Pompeo: Iranians and Iraqis should view this US action as "giving them their freedom"

[Charliesheen]

Here’s a fun tidbit from an Iranian pol when the US began to talk of quitting the giveaway:

H.J.Ansari Zarif’s senior advisor: “If Europeans stop trading with Iran and don’t put pressure on US then we will reveal which western politicians and how much money they had received during nuclear negotiations to make #IranDeal happen.”
That would be interesting.#JCPOA

5,636
11:16 AM - May 8, 2018
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[CaptQuint]

[CaptQuint]

[Charliesheen]

Providing military aid is one of the best ways to overturn a foreign government. The concept may be a little too nuanced for garden-variety hacks, tho.

[CaptQuint]

Providing military aid is one of the best ways to overturn a foreign government. The concept may be a little too nuanced for garden-variety hacks, tho.

Great way to get a bunch of members of your administration indicted as well. But that clearly doesn't bother you, you criminal applauding boot sucking old dog

[VinceBordenIII]

Providing military aid is one of the best ways to overturn a foreign government. The concept may be a little too nuanced for garden-variety hacks, tho.

Everything that happens can be connected to something from the past. Fact is, we meddled incessantly where we didn't belong. That's why I don't give a fuck for the supposed "intellects" we have in the security services and State Department today.

We, along with other euro nations, created this mess, going back over 100 years. But we have to play the ball where it lies. The thing that is most dangerous for us is if we waver, or listen to the yabut naysayers. Not a time for partisan politics.

[Wut]

Nor is it time to get involved in another unnecessary war. I don't understand why anyone would support doing so.

[CaptQuint]

[CaptQuint]

[CaptQuint]

“I received a phone call from @realDonaldTrump when the embassy protests ended thanking the government efforts and asked Iraq to play the mediator's role between US and Iran” Iraqi PM said.

“But at the same time American helicopters and drones were flying without the approval of Iraq, and we refused the request of bringing more soldiers to US embassy and bases” iraqi PM said.

“I was supposed to meet Soleimani at the morning the day he was killed, he came to deliver me a message from Iran responding to the message we delivered from Saudi to Iran” Iraqi PM said.

Trump asked the Iraqi PM to mediate with Iran on our behalf. Soleimani traveled to Iraq for that purpose, and we killed him.

That is not a good look

[CaptQuint]

“I received a phone call from @realDonaldTrump when the embassy protests ended thanking the government efforts and asked Iraq to play the mediator's role between US and Iran” Iraqi PM said.

“But at the same time American helicopters and drones were flying without the approval of Iraq, and we refused the request of bringing more soldiers to US embassy and bases” iraqi PM said.

“I was supposed to meet Soleimani at the morning the day he was killed, he came to deliver me a message from Iran responding to the message we delivered from Saudi to Iran” Iraqi PM said.

Trump asked the Iraqi PM to mediate with Iran on our behalf. Soleimani traveled to Iraq for that purpose, and we killed him.

That is not a good look

Hard to believe that’s what happened. What is the source?

The Prime Minister of Iraq

[CaptQuint]

[CaptQuint]

“I received a phone call from @realDonaldTrump when the embassy protests ended thanking the government efforts and asked Iraq to play the mediator's role between US and Iran” Iraqi PM said.

“But at the same time American helicopters and drones were flying without the approval of Iraq, and we refused the request of bringing more soldiers to US embassy and bases” iraqi PM said.

“I was supposed to meet Soleimani at the morning the day he was killed, he came to deliver me a message from Iran responding to the message we delivered from Saudi to Iran” Iraqi PM said.

Trump asked the Iraqi PM to mediate with Iran on our behalf. Soleimani traveled to Iraq for that purpose, and we killed him.

That is not a good look

Hard to believe that’s what happened. What is the source?

The Prime Minister of Iraq

Where did you get that?

Shits pretty wild right now, things are being deleted and reappearing

[CaptQuint]

[CaptQuint]

“I received a phone call from @realDonaldTrump when the embassy protests ended thanking the government efforts and asked Iraq to play the mediator's role between US and Iran” Iraqi PM said.

“But at the same time American helicopters and drones were flying without the approval of Iraq, and we refused the request of bringing more soldiers to US embassy and bases” iraqi PM said.

“I was supposed to meet Soleimani at the morning the day he was killed, he came to deliver me a message from Iran responding to the message we delivered from Saudi to Iran” Iraqi PM said.

Trump asked the Iraqi PM to mediate with Iran on our behalf. Soleimani traveled to Iraq for that purpose, and we killed him.

That is not a good look

Hard to believe that’s what happened. What is the source?

The Prime Minister of Iraq

Where did you get that?

