US-Iran War Has Begun! Iran launches dozens of ballistic missiles!

[OttoVonBismarck]

To the extent Trump had a strategy in the region, it was to reduce commitment and entanglement.  That's a legit strategy to have - in fact it was Obama's, although Obama never pulled off a move quite as stupid as ditching the Kurds without warning (the Syria not line in the sand was close).  Problem is this move doesn't fit the Trump strategy.  Dropping bombs on a nominally allied nation and assassinating a high-ranking Iranian leader doesn't facilitate disengagement.  Obviously Iran will respond and will do so in way that either sucks the US further in or causes the US to back down from escalating violence.  If the former, Trump just blew up his entire regional strategy to kill one guy.  If the latter, it was totally counterproductive and will further the slide in US credibility.

Well, Iraq will probably expel American military forces as a result of this, which is disengagement.

Which is fine tbh, those forces were only there as a remnant of the ISIS campaign. We left Iraq in 2011 and it wasn't really ever intended that we go back. Whether it was wise that we left, wise that we went back, I'm honestly not sure of at this point. But it never really changed the overarching situation that most Shiite Iraqis are pro-Iranian and anti-American, and having 5000 troops there didn't make that situation better or worse.

[Razgovory]

Probably should move the embassy as well then.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Eh, the Embassy has mostly been defended by a few hundred-strong contingent of marines, with rapid response forces available as nearby as Qatar. Probably doesn't need to be moved.

[Razgovory]

Also, am I the only one who thinks of Traveler when I see the name Soleimani?

[Malthus]

Well it's like I said:

The Trump Administration has no logical or effective decision making apparatus, so is prone to making bad decisions. We don't know the deliberations that went on here, but they probably weren't intelligent, coherent, or "ordinary."

When that's how decisions are made, poor decisions are the norm.

I'd say more broadly the thing that someone in the administration should probably consider is if all we were willing to do is kill this guy, and we aren't actually shifting to some sort of genuinely bellicose strategy towards Iran, we're going to get all the negatives with no real positives. Like as shitty as this guy was, he wasn't Osama bin Laden or al-Baghdadi etc. Iran is a big country with a big military, Suleimani had multiple younger aides he had already been grooming to replace him. It's like if Iran killed an American general, does that change one iota our capacities? No, and killing this guy doesn't for Iran either. All it really does is say we're spoiling for a fight, but if we don't actually have some strategic willingness to fight Iran then what's the benefit in looking that way.

I don't really know the right strategy for dealing with countries like Iran fwiw. If you look at the middle east you have four major-ish powers in Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. We've tried:

Iran - Isolation, sanctions, proxy wars
Turkey - Formal alliance
Egypt - Bribes
Saudi Arabia - More or less formal alliance built around money and oil

While we're obviously in worst shape with our relationships with Iran, arguably all four of these relationships have had lots of bad outcomes for the United States, either directly or indirectly. Like Saudi Arabia is still a pretty stalwart ally, but is doing all kinds of shit that probably aren't in our long term interests in the region.

I honestly don't know what we identify as successes in our post-WWII involvement in the Middle East, other than maybe our support for Israel.

What is interesting to me is how this action affects matters internally within the US and Iran.

To my mind, this move was intended to boost Trump (naturally) but it may have the (presumably) unintended consequences of boosting Iranian hard-liners.

Iran has seen signifocant turmoil recently, with strikes and rioting, with the current leadership openly being compared with the Shah of hated memory:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/01/world/middleeast/iran-protests-deaths.html

Of course the US is undergoing turmoil as well - not riots, but an intense partisan division of the country, the whole impeachment thing, and an election looming.

Warlike actions are a traditional distraction away from internal problems - and that works for both nations: the average Iranian is less likely to riot over higher gas prices, if his or her mind is distracted by a possible war with the US.

In short, in helping to distract his own public, Trump may also be helping to distract the public of Iran - helping the very hardliners in government we ought to be undermining. Not that he cares I am sure. 

[Sheilbh]

But the chief concerns I have:

1. The Trump Administration has no logical or effective decision making apparatus, so is prone to making bad decisions. We don't know the deliberations that went on here, but they probably weren't intelligent, coherent, or "ordinary." Since Trump has made sure most of the people who have deliberations like that no longer serve in the administration. This also means that our response to the next Iranian action is going to run through this same defective decision making apparatus.

