Iraq Unravels

[dimsum]

Guessing the 82nd deploying is more symbolic (again), expident and for people control.

...or they were at high readiness at the time? 

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

oh yeah, real stabilized, but in the wrong direction for the US, take a look at a handful of news articles beginning to surface. Who would've guessed Iraq wouldn't react positively to this?  :

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-security-blast-primeminister/rival-shiite-leaders-in-iraq-call-for-us-troop-expulsion-in-rare-show-of-unity-idUSKBN1Z20JO

https://theweek.com/speedreads/887302/iraq-deputy-parliament-speaker-vows-decisive-decisions-end-presence-country

Like they could admit that maybe they green-lighted this.
Not saying they did but no one here could be 100 % sure they didn't.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

They provided material support to local militia groups fighting that, from their perspective, were fighting against American invasion and occupation of their country. The real difference to this and American support of the Mujahadeen against Russia (for example), what side you are on. From one perspective you are supporting freedom fighters, from another you are engaging in state support to terrorism.

Just saying that it's not as simple as 'they are terrorists and we're the good guys', and we should probably leave the moral arguments out of it.  Everyone's hands are dirty, but I think this was done exclusively for his own political gain, and had nothing to do with strategic US interests. That's what I find repulsive about this, because it will be everyday Americans who die as a result of his naked greed for power.

I also do not think about any of these issues in terms of "good" and "bad".  This is just Realpolitik. 

One thing that amazes me is how utterly irrelevant Europe has become in Global Affairs.  Macron and Boris are whinging because Trump didn't consult with them  :rofl:

Europe in a little under a decade has basically become a bunch of declining middle powers, only they don't realize it yet but everyone else does.  The United States, China, Russia, India, Turkey, KSA, Iran, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, etc. Are the new countries that matter going forward in to the 21st Century.

 

[Good2Golf]

...Buried by the death of Soleimani is the death of al-Muhandis. Stability and hegemony are American strategic objectives in Iraq. The assassination of al-Muhandis threatens that.

This.  In a manner that appears not at all well considered.

 

[brihard]

And your crystal ball tells you this how?  Maybe he was found to be a destabilizing force and thus was stabilized.

Or maybe not.....

Crystal ball? No. I read. Sometimes even from sources that know their stuff. Hell, we even have a few of those here.

Like they could admit that maybe they green-lighted this.
Not saying they did but no one here could be 100 % sure they didn't.

Iraq under Saddam was primarily a Sunni regime, with a majority Shia population. De-Baathification of the Iraqi political and civil institutions also resulted in power shifting primarily to the Shia majority. They now hold the bulk of the political power in Iraq. Iran is Shia. There’s a reason Iraq is politically aligning with Iran, and referring to them as a ‘friendly country’. If you think it likely or even plausible that Iraqi decision makers green-lighted this hit, I would suggest further study is warranted on your part.

Because it seems to be getting lost here: we can simultaneous be happy at the isolated fact that a bad person is dead, while also being very concerned about the strategic implications of how he got that way.

 

[dimsum]

Because it seems to be getting lost here: we can simultaneous be happy at the isolated fact that a bad person is dead, while also being very concerned about the strategic implications of how he got that way.

Exactly. 

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

I'm very concerned.....I'm just having a laugh reading, yes I can read no matter how condensing you wish to be, how so many on here seem to think they know who loves who, and whom is selling out whom.

I have no idea how this plays out and neither do you.....

 

[kkwd]

More?

https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1213236218269487106?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet

 

[Cloud Cover]

Yes, more. https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/world/airstrike-against-iran-backed-militia-kills-5-official-1.4751325

 

[Jarnhamar]

...or they were at high readiness at the time?

Possible!

Seems like they were high readiness 40 years ago too.

The 82nd -- ready 'in hours' if needed in Iran
April 9, 1980
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/amphtml/1980/0409/040945.html

 

[The Bread Guy]

More players want to play (via Lebanese media) ...

Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah Friday called on “resistance fighters” across the world to take revenge for the U.S. killing of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani. He vowed that Hezbollah would “continue on Gen. Soleimani’s path” and “raise his flag in all the battlefields.” Soleimani took control of Iran’s Al-Quds Force, the overseas branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, in 1998, and used his position to strengthen Iran-backed Shiite groups across the region, including Hezbollah, as part of what Iran and its allies call the “Axis of Resistance.” ...

More @ link

 

[PPCLI Guy]

Thus wakens the ummah.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Thus wakens the ummah.

