Ukranian representatives are already reaching Teheran
edit: placed the wrong link here. Can't find the original one. Sorry.
edit: placed the wrong link here. Can't find the original one. Sorry.
Iran v US confrontation
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Are you saying this is all about some new oil field?
Because that’s what you said.
Its all Iran can really do, their biggest military threat is its ballistic missiles yes they have an impressive range but they are pretty inaccurate.
This is just a bluff response. The real response will happen and they will deny any involvement in those events, blaming ISIS.
No I didn't... I said it was a factor. The attacks on US embassies, military contracts, as @Pexbo says a distraction from domestic affairs, Americas itch for a war.
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I guess we'll find out? Even Ukraine have revoked their earlier statement which said it's engine failure and have called for criminal proceedings and a thorough and independent investigation. UIA and Malaysian Airlines have also banned any of their flights from Iranian airspace.
They will most likely claim and American backed ISIS... surely not?
What time is trump going to make his statement... Or is he just going to tweet it
He already tweeted "all is well", and an Iranian official kinda mocked him, I am sure Trump will love that.
yeah he said a statement would follow in the morning - Im just wondering if he has a press conference booked? - Its about half six in D.C. right now so if he wants to capitalize on the breakfast tv news cycle i would have expected it to be quite soon... though of course he might just roll out of bed and tweet something totally crazy as well
Who knows what he wants. I don't think anyone wants a war other than arms dealers and probably any oil rich countries not based in the middle east. Trump wants lots of little victories and distractions, Iran wants to be seen to be getting justice and not being pushed around by the US. The rest of the region want to appear strong but as far as I have read have no real appetite for war.
I don't claim to have anything other than a shallow understanding of this whole situation, the more I research the less I know, it's just that fecking complex with the number of actors involved.
My one take from this over the last couple of days is that despite all the posturing, the middle east appears to be in as stable a condition as it's been for a long while in regards to the leaders of each country knowing where they stand in regards to other leaders and each country having no real appetite for actual conflict. All the conflict appears to only be happening between militia (state funded of course) or in cases like KSA vs Yemen which is a massacre rather than a war or Israel vs Palestine which is more like people throwing rocks occasionally being obliterated by people with rifles. Nobody really wants actual war because as much as anything it will upset the whole balance and put relations under huge strain. What do you do when your main ally's enemy is also your arch-rival's arch-enemy? It seems like there's a spiderweb of these relations centring from the middle east and actual war would put a lot of these relations to the test and would end up as a massive shit show.
EDIT - From 2014 so I'm sure a lot has changed but here's a great graphic showing the complexity of relations in the ME. https://www.theguardian.com/news/da...ddle-east-who-is-connected-to-who-interactive
If an actual war kicks off, good luck predicting who will be on each side
You actually have me visualising Trump in his presidential jammies, iPad in hand wondering if he should play world of tanks or tweet the nation.
Hopefully no more aggression from Iran as then Trump and his cronies could very well invoke article 5 in NATO and we end up with a full scale war
i suspect hes tugging himself silly whilst melania showers him as he considers if he should tweet a declaration of war or actually dry himself off and do a press conference... in the meantime yelling at his generals to bring him his nuclear trident whilst they scurry round wondering who is going to explain its not an actual trident with nuclear powers... all the time his little hand hovering over his i phone (an ipads too big for those little hands)... welcome to 2020
perhaps he will just tell iran he will nuke them back to the stonage unless they bomb mexico into building the wall for him... art of the deal and all that
Who knows what he wants. I don't think anyone wants a war other than arms dealers and probably any oil rich countries not based in the middle east. Trump wants lots of little victories and distractions, Iran wants to be seen to be getting justice and not being pushed around by the US. The rest of the region want to appear strong but as far as I have read have no real appetite for war.
I don't claim to have anything other than a shallow understanding of this whole situation, the more I research the less I know, it's just that fecking complex with the number of actors involved.
