[Discussion] US-Iran

Any developments in the potential conflict between the United States and Iran go here, as well as discussion and reasonable good faith debate.

Solemani was a very bad man who did bad and scary things.

Did killing him solve anything? No. Will it prevent anything? No. Killing him didn't change the past. I was in Iraq when EFPs became a thing. We knew at the time that Iran and Quds was behind the training and profileration of those devices. People in my unit were injured and killed by them. It. Was. War.

He's a state actor. He'll be replaced by another state actor that will be as bad or worse. And frankly, who gives a f*ck what other Mideastern countries think about what we should or should not be doing.

We should leave. Now. Yesterday. A decade ago.

Hear hear

Can we really leave though? They have a commodity we really, really, really are addicted to. Unless the belief is that the spice will flow even if our Sardaukar are not there?

Wait we are not a meglominaical military power bent on making all others do our will....wait....

anyway will the oil keep coming to fuel our extravagant lifestyle or do we have to stay there?

Iran is still gonna want to sell their oil on international markets - if anything, I don't think they can afford not to.

And now the killing of Solemani appears to be responsible for the death of all of the passengers on the 737 that took off from the Iranian airport the night Iran was retaliating. Trump's f*ckery has resulted in the death of 176 innocent people. Yes, it was the Iranians who fired the missiles AND this never would have happened if Trump hadn't decided to make his asinine decision.

Ukrainian airliner was shot down by Iran with Russian-made surface-to-air missiles

From CNN's Barbara Starr

The Ukrainian plane that crashed Wednesday was shot down by two Russian-made surface to air missiles (SA-15), according to a US official familiar with the intelligence.

The US saw Iranian radar signals lock onto the jetliner, before it was shot down.

The morning after the incident, US analysts discovered the data but took another day to verify.

I am not sure his ineptitude absolves Iran of theirs.

This is always hard for me. I do see your point JC but should we never stop evil doers because their "team" might retaliate?

Should police not arrest a gang member because their gang might shoot up a store in retaliation? Do we really just let bad guys do what they want because we are afraid of what might happen?

Now don't get me wrong I am against the killing but because of the illegality, the pointlessness, etc. more than because of what Iran might do in retaliation.

The analogy is broken because the police have a duty and the jurisdiction to prevent crime in their areas of responsibility, and importantly, the police would ARREST the person, not hit them with a missile.

The analogy isn't perfect but the idea holds (to me anyway) - should we not take actions against our enemies because we believe they might do something evil to innocents in retaliation?

You'll probably be better served not thinking about people as good or evil. That kind of binary thought doesn't lead to anything 'good'. Spontaneous, state sponsored murder is just never the right option.

That Trump could get there without anyone in the chain of responsibility (from recon finding the target, to coming up with a plan, to 45 smashing a stubby, cheeto covered finger on the 'go' button, to the actual execution) saying 'hey wait a second', is a huge red flag to me.

I am not saying the action was ok. It was not in my opinion, but that doesn't make trump responsible for actions taken by Iran in retaliation.

farley3k wrote:

I am not saying the action was ok. It was not in my opinion, but that doesn't make trump responsible for actions taken by Iran in retaliation.

Trump ordered the assassination of an Iranian citizen located in Iraq who was there with the permission of the Iraqi government when the US military had no charter to engage in direct combat operations.

How is Trump not responsible for this whole crisis?

Iran did not have to destroy a plane full of people who were not related to the issue.

If we believe he is then the question is how far back does "responsibility" go? Who started it? Who did the first action against the other? Or is there some invisible line that cuts off responsibility?

I posted a cartoon in the picture thread about Oliver North selling surface to air missiles to Iran in the 80s. - do we go that far back and say Reagan/North are responsible for the downing of the plane? Why not? What is the point at which we say people are responsible for their actions?

farley3k wrote:

Iran did not have to destroy a plane full of people who were not related to the issue.

According to the NYT citing reports from Canadian intelligence, it's looking likely it was accidental.

Which seems to muddy the "responsibility" question even more.

Yes it does. What did you expect Iran to do? Iran is a sovereign nation entitled to defend its interests and citizens. Bin Laden was different because he was a stateless actor. For whatever evil this general was, he was useful to our national interests. His death gave us really nothing and Canada and the Ukraine ended up paying for it.

farley3k wrote:

The analogy isn't perfect but the idea holds (to me anyway) - should we not take actions against our enemies because we believe they might do something evil to innocents in retaliation?

A non-idiot leader allows the potential ramifications of an action to influence the choice to take the action or not.

They trade off the positive and negative impacts and make a determination on whether the action achieves their goals or not.

The problem with Trump is that he doesn't know what his goals are in the first place (beyond "remain president to avoid prison"), never mind the fact that he ignored the informed professional who explained the ramifications to him, along with their advice on what action to take.

fangblackbone wrote:

Yes it does. What did you expect Iran to do? Iran is a sovereign nation entitled to defend its interests and citizens. Bin Laden was different because he was a stateless actor. For whatever evil this general was, he was useful to our national interests. His death gave us really nothing and Canada and the Ukraine ended up paying for it.

