2001, he has been orchestrating the killings of US service personnel, is the architect Iran’s proxy forces in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yeman and ran covert ops forces world wide.
In fact, Gen. Qassem Soleiman was Iran’s “Red Napoleon.”
The idea of “The Red Napoleon” came from the 1929 novel of that name by Floyd Gibbons predicting a Soviet conquest of Europe and invasion of America by The Red Napoleon’s massive multi-racial army. Written as a screed against white racial supremacy, the concept in the Western Left of a 3rd World military leader who could routinely defeat the West over and over again the same way that General and later French Emperor Bonaparte Napoleon did to the leaders of Western Europe in the late 18th and early 19th century has hung on in the Left’s Noosphere [2] in the decades since.
If anyone was a “Red Napoleon” in the 21st century, Gen. Qassem Soleiman was that man.
Gen. Qassem Soleiman was a man from the 3rd World. One who had created and lead a team in the form of the Quds Force that had killed American servicemen in their hundreds, for decades, got a pair of US Navy riverine command boat crews to surrender in humiliation to support Pres. Obama’s “Opening to Iran” and executed both the Benghazi, Libya and Baghdad, Iraq embassy assaults.
And Pres. Trump just sent Iran’s “Red Napoleon” to “…meet the Reaper.”
.
Please see the Trump Administration’s annihilation of the mercenaries hired by Vladimir Putin’s preferred private military contractor, The Wagner Group, near Khasham, Deir ez-Zor Governorate, Syria on 7–8 February 2018:
“How That Massive Battle Between US Troops And Russian Mercenaries In Syria Went Down”
Jared Keller May 25, 2018
https://taskandpurpose.com/russian-mercenaries-syria-firefight
What others saw as an “asymmetrical threat” of Russian nuclear power lurking behind uniformed mercenary “Little Green Men.” President Trump saw as as an opportunity to kill hundreds of “deniable” Russians mercenaries, because Vladimir Putin’s Russia was not strong enough to back up the play with Russian national forces.
And so it proved.
That no one -ELSE- learned that asymmetrical warfare favored the strong you can mark down to this Upton Sinclair quote:
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
The whole asymmetrical warfare favored the weak con job came from a class of post-Cold War political sycophant known as military analysts who have made a career with that gig. It was a very useful excuse for empty suits of two varieties: 1. Incompetent military flag ranks scamming to avoid getting fired for their incompetence and 2. National politicians who want to avoid British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain-like accountability for taking the council of their fears.
The bottom line for Pres. Trump since February 2018 is that anyone uniformed or civilian from the DoD or national intelligence agencies who peddles the asymmetrical warfare favored the weak concept is removed from serious policy consideration as an obviously incompetent clown.
Case in point of asymmetrical warfare favored the strong is the current Iran versus USA conflict.
The Mullah’s strength’s are the unearned income of it’s oil tick economy and it’s reputation as Evil Terrorist Bastids.
President Trump’s strategy vis a vis’ Iran is pure Asymmetric Warfare aimed at destroying Iran’s oil tick economy via effective economic and monetary sanctions and ruining it’s leadership’s reputation as Evil Terrorist Bastids at home and abroad.
The very publicly humiliating annihilation of the Quds Force leader AND HIS SENIOR COMMAND TEAM in Baghdad checks that leadership reputation box.
The Mullah’s ain’t got nuthin’ in terms of military power versus the American military. And any Iranian domestic US terrorist/assassination 9/11/2001 class strike will make Trump more powerful.
As in, does Iran really want to kill a lot of it’s ex-Obama Administration contacts in DC — because those are the most powerful American politicians the Quds Force can most easily reach, thanks to their surveillance during the Obama Nuclear Deal negotiations — and give President Trump the justified by events excuse to fire the entire Deep State leadership cadre in the DoJ, FBI, CIA and elsewhere for incompetence?
They just might.
THE IRRATIONAL REGIME UNDER PRESSURE HYPOTHESIS
During the economic siege President Trump started via the repudiation of the Obama Administration “Nuclear Deal,” Iranian behavior has fit the classic “Irrational regimes become more so under pressure” hypothesis in action.
The basic concept of the hypothesis is that for certain unstable regimes (or even stable ones with no effective means of resolving internal disputes peacefully, particularly the succession of power) domestic power games are far more important than anything foreign, and that foreigners are only symbols to use in domestic factional fights.
As external pressure mounts, Irrational/Nutball regimes become more so under pressure. What you saw with last summer’s “Limpet Mine Tanker War” and the recent US Embassy attack in Baghdad’s Green zone are the externals of the internal mullah factional power games of “Who can be more nutball than thou” to gain more short term power without regards to external reality.
“Nutball” in this case meaning “Attack the Great Satan” to show you are more daring, militant, and blessed by Allah. Thus deserving of power, money and followers inside the Iranian mullahocracy.
And Pres. Trump’s public humiliation of Iran by killing the head of Iran’s Quds force has just dropped a Thermobaric Mjornir of outside pressure on the Mullah’s collective heads.
“They’re all treacherous corrupt ass wipes who the USA should have as little to do with as possible, and the only affordable means of preventing them from hurting us is to get American forces out of the Middle East and let them butcher each other. Stay in Afghanistan with only the minimum forces to keep it from being used again as a base from which to attack us at home.”
THAT is where Pres. Trump headed with this. He has talked about it when he mentions American fracking based energy independence.
Pres. Trump is taking the USA out of the Middle East, now that the Soleiman Drone Strike has proven that even people who owe us the most in terms of lives and treasure — Iraq’s Democratically elected Shia leadership — will turn on us. Because in the end, they’re all as irrational as Iran, as well as being treacherous corrupt ass wipes besides.
- Iraq wasn’t a terrorist supporting failed state at the end of Pres. George W. Bush’s presidency.
- It was after President Obama’s
- And Iran has been at war with America continually and uninterrupted for the last 40 years.
- So what does that make the Obama Democrats?
-End-
.
Notes:
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[1] Photos of the damage to the SUV’s in the UK Daily article were not consistent with either the Hellfire’s armor piercing shaped charge or its anti-ship high explosive warhead with a fragmentation sleeve. This left the enhanced blast AGM-114N warhead as the only possible cause of the damage seen.
.
[2] The Noonosphere is the whole huge realm of ideas that are current and moving around from person to person. See the history of the concept here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noosphere
These are IRGC Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani song lyrics forever more:
Blue Oyster Cult – (Don’t Fear) The Reaper 1976 [Studio Version
All our times have come
Here but now they’re gone
Seasons don’t fear the reaper
Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain
We can be like they are
Come on baby… Don’t fear the Reaper
Baby take my hand… Don’t fear the Reaper
We’ll be able to fly… Don’t fear the Reaper
Baby I’m your man…
Valentine is done
Here but now they’re gone
Romeo and Juliet
Are together in eternity…
Romeo and Juliet
40,000 men and women everyday… Like Romeo and
Juliet
40,000 men and women everyday… Redefine
happiness
Another 40,000 coming everyday…We can be like
they are
Come on baby… Don’t fear the Reaper
Baby take my hand… Don’t fear the Reaper
We’ll be able to fly… Don’t fear the Reaper
Baby I’m your man…
Love of two is one
Here but now they’re gone
Came the last night of sadness
And it was clear she couldn’t go on
The door was open and the wind appeared
The candles blew and then disappeared
The curtains flew then he appeared
Saying don’t be afraid
Come on baby… And she had no fear
And she ran to him… Then she started to fly
she looked backward and said goodbye
she had become like they are
she had taken his hand
she had become like they are
Come on baby…don’t fear the reaper
For myself, when I consider General Soleiman, I think of how his people refined and perfected IEDs and mines; how all those disabled soldiers owe their VA disability pensions, and Gold Star families owe their SGLI payouts to him.