From what I'm reading it surely won't be awakening in the second largest Iranian populated city in NA.
Lots of anxiety of course, but for the most part celebration in Toronto.

 

[jeffb]

Possible!

Seems like they were high readiness 40 years ago too.

They are always high-readiness. The 82nd maintains a BCT at high readiness at all times. It's also helpful that they forces they need right now in the Middle East right now are light infantry to help augment the facility security forces. The 82nd is not designed to be the front line in a shooting war against Iran. Posturing them forward puts enough troops in the area to safeguard infrastructure, this is not an offensive move.

 

[Brad Sallows]

>When you start throwing punches, you’d better have a plan to end the fight.

Maybe killing generals is the plan.

If the US continues to respect the spirit of Executive Order 12333 (which I think is the one proscribing assassination) with respect to everyone except those involved directly in the "shadow" wars, and maintains its undoubted commitment to minimizing consequences to non-combatants, and declines to respond to provocations by killing minions (the rank and file and non-general officers who usually bear the brunt of military operations), then that leaves...the generals.

There may be some fanatics happy to step into their predecessor's shoes and suffer the same fate, but I suppose most want to go on enjoying their Johnny Walker and procured women.

How many generals get whacked before the remainder tell the political leaders that they don't want to play the game anymore, and hint at regime change if the politicians refuse?  I'd guess fewer than 5, especially if  one not ordinarily involved with murky operations gets mistakenly hit (bad int) and the rest decide they don't like the risk.

 

[PPCLI Guy]

Some insight to how it all unfolded:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/how-trump-decided-to-kill-a-top-iranian-general/2020/01/03/77ce3cc4-2e62-11ea-bcd4-24597950008f_story.html

National Security
How Trump decided to kill a top Iranian general
(The Washington Post)
By
Missy Ryan, Josh Dawsey, Dan Lamothe and John Hudson
Jan. 3, 2020 at 8:16 p.m. EST

On Sunday, President Trump’s most senior national security advisers joined him at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, where Trump was beginning the second week of his holiday vacation. The officials told reporters that U.S. F-15 Strike Eagles had just attacked Iranian-sponsored militia groups at their bases in Iraq and Syria, in response to a series of rocket attacks that had culminated in the death of an American contractor two days earlier.

But privately, a different topic had come up with an agitated president: whether to kill Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, whom military leaders described as responsible for the attack of an American citizen and likely to kill more.

Why Trump chose this moment to explore an operation against the leader of Iran’s Quds Force, after tolerating Iranian aggression in the Persian Gulf for months, was a matter of debate within his own administration. Officials gave differing and incomplete accounts of the intelligence they said prompted Trump to act. Some said they were stunned by his decision, which could lead to war with one of America’s oldest adversaries in the Middle East.

“It was tremendously bold and even surprised many of us,” said a senior administration official with knowledge of high-level discussions among Trump and his advisers, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

On Friday, hours after a U.S. drone killed Soleimani and an Iraqi militia leader at the Baghdad airport, senior State Department officials told reporters that Iran had been plotting “imminent attacks directed at killing hundreds of Americans” but declined to offer specifics. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told CNN on Friday that Soleimani “was actively plotting in the region to take actions, the big action as he described it, that would have put dozens if not hundreds of American lives at risk. We know it was imminent.”

On Capitol Hill, officials briefed lawmakers and staff but didn’t provide any details about the alleged Iranian targets or what made them imminent, according to people who were present.

Some analysts were skeptical about the need to kill Soleimani.

“There may well have been an ongoing plot as Pompeo claims, but Soleimani was a decision-maker, not an operational asset himself,” said Jon Bateman, who served as a senior intelligence analyst for Iran at the Defense Intelligence Agency. “Killing him would be neither necessary nor sufficient to disrupt the operational progression of an imminent plot. What it might do instead is shock Iran’s decision calculus” and deter future attack plans, Bateman said.

In a conference call with reporters, national security adviser Robert C. O’Brien said Friday evening that the strike on Soleimani happened after he recently visited Damascus and was plotting to target U.S. military and diplomatic personnel.

“This strike was aimed at disrupting ongoing attacks that were being planned by Soleimani and deterring future Iranian attacks through their proxies or through the . . . Quds Force directly against Americans,” O’Brien said.

