Head of Iran's Quds Force Killed at Baghdad Airport

[ian16th]

Well its put some life into the markets.

There is volatility in the currency markets.

This is a technological 1st! I connected my phone via usb and copied the screen shot directly to Ops-Normal in my browser.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Price of oil will jump.
If he was ordering terrorist attacks then he was a valid target under international law. The USA does not need to declare a war on Iran first.
The USA might have trouble proving that, but probably not in this case.
I think the action has been very carefully judged, both in terms of choice of target and timing. It being a Friday, I'm sure there'll be a lot of shouting about it from Mosque pulpits. Maybe this venting will be enough reaction, maybe not.
The Iranians have clearly been told that the USA is going to treat proxy attacks the same way as if they had been a direct attack by Iran.
It is probably the end of senior Iranians involved in proxy wars taking trips abroad.
Any reaction that looks organised is probably going to draw a hard response from the USA now. They are pretty much committed psychologically to responding with something serious or the Iranians will not get the originally intended message. If Iranian oil facilities are taken out, then the Saudis will be very happy, and probably the Chinese will suffer most. Trump may see them rein in Yung Fat Wun again, which would also be a win.
Individuals in the upper power structure in Iran will hopefully now take it as them being personally at risk if they order reprisals. They have not been at risk before. We will see if they are cowards.
I suspect the reaction will be some minor actions which the Iranians will claim don't involve them. It could go quiet for a bit whilst they plan taking out some American with a similar status, like another ambassador. Or we could get some escalation.

[Rwy in Sight]

(...)
It is probably the end of senior Iranians involved in proxy wars taking trips abroad.
(...)
Individuals in the upper power structure in Iran will hopefully now take it as them being personally at risk if they order reprisals. They have not been at risk before. We will see if they are cowards.

I am not sure how they relate- I don't see the decision makers in Iran care to travel outside their country too much. So they can order an attack although the last part of your message covers it well.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Prior to this, the QUDS Commander was a rising star. Other ambitious Iranians will now be thinking twice about taking on the role. It will be much harder for the Iranians to control their proxy forces if they decide not to have the QUDS Commander leave Iran - much of the business in the Sandpit is still personal face-to-face stuff.

Moving on from the external actions, I think we need to consider the implications for the internal stability of the Iranian regime. Following on from the protests a month ago, the phone system was partially shut down last week so internal protests are clearly continuing. The underlying economic situation is getting worse. The Iranian regime now has to consider external action both to show its power and to deflect the attention of its citizens externally. However, if the US then responds with, say, an attack that partly cripples Iranian oil exports, then the internal situation gets worse. I expect there's a lot of shouting about these points in the upper echelons of the Iranian regime right now.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

If there's a significant Iranian response, then the US will want to trigger a regime collapse rapidly to minimise the potential further backlashes against itself.
I would imagine from the timing of this strike and the Iranian protests that the US considers the Iranian regime close to economic collapse - close enough to trigger it with a major action that affects regime economics, such as limiting oil exports. We may be talking a timescale of 3 months. Reportedly the Iranians have just about used up the $150bn Obama gave them.
It's obviously better if the Iranian people topple the Theocracy without outside interference. It will be interesting to see if the CIA can resist getting involved, though Trump isn't exactly a fan and I expect they have explicit orders to do nothing beyond intelligence gathering. If the US is contemplating a strike on Iranian soil, then they will want to hit something that affects cash flow critically now, but still allows a new Iranian regime to rebuild with sanctions lifted.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Tweet from the Ayatolla on Wednesday

That guy has tweeted that we see Iran responsible for the events in Baghdad & we will respond to Iran.
1st: You can’t do anything.

Seems like he got that spectacularly wrong

[llondel]

If it does escalate into WW3 or at least a significant conflict then I wonder if there will be an outbreak of bone spurs in the US? Imagine the reception that an announcement of a draft from this incumbent would receive.

[Pontius Navigator]

If it does escalate into WW3 or at least a significant conflict then I wonder if there will be an outbreak of bone spurs in the US? Imagine the reception that an announcement of a draft from this incumbent would receive.