As Tom Lehrer sang of another technological innovator:
“Some have harsh words for this man of renown
But some think our attitude
Should be one of gratitude
Like the widows and cripples in old London town
Who owe their large pensions to Wernher von Braun.”
Reuters ran a decent report of General Qassem Soleimani plans using Iraqi sources here:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-security-soleimani-insight/inside-the-plot-by-irans-soleimani-to-attack-u-s-forces-in-iraq-idUSKBN1Z301Z
Asymmetric warfare does favor the weak side as long as the strong side limits itself to “proportionate” response. This allows the chance that the weak side can outlast the resolve of the strong where a direct confrontation would be instantly fatal.
Someone lobed a couple of mortar shells in the general direction of the embassy. A proportionate response, if it wasn’t ignored, might be to use a cruise missile to take out something minor in Iran. This could continue indefinitely with the inevitably outcry and hand wringing in the MSM until it petered out for now with no lasting damage to the mullahs. On the other hand, taking out Tehran’s electrical grid would cause few casualties and be fairly easy. It would also provide a years long reminder of forgetting who has the aircraft carriers and who has to use speed boats.
The only advantage that Iran has is what we give them.
Sgt. Mom:
My IMMEDIATE reaction upon reading this was to hear Tom Lehrer’s “Werner Von Braun” in my mind. Lo and behold, that was exactly what you next referred to! :)
BTW, my brother-in-law emigrated as a child from Germany, courtesy of his stepfather being one of the Operation Paperclip engineers. I am told his stepfather knew Werner Von Braun. He worked on jets, not on rockets, so his acquaintance w Von Braun was not extensive.
Assassination as policy raises all sorts of ponderables.
Bluntly, however, I sort of favor a paradigm where the evil leaders die while the myriads of grunts get to live. Cannot fathom how the big high muckety mucks in Iran are not having to squelch their meditating on what routes to take to their next Kill the Great Satan meeting.
On the other hand, I can visualize how death from the sky might make a people unhappy even if it took out no more than the leaders that they themselves didn’t like.
I was 17 when the US embassy in Tehran was invaded. I watched as our then Oval Office occupant, dhimmicarter, and his fellow democrats bend over to the iranian thugs. I’ve waited 40 years for the events in 1979 to be dealt with appropriately, and while this is a step in the right direction, it’s still no where near enough.
It’s been widely reported that John F’n Kerry has openly met with Iranian officials, to advise them on how to oppose Trump, which makes it almost certain that Rice, Rhodes, etc., have done the same, which makes one wonder why the Iranians are so stupid–they could get more insight into the Donald by reading this comment section than by talking to those jokers. So here’s some free tips:
– Trump really wants to be able to campaign on not having started any new wars, and having ended the ones he inherited. But don’t confuse this with weakness:
– killing Americans is not going to be tolerated.
– attacking an embassy in a way to be reminiscent of Benghazi, or Tehran, is going to unleash hell like you can’t possibly imagine.
Obama used “the Chicago Way” against his domestic political opponents, because that’s who he viewed as his real enemy. Trump does so against America’s enemies. Capisce?
Iran has threatened to take out 35 American targets in vengeance for Soleimani. President Trump says he will take out one Iranian target for each hostage from the 1977 Embassy invasion [52]. Today the Mullahs hoisted a red flag over the main dome of Jamkaran Mosque calling for vengeance against the US.
Iran ain’t that big. Jamkaran Mosque itself is one of the major points. Quickie summary of Iranian Islam. They are the major bastion of Shia Islam. There were 11 ruling Imams, all direct descendants of Mohammed. The 12th Imam supposedly did not die [in the battles over who was going to run Islam], but was “Occluded” in 868 CE and will someday return as the Mahdi kicking butt and not bothering with names. He is “Occluded” in a well behind the Mosque. The Mosque and the well are arguably the holiest sites in Shia Islam other than the Mecca shrines.
There are rumors that I am not a nice person, but it strikes me that if you are going for the 52 most important sites in Iran, the Mosque and well are probably right up there. Whatever means is used to take them out, one would assume that some consideration of incorporating pig blood would be included.
Subotai Bahadur
Murder, pure and simple.
I wonder where the crowd opposing this was when Obama killed bin Laden? Perhaps I am a bit cynical;, but do the “right” leaders have to perform a similar deed to get their approval?
Interesting comparison to Yamamoto (as an aside I visited the Pacific War Museum in Fredricksburg TX a few weeks – excellent).
Yamamoto was certainly a huge asset to the IJN, although his Midway plans didn’t pan out so well ;-)
Was Soleimani that critical to the regime or is there someone equally talented to take his place?
I was thinking to have the balls to fly into Iraq meant he had something big planned.
BTW I heard something I thought funny today: Advice to the Iranians – Trump is volatile and unpredictable – best to send $150 Billion to him on pallets to see if that will calm him down.
This is the Iraqi political background for the assassination of General Soleimani.
Soleimani had “secretly” visited Iraq while Trump has been President and Trump — on the advice of all the foreign policy & National Security usual
suspects — had withheld the shot.
The Baghdad Embassy attack was the last straw as far as listening to the “Usual Suspects.”
No more Mr Nice American. It’s now all “Bad American” all the time.
https://www.strategypage.com/qnd/iran/articles/20191205.aspx
Iraq
General Soleimani, head of the IRGC Quds Force is in Iraq, along with senior Hezbollah commander Mohammad Kawtharani, who is helping pro-Iran Iraqi militias create an Iraqi Hezbollah, are working together to persuade key Iraqi factions to back a pro-Iran politician to replace Adil Abdul Mahdi, who was a compromise candidate when he became Iraqi prime minister in October 2018. Mahdi has worked with Iran in the past but as prime minister was considered wary of Iranian influence and intentions. In an effort to gain more public support he sought to move government offices outside the Green Zone and directly address corruption issues. Mahdi had to deal with an increasingly nationalist and anti-Iran parliament. This reflected growing public anger at Iranian meddling.
Overall Iran considered the elevation of Mahdi as a defeat and that proved to be the case when Mahdi was unable to deal with the recent anti-corruption and anti-Iran protests. Soleimani and Kawtharani are hustling to find enough Iraqi leaders who are pro-Iran or for hire to back a new, even more, pro-Iran prime minister. The task is proving difficult as is finding willing and effective allies. A major problem is that Iran is seen as weak and beset on all sides by enemies who oppose Iran and do so for good reason. Decades of dirty deeds and trying to be a badass have not made Iran very popular or feared in the region. Iran is seen as its own worst enemy and prone to actions that harm other nations. Wars against Saudi Arabia, America and Israel are seen as particularly foolish because these three nations are the three most powerful in the region. Iran should be more powerful than Saudi Arabia, as it was before the 1979 revolution. But since the humiliating stalemate ending of the 1980s war with Iraq, Iran has been regarded as a has-been trying to make a comeback. For the Quds Force and Hezbollah commanders, this is a matter of life and death because if the Iranian government is overthrown it will be over the dead bodies of guys like Soleimani and Kawtharani.