Defense officials described Soleimani’s planning as part of a continuation of earlier Iranian provocations, including the mining of ships in the Persian Gulf in May. A month later, Trump called off an airstrike at practically the last minute — an attack that had been intended to retaliate for Iran downing a U.S. surveillance drone.

Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a meeting with reporters on Friday that Soleimani was killed after U.S. officials recently became aware of intelligence that showed that the “size, scale, scope” of what he was planning led them to conclude there was a greater risk in not taking action than in doing so.

“Is there risk? Damn right there’s risk,” Milley said of possible Iranian reactions to the killing one of the nation’s most prominent leaders. “But we’re mitigating, and we think we’re taking appropriate mitigations.”

“The ball is in the Iranian court,” Milley said. “It is their choice what the next steps are.”

It may be days or weeks before U.S. officials know how Iran will respond. But the rapid sequence of events that led to Soleimani’s death made clear that a decades-old conflict has reached a fever pitch.

An American casualty
The immediate roots of the current crisis can be traced to the Friday after Christmas, when a barrage of missile fire exploded at K-1, a joint U.S.-Iraqi base on the southern edge of the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk. Of about 30 rockets that American officials said were fired at the air base several hours after sundown, nine landed within the sprawling facility.

American officials quickly blamed Kataib Hezbollah, a powerful militia group they say receives funding and arms from Iran. In addition to wounding three U.S. soldiers and two Iraqi federal police, officials said the attack killed an American interpreter, whose identity has not been made public. That person had been working alongside a force of about 100 U.S. personnel on the base as part of the campaign against the Islamic State.

While the attack evoked the frequent rocket fire that rained down on U.S. troops in Baghdad and other locations in the years following the 2003 invasion, they have been uncommon in recent years. The United States has found itself in the odd position of fighting on the same side as Iranian-backed militias against the Islamic State. But the rocket attacks resumed in recent months as the Trump administration has continued its “maximum pressure” campaign of economic sanctions against Iran, growing in intensity until the Kirkuk attack.

“Thirty-one rockets aren’t designed as a warning shot. That’s designed to inflict damage and kill,” Milley told reporters before the Soleimani strike.

U.S. officials were disappointed Iraq had not publicly condemned the Kirkuk attack and questioned the government’s willingness to check militias loyal to their powerful neighbor.

Almost exactly 48 hours after the Kirkuk attack, American F-15 jets unleashed bombs on five militia sites. The targets included command nodes and weapons depots in Bu Kamal, Syria, and al-Qaim, Iraq, border outposts on either side of the Iraq-Syria border. Speaking later that day after meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper said the attack was successful but also hinted at discussion of “other options” being considered.

“We will take additional actions as necessary to ensure that we act in our own self-defense and we deter further bad behavior,” he said.

The strikes created an immediate political crisis in Baghdad, where officials were given little notice of the plans by their chief Western ally to attack militias linked to their powerful neighbor.

The backlash was particularly fierce from militia leaders.

“The response will be harsh for the American forces in Iraq,” warned Jamal Jaafar Ibrahimi, deputy head of the Popular Mobilization Forces, better known as Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. (Also the founder of the Kataib Hezbollah militia, al-Muhandis was killed in the U.S. strike on Soleimani.)

Two days later, on Tuesday, thousands of militia supporters converged on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, throwing molotov cocktails and breaching the secure compound’s walls before setting up a protest camp outside. As militiamen set fire to a reception area, smoke billowed out of the facility that had once symbolized U.S. influence and might in Iraq. Inside the compound, staff hunkered down in safe rooms. Military leaders immediately dispatched about 100 Marines to Baghdad, then sent another 750 troops to remain on standby in Kuwait.

Tensions appeared to subside the following day, when militia leaders issued instructions for the demonstrators to depart and the government appealed for calm. American officials, however, were exasperated that Iraqi leaders had responded slowly and government security forces stood by while the militiamen laid siege to the embassy.

Trump decides to act
At his resort in Florida, the president was told the Iranian leader was going to be coming to Baghdad; senior officials felt he was taunting the United States by showing up in the Iraqi capital, implying he could move around with impunity.

Calls between the national security principals were convened by the vice president throughout the week after initial discussions on Sunday to kill Soleimani, a senior administration official said.

Officials reminded Trump that after the Iranians mined ships, downed the U.S. drone and allegedly attacked a Saudi oil facility, he hadn’t responded. Acting now, they said, would send a message: “The argument is, if you don’t ever respond to them, they think they can get by with anything,” one White House official said.