Shits pretty wild right now, things are being deleted and reappearing

That is crazy. Lots of shit just flying, both credible and nonsense

If it's true, holy fuck

[CaptQuint]

As thousands of mourners flooded the streets of Iran on Sunday to mourn the death of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, a series of dizzying developments convulsed the Middle East, generating new uncertainty around everything from the future of U.S. forces in Iraq to the battle against ISIS and the effort to quell Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

Amid the fallout of the U.S. drone strike on Friday that killed Soleimani, Sunday saw the following whiplash-inducing developments unfold almost simultaneously:

The Iraqi parliament voted to oust the thousands of U.S. service members stationed in Iraq.
The U.S. military announced that it would halt its fight against ISIS in Iraq.
Iran state television reported that Iran would no longer abide by the limits of the 2015 nuclear deal.
Hundreds of thousands of mourners packed Iran’s streets to pay respect to Soleimani.
Here’s a breakdown of Sunday’s tangle of Middle East events.

Iraqi parliament moves to kick out U.S. troops

Iraq’s parliament, meeting for an emergency session, voted on Sunday to expel the thousands of U.S. troops stationed in the country — the latest response to the strike that killed the Soleimani.

The vote still needs the approval of the Iraqi government, which has permitted a U.S. presence in the country to help combat the Islamic State.

Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi told parliament that Iraq was grateful for the assistance the U.S. has provided in fighting ISIS, but he is now recommending that the 5,200 American troops stationed there permanently leave the country.

Abdul-Mahdi said President Trump called him to ask for help in mediating with Iran after the U.S. embassy in Baghdad was attacked.

Soon after, the U.S. launched the drone strike that killed Soleimani and also claimed the life of Iranian-backed Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

Sunni and Kurdish members of parliament boycotted the session, but Shiite parties, many of them Iranian-backed, had enough votes to pass the resolution.

The parliament vote on Sunday is non-binding. The current outgoing government could try to delay the move, but it would be difficult to reject the proposal outright.

Abdul-Mahdi, who resigned in November, has assumed a caretaker role until parliament approves a successor. That could leave the final say on the future of U.S. forces in Iraq to his eventual replacement.

This past week, a senior State Department official said the U.S. was working with allies on the ground in Iraq to prevent the vote from happening, efforts that appear to have failed.

Talking to reporters on background, the official said Iraqis want the American presence in their country.

“Now, there are Iranian proxies who do not want us there, and they are threatening to kill or attack, intimidate those of the Iraqis who want us there to fight ISIS, to help build their military, to stabilize their financial system,” the official said.

A halt to the ISIS fight

The remaining U.S. forces in Iraq are part of an international coalition that arrived after about a third of the country became overrun by the Islamic State. Since then, Iraq has claimed victory over the jihadists, but the U.S.-led coalition has remained in order to prevent an ISIS resurgence.

On Sunday, however, Pentagon officials said that due to attacks on Iraqi and American bases over the last two months, the U.S. would be suspending support for Iraq’s anti-ISIS operations and training Iraqi forces.

“This has limited our capacity to conduct training with partners and to support their operations,” military officials said of the repeated attacks on U.S. outposts. “We have therefore paused these activities.”

Resources are instead being re-allocated to shore up the security of U.S. facilities and troops.

“We remain resolute as partners of the Government of Iraq and the Iraqi people that have welcomed us into their country to help defeat ISIS. We remain ready to return our full attention and efforts back to our shared goal of ensuring the lasting defeat” of the Islamic State, military officials said.

Iran state TV reports it is stepping away from nuclear deal

Iran’s state television reported Sunday that the country will no longer abide by uranium enrichment restrictions imposed by the 2015 nuclear deal, potentially freeing open its ambitions to develop a nuclear weapon.

The Iranian government indicated that if the U.S. eased economic sanctions against the country, it would return to abiding by the terms of the agreement.

In May 2018, President Trump announced that the U.S. was pulling out of the multi-country deal aimed at restricting Iran’s nuclear program. “It is clear to me that we cannot prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb under the decaying and rotten structure of the current agreement,” Trump said at the time.

Despite the U.S. abandoning the deal, other participants worked to preserve the agreement, which was the culmination of complex negotiations among the United States, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, China and Russia.

The announcement that Iran was intent on rolling back its commitments to the accord presented myriad unanswered questions, including whether inspectors would be forced to leave the country and what will be done with the infrastructure currently in place to curb the country’s enrichment.

Soleimani’s funeral procession

Sunday’s developments in Iraq came as hundreds of thousands of people filled the streets of Iran in an emotional outpouring of respect for Soleimani, whose remains arrived in a casket to the Islamic Republic as part of nationwide mourning for the man widely considered the second-most-powerful figure in the country after the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

As the casket was driven slowly in western city of Ahvaz, the enormous grief-stricken crowds chanted and waved banners bearing the face of Soleimani, a powerful military leader who until his death led Iran’s elite Quds Force.

Soleimani was killed in a U.S. drone strike Friday, ratcheting up tensions between Tehran and Washington and prompting vows of retaliation from top Iranian leaders.

In Iran’s parliament, lawmakers chanted “Death to America!” in unison — a development that followed President Trump’s warning that the U.S. would target 52 “high level & important” Iranian sites in the event that Iran retaliates.

