Iran

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How did that work out?

Fox News host Sean Hannity opened his show Thursday with a vow that President Trump would soon declare war on Iran unless Iran's leader take a "small opportunity" for peace. Hannity said Thursday night that the if the "Mullahs [of Iran] are smart enough" they will take a quickly-disappearing option to negotiate peace with the U.S. following the destruction of a U.S. surveillance drone overnight Wednesday. If not, Hannity said, Trump would proceed to "bomb the hell out of" the country.

Hannity promises Trump would 'bomb the hell out of' Iran following downing of U.S. drone | TheHill

President Donald Trump changed his mind on attacking Iran last month after watching one of his pals argue against military action on Fox News. Retired four-star Army general Jack Keane — who Trump twice asked to serve as defense secretary — appeared twice on the president’s favorite TV network on June 20 to make the case that Iran had mistakenly shot down a U.S. drone, reported Politico. Trump had speculated earlier in the day that the action might have been a fluke, rather than a deliberate provocation, and Keane went on Fox News to state his agreement — and remind viewers of a horrific incident when Ronald Reagan was president.

Trump ‘spooked’ out of Iran airstrike after watching retired general on Fox News – Alternet.org

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Nearly 3,000 U.S. troops will be sent to the Middle East following the Pentagon strike that killed top Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, according to multiple reports on Friday. Iran has vowed "harsh revenge" following the death of the Quds Forces leader. Soleimani was killed Thursday in a strike at Baghdad International Airport alongside Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of the Iranian-backed Iraqi militia Popular Mobilization Forces, Iraqi state TV first reported Thursday.

Nearly 3,000 troops headed to Middle East following Soleimani killing: reports | TheHill

President Donald Trump once bluffed his way through a discussion about the Iranian general Qassem Soleimani — whose killing he ordered Thursday in an escalation of the Middle East conflict. MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” played a clip from Trump’s interview Sept. 3, 2015, with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, who asked the newly minted Republican candidate whether he knew Soleimani’s name. “Are you familiar with Gen. Soleimani?” Hewitt asked. “Yes,” Trump said, then began fishing for hints. “Go ahead, give me a little. Go ahead, tell me.” Hewitt told the candidate that Soleimani led the clandestine Quds Force, and Trump either misheard the host or was unfamiliar with that military unit. “I think the Kurds, by the way, have been horribly mistreated by us,” Trump said. Hewitt tried to redirect him. “Not the Kurds, the Quds Forces, the Iranian revolutionary Quds forces,” Hewitt said. “The bad guys.” Trump said he’d misheard Hewitt, but continued talking about mistreatment of the Kurds, and the host asked whether he thought Soleimani’s behavior would change. “I think that Iran right now is in the driver’s seat,” Trump said, “to do whatever they want to do.”

Hear Donald Trump bluff his way through 2015 interview on Iran’s Soleimani: ‘You’re asking me gotcha questions’ – Alternet.org

• So, Trump betrayed the Kurds a month or so ago after a phone call with the Turkish President, leaving them to be slaughtered by the Turks after they did most of the fighting against Isis because he promised to get the troops home (which didn't happen anyway) and now he sends 3000 more troops to the Middle East?
  
• The Kurds have indeed been treated horribly, but by Trump..
  

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Donald Trump has been accused of hypocrisy for ordering the potentially inflammatory killing of a top Iranian general, after a series of tweets emerged from 2011 of him saying former president Barack Obama would start a war with Iran in order to get re-elected.

‘He has no ability to negotiate’: Trump said in 2011 that Obama would start a war with Iran to get re-elected | The Independent

Between 2012 and 2013, Donald Trump tweeted repeatedly that then-president Barack Obama would start a war with Iran – saying that Obama would do so because he was "desperate", "in order to get elected" and "because of his inability to negotiate properly"...

Of course, Obama never did start a war with Iran. Instead, he brokered the Iran nuclear deal which saw the lifting of economic sanctions on Iran in return for the country agreeing to limit its nuclear programme. This deal was abandoned under Trump.

Iran news: 5 times Trump said that Obama would start a war with Tehran | indy100

If he was indeed behind the attack on the US military base that ultimately precipitated his own assassination, then he has likely succeeded in trapping the US into initiating its own ejection from Iraq. So far, most Iraqi decision-makers – from the caretaker prime minister to the country’s highest spiritual authority – have condemned in no uncertain terms the violation of sovereignty that the assassination entailed. As for Trump, he is stuck with the same problem he faced before Friday’s strike. Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis: Iraqi killed in US strike was key militia figure

The United States is no closer to the much-touted “new deal” with Iran, which the president boasted would eclipse that negotiated by his predecessor. Whatever diplomatic off-ramps remained are rapidly crumbling. Meanwhile, at a time when his unprecedented sanctions had stirred unrest inside Iran, the political elite has just been handed a rallying cry. The strike on Suleimani, whose status approached that of national icon, will harden popular sentiment against the US while simultaneously shoring up the regime. For all his crowing about the decisive blow dealt to an insolent enemy, Trump may be about to discover that the problem with martyrs is that they live forever.