My one take from this over the last couple of days is that despite all the posturing, the middle east appears to be in as stable a condition as it's been for a long while in regards to the leaders of each country knowing where they stand in regards to other leaders and each country having no real appetite for actual conflict. All the conflict appears to only be happening between militia (state funded of course) or in cases like KSA vs Yemen which is a massacre rather than a war or Israel vs Palestine which is more like people throwing rocks occasionally being obliterated by people with rifles. Nobody really wants actual war because as much as anything it will upset the whole balance and put relations under huge strain. What do you do when your main ally's enemy is also your arch-rival's arch-enemy? It seems like there's a spiderweb of these relations centring from the middle east and actual war would put a lot of these relations to the test and would end up as a massive shit show.
EDIT - From 2014 so I'm sure a lot has changed but here's a great graphic showing the complexity of relations in the ME. https://www.theguardian.com/news/da...ddle-east-who-is-connected-to-who-interactive
If an actual war kicks off, good luck predicting who will be on each side
Great find that graphic, saved in my favourites but it out lines the main root of the allegiances being religion and more importantly what branch of Islam a country follows and Shia and Sunni who on the most part have irreconcilable differences, who only can tolerate each other if there is a common goal.
World politics eh, 3 of the worlds strongest nations leaders are Trump, Johnson and Putin.The sectarian aspect is important in many ways but shouldn’t be over-stated, explaining everything along those lines can lead to many misunderstandings.
Yeah its just one of many factors.
I believe that Trump believes it!
Trump is not hampered by taking a 'political view', he knows that if the US really unleashed its full (conventional let alone nuclear ) military potential on anyone, it could x the 'Shock and Awe' of Iraq invasion ten times over, but he also knows he can't, so in the famous words of Truman, "if you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen".
Trump will stay out of any 'kitchen' he feels will get too hot and he will return the sniping from behind cover that US enemies have been doing to America for years, and he will make no apology for that.
There is a real danger of the US (under Trump) becoming the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the World (of course many believe that to be the case already!)
@2cents
More or less all journalists imply that solemani was the second most influential person in the iranian regime. I guess its hard to say much about the internal dynamics of the Iranian regime, but is this claim actually true? I mean there are plenty of positions in the regime, that could in theory be important and its hard for me to make any judgement about who is actually deciding stuff. Solemani was naturally more known to an international audience due to his role as leader of their international military operations. Can you say anything about that and maybe his successor?
More or less all journalists imply that solemani was the second most influential person in the iranian regime. I guess its hard to say much about the internal dynamics of the Iranian regime, but is this claim actually true? I mean there are plenty of positions in the regime, that could in theory be important and its hard for me to make any judgement about who is actually deciding stuff. Solemani was naturally more known to an international audience due to his role as leader of their international military operations. Can you say anything about that and maybe his successor?
Everyone saying Iran will be destroyed. A war with Iran will make Afghanistan and Iraq combined look like child's play.
He was certainly #2 in Iran in terms of gravitas, and reported directly to the Supreme Leader. He was known to both domestic and international audiences because he was the primary exporter of Iranian power across the region from Iraq to Lebanon to Syria to Yemen. His fame in the US comes from him training a variety of Iraqi Shi’a militant groups like Asa’ib al-Haq and others to kill American troops during the post surge phase of the Iraq war; a fact that wouldn’t have gone unnoticed by hawks like Pompeo who advise Trump in the present. The fact that he was still seen cavorting with Hadi al-Amiri on social media lately was a good illustration of how tight the Iranian regime had infiltrated the upper echelons of Iraqi Shi’a politics.
Isn't that a prerequisite for any American president?
Really don’t know enough about the inner workings of the regime or the different personalities to judge, but I’d imagine what status or influence he had in domestic affairs was more symbolic than material. It seems many Iranians don’t associate him directly with the regime oppression they experience at home. There was talk of him running for President in the future, which I find doubtful for a man of war like him. Some even spoke of him as a future Supreme Leader, which is absolute nonsense as they must come from the clerical class.
Certainly he was at least the second-most important man in driving Iran’s regional policy. I don’t know anything about the new guy unfortunately.
Where did you get this information?
There is some info here.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0003871/shadow-commander-irans-military-mastermind
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0003871/shadow-commander-irans-military-mastermind
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What he is saying is quite accurate, albeit missing more details as well.