In response, Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said targeting Iranian cultural sites would be a war crime. “Whether kicking or screaming, [the] end of US malign presence in West Asia has begun,” Zarif tweeted.

Bracing for more fallout

In an interview with NPR on Sunday, retired general David Petraeus, the architect of the U.S. surge in Iraq, said “it is impossible to overstate the importance” of the U.S. killing Soleimani, saying the major question now is how Iran will retaliate, likely, he said through the country’s proxy forces.

“Iran is not in the strongest of positions, given the sanctions, dismal economy and widespread Iranian popular unrest,” Petraeus said. “I tend to think it is more likely that we will see a variety of proxy attacks,” he said. “And Iran has a lot of proxies throughout the region, thanks to the efforts of Qassem Soleimani.”

Petraeus added: “There’s no question that the tensions have been dramatically increased as a result of this action … This is clearly heading in a very bad direction. Make no mistake about it: There will be losses on all sides if this escalates further.”

https://wamu.org/story/20/01/05/iraqi-p ... ni-strike/

[FSchmertz]

Hard to believe that’s what happened. What is the source?

The Prime Minister of Iraq

Where did you get that?

Shits pretty wild right now, things are being deleted and reappearing

That is crazy. Lots of shit just flying, both credible and nonsense

If it's true, holy fuck

Certainly makes you think Chump's threat to Iran's cultural sites might not just be his usual B.S., even though it would be a blatant war crime.

[CaptQuint]

The Prime Minister of Iraq

Where did you get that?

Shits pretty wild right now, things are being deleted and reappearing

That is crazy. Lots of shit just flying, both credible and nonsense

If it's true, holy fuck

Certainly makes you think Chump's threat to Iran's cultural sites might not just be his usual B.S., even though it would be a blatant war crime.

perfidy
is a form of deception in which one side promises to act in good faith (such as by raising a flag of truce) with the intention of breaking that promise once the unsuspecting enemy is exposed (such as by coming out of cover to attack the enemy coming to take the "surrendering" prisoners into custody). Perfidy constitutes a breach of the laws of war and so is a war crime, as it degrades the protections and mutual restraints developed in the interest of all parties, combatants and civilians.

Trump doesn’t even realize what he did is a war crime

[DandyDon]

The US military targeted for execution a high ranking foreign government official who we are not at war with and Congress never gave authorization for such an action. That's completely different than killing a terrorist who isn't aligned with a government. This is blatantly illegal and the UN has said so much. The Iraqi government has said the US didn't have authorization so it is illegal.

It's called maintaining an assassination program. Bush and Obama used it, Trump has escalated it dramatically.


After the OPCW lies (and so many others), can't even believe anyone would honestly believe US claims of an attack being imminent. Seriously?

You don't get to spend 3 years attacking the credibility and unanimous conclusions of every American intel service, then do a sudden 180 and claim "we have credible intel of an imminent attack" that justified the daylight murder of Soleimani.

[DandyDon]

The Prime Minister of Iraq

Where did you get that?

Shits pretty wild right now, things are being deleted and reappearing

That is crazy. Lots of shit just flying, both credible and nonsense

If it's true, holy fuck

Certainly makes you think Chump's threat to Iran's cultural sites might not just be his usual B.S., even though it would be a blatant war crime.

It's not the fact that Trump is too stupid to realize what horrible decisions he is making that worries me. I never believed he had any ability to think strategically. It's that senior military officials gave him those options in the first place. What the fuck were they thinking?

[CaptQuint]

Where did you get that?

Shits pretty wild right now, things are being deleted and reappearing

That is crazy. Lots of shit just flying, both credible and nonsense

If it's true, holy fuck

Certainly makes you think Chump's threat to Iran's cultural sites might not just be his usual B.S., even though it would be a blatant war crime.

It's not the fact that Trump is too stupid to realize what horrible decisions he is making that worries me. I never believed he had any ability to think strategically. It's that senior military officials gave him those options in the first place. What the fuck were they thinking?

Maybe we can skip The Senate trial and get him clamped in leg irons and sent to The Hague?

[CaptQuint]

[Wut]

So he ties it back to the hostage crisis of 40 years ago, demands no more threats while making threats, and threatens nonmilitary targets.

Well done for two tweets.

[Wut]

And I'm seeing posts in support of the assassination justifying it on the basis of what he's done in his own country, similar to the justifications for taking out Saddam and invading Iraq, and we're seeing claims that we are giving them their freedom, which also is familiar. It's the 2003 gameplan all over again.

[VinceBordenIII]

I don't care that we assassinated this hair care model, as long as the accusations are correct.
I've been wary of a potential false flag operation to keep us involved in this ME mess, and didn't believe the chemical weapons accusations against the Syrians.
Constantly shrinking from meaningful retaliation is how you get more attacks on Americans, but I think the Iranians are seriously afraid of what cuckoo will do.

Edit: like that 52 targeted sites message. It would be retarded symbolism, the kind of thing which Arabs and Persians would do, and which they would understand.