Trump says Iranian commander was killed to 'stop a war'

[AUDub 11,149]

8 hours ago, TexasTiger said:

Lobbing sounds like one’s heart is not in it.

Maybe it isn't. Best case scenario is that it's a face-saving maneuver on Iran's part. 

[AUDub 11,149]

39 minutes ago, AUDub said:

Maybe it isn't. Best case scenario is that it's a face-saving maneuver on Iran's part. 

And thank goodness 45 was kept off TV last night before he had an opportunity to make things worse. 

[alexava 6,973]

39 minutes ago, AUDub said:

Maybe it isn't. Best case scenario is that it's a face-saving maneuver on Iran's part. 

And you are hopefully correct. If the orange man doesn’t come out boasting and strutting like a rooster this might be over. I hope so. 

[alexava 6,973]

2 minutes ago, AUDub said:

And thank goodness 45 was kept off TV last night before he had an opportunity to make things worse. 

And Twitter. Someone was restraining him. 

[bigbird 60,533]

47 minutes ago, AUDub said:

Maybe it isn't. Best case scenario is that it's a face-saving maneuver on Iran's part. 

Some of the least populated bases were struck so hopefully you're correct.

[AUDub 11,149]

Trump's going to address the nation in a couple of hours. Hope he doesn't go full "time to obliterate Persian culture!"

[bigbird 60,533]

Just now, AUDub said:

Trump's going to address the nation in a couple of hours. Hope he doesn't go full "time to obliterate Persian culture!"

[SaturdayGT 719]

Trump didn't do anything about the drone being shot down since there were no casualties, so that should give a little clue for whats in store here, although...who really knows?

 

[SaltyTiger 7,812]

12 minutes ago, AUDub said:

Trump's going to address the nation in a couple of hours. Hope he doesn't go full "time to obliterate Persian culture!"

Not likely, he has even said that he would not target the cultural sites. Understands it is against international law and he obeys the law.

Wouldn't surprise me if he wants to take out the entire Iranian Navy though......depends on his mood this morning I suppose.

[AUDub 11,149]

33 minutes ago, SaturdayGT said:

Trump didn't do anything about the drone being shot down since there were no casualties, so that should give a little clue for whats in store here, although...who really knows?

 

Trump is, if anything, arbitrary and capricious. 

[AUFAN78 3,910]

18 hours ago, Brad_ATX said:

Well then this would certainly poke a hole in the "Deep State" theory, right?  The whole point of that is that there are people at multiple levels working against Trump.

Deep State?  Frankly, I have not studied it nor do I intend to. 

[TexasTiger 12,897]

1 hour ago, AUFAN78 said:

Deep State?  Frankly, I have not studied it nor do I intend to. 

Rest assured, it has studied you. 🕵️‍

[AUDub 11,149]

46 minutes ago, TexasTiger said:

Rest assured, it has studied you. 🕵️‍

"What an a**hole"

-some bureaucrat, probably

[TexasTiger 12,897]

[Grumps 3,704]

22 hours ago, TexasTiger said:

Do you believe that?

[TexasTiger 12,897]

30 minutes ago, Grumps said:

Do you believe that?

Well, The WSJ is a well-known librul rag, but it wouldn’t surprise me.

[TexasTiger 12,897]

The reasons keep shifting. The one constant is always the lying.

[Grumps 3,704]

There should probably be an investigation into the assassination. Trump should probably be impeached for his unconstitutional actions. He can become the first POTUS to be impeached twice!😀

[homersapien 11,379]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/why-did-the-pentagon-ever-give-trump-the-option-of-killing-soleimani/2020/01/10/57cbed14-3316-11ea-91fd-82d4e04a3fac_story.html

Why did the Pentagon ever give Trump the option of killing Soleimani?

The hasty strike in Iraq reveals a broken national security system.

