Iranian General Sulemain and others reported killed in Baghdad airstrike

[Rumred]

You miss the point taking over buildings is not toppling a government or the end of a war, Iraq was a war zone for decades with no structure or leadership we won the booby prize. Instead of fighting just Al Qeda we now got ISIS, Taliban and Boko Harram, the Taliban is about to get a deal in Afghanistan they will be part of a legitimate government while we run with our tails between our legs.

Have you seriously learned nothing from Iraq?

II think we might be talking past each other here. I am not saying that Iraq after the toppling of the government wasn’t a shitstorm. It was and the same would be said for Iran. The point I am making is the leadership of Iran does not survive the war. They either die or best case just removed from power or go underground to fight in an insurgency likely dying down the road. The people of Iran suffer far more than the US will suffer in this situation. The question you need to ask did Iran learn anything from Iraq and my guess would be yes they did. Their leadership gains nothing by escalating this up to a 9/11 attack and again in the post 9/11 world I see that being a very hard thing to carry out.

Also, the US very well might have learned from Iraq. Who is to say the response to a 9/11 attack wouldn’t be to just use airstrikes and surgical strikes to cripple Iran's leadership, infrastructure and military. No need to fight them on the ground in Iran or occupy them. Of course, the government could be stupid and invade leading to Iran's government falling and a decade+ of insurgency. Which brings me back to my point that Iran isn’t that stupid and won’t escalate to that level. I don’t even see them escalating at all over this. They will do something but in the grand scheme, it won't be an escalation.

[Skroe]

You are talking about the straight conventional fighting but according to the CBO the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan the whole shebang so to speak is around 3 trillion.

I’m not sure you’re following. Years ago the war budget was $150 billion, $250 billion.... crazy numbers. Those paid for the actual costs of the wars as they were being fought. But over time as the war Dow shifted into a smaller scale affair with no large occupation and far fewer troops, the war budget for smaller too. And as that continued the share of the war budget actually dedicated to the war shrunk as well, to the point that it is mostly a slush fund now. The war budget, for example, pays for things like extra f/a-18s left out of the actually DoD budget. It’s gone from legit budget to accounting trick.

The big trillion dollar numbers were mostly accumulated back when the scale of the War budget was in the hundreds of billions, twice a year. That was financed with 5 and 10 year debt. It being 2020, that’s largely paid off. Since the large occupations ended the once annual war
Budget, now coming in the tens of billions, is a much smaller thing than it used to be.

What is true is that a large and growing share of u accounted for war related costs are veterans healthcare that could spike war costs by hundreds of billions as veterans age.

In short this is a complicated thing and not really suitable as a line to make a point, because “how”’you count matters.

[Adam Jensen]

The actual Iraq war literally ended in days. I am talking about war than concerns regime itself, not what comes after.

This is what Iran's leaders in their frilly dresses think about. Saddam and his regime were done in literally in a blink of an eye. Whatever comes next comes next, but Khamenei and his bootlickers at the top won't be alive to see it and they know it.

Yeah.

We'll win in a war against Iran just like we won in Iraq. It's the decades of bullshit that follows that bothers me.

Also: Donald Trump in 2011: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/...04554855825408. Think maybe this piece of goddamn shit is projecting? I'm pretty sure the reason he did this was to deflect from impeachment and affect his re-election.

[Draco-Onis]

II think we might be talking past each other here. I am not saying that Iraq after the toppling of the government wasn’t a shitstorm. It was and the same would be said for Iran. The point I am making is the leadership of Iran does not survive the war. They either die or best case just removed from power or go underground to fight in an insurgency likely dying down the road. The people of Iran suffer far more than the US will suffer in this situation. The question you need to ask did Iran learn anything from Iraq and my guess would be yes they did. Their leadership gains nothing by escalating this up to a 9/11 attack and again in the post 9/11 world I see that being a very hard thing to carry out.