The Iraq anti-corruption demonstrations have, since October 1st, left nearly 400 dead and over 18,000 injured. The protest is not just about corruption but also the Iranian efforts to control Iraq and exploit the rampant Iraqi corruption to do so. Protestors consider the current government crippled by politicians who are pro-Iran or have been bribed to do what Iran wants. Both the Iraqi and Iranian governments were caught by surprise at the size, ferocity and persistence of the protests. This eventually included the most senior Iraqi Shia clerics backing the protestors, which was a major embarrassment for the senior Iranian Shia clerics, who have been running Iran since the 1980s and had hoped to persuade their Iraqi colleagues to adopt the same system. The Iraqi Shia clerics considered the idea after the Sunni dictatorship and Saddam Hussein was overthrown in 2003, but gradually realized that this form of religious dictatorship wasn’t working in Iran and was definitely not going to work in Iraq. The Iraqi Shia clerics tried to explain to their Iranian peers that Iraqi Shia were eager to worship together with other Shia, including Iranians, but were generally opposed to Iranian politics or political control. A growing number of Iranian clergy understand and accept that. But the Shia clergy who still control the Iranian government refuses to accept that reality, despite the fact that a growing number of Iranians are out in the streets protesting the religious dictatorship running Iran into the ground.
While the current unrest in Iraq is mainly about corruption, there is also an anti-Iran undertone. The Iranians have taken advantage of many corrupt government officials in Iraq. In fact, Iranian “advisors” rely on corrupt Iraqi officials to survive and thrive. For this reason, one thing the rioters and the government could agree on was how important it was to retain American troops in Iraq. This would discourage Iran from trying to take over the government by force. Iran already has a lot of influence in the Iraqi government. For example at the end of October the head of the Iranian Quds Force, general Soleimani flew to Baghdad and presided over a meeting of senior Iraqi officials on how to deal with the growing violence. Soleimani was there to show Iraqi officials how Iran had suppressed similar mass protests in Iran.
Soleimani did not reveal any details to the media. That would have been interesting because the situation in Iran is quite different. For example, Iraq is a democracy while Iran is a religious dictatorship pretending to be a democracy. Moreover, Iran has a “royal guard” force in the IRGC, which Quds is a part of. While Quds specializes in disrupting or controlling foreign governments, most of the IRGC personnel exist to prevent the Iranian armed forces or the Iranian people from overthrowing the religious dictatorship. Iraq is a democracy and there is nothing similar to the IRGC. If there were, such a force would be very unpopular because it would remind many Iraqi Shia of the Saddam Hussein era Republican Guard. This was a carefully recruited and well-paid force of Sunni Arab troops whose primary job was to keep the majority (80 percent who are not Sunni Arab) from taking control. Quds has been trying to create an Iraqi IRGC in the form of pro-Iran PMF (Popular Mobilization Force) militias. That has backfired as many Iraqis in the Iran-backed PMF brigades have changed their minds about supporting Iran. A growing number of Iraqis are convinced that most of the protestors killed were murdered by Iranians or pro-Iranian PMF members. Time and again the killings are carried out either by snipers (which Quds is a big fan of) or groups of uniformed masked gunmen firing on protestors. PMF members wear military uniforms while the masks and killing demonstrators are a Quds thing.
Iraqi elections and opinion polls document how Iran is losing support in Iraq and the Iranians are desperate to turn that around and will do dangerous things as part of that effort. Iraqi government efforts to stop the verbal threats to American facilities and forces as well as the actual violence are hampered by the fact that while a shrinking minority of Iraqis support Iran, those supporters still occupy key political and security force jobs. This is why the army was accused of opening fire on protestors although most Iraqis believe the shooters were pro-Iran PMF, who also wear army uniforms.
The entire PMF is seen as another form of corruption and that was confirmed when the 2019 military budget was announced and showed a quarter of the budget was going to the PMF, which is supposed to be part of the army but still answers to the Interior Minister rather than the Defense Ministry. Iran also “owns” many Iraqi politicians. This loyalty is obtained via bribes, threats and a shrinking element of belief in the value of Iran having a lot of control over Iraqi affairs.
Iran and the Quds Force faces a similar problem in Lebanon. There, Hezbollah enjoys the allegiance of fewer and fewer Lebanese. The core Hezbollah support is the Shia minority (normally about a third of the population) and some political allies in the form of Christian factions. Thanks to the influx of so many Syrian Sunni Arabs since 2011, the Sunnis in Lebanon are no longer dwarfed by the Shia numbers. The violence Iran brought to Syria and support of the hated (by most Lebanese) Assad dictatorship created record levels of anti-Hezbollah and anti-Iran attitudes. That is demonstrated weekly by large and loud anti-Iran demonstrations. General Soleimani has been spending a lot of time in Lebanon as well. There he confers mainly with Hezbollah leaders because most Lebanese politicians want nothing to do with Quds or Iran.
Soleimani tends to offer the same advice in both Lebanon and Iraq; if persuasion or threats don’t work, anonymously open fire and keep shooting, especially at known or suspected leaders, until the unrest subsides. That often works in a police state, which Iran is, but not so much in democracies, which Iraq and Lebanon are. You can see why Iran opposes true democracy. Iran has a democracy but there is a group of senior clerics who can veto anything the Iranian parliament tries to do and even block “unsuitable” Iranians seeking to run for office.
This kind of “I worry about dying before I get even,” Bad American.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-bad-american/
The thing to remember in the coming round of Iranian retaliation is the Iranians have never had to run the life or death evolutionary “Red Queen’s Race” that made Al Qaeda and ISIS the very adept organizations they became because they survived.
Iran’s Quds Force didn’t have to be because American political leaders cr@@ed their pant’s thinking about striking Iran.
Iran has faced good people and great intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance in Syria versus Israel…
…but orders of magnitude mean things.
American ISR and counter terrorism forces have also run the full Red Queen’s Race as well as Al Qaeda and ISIS since 2001.
Iran has not.
That makes Iran relative dilettantes versus an unleashed American military ISR & Counter terrorism capability. As General Soleimani’s assassination just proved.
Iran “going low” is playing their weakness against American strength – watch for more strategic mistakes.
“in the coming round of Iranian retaliation”
Yawn. Right now the mullahs are crapping their pants wondering what the heck happened–the Americans weren’t supposed to act like this, they never have before, what’s going on? They don’t know the new rules, so how can they know what to do next?
There are no words that can describe the belly laugh’s I’m having with this.
OH MY G-D!
HE TOOK OUR ADVICE!
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/04/us/politics/trump-suleimani.html?campaign_id=60&instance_id=0&segment_id=20060&user_id=9dd6fcf6f1c3f4b931d23ae27eca1120®i_id=60523885
PenGun never fails to get it wrong.
The strategy session, which has not been previously reported, came as mass protests against Iran’s growing influence in Iraq were gaining momentum, putting the Islamic Republic in an unwelcome spotlight. Soleimani’s plans to attack U.S. forces aimed to provoke a military response that would redirect that rising anger toward the United States, according to the sources briefed on the gathering, Iraqi Shi’ite politicians and government officials close to Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi.
This was so obvious. We struck the leader, not the grunts. Roy Kerns had it right.
Bluntly, however, I sort of favor a paradigm where the evil leaders die while the myriads of grunts get to live. Cannot fathom how the big high muckety mucks in Iran are not having to squelch their meditating on what routes to take to their next Kill the Great Satan meeting.
What if we had assassinated Assad five years ago ? Jerry Ford was the one (I think) who ruled out assassination as a military tactic. The only case where we seem to have done it, or allowed it, was Diem who was our guy. What could be dumber than that ?
This should also send a message to the Gulf oil states and their customers, that we are no longer that concerned with their ability to export oil. That they need to either get on board or be left behind, no more playing both sides against the middle.
