U.S. Iran Conflict

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Iran has, predictably, retaliated by attacking two U.S. bases in Iraq. No word yet on casualties as of yet.

[Faramond]

As I understand it, military leaders prepared a range of options to provide to Trump and the assassination of Soleimani was presented as the most extreme choice, in order to make the other options seem more reasonable. That is apparently a common tool that military leaders use, and no one ever expects a president to chose that option. They were therefore shocked and dismayed that Trump did choose that option but had no choice but to go through with it once he did so.

This is incorrect.

https://twitter.com/John_Hudson/status/ ... 6761785345

I haven't read the article because I don't have a subscription but the twitter summary makes it clear that this was not the result of military leaders being taken by surprise by an impulsive Trump decision.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Thanks, Faramond. For some reason that I don't quite understand, I was able to access the article, which is full of interesting information. I'm going to post it here in full so that you and others can read it. In short, it suggests that Pompeo was despondent at Trump's last minute cancelling of air strikes when Iran shot down the U.S. drone, and took the opportunity of vacuum of leadership in the Pentagon after Gen. Mattis left to push through this action (I'm paraphrasing liberally). Here is the article:

National Security
Killing of Soleimani follows long push from Pompeo for aggressive action against Iran, but airstrike brings serious risks


By John Hudson ,
Josh Dawsey ,
Shane Harris and
Dan Lamothe
January 5
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo woke on Tuesday to a 4 a.m. call alerting him to a large protest outside the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.
As demonstrators began hurling molotov cocktails at the heavily fortified compound, Pompeo grappled with the new security threat to his diplomats in phone calls starting at 4:30 a.m. with Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper, Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Matthew Tueller, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, according to U.S. officials.
The secretary also spoke to President Trump multiple times every day last week, culminating in Trump’s decision to approve the killing of Iran’s top military commander, Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, at the urging of Pompeo and Vice President Pence, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
Pompeo had lost a similar high-stakes deliberation last summer when Trump declined to retaliate militarily against Iran after it downed a U.S. surveillance drone, an outcome that left Pompeo “morose,” according to one U.S. official. But recent changes to Trump’s national security team and the whims of a president anxious about being viewed as hesitant in the face of Iranian aggression created an opening for Pompeo to press for the kind of action he had been advocating.
The greenlighting of the airstrike near Baghdad airport represents a bureaucratic victory for Pompeo, but it also carries multiple serious risks: another protracted regional war in the Middle East; retaliatory assassinations of U.S. personnel stationed around the world; an interruption in the battle against the Islamic State; the closure of diplomatic pathways to containing Iran’s nuclear program; and a major backlash in Iraq, whose parliament voted on Sunday to expel all U.S. troops from the country.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, left, and Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper in Florida on Dec. 29. (Evan Vucci/AP)
For Pompeo, whose political ambitions are a source of constant speculation, the death of U.S. diplomats would be particularly damaging given his unyielding criticisms of former secretary of state Hillary Clinton following the killing of the U.S. ambassador to Libya and other American personnel in Benghazi in 2012.

But none of those considerations stopped Pompeo from pushing for the targeted strike, U.S. officials said, underscoring a fixation on Iran that spans 10 years of government service from Congress to the CIA to the State Department.
“We took a bad guy off the battlefield. We made the right decision,” Pompeo told CNN. “I’m proud of the effort that President Trump undertook.”
Pompeo first spoke with Trump about killing Soleimani months ago, said a senior U.S. official, but neither the president nor Pentagon officials were willing to countenance such an operation.
For more than a year, defense officials warned that the administration’s campaign of economic sanctions against Iran had increased tensions with Tehran, requiring a bigger and bigger share of military resources in the Middle East when many at the Pentagon wanted to redeploy their firepower to East Asia.

On Jan. 1, the siege on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad appeared to come to an end after supporters of the Iranian-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia retreated. (Liz Sly, Joyce Lee, Mustafa Salim/The Washington Post)
Trump, too, sought to draw down from the Middle East as he promised from the opening days of his presidential campaign. But that mind-set shifted on Dec. 27 when 30 rockets hit a joint U.S.-Iraqi base outside Kirkuk, killing an American civilian contractor and injuring service members.