Trump was also motivated to act by what he felt was negative coverage after his 2019 decision to call off the airstrike after Iran downed the U.S. surveillance drone, officials said. Trump was also frustrated that the details of his internal deliberations had leaked out and felt he looked weak, the officials said.

The United States tracked Soleimani’s movements for several days, keeping Trump apprised, and decided that their best opportunity to kill him would be near the Baghdad airport, the senior administration official said.

He ultimately gave final approval just before the strike, a senior administration official said, making the call from his golf resort.

Trump also had history on his mind. The president has long fixated on Benghazi and the Obama administration’s response to it, say lawmakers and aides who have spoken to him, and felt the response to this week’s attack on the embassy and the killing of an American contractor would make him look stronger compared to his predecessor.

“Benghazi has loomed large in his mind,” said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) in an interview, explaining the response this week.

Graham was at Mar-a-Lago on Monday and said the president told him he was concerned they “were going to hit us again” and that he was considering hitting the Iranians.

No specific plan was ready to kill him, but it was on Trump’s mind, Graham said.

“He was more thinking out loud, but he was determined to do something to protect Americans. Killing the contractor really changed the equation,” Graham said.

“He was saying, ‘This guy is a bad guy, he’s up to no good, we have to do something,’ ” Graham said.

After the attack, U.S. officials in Iraq braced themselves for a range of possible responses, from direct attacks by Iran to an Iraqi order that U.S. forces and personnel leave the country.

On Friday, Graham said the president described the job as “a tough business.”

“I said, ‘Yeah, it’s a tough business, Mr. President,’ ” Graham said.

Shane Harris and Karoun Demirjian contributed to this report.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

The problem for Iran is that, while yes they have a lot of ways to hurt the US, they to are exceedingly vulnerable and have a population that has little interest in fights outside their country. The Regime faces a fragile home front. Trumps greatest strength and weakness is that no one is sure what he will do next, and both his allies and enemies are surprised by moves outside of their expectations. So retaliate to hard and likely suffer losing more high ranking officials or a military base in Iran, or worse a oil refinery. Not to mention the palace intrigue this creates within Iran. With a strong possibility that Trump will get re-elected, they may need to limit their actions for a number of years.   

 

[Loachman]

From what I'm reading it surely won't be awakening in the second largest Iranian populated city in NA.
Lots of anxiety of course, but for the most part celebration in Toronto.

http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/iranian-canadians-dance-cheer-and-celebrate-death-of-top-general-in-iran/ar-BBYAAg6?ocid=ientp

Iranian-Canadians dance, cheer and celebrate death of top general in Iran

TORONTO - Several dozen Iranian-Canadians danced and cheered in Toronto on Friday as they celebrated the death of a top general in their home country.

<snip>

But for those who showed up to dance in a square in north Toronto Friday afternoon, Soleimani's death marked what they hoped would be a re-birth for Iran. Chants of "regime change in Iran by the people of Iran" and "we support uprising in Iran" rang out at the rally.

"We are in a great world now after Soleimani's elimination," said Hamid Gharajeh, a spokesman for the Iran Democratic Association of Canada. "I feel wonderful because we really think this is long overdue."

Gharajeh left Iran in 1977 to go to university in the U.S., then moved to Canada about 10 years later. He has never gone home, but still has family in Iran and hopes to return one day.

"My father and mother passed away in Iran, but I've never been to their graves," he said. "The dream is going back to a free Iran."

Others taking part in the Toronto rally said they hope Soleimani's death will be the catalyst for regime change.

"We want peace in the region, not terrorism," said Sara Fallah, the director of the International Coalition of Women Against Fundamentalism.

"Anyone who cares about human rights should be against terrorism and celebrating the death of Soleimani."

Fallah said she left Iran when she was young to come to school in Canada. She has never returned.

Behza Matin said he danced when he first heard the news of the general's death.

"I was so happy to see this man killed," Matin said. ". . . I have to tell you, I had the greatest sleep last night."

The scene contrasted with the reaction in the Iranian capital of Tehran where thousands took to the streets after Friday Muslim prayers to condemn the killing, waving posters of Soleimani and chanting "Death to deceitful America."

 

[Cloud Cover]

From the article above:
“The ball is in the Iranian court,” Milley said. “It is their choice what the next steps are.”

Why start a fight and then immediately cede the initiative?

 

[tomahawk6]

18 Abn Corps has a Canadian BG bill Fletcher assigned.

https://home.army.mil/bragg/index.php/about/leadership