Sending the U.S. military to use force is among the most consequential decisions presidents can make. Matters may get out of control even with the most careful and deliberate planning. Skipping such steps shows callous disregard for American lives and interests. And there is overwhelming evidence in the past week that President Trump instigated an escalation cycle with an American enemy without such consideration. According to multiple news reports, policymakers gave Trump the option of killing Qasem Soleimani as one of several choices, perhaps hoping that including such a dramatic measure would push him toward a middle course; instead, he went for it, reportedly with little forethought or preparation. Our national security system is not meant to function that way.

Instead of holding a tightly managed, inclusive debate in the Situation Room, Trump made one of the most dangerous choices of his presidency among a tiny group at Mar-a-Lago. Such decisive moments are usually preceded by hundreds of people spending countless hours in dingy government offices and conference rooms, building PowerPoint slides and questioning lawyers. These individuals create the parameters and permutations of what the decision-makers consider. They identify the possible options, vetting their likely operational, diplomatic, economic and other effects. That work enables the commander in chief to make wrenching decisions about his military options wisely.

At least, that is how decisions are supposed to be made, and how we helped leaders make them when we worked in government. Bad options, considered with little serious deliberation on an unnecessarily rapid timeline, should never get to the president in the first place.

Like the broader system of government, which is designed around cumbersome checks and balances to prevent impulsive action, the traditional decision-making process for employing military force is ponderous. These steps frustrate some who view military advice as best when it’s direct and unadulterated, but they are supposed to ensure that the president chooses only from options that have been examined thoughtfully by experts in a variety of relevant areas. And the process is meant to consider all possible reactions with due preparation. To do otherwise may come at a toll of blood and treasure, credibility and certainty.

Since Soleimani’s death, many foreseeable consequences have unfolded. Iran threatened retaliation and took at least two such actions, first announcing the death of the 2015 nuclear agreement, then launching a ballistic missile attack on Iraqi bases where U.S. forces are deployed. The Iranian public — probably under some pressure — rallied around its government, expressing anger in massive street demonstrations. Elements of the Iraqi government also signaled that the U.S. strike has imperiled that bilateral relationship, with the parliament voting to expel American forces from the country. In his first public address on the crisis Wednesday, Trump suggested that he will pause further military action, but the American position in the Middle East is almost certainly worse now, with little benefit to show for the strike.

We have no idea what we’re doing in Iraq. We didn’t before we killed Soleimani.

Soleimani and his campaign of violence were provocative and merited an American response. But killing him, and doing it in Iraq, needlessly escalated the situation. Any standard Defense Department and interagency process of vetting options would have seen the threats, counterthreats and missile launches coming and recommended against it — which we know because two very different administrations rejected targeting the general. But many press accounts say no such process was followed under Trump.

In our combined 25-plus years in the Pentagon and the White House, use-of-force and even show-of-force decisions created some of the tensest moments between civilian and military leaders, revealing differences in approaches and assumptions. We saw controversies over the U.S. naval presence in the South China Sea, counterterrorist strikes in areas outside active hostilities across the Middle East and Africa, and troop deployments in Afghanistan. Interactions can be so fraught, and secrecy so important, it was often tempting for both sides to limit the number of people involved or go directly to those with decision-making authority. With Soleimani’s death, we don’t know whether civilians cut out military planners or if military officials took shortcuts in the process. Regardless, whatever truncated steps led to the choice to kill him had alarming results.

In our experience, any serious process to consider military force should include six key criteria.

First, the use of force must be consistent with international and domestic law. Deliberately targeting civilians or cultural sites, for example, should be off the table — and the Pentagon ruled those options out after Trump suggested them this past week.

Possible courses of action should be aligned to the broadest strategic objectives. The Soleimani strike was a tactical success, but it damaged the goals of countering the Islamic State, stabilizing Iraq and getting Iran to the negotiating table; it also put U.S. personnel across the region at risk. Before the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011, planners considered many parallel matters: the risk to U.S. service members; the possibility of civilian casualties; the likely diplomatic fallout with Pakistan and what that might mean for the war in Afghanistan; the legal authorities and implications; the domestic political cost if the raid resulted in American casualties, failed or both; and how Congress would react to all of those considerations.