Also, the US very well might have learned from Iraq. Who is to say the response to a 9/11 attack wouldn’t be to just use airstrikes and surgical strikes to cripple Iran's leadership, infrastructure and military. No need to fight them on the ground in Iran or occupy them. Of course, the government could be stupid and invade leading to Iran's government falling and a decade+ of insurgency. Which brings me back to my point that Iran isn’t that stupid and won’t escalate to that level. I don’t even see them escalating at all over this. They will do something but in the grand scheme, it won't be an escalation.

The problem is you are ignoring the fact that Trump wants regime change we aren't giving them an out, Iran would make Iraq look like a cake walk it is a different beast and no one is going to welcome you as liberators.

[Adam Jensen]

To what end? what is the plan? Do you think the orange idiot thought this through?

We probably wouldn't be hear if the orange idiot hadn't suddenly pulled us out of the Iran deal.

Of course, we probably wouldn't be here if we hadn't overthrown their government in the 1970s . . .

[Gaidax]

Then, your entire justification is, "might makes right." Everything you said in your previous post is shown to be disingenuous.

It's not about morality, it's about having the most nuclear weapons at their disposal.

Of course it bloody is. It's Middle East, it's dog eats dog region here.

I don't have the luxury of sitting there across the pond on my high pedestal of morality bullcrap being holier than thou asshole educating the silly aboriginals.

It IS all down to who has the biggest stick here and don't ever think otherwise.

[Rumred]

Great, then any attempts to argue based on some imaginary moral high ground are pointless and disingenuous. That's exactly the point I was getting at. This wasn't about Iran being evil, it's about them not having as many guns as Israel and the United States.

So, any attempts to push a moral high ground are utter bullshit.

I never did that I am aware of but if I did I misspoke. And I agree there is no moral high ground in the middle east not really. Everyone's hands are bloody in that region now. It is a situation of national interest and geopolitics. Everyone involved in that region is doing so for reasons of national interest in one way or another.

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The problem is you are ignoring the fact that Trump wants regime change we aren't giving them an out, Iran would make Iraq look like a cake walk it is a different beast and no one is going to welcome you as liberators.

What Trump might want and what he will actually do or be willing to do are different things. Yes, he wants an Iranian regime change but I don’t think he wants an all-out war with Iran. For all the bluster we might get from him at times on this my view is he wants to be tough on Iran but not to the level of full-on war. Even if Iran escalates which like I said it wouldn’t be a 9/11 type escalation I still don’t see the US invading. The next logical escalation on the US end would be to start to strike Iran's oil industry and destroy it.

[Skroe]

You don't need full scale war to put Iran back in its place, it's plenty vulnerable as is and any war that opens up will be closed pretty fast and most likely not in Ayatollah's favor and they know it.

I certainly don't think Israel can "destroy" Iran or needs do that, but can definitely do enough damage to its fragile ass leadership even with limited conflict. The Supreme Dickhead there is very aware of their position, that's why they work tirelessly to setup all these backdoors around just to have deterrent.

Not very likely. To put it plainly, Israel probably doesn’t have the sheer munitions stockpile to do it. Pretty much only the US does. The US burned through a nice chunk of its weapons stockpile booming Iraq in 2003 and again against ISIS in the mid 2010s. This isn’t the Cold War. The munitions stockpiles of that era for everybody is no more. Types of bombs and missiles may number in the tens and hundreds. They’re simply extremely expensive. And in the case of Iran, it’s a very big country.

We can draw certain logical leaps. For example it took about 900 cruise missiles to strike Iraq in 2003. The US at the time had about 10,000. But along those have been retired and replaced with newer cruise missiles, but just 3000 in number. Iran, a much larger country, would require well more than 900. And nobody - including Israel - has anywhere approaching the US stockpile.

I know this sounds like an esoteric thing but what happened is that during the 2000s and 2010s many counties focused so much in buying better platforms or developing smarter munitions, that they put no thought into actually buy a lot of them. After all, of you don’t expect a major war why drop billions on something you’ll have to use or throw away in 15 years? So world wide stockpiles shrunk. When Mattis became secdef, his budget priority was to greatly build up the stockpile, recognizing that the US would need munitions in a fight and it couldn’t produce them quickly in the middle of it. Other countries have not follow suit, A big reason being it’s monstrously expensive.