Donald Trump’s assassination of Qassem Suleimani will come back to haunt him | Mohammad Ali Shabani | Opinion | The Guardian

• Apart from the hypocrisy about Obama, what has Trump achieved vis-a-vis Iran? Only escalation.
  
• It's likely to diminish the US influence in Irak
  
• It's much less likely Iran is willing to negotiate a new nuclear deal with the VS
  
• When there were actually many protests within Iran, the killing of the general is likely to get the regime some slack
  

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Let's sum up, Trump and Pompeo argue that they killed Soleimani as a preemptive strike to stop him from executing plans to attack American targets..

• Unless Soleimani personally was going out and target American targets, we'll have to assume these plans are still intact and the capability of Soleimani's Quds forces as well
  
• Now you ask, after taking out Soleimani, has executing attacks on American targets become more or less likely?
  
• Could it be the latter? Could that be the reason why they are sending 2800 American troops to the region and warn Americans to get the hell out of Irak? 
  
• Wasn't Trump going to withdraw troops, even going as far as abandoning the Kurds with that excuse?
  
• What evidence for these Soleimani plans is there actually. Normally some sort of evidence would have been presented to the Security Council and allies already.
  
• What vital interest is the US actually protecting here? Why is the US in the Middle East in the first place, wasting billions, trillions even and untold lives?
  
• With an Iranian strike and US counterstrike a very high probability, what are the chances of this escalating out of control?
  
• What has the Trump achieved with getting out of the Iran nuclear deal and aggressively trying to reign the Iranians in? 
  
• Iran has now lifted all remaining restrictions of its nuclear program as a result of the Soleimani strike.
  
• The most likely objective (if there was one) was regime change. Ask yourself, is that more or less likely now with much of Iran united and on the streets in protest against the killing of Soleimani?
  
• The Iraki Parliament voted for the American military to leave (even if the Kurds and Sunni's didn't vote). If that happens, it's another own goal and a victory for Iran and ISIS, the power vacuum makes it easier for the latter to come back. 
  

All that useless nationalism and treating the world map as a strategic game by the likes of Soleimani, Putin and Trump, what benefits do their populations derive from it?

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The Trump administration tried to stop an Iraqi vote to expel the U.S. military from the country after an American airstrike killed top Iranian military commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Axios reported Sunday.  Two U.S. officials and an Iraqi government official familiar with the situation told Axios that the Trump administration tried to persuade top Iraqi officials to kill the parliamentary effort.

Trump administration tried to stop Iraqi parliament's vote on expelling US troops: report | TheHill

President Trump said Sunday that the United States would not leave Iraq on “friendly” terms and threatened to impose sanctions on the country if forced to withdraw American troops. “If they do ask us to leave, if we don’t do it in a very friendly basis, we will charge them sanctions like they’ve never seen before ever. It’ll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday afternoon when asked about the vote by Iraq’s parliament to end U.S. troop presence in the country.

Trump says he'll sanction Iraq if US troops forced to leave | TheHill

• How about that for respecting national sovereignty??
  

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By killing him, the United States is risking a major escalation with Iran and across the region at a time when the overall US position is weak and growing weaker. Tehran has vowed “harsh revenge” and declared it is withdrawing from the nuclear deal in its entirety. Trump, for his part, has tweeted out yet more threats, vowing to “HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD.”

With painful irony, Trump is escalating tensions with Iran just as he is weakening the overall US position in the Middle East. His actions may force a US withdrawal from Iraq, hinder the fight against ISIS, and bolster hardliners in Tehran — all while making American allies uncertain and fearful.

Iran’s increasing influence in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen has alarmed many of the region’s Sunni powers. In addition, the public in Iraq and Lebanon were expressing unhappiness with Tehran’s influence in their domestic politics. Politically, the situation was ripe for pushing back. However, the dominant regional story now is the Soleimani killing, Iran’s potential response, and the risk of broader escalation. Even before the assassination, US strikes in Iraq last month against the Iranian-backed Kataib Hezbollah militant group enabled Iran’s allies there to portray the United States as the aggressor and shifted the discourse to one of “resistance” against American imperialism, a timely diversion for Iran.

Iran war: Trump’s reckless Middle East policy has brought the US to the brink - Vox

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US allies have continued to distance themselves from the decision, as millions of Iranians took to the streets to mourn and demand revenge for the assassination of the country’s top general. Both Israel and Nato stressed they were not involved in the airstrike on Friday. The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, has already expressed disappointment in the lukewarm reaction of Washington’s European allies. But the response of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was particularly striking, as he has been one of Trump’s staunchest supporters on the world stage. He told a meeting of his security cabinet on Monday: “The assassination of Suleimani isn’t an Israeli event but an American event. We were not involved and should not be dragged into it.” The Saudi deputy defence minister, Khalid bin Salman, was in Washington on Monday to urge restraint, joining a growing international chorus.

Future of US military presence in Iraq in question amid confusion in Washington | World news | The Guardian

• Not even Bibi or the Saudi's behind Trump on this one, that's very telling..