Iran knows how to bide its time

Operations must be proportional to the security context. Killing one of the most senior Iranian military leaders, even with his lengthy list of despicable crimes and ostensible involvement in imminent threats, was an extreme response to the staged protests against the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and the rocket attack on an Iraqi base that killed one American. Killing Soleimani in response to these acts — particularly without providing any public evidence of an impending attack against Americans (though the administration has repeatedly insisted that this is what it was trying to prevent) — skipped tens of rungs on the escalation ladder.

Military actions must also be operationally feasible. Political leaders may ask for proposals that belie the laws of space and time because of a well-intentioned but fundamental misunderstanding of military capability. The U.S. military cannot simply find and kill a target anywhere in the world at any time using drones, a demand sometimes made by policymakers. Research by one of us found that many senior officials involved in drone policy underestimate the cost and logistics and overestimate drones’ availability, capabilities and range.

Options for strikes should be real options. Reportedly, whoever drafted the president’s briefing slides used the Goldilocks paradigm — presenting options that were too mild, too extreme and one that was just right. In such frameworks, most of the options are meant to be throwaways; these typically receive much less attention and planning than the preferred option does. Such frameworks are deceptive and dangerous: The Soleimani strike was never meant to seem best.

President Barack Obama faced this paradigm during the Afghanistan strategic review in 2010, when the military leadership offered widely varying recommendations for troop levels. During the George W. Bush administration, former senior Pentagon official Peter Rodman lamented how difficult it was to get the military to tee up meaningful and discrete options besides “do nothing and thermonuclear war.” This kind of advice presumes that the decision-makers are in on the gag; they aren’t always.

Finally, options must be politically informed. Obama’s unwillingness to intervene in Syria, for example, was rooted in his belief that the public wouldn’t support it. When Congress signaled its resistance as well, his view was solidified.

Inside the Pentagon, by statute, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is responsible for the development of military analysis, options and plans to share with the defense secretary and the president as he sees fit. In reality, military advice is not just one individual’s best ideas but a massive and complex process that engages hundreds of military and civilian experts. Those people generate and vet the options and flag political considerations, calculating how to best mitigate risk and coordinate with allies.

Yet it appears that the tight circle at Mar-a-Lago involved in making the decision to kill Soleimani — mainly the secretaries of defense and state — neglected many of these key elements, as the convoluted messaging, lack of preemptive mitigating actions and failure to inform close U.S. allies, let alone members of Congress, demonstrate.

For Trump, foreign relationships aren’t about strategy. They’re about cash.

It seems that the national security apparatus skipped crucial steps while deferring to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s advocacy. For example, consulting the Commerce Department might have flagged potential oil market impacts; Treasury could have noted the likely market fluctuations; the intelligence community could have offered real-time analysis on threats to U.S. personnel before and after the strike; and the State Department may have requested noncombatant evacuations of Americans from various Middle Eastern hotspots, highlighted the diplomatic fracas with European allies and underscored the need for deft diplomacy to repair the inevitable U.S.-Iraqi government crisis so that killing Soleimani did not cause a rupture.

Instead, Trump reportedly relied on a few advisers for what may be the most consequential foreign policy decision of his presidency. Small-group decision-making limits the imagination and thwarts checks and balances — and it can be dominated by impassioned advocates. The resulting decisions tend to be more about the president’s preferences than about national security interests. Now Trump needs to hear from a broad range of advisers about what might come next.