On Dec. 29, Pompeo, Esper and Milley traveled to the president’s private club in Florida, where the two defense officials presented possible responses to Iranian aggression, including the option of killing Soleimani, senior U.S. officials said.
Trump’s decision to target Soleimani came as a surprise and a shock to some officials briefed on his decision, given the Pentagon’s long-standing concerns about escalation and the president’s aversion to using military force against Iran.
One significant factor was the “lockstep” coordination for the operation between Pompeo and Esper, both graduates in the same class at the U.S. Military Academy, who deliberated ahead of the briefing with Trump, senior U.S. officials said. Pence also endorsed the decision, but he did not attend the meeting in Florida.

“Taking out Soleimani would not have happened under [former secretary of defense Jim] Mattis,” said a senior administration official who argued that the Mattis Pentagon was risk-averse. “Mattis was opposed to all of this. It’s not a hit on Mattis, it’s just his predisposition. Milley and Esper are different. Now you’ve got a cohesive national security team and you’ve got a secretary of state and defense secretary who’ve known each other their whole adult lives.”
Mattis declined to comment.

In the days since the strike, Pompeo has become the voice of the administration on the matter, speaking to allies and making the public case for the operation. Trump chose Pompeo to appear on all of the Sunday news shows because he “sticks to the line” and “never gives an inch,” an administration official said.

But critics inside and outside the administration have questioned Pompeo’s justification for the strike based on his claims that “dozens if not hundreds” of American lives were at risk.

Lawmakers left classified briefings with U.S. intelligence officials on Friday saying they heard nothing to suggest that the threat posed by the proxy forces guided by Soleimani had changed substantially in recent months.
When repeatedly pressed on Sunday about the imminent nature of the threats, whether it was days or weeks away, or whether they had been foiled by the U.S. airstrike, Pompeo dismissed the questions.
“If you’re an American in the region, days and weeks — this is not something that’s relevant,” Pompeo told CNN.

Some defense officials said Pompeo’s claims of an imminent and direct threat were overstated, and they would prefer that he make the case based on the killing of the American contractor and previous Iranian provocations.
Critics have also questioned how an imminent attack would be foiled by killing Soleimani, who would not have carried out the strike himself.
“If the attack was going to take place when Soleimani was alive, it is difficult to comprehend why it wouldn’t take place now that he is dead,” said Robert Malley, the president of the International Crisis Group and a former Obama administration official.
Following the strike, Pompeo has held back-to-back phone calls with his counterparts around the globe but has received a chilly reception from European allies, many of whom fear that the attack puts their embassies in Iran and Iraq in jeopardy and has now eliminated the chance to keep a lid on Iran’s nuclear program.

“We have woken up to a more dangerous world,” said France’s Europe minister, Amelie de Montchalin.
Two European diplomats familiar with the calls said Pompeo expected European leaders to champion the U.S. strike publicly even though they were never consulted on the decision.
“The U.S. has not helped the Iran situation, and now they want everyone to cheerlead this,” one diplomat said.
“Our position over the past few years has been about defending the JCPOA,” said the diplomat, referring to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
On Sunday, Iran announced that it was suspending all limits of the nuclear deal, including on uranium enrichment, research and development, and enlarging its stockpile of nuclear fuel. Britain, France and Germany, as well as Russia and China, were original signatories of that deal with the United States and Iran, and all opposed Trump’s decision to withdraw from the pact.