It’s past time to end the mullahcracy, and I hope the target list has this in mind. A building can be demolished two ways: From the top, piece by piece which is slow, expensive and dangerous; or a few of the fundamental supports can be kicked out, letting gravity finish the process. In this case, the millions of Iranians that are probably more fed up with the mullahs than we are, are the gravity and the police state is the foundation.
The IRGC has been designated as a terrorist organization, that should paint a big target on the chest of anyone associated with it. We let bin Laden skate by until he managed to bite us, you’d think that would be lesson enough. I want every member above the rank of corporal to spend his time scanning the horizon and looking over his shoulder. This goes double for the mullahs.
While we’re at it, we need to find out who thought that letting Iran have free transit across Iraq was a good idea and make sure he will never be in a position to influence anything again. It’s too bad that Soleimani wasn’t met by Iraqi government officials, their demise would have been a powerful message as well.
One down, 34 to go. The UK Sun reports that they have defaced the Federal Depository Library Program web site. I don’t know how long we can take this punishment.
Murder, pure and simple. This will not end well.
>Murder, pure and simple.<
Is murdering the murderer murder?
It’s only the murder of American enemies that bothers him. The murder of Americans, Jews, Israelis et al is just something we must accept.
We fought and won a war with post-revolution Iran in 1987-88 with Operations Nimble Archer and Praying Mantis. Iran’s strategic imperatives and strategies haven’t changed a whole lot. They are still fighting Sunnis – this time a proxy war with Gulf Arab sheiks instead of direct war with Saddam – and they are still trying to project power West in order to secure trade routes for their oil. Now that we have signaled that we aren’t going to open ourselves up to get Benghazied or Beiruted, we don’t risk the same escalation we had in Iraq or Afghanistan.
One thing on everyone’s mind is the potential for General Van Riper/ MC02 swarm attacks on Gulf shipping, but as Trent points out, the annihilation of the Wagner Group showed everyone that we stopped playing the games that allow pests to hurt us.
A lot of things obviously went wrong in Afghanistan, but the biggest problem was our supply lines ran through a country that was also our enemy, so we couldn’t attack them, the bin Laden operation the rare exception. It was the same problem in Iraq, with our enemy being materially supported through Syria and financially supported from our other frenemies, Gulf Arabs.
That’s not a problem with Iran. The only frenemies in that sphere I can think of are the Obamists and the International Community, maybe China. Fortunately, they have been thoroughly discredited and neutralized by Trump and Brexit.
The Quds Force seems to have kicked off their paid cut-out retaliatory strikes.
See:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/05/africa/al-shabaab-kenya-attack-base-intl-hnk/index.html
President Trump’s tweet about the 52 pre-selected sites for retaliation is brilliant! There are going to be a lot of Iranians taking sick days at probably something like 250 sites in Iran — putting pressure on the Iranian regime at no cost to the US.
Something we should remember — the Iranian regime is not popular with substantial parts of the population of Iran; the US aim should be to get the Iranians even more pissed off at their leaders. But we cannot do that by bombing in ways that affect the population at large.
Back in WWII, the Germans bombed the English, but it did not break the spirit of the English people. The Brits, US, and USSR bombed Germany, and it did not break the spirit of the German people. The US bombed Japan, and it did not break the willingness of the Japanese people to fight to the end. Poor target selection would give the Iranian regime a means to rally the population to their side.
Retaliatory bombing should target the enforcement arms of the Iranian regime — the Iranian equivalent of the SS. And perhaps encourage the Iranian military to overthrow the current regime.
He was not hiding, He was a respected figure in Iraq and was just moving about the place. You whacked him. Its murder when done like that.
You killed him because he made you look like fools again and again.
The Iraqi parliament has decided you should leave. When the PM implements this, you either leave or you are invaders. They have been trying to get this done for quite a while. It happened fast after your hit job.
The thing that continues to puzzle me is that Pompeo was top of his class at West Point. I can only assume your institutions are not what they were. ;)
“The Iraqi parliament has decided you should leave”
Fake News. Didn’t happen.
“When the PM implements this”
See above. Also, you mean the PM who submitted his resignation over a month ago when Sistani decreed that the ongoing massacres of anti-Iranian protesters made the current government illegitimate?
The concerns of the Islamic world don’t map well to domestic Western politics, or to standard Western left/right philosophy. You’d think we’d all realize that by now.
More Canadians with the sadz over the Revered General’s sudden demise:
Toronto police threaten Rebel journalist for calling Qasem Soleimani a “terrorist”
No 2A equivalent and now no 1A equivalent, apparently.
“Assassination as policy raises all sorts of ponderables.”
“Murder, pure and simple.”
Nonconcur. Enemy leadership — especially military leadership — is always a valid target. Always. The “assassination” argument is simply a fig leaf, a euphemistic dodge, that shields the indecisive from having to make the hard decision.
so it’s mostly like peach mint, with about as much cross ethnic solidarity, we fight these wars in the dark, zarquawi could have been targeted in Kurdistan in 2003, before he opened up the floodgates same for suleimani in 2007, on both the us and uk side,
elaboration on the earlier point, jonathan swan (I know) elaborates in other places,
https://social.quodverum.com/@HeshmatAlavi
This is the text from the opening paragraphs of the NY TIMES article whose link I dropped earlier ”
As Tensions With Iran Escalated, Trump Opted for Most Extreme Measure
WASHINGTON — In the chaotic days leading to the death of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, Iran’s most powerful commander, top American military officials put the option of killing him — which they viewed as the most extreme response to recent Iranian-led violence in Iraq — on the menu they presented to President Trump.
They didn’t think he would take it. In the wars waged since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Pentagon officials have often offered improbable options to presidents to make other possibilities appear more palatable.
After initially rejecting the Suleimani option on Dec. 28 and authorizing airstrikes on an Iranian-backed Shia militia group instead, a few days later Mr. Trump watched, fuming, as television reports showed Iranian-backed attacks on the American Embassy in Baghdad, according to Defense Department and administration officials.
I have this vision of an Obama Administration DoD embed doing death by power point trying to bore Pres. Trump to death.
Then Pres. Trump getting the “Kill Soleiman” slide in the presentation and stopping the briefing right there saying.
“That’s it! We’re going to kill Soleiman.
And then watching all the DoD/NSA/CIA/FBI Counter-intelligence courtiers putting on their best game faces as they collectively suck every seat cushion in the room into their as…sets.
Every single one of them thinking in their cold heart of hearts that while Pres. Trump had life time secret service protection. They and their families didn’t and faced a lifetime of looking over their shoulders for the Quds Force like the Captain of the CG-49 USS Vincennes who shot down Iran Air Flight 655 over the Persian Gulf.
It was President George H. W. Bush’s refusal to retaliate for the failed Mar 11, 1989 car bomb attack on Captain Will Rogers III’s wife that created the Quds Force immunity in the four presidencies between Reagan and Trump.
Every President since George H. W. Bush to Obama has owed the D.C. “courtier class” getting there. Observing the Quds Force immunity was a small price for them to pay as President.
Donald Trump didn’t owe the “courtier class” jack getting into the Presidency. And the “courtier class” has been doing it’s best to sabotage his policies while in office. What Pres. Trump did with his decapitation drone strike on the Quds Force is put the entire DC “courtier class” in the same van that Captain Rogers wife was driving in 1989 for the rest of their lives.
Their lives, their fortunes their sacred as…sets are now all in for the institutional threat elimination solution to the Iranian Islamic Republic in exactly the same was the D.C. “courtier class” was all in for invading Iraq after the Senate Hart Office building anthrax attacks.