Israel could give Iran a black eye, but little more than that.

[Machismo]

Of course it bloody is. It's Middle East, it's dog eats dog region here.

I don't have the luxury of sitting there across the pond on my high pedestal of morality bullcrap being holier than thou asshole educating the silly aboriginals.

It IS all down to who has the biggest stick here and don't ever think otherwise.

So, your entire initial argument was simply a smokescreen.

It's nice to know you think Iran should be free to build as many nuclear weapons as it wants.

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I never did that I am aware of but if I did I misspoke. And I agree there is no moral high ground in the middle east not really. Everyone's hands are bloody in that region now. It is a situation of national interest and geopolitics. Everyone involved in that region is doing so for reasons of national interest in one way or another.

- - - Updated - - -

What Trump might want and what he will actually do or be willing to do are different things. Yes, he wants an Iranian regime change but I don’t think he wants an all-out war with Iran. For all the bluster we might get from him at times on this my view is he wants to be tough on Iran but not to the level of full-on war. Even if Iran escalates which like I said it wouldn’t be a 9/11 type escalation I still don’t see the US invading. The next logical escalation on the US end would be to start to strike Iran's oil industry and destroy it.

You did not, but the poster I was speaking with had.

This wouldn't be happening, if everyone was stoned and getting laid.

[Draco-Onis]

What Trump might want and what he will actually do or be willing to do are different things. Yes, he wants an Iranian regime change but I don’t think he wants an all-out war with Iran. For all the bluster we might get from him at times on this my view is he wants to be tough on Iran but not to the level of full-on war. Even if Iran escalates which like I said it wouldn’t be a 9/11 type escalation I still don’t see the US invading. The next logical escalation on the US end would be to start to strike Iran's oil industry and destroy it.

That's your guess but Trump's demand have only been regime change so if he feels like you said he does he hasn't given any signal of that through negotiation, diplomacy or military actions.

[Gaidax]

So, your entire initial argument was simply a smokescreen.

It's nice to know you think Iran should be free to build as many nuclear weapons as it wants.

And we're free to make sure it won't happen. I have no illusions about anything in this shitass region - there are no holy cows here, Iran will do what it needs to do to get its stick and we will do what we need to do to get ours.

I mean, it's cute... I am not even sure what you are trying to "catch" me on, I think I'm as direct as it goes. Maybe I should use small words in my responses, in case something is not clear.

[lockedout]

Not very likely. To put it plainly, Israel probably doesn’t have the sheer munitions stockpile to do it. Pretty much only the US does. The US burned through a nice chunk of its weapons stockpile booming Iraq in 2003 and again against ISIS in the mid 2010s. This isn’t the Cold War. The munitions stockpiles of that era for everybody is no more. Types of bombs and missiles may number in the tens and hundreds. They’re simply extremely expensive. And in the case of Iran, it’s a very big country.

We can draw certain logical leaps. For example it took about 900 cruise missiles to strike Iraq in 2003. The US at the time had about 10,000. But along those have been retired and replaced with newer cruise missiles, but just 3000 in number. Iran, a much larger country, would require well more than 900. And nobody - including Israel - has anywhere approaching the US stockpile.

I know this sounds like an esoteric thing but what happened is that during the 2000s and 2010s many counties focused so much in buying better platforms or developing smarter munitions, that they put no thought into actually buy a lot of them. After all, of you don’t expect a major war why drop billions on something you’ll have to use or throw away in 15 years? So world wide stockpiles shrunk. When Mattis became secdef, his budget priority was to greatly build up the stockpile, recognizing that the US would need munitions in a fight and it couldn’t produce them quickly in the middle of it. Other countries have not follow suit, A big reason being it’s monstrously expensive.

Israel could give Iran a black eye, but little more than that.

Israel has nukes.

[Rumred]

We probably wouldn't be hear if the orange idiot hadn't suddenly pulled us out of the Iran deal.

Of course, we probably wouldn't be here if we hadn't overthrown their government in the 1970s . . .

None of the past 100 years in the middle east would have gone down without the sykes picot agreement. But i will say the overthrowing of the Iranian government in the 50's because they were going to nationalize their oil fields is right behind it.