“No one trusts what Trump will do next, so it’s hard to get behind this,” said the European diplomat.
Pompeo has slapped back at U.S. allies, saying “the Brits, the French, the Germans all need to understand that what we did — what the Americans did — saved lives in Europe as well,” he told Fox News.
Israel has stood out in emphatically cheering the Soleimani operation, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praising Trump for “acting swiftly, forcefully and decisively.”
“Israel stands with the United States in its just struggle for peace, security and self-defense,” he said.
Since his time as CIA director, Pompeo has forged a friendship with Yossi Cohen, the director of the Israeli intelligence service Mossad, said a person familiar with their meetings. The men have spoken about the threat posed by Iran to both Israel and the United States. In a prescient interview in October, Cohen said Soleimani “knows perfectly well that his elimination is not impossible.”
Though Democrats have greeted the strike with skepticism, Republican leaders, who have long viewed Pompeo as a reassuring voice in the administration, uniformly praised the decision as the eradication of a terrorist who directed the killing of U.S. soldiers in Iraq after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
“Soleimani made it his life’s work to take the Iranian revolutionary call for death to America and death to Israel and turn them into action,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said.
A critical moment for Pompeo is nearing as he faces growing questions about a potential Senate run, though some GOP insiders say that decision seems to have stalled. Pompeo has kept in touch with Ward Baker, a political consultant who would probably lead the operation, and others in McConnell’s orbit, about a bid. But Pompeo hasn’t committed one way or the other, people familiar with the conversations said.
Some people close to the secretary say he has mixed feelings about becoming a relatively junior senator from Kansas after leading the State Department and CIA, but there is little doubt in Pompeo’s home state that he could win.
At every step of his government career, Pompeo has tried to stake out a maximalist position on Iran that has made him popular among two critical pro-Israel constituencies in Republican politics: conservative Jewish donors and Christian evangelicals.
After Trump tapped Pompeo to lead the CIA, Pompeo quickly set up an Iran Mission Center at the agency to focus intelligence-gathering efforts and operations, elevating Iran’s importance as an intelligence target.
At the State Department, he is a voracious consumer of diplomatic notes and reporting on Iran, and he places the country far above other geopolitical and economic hot spots in the world.
“If it’s about Iran, he will read it,” said one diplomat, referring to the massive flow of paper that crosses Pompeo’s desk. “If it’s not, good luck.”

[River]

Pres. 'it turns out I'm really good at killing people' Obama personally targeted many, many people for killing by drone. No one seems to have considered that a problem.

Correction - tons of people considered that a problem and said so loudly at the time.

Yep. I too was alive and breathing during the Obama Administration. There was a lot of criticism from all quarters about the use of drones and the collateral damage. I recall one occasion when a wedding party got blown up. I do not, however, recall any assassinations of government officials in our current round of Middle Eastern conflicts.

Declaring the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization made the warhawks happy and gave the Trump Administration the authority under current laws to drop a bomb on Soleimani without declaring war on Iran proper but it doesn't take way from the fact that the organization and the man were, unlike any other group or individual we've dubbed terrorists, government actors (all the other terrorists out there are either lone wolves or violent NGOs). It opens up an interesting can of worms. What happens if some other nation does the same thing to us or one of our allies?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Apparently, not only were there no casualties from the Iranian strikes, it appears that that was intentional on the part of the Iranians, in an apparent effort to allow the situation to diffuse. I haven't been listening to Trump's address on the situation, so I don't know whether it has worked or not.

With regard to the Washington Post article that Faramond referred to and that I posted above, I don't think that so much contradicts the previous information that I had posted about military leaders being "stunned" that Trump chose the option of assassination, so much as expands upon it. Pompeo, the "Secretary of State" (I put that in quotes because he has not at all acted as a diplomat in the role, and is widely hated by the diplomats in the department), is definitely not a military leader, though he seems to have usurped much of the influence of the military leaders. The apparent fact that the reason that Trump chose the assassination option at Pompeo's urging does not change the apparent facts that the opposition was presented as the extreme case that was not expected to be chosen, or that military leaders were stunned that it was chosen.

[Sunsilver]

[Thanks for giving this its own thread, Voronwë. It definitely needs one.]

That's interesting, Voronwë. I saw one report last night that said zero casualties and another that said there were at least 80.

Makes me wonder...

Here is the full text of his speech:

The White House provided the following transcript of Trump's remarks:

As long as I am President of the United States, Iran will never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.

Good morning. I'm pleased to inform you: The American people should be extremely grateful and happy no Americans were harmed in last night’s attack by the Iranian regime. We suffered no casualties, all of our soldiers are safe, and only minimal damage was sustained at our military bases. 

Our great American forces are prepared for anything. Iran appears to be standing down, which is a good thing for all parties concerned and a very good thing for the world.

No American or Iraqi lives were lost because of the precautions taken, the dispersal of forces, and an early warning system that worked very well. I salute the incredible skill and courage of America’s men and women in uniform.

For far too long -- all the way back to 1979, to be exact -- nations have tolerated Iran’s destructive and destabilizing behavior in the Middle East and beyond. Those days are over. Iran has been the leading sponsor of terrorism, and their pursuit of nuclear weapons threatens the civilized world. We will never let that happen.

Last week, we took decisive action to stop a ruthless terrorist from threatening American lives. At my direction, the United States military eliminated the world’s top terrorist, Qasem Soleimani. As the head of the Quds Force, Soleimani was personally responsible for some of the absolutely worst atrocities.