Plus, until that Iranian Regime Change happens, establishing extremely tight border controls, destroying the Mexican drug cartels and deporting Muslim illegal aliens IS IN THE SURVIVAL INTERESTS of the DC “courtier class”
As a gut feeling, epiphany moment, Xanatos Gambit play goes, this was Pres. Trump at his most brilliant.
Occasional Commenter, do you think, then, that the U.S. should put cross hairs on, say, Putin? “Ponderable” means just that: the policy needs careful thought and judicious application. Simply no way that any person aware of human nastiness can honestly, without fingers crossed behind their back,endorse P Gunn’s view, where no meanie is to get whacked. But neither is it wise to take steps that merely stir up hornets or invite return assassinations via suicide means.
Putting the above another way: Mike K understood me.
Here’s to hoping that the locals in Iran will reflect on that cross hair INTENTIONALLY not getting put on them, their getting to go home to their families, there being a tomorrow for them where cooperation with others brings prosperity to both parties, there existing a possibility of insisting on leaders who actually have the people’s interest at heart. Ie, here’s to hoping that U.S. leaders have correctly guessed Iran’s people actually want to get along with their lives and don’t really want to go into a fight picked by somebody else.
Of course one must realize it could go the other way. People tend to get very upset when even somebody they don’t like gets picked on by strangers they aren’t sure they can trust.
IMO 90-95% of Iran’s electric generation and oil refining capacity could be eliminated for at least three months by about 300 Tomahawk cruise missile warheads. Allowing for serviceability, reliability and accuracy issues, that would require attack with about 400 Tomahawks.
Each ship of the Oh My F***ing God Tomahawk-carrying submarine class (USS Ohio, Michigan, Florida & Georgia) carries 144 Tomahawks. Three of them could do it easily.
Since it is January, Iran would then freeze to death in the dark. Plus there wouldn’t be electric power to operate the sewage treatment facilities, so there’d be epidemics of dysentery and typhoid.
That would certainly bring down the mullah regime quickly and irretrievably.
Trent previously mentioned the necessity of Israel digging out the Hamas and Hezbollah rocket depots and firing positions. This is the toughest, do-or-die assignment in case of a general war in the Middle East. Are they ready?
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/60004.html#comment-1019694
From the above link: “There are 40,000 Iranian long range [ 40KM(+)] artillery rockets in Gaza and Lebanon with Hamas (10K) and Hezbollah (30k). Many of which now have GPS guidance so they are all but guaranteed to hit Israeli high population density areas or IDF high value military targets.”
GPS signals are very weak by the time they arrive from the satellites, and they are fairly easy to jam.
Stanley & Dave,
Go here:
https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htart/articles/20200103.aspx
Tom Holsinger Says:
January 5th, 2020 at 7:05 pm
Long, long ago when if not the world was new, at least the century was I did a theoretical project on the uses/effects of HEMP [High altitude Electro Magnetic Pulse] generated by a 20 kt-1 mt detonation at altitudes of above 19 miles. No, I am not a nice person. Given that Iran has formally renounced the non-nuclear development treaty it never honored, I think they now fall into the category of strategic threat to the homeland.
The results applied to Iran concluded that 2-20 kt HEMP’s and 1-20 kt ground burst at certain precisely defined locations would a) destroy the Iranian nuclear development capability in its entirety and b) “After such an attack, what would be the situation? Iran would be prostrate. There would be NO electrical power
generation. NO electronic devices. NO communication beyond the muzzein’s call and Donkey Express.
There is a certain irony that I greatly appreciate with this. It is the goal of the Islamists to drive the world back to their
time of greatest power, the 800’s. Believe me, this would do that. Along with no communications, there would be no
transportation, no lights, no refrigeration, no computers, no automobiles, no trains [unless they can find an old pure steam
locomotive], no steel, no fabrication of most things; including what would be needed to repair what was lost. There would
be no petroleum pumped or refined, and assuming that some other power did not move in and just take over to fix things,
there would be no oil riches for the ones at the top. . . . There will be no irrigation beyond a primitive level. No power, so no pumps. So crops fail. Why did the Romans build
all those fountains all over the cities they conquered? Was it because they were so artistically inclined? Did they like to
play in the water, and throw coins and make wishes? Hell, no. Public fountains were the replacement for wells which
proved insufficient water sources as cities grew above a certain minimal level. They had to have fountains [i.e. water] to
survive.
Do any of the Gentle Readers see an abundance of acqueducts and fountains in Iran? No power, no pumps, no water
service to cities, no sanitation for disposal of wastes. People can start dying of thirst in a day or so. Teheran has a
population of about 7.2 million. How long will that number hold up?
No power, no transportation beyond shank’s mare, no communications, no sanitation, soon no medicines. And no way
to get anything fixed.
The living will soon envy the dead. ”
The data would have to be updated, but given that Iran openly threatens us, crossing the nuclear threshold would be in the realm of consideration.
That high-pitched sound you hear coming from Canada is Pen Gun screaming.
Subotai Bahadur
Subotai,
I was civil defense. EMP does not discriminate within its radius of effect. We have allies like Kuwait it would affect.
Three of the OMFG class could achieve the same result with conventional munitions.
Regards this —
>>There are 40,000 Iranian long range [ 40KM(+)] artillery rockets in Gaza and Lebanon with Hamas (10K) and Hezbollah (30k). Many of which now have GPS guidance so they are all but guaranteed to hit Israeli high population density areas or IDF high value military targets.
The Iranian, Hamas & Hezbollah rockets use Russian solid rocket fuel formulas. Mainly because they are cheap and easy to produce.
The reason they are cheap to produce is they lack expensive stabilizing chemicals the allow long service lives without becoming explosively unstable after about 10 years.
Now the Russians have been using past sell by date Soviet era rocket ammo in Donbas with about a 60% works as advertised rates…but that was the best of the old warstocks.
This stuff isn’t —
Explosions rock Russian ammunition depot in Siberia
Aug 5, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK_WDxjhu0Y
And past due Soviet Ammo really liked to blow up in a big way.
See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severomorsk_Disaster
Basically,
1. Iran ran out of money for big ammo production about 2.5 years ago,
2. Their rocket fuel lasts in stable form for about 10-years,
3. It took that from 2006 to 2016 to build up that up to 40K rockets from the exhausted stocks from the 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah War, and
4. About 4.000 Hezbollah rockets are aging out per year starting in 2017.
Hezbollah shoots about 1,000 nearly over age Iranian rockets a year into Israel and builds about 1,000 a year new with its own resources.
So Hezbollah’s stockpile is effectively down six thousand from it’s 2016 peak.
SB: That has a certain appeal, but this is the 21st century. I look to Hong Kong as the model–a dispersed, leaderless movement, in constant contact via the internet.
Iran had protests late last year spread across the country, with by estimates ~1500+ people murdered. That says there’s a very strong regime opposition. The Q now is, will Salami Man’s successor be as willing to order such massacres? And, if protests get started again, can we keep Iran from shutting down the internet like they did last time? Imagine a world in which they tried, and we keep it on, via satellite? How strong are the mullahs and their internal enforcers in that case?
Tom,
I know that EMP does not discriminate. As is noted, it will knock the survivors back to the 800’s where they will slowly die being concentrated en masse in cities lacking civil logistics. I’m more pragmatic than nice. The altitudes and locations for the EMP effects were chosen a) to be high enough to get the EMP, and b) to keep the effects inside Iranian territory. The reason the one city got a ground burst was there was no way I could keep the EMP inside the borders and outside of other’s territory. The damage radius of a ground burst stayed inside Iran. Kuwait is safe.