Suleimani was very active lately especially after his recent heroics in Iraq and Syria (mainly with fights against ISIS AND while being supported by Hezbollah fighters joining from Lebanon). While one would argue that his cause was noble, he was not doing it for the syrian or the iraqi people, he was just doing it because he is a brainwashed Shiite who was following orders, whose government could not evolve its way of thinking over the years and its way of rebelling against western interference. They boast about weapons etc etc while their economy is crippled, typical third-world way of thinking, the end of their regime is near.
Don't think there should be too much of a masterplan expected in all of this. Doesn't look like it at all.
They still want all us soldiers out of the region and that will definitely be seen as aggression.
Technically speaking, he was not No. 2. The president is higher than him, as would have been the chief of staff (under whose direction work both IRGC and the Army), chief of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (Soleimani actually was appointed from the chief of IRGC, not from Khomenei), the chief of Iranian Army, the prime minister and so on. Heck, legally speaking, arguably he was not even in top 10.
De facto though, he was Iran's second or third most powerful person. That is because he has been in that position for more than 20 years (all chiefs of military have been replaced in meantime, and Iran had 4 presidents since then), and during these years, Iran had many proxy wars in the region, which were coordinated by him (Quds force could be seen as a combination of CIA with Army's special forces). In the meantime, he started reporting directly to the Supreme Leader, instead of the main general of IRGC.
A good parallel in US would be McConnell (though on very different circumstances). Legally, he is not even one of top 5 most powerful people in US (and is not even in the line of succession), but he has been the second most powerful person since 2014. In politics, at times it is more how much power you accumulate rather than how much power you have by law.
I don't expect his replacement to be the second most powerful person in Iran.
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Maybe not but the taking out of Suleimani was a massive statement, as @Fredo says he was a massive figure and dare I say it if it was 15-20 years ago he would have been the type of out right leader Iran would have chosen outright. while he was a general I would say he would have had good input into most policy.
I don't think it is nonsense. Khomenei himself was just a junior cleric when he became Supreme Leader (despite that the Supreme Leader was supposed to be a Grand Ayatollah). Constitution and rules can always be changed, and in the end (especially in non-democratic countries), it is more how much power you yield rather than what is written in the letter.
Only the arrogant ones who have been bought up hearing nothing but how America is a Military beast.
He probably remembered this and thought that it's a shame that no one used his brilliant idea from 2011:
"Our President will start a war with Iran because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate. He's weak, and he's ineffective," Trump added. "So I believe that he will attack Iran sometime prior to the election, because he thinks that's the only way he can get elected."
If the US were to launch a full scale attack on Iran it would be flattened, would they win the "total war" probably not due to the reasons already stated about the size and landscape of the country but the bits that mattered, big cities and military bases and factories would be in ruins. Tech has moved on massively since the Gulf war and yet Iran's biggest threat are inaccurate ballistic missiles based on old Soviet scuds. I'm not American so have no need to be arrogant. America simply has too much accurate and devastating air and sea fire power.
Yep, the US can easily destroy Iran (as in destroying its military, infrastructure, factories, etc), but cannot hold Iran. So in that sense, both sides are right.
Well yeah, there was a slight amendment made to accommodate Khamenei, but I find it extremely doubtful that a non-mujtahid could ever be made SL without the type of change that would render the system unrecognizable, since that would literally contradict the entire idea of Velayat-e Faqih.
You probably end up with a massive humanitarian disaster with no function government... fertile breading ground for terrorist organisations with a lot of trained fighters, conventional weapons and potentially even chemical and nuclear material that people could procure
Its very hard to see an end game that in a geopolitical sense improves Americas position - china and russia must be rubbing their hands though
Which is a moot point in itself. Destroying Iranian government and infrastructure and failing to hold Iran itself would create a vacuum that would make Afghanistan and Iraq look like child's play (and would also destabilise both those countries again anyway).
It just goes to show how much better a deal for the entire region and entire world Obama's Iran deal was in comparison to hostility and conflict like this. Trump being such a fecking baby when it comes to Obama meant the Iran deal was "real bad" and did his absolute best to destroy it and now here we are.