He trained terrorist armies, including Hezbollah, launching terrorist strikes against civilian targets. He fueled bloody civil wars all across the region. He viciously wounded and murdered thousands of U.S. troops, including the planting of roadside bombs that maim and dismember their victims.

Soleimani directed the recent attacks on U.S. personnel in Iraq that badly wounded four service members and killed one American, and he orchestrated the violent assault on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. In recent days, he was planning new attacks on American targets, but we stopped him.

Soleimani’s hands were drenched in both American and Iranian blood. He should have been terminated long ago. By removing Soleimani, we have sent a powerful message to terrorists: If you value your own life, you will not threaten the lives of our people.

As we continue to evaluate options in response to Iranian aggression, the United States will immediately impose additional punishing economic sanctions on the Iranian regime. These powerful sanctions will remain until Iran changes its behavior.

In recent months alone, Iran has seized ships in international waters, fired an unprovoked strike on Saudi Arabia, and shot down two U.S. drones.

Iran’s hostilities substantially increased after the foolish Iran nuclear deal was signed in 2013, and they were given $150 billion, not to mention $1.8 billion in cash. Instead of saying "thank you" to the United States, they chanted "death to America." In fact, they chanted "death to America" the day the agreement was signed.

Then, Iran went on a terror spree, funded by the money from the deal, and created hell in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The missiles fired last night at us and our allies were paid for with the funds made available by the last administration. The regime also greatly tightened the reins on their own country, even recently killing 1,500 people at the many protests that are taking place all throughout Iran.

The very defective JCPOA expires shortly anyway, and gives Iran a clear and quick path to nuclear breakout. Iran must abandon its nuclear ambitions and end its support for terrorism. The time has come for the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Russia, and China to recognize this reality.

They must now break away from the remnants of the Iran deal -– or JCPOA –- and we must all work together toward making a deal with Iran that makes the world a safer and more peaceful place. We must also make a deal that allows Iran to thrive and prosper, and take advantage of its enormous untapped potential. Iran can be a great country.

Peace and stability cannot prevail in the Middle East as long as Iran continues to foment violence, unrest, hatred, and war. The civilized world must send a clear and unified message to the Iranian regime: Your campaign of terror, murder, mayhem will not be tolerated any longer. It will not be allowed to go forward.

Today, I am going to ask NATO to become much more involved in the Middle East process. Over the last three years, under my leadership, our economy is stronger than ever before and America has achieved energy independence. These historic accompliments [accomplishments] changed our strategic priorities. These are accomplishments that nobody thought were possible. And options in the Middle East became available. We are now the number-one producer of oil and natural gas anywhere in the world. We are independent, and we do not need Middle East oil.

The American military has been completely rebuilt under my administration, at a cost of $2.5 trillion. U.S. Armed Forces are stronger than ever before. Our missiles are big, powerful, accurate, lethal, and fast. Under construction are many hypersonic missiles.

The fact that we have this great military and equipment, however, does not mean we have to use it. We do not want to use it. American strength, both military and economic, is the best deterrent.

Three months ago, after destroying 100 percent of ISIS and its territorial caliphate, we killed the savage leader of ISIS, al-Baghdadi, who was responsible for so much death, including the mass beheadings of Christians, Muslims, and all who stood in his way. He was a monster. Al-Baghdadi was trying again to rebuild the ISIS caliphate, and failed.

Tens of thousands of ISIS fighters have been killed or captured during my administration. ISIS is a natural enemy of Iran. The destruction of ISIS is good for Iran, and we should work together on this and other shared priorities.

Finally, to the people and leaders of Iran: We want you to have a future and a great future -- one that you deserve, one of prosperity at home, and harmony with the nations of the world. The United States is ready to embrace peace with all who seek it.

I want to thank you, and God bless America. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald ... h-n1112456

[Sunsilver]

Just have one comment to make on the above: crippling sanctions and demands for reparations from Germany triggered the circumstances that led to WWII.

According to Vox, America's economic squeeze on Iran has already decimated its economy.
https://www.vox.com/2020/1/8/21056881/t ... nding-down

Further sanctions could well backfire.

[elengil]

While the article is not written from a Republican perspective, exactly, it's interesting to hear the thoughts of a Republican on this topic

https://www.businessinsider.com/gop-mik ... ike-2020-1

Granted, only a couple, but still.