While I still have the project, I will for obvious reasons not give those details.
Subotai Bahadur
Well apart from everything else, my gold and silver, is escalating rapidly. I did expect this, or something very like it.
“do you think, then, that the U.S. should put cross hairs on, say, Putin?”
We’re not at war with Russia. But Iran has been at war with us since 1979; we’re just finally responding. So the Iranian military leadership is a viable target anytime. Seniormost civilian leadership? Maybe. Depends on how high we want to escalate.
A single AGM114N will take an auto interior down to bare steel.
Three means you really really care.
Subotai,
You have great faith in the precision of an untried weapon.
Trent,
Noted your “hard drug” comment at CTH. Hard drugs are not hard.
Addiction is a symptom of PTSD. Says Nobel Prize Winner in Medicine Eric Kandel in his book, “The Disordered Mind.”
People in chronic pain chronically take pain relievers.
BTW CTH no longer lets me post because of my obsession with the Drug War. I often annoyed them with stuff like this:
Drug Prohibition is socialism for criminals. Says Milton Friedman. Besides we learned that from Alcohol Prohibition.
In any case you do not catch “addiction” from drugs. So a war against drugs is useless. i.e. a typical government program.
Trent Telenko Says:
January 5th, 2020 at 6:16 pm
Destroy the Mexican Drug Cartels? Not difficult at all.
Dr Marks could see the difference between the street addicts stumbling into the clinic for help for the first time, and the patients who had been on legal prescriptions for a while.
The first people to notice an effect were the local police. Inspector Michael Lofts studied 142 heroin and cocaine addicts in the area, and he found there was a 93 per cent drop in theft and burglary.
And something nobody predicted took place. The number of heroin addicts in the area actually fell.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2015/05/the-case-for-prescription-heroin/
So how long has this knowledge been out there? Over 35 years. The President has been thinking about it for going on 30 years.
“When you watch prohibition, when you look at the alcohol, you look at cigarettes, you look at it all, if you don’t give it to them, it’s going to come here illegally,” Trump said on Friday [22 Nov 2019]. “That’s the one problem I can’t seem to forget.”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/trump-warns-vaping-prohibition-would-lead-to-black-markets
https://www.marijuanamoment.net/trump-says-drug-prohibition-doesnt-work-during-vaping-meeting/
https://www.ocregister.com/2017/02/23/trump-was-right-about-the-drug-war-27-years-ago/
In a speech delivered at the Miami Herald’s Company of the Year Awards luncheon [April 1990], Donald Trump condemned the “war on drugs” as “a joke” and called for the legalization of drugs. “We’re losing badly the war on drugs,” he said. “You have to legalize drugs to win that war. You have to take the profit away from these drug czars.”
Besides we learned that from Alcohol Prohibition.
According to Strategypage, the newest warhead for the Hellfire is non-explosive, a sort of multi-bladed thing that deploys like a potato masher just before impact. The recipe might have been puree then bake although it seems academic at this point.
If I didn’t have to go to work, I’d look up the lyrics to the song from the “Wizard of Oz”. but at this point we are assured that Soleimani is most sincerely dead.
MCS,
The Iranian Islamic Republic’s “Fist” was turned into a thermobarically forged, bone chip filled, chub of charred at the edges human hamburger meat.
The Ginsu Hellfire (It slices, it diced, it does julienne fries!) are saved for places where there are large crowds of innocents the target is mingling with.
Route Irish is anything but that.
It was planned this way.
He was not hiding, He was a respected figure in Iraq and was just moving about the place. You whacked him. Its murder when done like that.
You killed him because he made you look like fools again and again.
This is so silly only a Canadian could have written it. Canada was an honorable nation when they fought alongside Britain and the US in WWII. What happened ?
Now you try to forces young women to shave the genitalia of males claiming to be female and arrest people who call a terrorist a terrorist. Fidel’s son seems to have sucked all the sense out of the place.
Subotai: “I did a theoretical project on the uses/effects of HEMP [High altitude Electro Magnetic Pulse]”
Let’s all keep in mind — the bulk of the Iranian people are not our enemies. The Iranian regime and their stormtroopers are our enemies. And there are indications that many of the Iranian people consider the regime and its stormtroopers to be their enemies too.
The key to handling Iran properly is to find ways to disable the regime and turn the righteous anger of the Iranian people against their rulers.
Unfortunately, this may be beyond our capabilities, since the US is stuck with a State Department which acts as a wing of the Anti-American Democrat Party and an “Intelligence” apparatus which seems incapable of doing anything more than read the New York Times.
Donald Trump didn’t owe the “courtier class” jack getting into the Presidency. And the “courtier class” has been doing it’s best to sabotage his policies while in office. What Pres. Trump did with his decapitation drone strike on the Quds Force is put the entire DC “courtier class” in the same van that Captain Rogers wife was driving in 1989 for the rest of their lives.
Their lives, their fortunes their sacred as…sets are now all in for the institutional threat elimination solution to the Iranian Islamic Republic in exactly the same was the D.C. “courtier class” was all in for invading Iraq after the Senate Hart Office building anthrax attacks.
This could be called “aligning incentives.” It might help solve the State Dept problem.
I do think decapitation strategies are in our interest. The IRGC is the equivalent of the Nomenklatura of the USSR.
“This is so silly only a Canadian could have written it.” You are a treasure Mike. ;)
And one other thing. Anyone who works closely with addicts can see the problem. It is glaringly obvious.
14 Year Veteran Undercover Cop Exposes Truth About The Drug War: “I Used To Believe I Was Doing Good”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-05-16/14-year-veteran-undercover-cop-exposes-truth-about-drug-war-i-used-believe-i-was-doi
“When I went into policing I thought addicts had made the mistake of trying drugs and had no willpower to stop. Actually, problematic drug users – or at least all the ones I knew – were self medicating. Most of the heroin users I knew were self-medicating for childhood trauma, whether physical or sexual.
Dr. Lonny Shavelson found that 70% of female heroin addicts were sexually abused in childhood.
Post USA Civil War alcoholism was called “the soldiers disease”
Addiction is a symptom of PTSD. Says Nobel Prize Winner in Medicine Eric Kandel in his book, “The Disordered Mind.”
People in chronic pain chronically take pain relievers.
I oppose making war on the afflicted. It is unAmerican.
I was wondering if I’m still allowed to post here. My last comment was eaten.
Trump, you magnificent SOB.
Are the Dems now going to scream that he shouldn’t be withdrawing forces from Iraq?
Mike K
This is so silly only a Canadian could have written it. Canada was an honorable nation when they fought alongside Britain and the US in WWII. What happened ?
I worked with Canadians in the oil field. Sensible folk. But for an example of contemporary Canadian silliness- Canadian GOVERNMENT silliness, consider the following. IT’S COME TO THIS: Toronto police threaten Rebel journalist for calling Qasem Soleimani a “terrorist” (video). Apparently Canadian cops are getting about as bad as Brit cops.
You are a treasure Mike. ;)
Well, a New Zealander could probably also have said it but thank you.
Your blackface PM is a laughing stock.
Canada seems to have gone as crazy as US Democrats and Brit Labourites.