2. This could just be "needless" escalation. To me needless escalation that leads to more deaths on both sides, but in which there is no strategic shift behind it, is just Trump getting people killed and killing people for emotional, stupid reasons.

Yep. I would not be surprised if this was an impulse and if people who should have been involved in the planning stage may not have been looped in. This could be a test of actually - to use a Trump phrase - "deep state" resilience.

Also from a UK perspective it (unsurprisingly) doesn't look like any allies, who have forces in the region, were informed so they are likely soft targets.

Also think some of Lawrence Freedman's points on Twitter are interesting:

Some speculative thoughts. Following the assassinations in Baghdad we can expect protests and violence against US assets and individuals in areas of Iranian influence. At some point, somewhere (not necessarily an obvious place) Iran will try to take its revenge.1/
There is no straightforward tit-for-tat response for Iran, for example taking out senior member of US Administration. They will still have to assume that their actions will lead to further US response. They may try revenge assassination but they have other options.2/
The underlying issue is the Iranian determination to reduce US influence in the region (and the US's to reduce Iran's). Over the past year they have been putting pressure on the Saudis and UAE, encouraging doubts about the value of the US as an ally. 3/
The most obvious and immediate focus however will be to try to make the US position in Iraq untenable (all US citizens have already been advised to leave). In this respect killing the Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis is also a big deal. 4/
Given that there are many in Iraq hostile to Iran the push to expel US forces from Iraq could further destabilise the country. Tensions are also bound to grow in Lebanon. 5/
A lot also will also depend on the impact of Soleimani's murder on the decision-making and power struggles in Teheran. A huge vacuum has been created in the local power structure and it is not clear how it will be filled. Who will now develop and implement Iran's responses? 6/
US-Iranian negotiations to find a way through the current impasse always seemed unlikely. Talk about diplomacy briefly surfaced last year. That will not be revived.7/
Trump likes to be seen to be 'winning', which is why he took badly to the attacks on the US embassy in Baghdad but his notion of victory is very short-term. The US has no obvious end game for the moment. end/

[OttoVonBismarck]

What is interesting to me is how this action affects matters internally within the US and Iran.

To my mind, this move was intended to boost Trump (naturally) but it may have the (presumably) unintended consequences of boosting Iranian hard-liners.

Iran has seen signifocant turmoil recently, with strikes and rioting, with the current leadership openly being compared with the Shah of hated memory:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/01/world/middleeast/iran-protests-deaths.html

Of course the US is undergoing turmoil as well - not riots, but an intense partisan division of the country, the whole impeachment thing, and an election looming.

Warlike actions are a traditional distraction away from internal problems - and that works for both nations: the average Iranian is less likely to riot over higher gas prices, if his or her mind is distracted by a possible war with the US.

In short, in helping to distract his own public, Trump may also be helping to distract the public of Iran - helping the very hardliners in government we ought to be undermining. Not that he cares I am sure.

Yeah, from the domestic politics perspective I 100% believe this is part of Trump's "need to look strong", which he believes = support/votes. If I had to imagine the decision making process, Suleimani's activities probably have been semi-regularly covered in Presidential intelligence briefs for 15+ years. We know both W and Obama apparently passed on taking him out. He didn't really move covertly, he moved mostly openly because he thought he was untouchable.

Trump with the same information realized he had a chance to look "strong" where Obama looked "weak", easy choice and in his mind it = votes.