[yovargas]

Shouldn't this thread's title say Iran, not Iraq? Or did I miss some other big news recently?

[elengil]

Shouldn't this thread's title say Iran, not Iraq? Or did I miss some other big news recently?

Good catch, *I* sure didn't notice that!

[River]

I heard Mike Lee making his statement on NPR. He sounded mad.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Shouldn't this thread's title say Iran, not Iraq? Or did I miss some other big news recently?

?



Sent from my LG G6 using Tapatalk

[Inanna]

I thought it was deliberate- since all the attacks occurred on Iraqi soil.

[River]

An interesting take (despite the title, the piece itself is non-partisan): American Self-Criticism Borders on Narcissism: Many on the left forget that not everything in the Middle East is about the United States. Long and short of it is there're no good guys in the Middle East and everyone needs to take a deep breath.

[Frelga]

I'm sure it's an interesting read, but I am also pretty sure that the US killing an Iranian official is going to be about the US.

[River]

This is true. And the author makes it clear that dropping a bomb on Soleimani wasn't one of our better ideas. However, he argues that the conclusion many people on the left (including me!) are making that WWIII is going to break out is a bit over the top.

Those who said there will be war may not have realized there already was war. This doesn’t mean killing Iranian General Qassem Soleimani was good. It almost certainly wasn’t. Iran quickly retaliated by targeting two American military bases in Iraq and may find new ways to escalate, but Iran had already been escalating. The regime of the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, with its Iranian patrons, led by Soleimani, has been waging a brutal assault on Syrians for more than eight years. War, in short, has been happening—costing hundreds of thousands of Syrian civilians their lives—since long before Donald Trump ordered the drone strike against Soleimani.

In the aftermath of the strike, critics of the Trump administration’s foreign policy, particularly on the left, have described the move as one more rash American intervention that’s sure to further destabilize the region. Yet this formulation gives U.S. policy, for all its flaws, too much credit. Not everything is America’s fault; others are sometimes to blame; and no one, not even the weaker parties, are devoid of agency or freed of responsibility. The burden of de-escalation does not fall entirely on the United States; Iran, too, can choose to de-escalate.

There is also the problem of Trump himself. Because killing Soleimani was very much his decision—reflecting the impulsiveness and disarray a decision by him implies—it seems fair to assume that one’s view of the president will affect how one interprets the fallout from Soleimani’s killing. Correcting for subconscious bias isn’t easy, but at the very least, observers should be aware of the Trump effect.

Middle East experts, and particularly those from the region, have tended to be less alarmist than most other commentators. These experts are likely to be less fixated on Trump himself and less likely to put the United States at the center of their analysis. And they are more likely to be aware of the sheer scale of brutality, mass murder, and sectarian cleansing that Soleimani helped orchestrate. Soleimani wasn’t just another bad guy. He was one of the region’s worst. (Yet another humanitarian catastrophe has been unfolding in Syria, but it has garnered little attention. The Assad regime, with crucial military support from Iran and Russia, has been bombing Idlib province. More than 200,000 Syrians have already fled, and hundreds of thousands more could be forced from their homes.)

It is not an overstatement to say that Qassem Soleimani “haunted” the Arab world. As Kim Ghattas wrote here in The Atlantic, “Soleimani was so central to almost every regional event in the past two decades that even people who hate him can’t believe he could die.” It is a rich irony that as Democrats portrayed the strike as one of the worst foreign-policy blunders of the Trump presidency, a significant number of Syrians and Iraqis rejoiced—one of the very few times they have reacted positively to something, anything, that the United States has done. Their interests, of course, are not the same as Americans’, but there should at the very least be an effort to understand why they might have celebrated.

[Frelga]

I don't know, it is all pretty vague. What experts? Do they have names, quotes, affiliations? The article doesn't say.

Middle East is, indeed, a tangled mess, and I suspect that a demise of any important person is going to make someone happy. A significant number of Iraqis rejoiced over Saddam's removal, for example. It seems pretty clear in retrospect that it was the event that knocked out the first domino, which destabilized much of the region.

For the record, I consider Obama's policy in ME to be nearly as catastrophic, but at least he didn't start the fire.