I was responding to blaming trump for Iran destroying the plane.

So you are saying "yes it does. Iran was right to kill 176 innocent people to defend isn't interests and citizens" because that is what Iran did (leaving aside the issue of whether is was an accident)

I don't think that is true, and I bet you don't either.

I simply believe that while trump's actions were wrong that doesn't make whatever response Iran chooses trump's fault.

Jonman wrote:
farley3k wrote:

The analogy isn't perfect but the idea holds (to me anyway) - should we not take actions against our enemies because we believe they might do something evil to innocents in retaliation?

A non-idiot leader allows the potential ramifications of an action to influence the choice to take the action or not.

They trade off the positive and negative impacts and make a determination on whether the action achieves their goals or not.

The problem with Trump is that he doesn't know what his goals are in the first place (beyond "remain president to avoid prison"), never mind the fact that he ignored the informed professional who explained the ramifications to him, along with their advice on what action to take.

I don't disagree. However while they look at the ramifications that doesn't mean they are responsible for those actions.

It was likely an accident. There have been several instances over the last few years of airliners being shot down by air defense weaponry.

Also, the US's track record is not great in the commerical airliner shoot-down category.

We tend to forget about the really sh*tty things we do.

I was in basic training when the Vincennes shot down that plane. We all thought we were going to war.

farley3k wrote:

I simply believe that while trump's actions were wrong that doesn't make whatever response Iran chooses trump's fault.

Like most morality, seems significantly more nuanced than that. If I put a red button in front of someone, and plainly inform them that pushing the button transitions the world from more stable to more chaotic, and they press it, they are at least partially responsible for the consequences, even in the details of the chaos involve others.

If we're looking to absolve Trump, I think the easier path is to suggest that he is no more responsible for the consequences than if a dog steps on the button. He is not capable of basic political decision making. In that case whoever presented the dog-president with the option is partially at fault, be it Fox News chatbot or cabinet adviser.

Farley, I think you're somewhat correct in saying attributing causation to Trump is challenging. But at the same time, you've got a disproportionate escalation with a strike on a high level military officer in a neutral zone and large threats of further escalation. The Iranians would be on high alert and it's in that context it may be that a terrible mistake was made. People aren't saying the Iranians did it on purpose, people are saying the elevated alert levels resulting from Trump's assassination may have contributed to the mistake.

I

Bfgp wrote:

Farley, I think you're somewhat correct in saying attributing causation to Trump is challenging. But at the same time, you've got a disproportionate escalation with a strike on a high level military officer in a neutral zone and large threats of further escalation. The Iranians would be on high alert and it's in that context it may be that a terrible mistake was made. People aren't saying the Iranians did it on purpose, people are saying the elevated alert levels resulting from Trump's assassination may have contributed to the mistake.

This exactly. If Trump hadn’t assassinated the Iranian there’s a very good chance that we wouldn’t have been in this situation and the accidental destruction of the passenger jet would not have occurred.

JC wrote:

I

Bfgp wrote:

Farley, I think you're somewhat correct in saying attributing causation to Trump is challenging. But at the same time, you've got a disproportionate escalation with a strike on a high level military officer in a neutral zone and large threats of further escalation. The Iranians would be on high alert and it's in that context it may be that a terrible mistake was made. People aren't saying the Iranians did it on purpose, people are saying the elevated alert levels resulting from Trump's assassination may have contributed to the mistake.

This exactly. If Trump hadn’t assassinated the Iranian there’s a very good chance that we wouldn’t have been in this situation and the accidental destruction of the passenger jet would not have occurred.

I am Jack's lack of surprise that assassinating a beloved leader from an aircraft results in hair-triggers for surface-to-air defenses.

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A lion is an unthinking animal that reacts on instinct. Iranians are people like you or me capable of complex thought. That's a terrible comparison.

I believe we can all agree the assassination has tensed the region and the tense region contributed the downed 737. Tense soldiers are still human beings capable of cognition, and that panicked soldiers should still be held accountable.

Hobbes2099 wrote:

I believe we can all agree the assassination has tensed the region and the tense region contributed the downed 737. Tense soldiers are still human beings capable of cognition, and that panicked soldiers should still be held accountable.

It took the US eight years to even acknowledge that Iran Air Flight 655 being shot down was a terrible human tragedy, but we never once admitted that we did it nor did we apologize for doing it.

And the assassination of Solemani was the most recent action in an unbroken chain of sh*tty things that America has done to Iran that stretches back to at least 1953.

Hobbes2099 wrote:

I believe we can all agree the assassination has tensed the region and the tense region contributed the downed 737. Tense soldiers are still human beings capable of cognition, and that panicked soldiers should still be held accountable.

Yup.

And if that plane was full of Americans (low probability considering where it was coming from) things would be trending much much worse.

This is similar to 2014 when the plane from Amsterdam to Malaysia was shot down while flying over Ukraine. There were 193 Dutch on that plane and 0 Americans.