Seriously, the Daughter Unit and I wonder if Trump takes the Iraqi governing body at their word, and says ‘Sure, we’re outta here, and all our foreign aid, too’ (and delivered on it) how soon a) would the Iraqis being wailing and mourning about being abandoned, and b) the Dems begin wailing and condemning our abandonment of a strategic Middle East ally…
It’s beyond silly, how the Dems have become so automatically anti-BadManOrange. I swear, if he did a tweet about oxygen, lovely-life-giving oxygen! Dem fools would begin smothering themselves with plastic bags in protest…
Sgt. Mom
It’s beyond silly, how the Dems have become so automatically anti-BadManOrange. I swear, if he did a tweet about oxygen, lovely-life-giving oxygen! Dem fools would begin smothering themselves with plastic bags in protest.
For an example of Trump being damned if he does, and damned if he doesn’t,consider Senator Chris Murphy’s (D-CT) recent tweets. Sen. Chris Murphy condemns Soleimani airstrike days after claiming ‘no one fears’ US during embassy assault.
After the US Embassy was attacked, Senator Murphy lambasted Trump for being a weakling.
When Trump had Sulemani killed, Senator Murphy lambasted Trump for acting in response to the attack on the American embassy,
Trump can do no right, in the eyes of the Democrats.
I am waiting to see how the resolution praising Trump for ordering the killing of Soulemani, phrased nearly identically to the resolution praising Obama for ordering the killing of Osama Bin Laden, will do in Congress.
The only thing the Iraqi government has less of than integrity is competence, it’s a widespread problem in the mid east.
At work, we have cans of mil-spec hydraulic fluid, every can prominently marked in Arabic that it is not to be used for cooking.
We walked away once and need to again for our own purposes, the problem is that we can’t. The Iraqi politicians stealing all the oil money is an infinitely lesser problem that letting Iran get its hands on the money. This is why we are stuck with defending the Saudis and the rest even though they are at best a half step better than Nazi Germany. On the other hand, there is no reason that we need the Straight oh Hormuz to be open. In fact, shutting off the money supply to the whole area is probably in our interest.
If we left Iraq, I don’t see an alternative to applying the same sanctions to Iraq that apply to Iran. It would be cheaper and lots less aggravating.
You have created a martyr. Never smart but what’s especially interesting is that “it has emerged that the slain IRGC Quds Force chief had arrived at Baghdad airport last Thursday night as part of ongoing diplomatic efforts to mediate peace and an easing of tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran. This according to no less than Iraqi (caretaker) Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi.”
Mike, you have broad brush, that’s for sure. Details, who needs em’. ;)
A further point on Senator Murphy. He is quoted in the above link on the consequences of killing Soleimani.
What, pray tell, does the good Senator advocate that the US should have done to “stand up” to Iran?
Apparently it has escaped the good Senator’s attention that Iran has been at war with us for the last 40 years. Apparently it has escaped the good Senator’s attention that Soleimani, in directing proxy attacks against US troops in Iraq for over a decade – such as the placing of explosive devices- has continued Iran’s war against the US. Apparently it has escaped the good Senator’s attention that the agenda of Soleimani’s recent trip to Iraq was furtherance of Iran’s war against the US.
I fail to see how killing Solemani will “lead to war.” The war has been going on for the last 40 years.
It appears that BG William Steely III USMC, commander of Task Force-Iraq, took the Iraqi Parliament vote as ‘go-order’ to leave and issued a compliance letter…
…and caught out both the Sec-Def and CJCS, who were ignoring it.
Both are now trying as hard as they can to head off a shock Trump decision to ratify this move the way he took their advice to kill General Soleimani.
See:
Update # 1 — 4:09 P.M.: Department of Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Monday disputed a letter indicating the U.S.-led military coalition against ISIS will leave Iraq, stating there is “no decision whatsoever to leave” the country.
Update # 2 — 4:34 P.M.: Gen. Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the letter is a “mistake” and a “poorly” worded draft. He added it was being worked on with Iraq and reiterated that U.S. troops will remain in the country.
https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2020/01/06/letter-u-s-led-coalition-to-withdraw-from-iraq/
Tom Holsinger Says:
January 6th, 2020 at 12:12 am
Subotai,
You have great faith in the precision of an untried weapon.
It just occurred to me that we may be talking about two different things. About that time there was a theoretical design for a non-nuclear air droppable weapon that could create a directional EMP. It may or may not have been developed and deployed secretly, or it may have been vaporware. I do not know.
What I was referring to was the plain old nuclear blast generated EMP as described on page 22 of The Effects of Nuclear War published by the Office of Technology Assessment of the United States Congress. Library of Congress card number LC 79-600080, USGPO, Washington DC. This is the un-classified version. There exists a far more detailed classified version, with working papers.
We have set off and studied enough of them to have some idea of how they work. My hard copy is packed away, so I can’t give direct quotes, but from what I remember the variable is altitude. Has to be above say 19+ miles up. The area [circular] hit by HEMP is the line of sight from the blast to the ground, defined with basic geometry. It gives the mass effect desired only within that easily defined circle. It propagates by a process called Compton Scattering and so until you reach a much higher altitude increasing the detonation altitude increases the size of the circle without really attenuating the HEMP. There is a theoretical maximum [under dispute when I was writing] of about 30,000 volts per meter of exposed metal, which would take out any unshielded power net AND ANYTHING CONNECTED TO IT.
The functional minimum circle is on the order of 400 miles radius with a 20 mile HOB, thus Tabriz would have required other measures. At the time I wrote the project, it should be noted that Iran was testing SHABAB-3 missiles with some . . . unusual flight profiles with a 100 mile HOB. There was more than passing concern about merchant ships carrying SHAHAB-3s off our coast. Remember, they don’t like us.
If I am wrong about us talking about different things, all I can say is that the basic physics has been functionally demonstrated and proved worldwide, and that precision is neither possible or the point with this weapon. If a decapitation strategy is not possible [and that is a lot of heads] this may be one of the alternatives.
Subotai Bahadur
PenGun is always entertaining.
You have created a martyr. Never smart but what’s especially interesting is that “it has emerged that the slain IRGC Quds Force chief had arrived at Baghdad airport last Thursday night as part of ongoing diplomatic efforts to mediate peace.
Canada has lots of martyrs. US, not so many. Especially hilarious is your assertion that he was on a “peace mission.” I swear, you could not sell this as fiction, even though Ben Rhodes has an MFA in fiction writing.
It’s always reassuring that PenGun is on the other side. I might worry if you agreed with me.
Both are now trying as hard as they can to head off a shock Trump decision to ratify this move the way he took their advice to kill General Soleimani.
I would be half way out the door before they have time to change their minds, as they will, of course.
Subotai,
We are both talking about a fission-fusion-fission or fission-fusion nuclear warhead detonated at high altitude for the purpose of inflicting wide area effect damage to electronic equipment with EMP rather than thermal, blast or radiation created by the detonation.
Confidence in the precision of damage from an untested area-effect weapon is not appropriate.
“Canada has lots of martyrs. US, not so many. Especially hilarious is your assertion that he was on a “peace mission.”
I did not know that. We have martyrs? It was the Iraqi PM that claimed that he was on a peace mission. Do you not believe him?
Penny: The Iraqi PM (now placeholder) was installed in a deal under pressure from Salami Man, and was forced to resign due to massacres against protestors furious about corruption and Iranian influence. So yeah we don’t believe him. The Saudis certainly aren’t going to have been talking to him.
Brian in reply to PenGun:
The Saudis certainly aren’t going to have been talking to him.
It is possible, but very unlikely, that the Saudis would be wanting to talk “peace” with the country that sent drones after their oil infrastructure.
A quick reading of the Wiki article on Adil Abdul-Mahdi does not give me confidence in him. Commie in the 1970s. His alignment in the 1980s with Iranian Islamists does not inspire confidence.