[Sunsilver]

I shared this on my FB timeline, reposting from my friend whose husband is deployed in the Middle East. It confirms what was said above about Soleimani contributing to destabilizing the area.

https://www.arabnews.com/node/1607991?f ... U.facebook

In the end, he died as he had lived; amid violence and bloodshed, this time brought about by a hand other than his own.

Let no one be in any doubt that the death of Qassem Soleimani, targeted by a US airstrike on Baghdad airport in the early hours of Friday, is as significant in its own way as those of Osama bin Laden, the head of Al-Qaeda, and Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, the leader of Daesh.

Like those two killers, Soleimani brought death and destruction to a vast swath of the Middle East and beyond. And like them, the more publicity his vile deeds attracted, the better he liked it.

It was not always thus with Soleimani. For at least 15 years, in his role as head of the Quds Force, the foreign operations unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, he did Iran’s dirty work in the shadows, spreading the malign influence of the mullahs and their revolution to anyone foolish enough to listen.

Then, about five years ago, he seemed to start believing his own publicity, and the real Soleimani emerged — arrogant, preening and boastful of his personal power.

Since then, wherever there has been death and mayhem in this region, you will find a glossy photo or a slick video of Soleimani, his arm round the shoulder of some hapless militiaman recruited to the cause of Iranian supremacy — the people Lenin called “useful idiots.”

And what a price this region has paid for Soleimani’s bloodlust and vanity. In Iraq, hundreds of coalition troops killed in thousands of attacks by Soleimani-trained militias in the quagmire that followed the removal of Saddam Hussein; and more recently, when Iraqis took to the streets in protest against the corruption and ineptitude of their Iranian puppet government, Soleimani, as Arab News reported, flew to Baghdad to take personal charge of the brutal crackdown in which at least 450 unarmed Iraqi civilians were killed.

In Syria, when Bashar Assad required assistance in butchering his own people, where did he turn? To Soleimani, of course, to his Quds Force, and to his trained Hezbollah thugs next door in Lebanon.

The result is that Soleimani has the blood of half-a-million Syrians on his hands, not to mention the plight of millions who do not know if they will ever see their homes or families again.

In Yemen, the Houthi militias would have long since returned to their northern redoubt were it not for Soleimani. Instead, supplied with his weapons, equipment and training, they continue to fight a war they can never win, and target Saudi civilians with missiles built from parts supplied by Iran.

So let there be no tears shed for Qassem Soleimani; he must have known that he could not get away with these crimes forever, and that he would not die in his bed. The questions now are, what lessons can be learned, and where do we go from here?

The first lesson, apparently learned neither by Europe in the 1930s nor by the Obama administration 80 years later, is that no good comes of appeasing bullies and tyrants. It is no coincidence that Qassem Soleimani’s emergence into the public consciousness around 2015 coincided with Obama’s ill-fated agreement to try to curb Iran’s nuclear program by easing sanctions.

Soleimani saw the nuclear deal as a victory, and it is to Donald Trump’s credit that he has done everything in his power to snatch that victory from the Iranian’s grasp — including, on Friday, the ultimate sanction.

As to the future, the doomsayers have already seen it; Iran will retaliate, they say, matters will escalate, and we are on the path to a Third World War.

The pessimists, however, forget two things. First, that Iran has been at war with the civilized world for 40 years, and the principle sufferers have been the Iranian people themselves. Second, nothing is inevitable.

No sane person wants a war; this region has already buried too many of its sons and daughters for that. As Saudi Arabia said on Friday, this is a time for self-restraint, not for actions that will serve only to make a tense situation worse.

Qassem Soleimani suffered from an excess of pride, and sometimes it appears that Iran does too. It is time to swallow that pride and come to the negotiating table to reach an agreement on the future, whereby Iran retains its dignity, but, in a spirit of peace and reconciliation, also regains its place among the community of nations.

• Faisal J. Abbas is the editor in chief of Arab News.

[Frelga]

No one argues that he was a nice person. No one even argues that he didn't deserve to die.

Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.

But there are reasons why assassination of government officials is not the accepted way of things. (Granted, one of the reasons is that government officials feel safer sending troops to war knowing that they themselves are probably not in danger.) What if Iran decides Pompeo presents clear and present danger to their country?

Also Saudi Arabia can take several seats. Saudi Arabia is not a good guy.

[RoseMorninStar]

Frelga, that's one of my favorite quotes from LotR.

U.S. Unsuccessfully Tried Killing a Second Iranian Military Official