The unfortunate thing is if we did end up in a shooting war with Iran, it probably does significantly boost Trump's reelection chances.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Some speculative thoughts. Following the assassinations in Baghdad we can expect protests and violence against US assets and individuals in areas of Iranian influence. At some point, somewhere (not necessarily an obvious place) Iran will try to take its revenge.1/
There is no straightforward tit-for-tat response for Iran, for example taking out senior member of US Administration. They will still have to assume that their actions will lead to further US response. They may try revenge assassination but they have other options.2/
The underlying issue is the Iranian determination to reduce US influence in the region (and the US's to reduce Iran's). Over the past year they have been putting pressure on the Saudis and UAE, encouraging doubts about the value of the US as an ally. 3/
The most obvious and immediate focus however will be to try to make the US position in Iraq untenable (all US citizens have already been advised to leave). In this respect killing the Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis is also a big deal. 4/
Given that there are many in Iraq hostile to Iran the push to expel US forces from Iraq could further destabilise the country. Tensions are also bound to grow in Lebanon. 5/
A lot also will also depend on the impact of Soleimani's murder on the decision-making and power struggles in Teheran. A huge vacuum has been created in the local power structure and it is not clear how it will be filled. Who will now develop and implement Iran's responses? 6/
US-Iranian negotiations to find a way through the current impasse always seemed unlikely. Talk about diplomacy briefly surfaced last year. That will not be revived.7/
Trump likes to be seen to be 'winning', which is why he took badly to the attacks on the US embassy in Baghdad but his notion of victory is very short-term. The US has no obvious end game for the moment. end/

This guy's analysis is interesting but it's worth reminding: Trump doesn't run the United States in the conventional sense. For all their faults Obama and Bush and almost all conventional Presidents genuinely cared about the interests of the United States. They all had very divergent opinions on those interests and how to implement them. Trump almost definitely doesn't see any of the issues this guy raised.

Trump doesn't care about losing influence in Iraq or in the Middle East. In fact he has demonstrated he doesn't even understand what influence means. He just sees an outflow of dollars to the Middle East, and he doesn't see a direct inflow of dollars > the outflow. To Trump's mind, that is losing. Much of Trump's understanding of winning is to reverse or "fix" the many ways "losers" before him ran things. Trump thinks it's stupid we even have soldiers in the Middle East. The only reason he probably hasn't fully withdrawn all of them is because he probably gets intel that our presence there helps us stave off terrorist attacks at home, and he would fear one of those because he believes if you get attacked at home you're "weak."

Trump's relationship with Iran has nothing to do with America's long term interests. It's about doing better than Obama, who was a "weakling" on Iran. Trump tore up the nuclear accord because it was "weak" and Trump is "strong." Trump now killed this General Obama was too "weak" to kill. To Trump that's the end game, there is no next level. And he doesn't care about any consequence that doesn't affect him personally. Since consequences for America's long term foreign policy don't impact him personally, he doesn't care about them.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah. It's why his last point especially struck me. If Iran retaliates, as it probably will, what does Trump do to "win" again? Or as you say to avoid appearing weak?

Edit: Similarly on the deal - seeing how easily that was torn up after one election and the situation now, there's no reason for North Korea to actually seriously engage. Again Trump doesn't care about the substance but I think all of this probably does marginally increase the risk in Korea too.

[Razgovory]

Eh, the Embassy has mostly been defended by a few hundred-strong contingent of marines, with rapid response forces available as nearby as Qatar. Probably doesn't need to be moved.

1983.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I mean that was a bombing, they could ostensibly bomb any of our embassies anywhere in the world, we can't flee them all nor would/should we.

[Razgovory]

I mean that was a bombing, they could ostensibly bomb any of our embassies anywhere in the world, we can't flee them all nor would/should we.

Okay, so after the bombing and murder of another 200 marines what do we do?

[OttoVonBismarck]

We sit and watch bud, we're just passengers on this train.

[OttoVonBismarck]

The thing is Trump will do about anything to avoid looking weak, what that means his response will be, I don't know. But he also fears, at least from what I've seen, getting put into situations where he could end up having to eat a true "loss." He does have a playbook when that happens though--when he ultimately lost in court over the Census citizenship question, he claimed he would find a way to implement the question anyway, and that he had really "won." Then quietly nothing ever came of that, because Trump had no actual play. But he got a soundbyte out there to keep his thralls happy.

[Sophie Scholl]

"BREAKING from DOD: "At the direction of the President, the US military has taken decisive defensive action to protect US personnel abroad by killing Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force, a US-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization.""

This reeks of the DOD covering their own ass and pinning all blame for this on Trump. He wanted this. He demanded this. He unilaterally ordered it seemingly without the support of his advisers and most assuredly without consulting Congress.  In addition to the afore mentioned mindset of getting the talk away from impeachment, more likely to get him a second term if there's a war, and trying to outdo Obama, any chance of it being a play for Bolton's silence?  Seems like a Trump mindset strategy.  "I gave you this killing, so now you owe me.  Big time!"