It was the Iraqi PM that claimed that he was on a peace mission. Do you not believe him?
Have you considered doing stand up comedy ? It might be step up for you from driving that garbage truck.
Its what he said Mike. Usually stand up involves some humour. Now they will build a nuclear device, as that’s the only thing you idiots respect. Little Kim understands this well.
Is that funny?
technically it would be a green napoleon, like the color of the flag, with the black sword, the ones that the Washington post, displayed the other day,
More like chess. It seems as if the IRGC/Hexbollah/Quds has been trying for an open war with the U.S. [and the Saudis] in order to stiffle internal complaints about the economy and the resources wasted by the “management” in wars against Israel and the Saudis in Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Lebanon, Iraq, etc. President Trump has side stepped the overly obvious provocations [Hey! Smile for the cameras while playing with the tanker mines.]. The Iraqi Shiia Arabs distrust the “Persian” Shiia. The Sunni Arabs distrust the “Persian” and Arab Shiia. The Arab Shiia distrust Saddam’s Arab Sunni minority. The Kurds are trying to stay out of the way.
Trump had apparently recalled an air attack on Iran. Currently he has taken out the “Persian” catspaw, Mani, further damaging the “Persian” effort to use Iraq as cannon fodder and giving the various Sunni factions a chance to achieve a non-Iranian solution to government. The calm response to the faux eviction letter may sooth any factions worried about the U.S. attempting to convert Iraq into a base of operations against Iran. The hit on Mani was in Iraq, thus avoiding direct conflict with Iran. Iran’s economy still sucks and Mani isn’t there to murder demonstrators in Iran or in the Iraqi forward area.
No privates or non-comms were injured in this production.
Well, except for a few in Iraq when they shot at the U.S. and Iraqi bases. Adding more blood to the Iranian memorial fountains is what they are there for……
Iran, or more correctly, the IRGC/Quds, may come up with something but for now, they took some real damage and gained nothing. President Trump has, to a great extent, defused the Iranian propaganda about the threat from outside, Western, Infidels.
The Bearded Ladies till hate us, as usual, but they have to consider whether life would be better off as the honored, religious leaders of Iran or as the employees of the thugs who run the IRGC/Quds branch of Fascists-R-Us. Hey! The Pope has it pretty good and he rents a “Hill Billy” security force to keep the tourists amused. The IRGC/Quds were created to be loyal to power, any power, and not to Iran or to Shiia Islam.
Then there is all that potential income from the sale of oil and gas to Europe as long as those Turkish Mongols don’t block the pipeline to prosperity. You know that no one can trust those bastards. They are all about another empire. Not like that gangster Assad. He’d work with anybody for a taste of the profits. That Crown Prince MbS is getting to be just like them Infidels. He cleaned out the old guard and is up to something…..
What’s a Brearded Lady to do?
Looks like President Trump has been playing/developing the edges of the board while the usual players have been making flash and noise in the usual places where there are no options left to play.
Hmmm. I think there is some French Vanilla left, way in the back…. Better than pop corn.
“It seems as if the IRGC/Hexbollah/Quds has been trying for an open war with the U.S.”
Nah. That’s the last thing they want. They just miscalculated what Trump’s red line was. And they really miscalculated what the punishment for crossing the line would be. Now this morning they’re saying, OK, we got our revenge, we’re good. And everyone is noting that they made absolutely sure not to kill any Americans. Orange Man won this one easily.
Ha-Ha, seems the jokes on us. Of course some people on a plane and some Iraqis that weren’t close enough to Americans might not be laughing too hard. No one dead from American weapons that didn’t richly deserve it though.
Trump doesn’t seem any better at war mongering than antisemitism or racism and a potentially large number of Iranians and possibly some American service men are alive because of it.
What he didn’t do is raise any of the sanctions that the mullahs needed him to. Their bragging about U.S. casualties wasn’t believed even by their most devoted followers. So, back to status-quo anti, no more food, fuel or money than before. The laws of gravity remain inviolate and the regime is no more stable (probably less).
Iraqis that want a visa will probably have to go to Jordan since that was the part of the embassy that was damaged. I hope any that feel like “demonstrating” again realize that the only reason the Apaches didn’t clear the streets with their chain guns was that they never were close to breaching the embassy proper. Maybe a few more will be looking askance at their government.
No reminders this time that the real world isn’t a Tom Clancy novel where all the tech and whiz-bang weapons work perfectly, every time, and no important character gets more than a flesh wound.
“some people on a plane”
Happened to hear an NPR story on the downed plane last night. They said that it had nothing to do with the conflict, and that people at Boeing are in shock and distraught because it’s another accident when they’re already reeling from the earlier crashes. I was amazed. People who listen to them really will have no contact with reality at all.
All a sane person needs to know is that Iran won’t release the flight recorders.
I listened to NPR some while I was off work 15 years ago and concluded that their “news” coverage was hopeless then, I don’t have the patience to bother with them or any of the rest of the MSM. Why should I waste the time when I know I can’t believe anything they say. Judging from the ratings, I’m not the only one.
“All a sane person needs to know is that Iran won’t release the flight recorders.” They are releasing them to Canada and the Ukraine. You, they do not trust, I wonder why. ;)
The Re-elect Pres. Trump campaign is going to use this to write “Wave The Bloody Shirt” attack ads against Democrats that will last 30-years the way the GOP did post the 1861-1865 Civil War.
No Senate Democrats Support Measure Praising Military For Killing Soleimani. All GOP Senators Supported Same Resolution
JANUARY 10TH, 2020
https://www.dailywire.com/news/no-senate-democrats-support-measure-praising-military-for-killing-soleimani-all-gop-senators-supported-same-resolution-about-bin-laden-during-obama-years/
The resolution put forward by Republicans this week “is structurally identical to the 2011 Senate resolution praising former president Barack Obama for the operation that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden,” the Free Beacon added. “At that time, all 100 Democratic and Republican members of the Senate joined to support that resolution.”
Well, the Iranians bowed to reality and admitted that they shot the Ukrainian 737 down:
https://apnews.com/21f4a92a2dfbc38581719664bdf6f38e
The article laments that “It also undermined the credibility of information provided by senior officials, who for three days had adamantly dismissed allegations of a missile strike as Western propaganda.” And here Russia has had the world’s deepest hole for all these years.
I hope PenGun is holding his breath until those recorders show up in Ottawa.
The wheels may be already coming off inside Iran.
One of Soleimani’s senior and trusted Iraqi operatives has disappeared.
First 56 and now another 34 of Soleimani’s most trusted IRGC commanders have been arrested by IRGC (counter?) intelligent.
This covers the latest 34 arrest round and the fact that the guy passing this info on is executing his escape plan —
https://twitter.com/Raman_Ghavami/status/1214921866789478401
I’ve always thought of Canada’s PM as a pathetic joke, basically Obama junior, which is really, really pitiful. But his words and actions right now reveal him to be an absolutely vile, morally reprehensible scumbag. Just complete human garbage. Poor Canada.
They are releasing them to Canada and the Ukraine. You, they do not trust, I wonder why. ;)
Maybe because we do not have Fidel’s son running things ? Asking for a friend.
point of privilege, fidel had no stupid off spring, at least one in a nuclear physicist, he was the son of his father’s Lebanese maid, which I think makes raul the legitimate one, scary thought,
Iran has reneged on sending the flight data recorders from PS752 to Ukraine and is now playing a classic “GET SMART” game of “Would you Believe.”
That is, it is now claiming American cyber-weapons made the SA-15 shoot the 737 down.