[Skroe]

To what end? what is the plan? Do you think the orange idiot thought this through?

That’s a good question. On my phone so I’ll just refer to my posts up thread that address that. Certainly, there is no strategy.

But this thing we’ve gotten used to where China, Russia, Iran and North Korea engage in provacative actions and then we are supposed to sit back and not do anything in response because of escalators risks? It’s horseshit and it needs to stop. It just delays the day of reckoning.

As I said when Iran shot down our drone, the US needs to restore conventional deterrence across the entire world because it’s quite clear the our adversaries think they can do almost anything because the US won’t do shit.

We’ll his sent them all a very personal, powerful message, because he could have been any of their intelligence sciences or senior generals. That’s the kind of message we need to keep sending.

The mode of the past 25 years of turning the other cheek has failed and we got a new Cold War for our trouble. This is a first and a positive step in redrawing the badly needed red lines that we’ve let our adversaries cross at will.

[Ghostpanther]

This is exactly how we should be taking out those responsible for terrorism. Airstrikes. But I do not think we should be in Iraq or Afghanistan to begin with.

[Skroe]

Israel has nukes.

Israel using them against a non-nuclear adversary would be the end of Israel.

[Gaidax]

Israel could give Iran a black eye, but little more than that.

That's plenty in case of Iran. It can not afford any at this point - any direct confrontation is out of question for both sides, after all we don't want to sit in bomb shelters either, but if we'd happen to spar for a bit - Iran would come out the loser there at this point in time and they are aware of that.

They are trying hard to change that, but they are not quite there yet.

Not everything needs to be all out war to get mission accomplished. That's why all this proxy nonsense is going on here, so that both sides can pinch at each other, without going directly at it, which would be disaster and certainly a bigger one for Iran.

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Israel has nukes.

Nobody in right mind would use that. It's a deterrent, but you must be out of your mind if you think it will be used for any sort of war or here outside the most dire situation if that.

It's not Call of Duty or crappy game here, nukes are not the opening act and never will be for anyone because it will be the end of that side.

[Rumred]

So, your entire initial argument was simply a smokescreen.

It's nice to know you think Iran should be free to build as many nuclear weapons as it wants.

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You did not, but the poster I was speaking with had.

This wouldn't be happening, if everyone was stoned and getting laid.

Sadly the US I will admit is behind on the laws regarding weed but we are slowly getting there. I find tho that not trying to attach any morality to world politics especially the middle east just makes stuff easier to swallow in the long run. It might be Machiavellian but in my view, it does explain the world a lot better.

[Machismo]

And we're free to make sure it won't happen. I have no illusions about anything in this shitass region - there are no holy cows here, Iran will do what it needs to do to get its stick and we will do what we need to do to get ours.

I mean, it's cute... I am not even sure what you are trying to "catch" me on, I think I'm as direct as it goes. Maybe I should use small words in my responses, in case something is not clear.

Nope, it's quite clear, you have no problem supporting some pretty heinous shit.

This is exactly why the United States needs to get out of the ME, and only step in to protect innocent people. Let the warmongers kill each other.

[Skroe]

That's plenty in case of Iran. It can not afford any at this point - any direct confrontation is out of question for both sides, after all we don't want to sit in bomb shelters either, but if we'd happen to spar for a bit - Iran would come out the loser there at this point in time and they are aware of that.

They are trying hard to change that, but they are not quite there yet.

Not everything needs to be all out war to get mission accomplished. That's why all this proxy nonsense is going on here, so that both sides can pinch at each other, without going directly at it, which would be disaster and certainly a bigger one for Iran.

Giving a country a black eye is not a strategy. It’s a statement and statements without strategy are worthless.

That includes this episode. The US made a powerful statement to everyone in the world. But without a strategy it is a whole lot of nothing .

Due to sheer limitations on Israel due to its military disposition, a strategy that capitalizes on a black eye is dubious at best, which is why Israel has never directly struck Iran. Even it’s contingencies to attack Iran‘S nuclear program are pure time time-buyers and not part of any wider strategy.