Of course, with this chaotic administration, lecturing on procedural deliberation from the outside may seem like wishcasting, at best. What, then, can responsible defense and military officials do when the president demands risky options, when the secretary of state inserts himself in the chain of command or the commander in chief publicly threatens war crimes? The answer is not to make post-hoc justifications or to pray that our system survives. The muscles of deliberation have to be exercised. Engaging Congress, which established the authorities that create good military options; reiterating to the troops and the world that the U.S. military follows the rule of law; telling senior commanders that they should not be tempted by those seeking private advice; promoting the secretary of defense as the face of the defense apparatus — these are all useful near-term steps.

No matter the president, bad military options should not land on his desk. We may have been lucky to ratchet down tensions with Iran. We shouldn’t have to rely on luck next time.

 

[homersapien 11,379]

41 minutes ago, Grumps said:

There should probably be an investigation into the assassination. Trump should probably be impeached for his unconstitutional actions. He can become the first POTUS to be impeached twice!😀

Well, his decision was arguably unconstitutional.

Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the U.S. Constitution, sometimes referred to as the War Powers Clause, vests in the Congress the power to declare war, in the following wording:

[The Congress shall have Power ...] To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water ...

 

I am still waiting for a public disclosure on the "imminent threat" Soliemani represented. If his assination represented an act of war - and many experts say it did - then Trump's decision was possibly illegal and unconstitutional.

[I_M4_AU 7,848]

47 minutes ago, homersapien said:

Well, his decision was arguably unconstitutional.

Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the U.S. Constitution, sometimes referred to as the War Powers Clause, vests in the Congress the power to declare war, in the following wording:

[The Congress shall have Power ...] To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water ...

 

I am still waiting for a public disclosure on the "imminent threat" Soliemani represented. If his assination represented an act of war - and many experts say it did - then Trump's decision was possibly illegal and unconstitutional.

Trump acted under the AUMF Joint Resolution that was enacted after Sept 11, 2001.  Bush and Obama both exercised that right in their terms as President.  He did not declare war by taking out Soleimani, he took out a terrorist.  The intent was not to get in a prolonged battle (war) so the War Powers Clause is not applicable. 

If the retaliation had killed US Soldiers and Trump wanted to escalate the skirmish, possible so, but there was a precedent set when Obama continued and escalated his spat with Syria.  I would hope we learned from that.

[SaltyTiger 7,812]

5 hours ago, homersapien said:

Well, his decision was arguably unconstitutional.

It was not unconstitutional Brother Homer. Naturally expect you to squawk about it. Do you think it was wrong to take this terrorist out? A couple of you prefer the word "assassination" ......big deal 

[AU64 10,122]

59 minutes ago, SaltyTiger said:

It was not unconstitutional Brother Homer. Naturally expect you to squawk about it. Do you think it was wrong to take this terrorist out? A couple of you prefer the word "assassination" ......big deal 

Like hitting Osama Bi Laden IMO.    How many American deaths does a guy have to be responsible for in order to warrant being "targeted".?  

To his credit, Obama allowed a number of bad guys to taste an American drone....unfortunately this guy was not one of them but DT remedied that oversight.  

[homersapien 11,379]

14 hours ago, SaltyTiger said:

It was not unconstitutional Brother Homer. Naturally expect you to squawk about it. Do you think it was wrong to take this terrorist out? A couple of you prefer the word "assassination" ......big deal 

I don't think it was necessarily wrong to kill Soliemani but there's a right way and time to do it. Trump is a blundering fool who is incapable of understanding that.

Congress has the constitutional power to declare war, not the president.  Look it up.

Assassinating a high ranking official of a country - in the absence of an imminent threat - is arguably an act of war. 

Trump is lying about the imminent threat.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/01/13/donald-trump-iran-soleimani-presidential-briefing-vinograd-vpx.cnn

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-now-claims-four-embassies-were-under-threat-from-iran-raising-fresh-questions-about-intelligence-reports/2020/01/10/02f8d154-33e7-11ea-a053-dc6d944ba776_story.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/01/13/this-might-be-trumps-worst-lie-ever/

https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-nw-new-iran-sanctions-20200110-tuxo47p6grathkbtki4uhhagj4-story.html