Bone spurs are operable

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

I think the US has learned the lesson that drafting idiots for assymetric campaigns is stupid.

More importantly, the troops have.
However, the politicians and generals like McNamara, Johnson and Westmoreland that did it were also idiots, so there's no guarantee it won't happen again

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

If we are considering US domestic politics, and we always must in a Presidential election year, then Trump has just ripped the narrative control from the Democrats a month before their first primary and during an impeachment. The Democrat contenders immediate responses all state the Iranian was a murderer, so Trump has just responded with a "Why didn't you get rid of him, then?". Looks to me like the same as 2016, and they will be playing media catch-up all year, which is ridiculously stupid given it's their media. What an absolute shower!

[AtomKraft]

Come on Fox.
MacNamara, Bundy, Rusk, JFK and LBJ got it badly wrong.
I think idiots is off the mark, especially for MacNamara.

[Pontius Navigator]

If he was ordering terrorist attacks then he was a valid target under international law. The USA does not need to declare a war on Iran first.

As he was travelling in a country supposedly friendly to the US the 'street's would seem to be a little heavy handed

I suppose the only alternative would have been a stop and arrest but probably have to have been Iraqi police and no doubt a gunfight.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Since the Iraqi police had just let the pro-Iranians into the Green Zone to attack the US embassy, then attempting to use them for anything was a non-starter.

I think McNamara, and indeed the whole Vietnam crowd, belong in another thread. We will have to disagree on that one for now.
I think a point relevant from Vietnam is how long leaders persist with a plan that both isn't working and that they personally believe to be futile. I don't think that applies to any side in the Middle East as yet, though one could probably safely say that everybody's objectives include stuff which is immoral and illegal. Trump is forcing a decision from the Iranians here. I agree it could go anywhere, so that is obviously a big risk.

[AtomKraft]

Fox.
Although the 'plan' in Vietnam was ill conceived to say the least, it was miles ahead of anything in place in the ME.

Heaven knows what will happen next.....bad things I expect.

[boing]

And one needs to know how wide this area might be...

And that is possibly going to force the issue. Presently the West, particularly the US, is focusing on cutting off the individual heads off of the Hydra but soon someone is going to decide to crush it's body.

.

[Rwy in Sight]

boing when you say

but soon someone is going to decide to crush it's body

are you referring to a country with light blue star on blue and white flag located in the easternmost part of the Med?

I am always very concerned when a change of regime is suggested or even contemplated. Maybe the statement of a French diplomat just before GWI about the absolute need to have a decent head of state to replace a rogue one has to be answered before any topping operation is launched. Recent history like the Arab Spring shows how vital the new leader is! I am not sure how useful a change of regime can be in Iran.

[Bob]

Aaah..........

[Bob]

Its an election year...

[boing]

Iran allowing this situation to escalate to military action would be totally suicidal and they must know it. Military action would play into all of the strong suits of the US in terms of location, imbalance in technology, the small size and concentration of the valuable targets, the sympathies of surrounding states and the ability to attack from the sea using Iranian targets like ducks in a fairground game. America presently is not even greatly concerned by the oil situation, in fact, if you look a few moves ahead they might even welcome a reduction in Iranian oil output.

Destruction of Iranian defenses and, just for entertainment and to make a point, a beachhead on the Southern Iranian coast, just to show how really undefended the country is, would not cost much more than annual US training exercises.

RiS,
Not necessarily. Iran has pee'd off so many countries with their games in the Gulf that many people have a grudge and would delight in seeing Iran put in it's place but the work would need to be done by the US for whom this would be a great place to get rid of a lot of their old generation military hardware. The little blue flag state probably has a far more effective "boots on the ground" intelligence operation than the US.

Many factors. A clean job would be a massive boost for Trump in election year. The way oil supplies are now balanced the US would not be greatly hurt by reduced Iranian output but certain other expanding economies would. Baluchistan is a c--phole but it is rich in natural resources and it has a small insurgency underway.

.

[boing]

Bob.

I suppose a war is a war whatever you call it but if fighting starts in Western Iran I would hope the US has learned, from Iraq, that this is not the old time warfare where you had to take the capital city in order to declare success. Winning in a modern war is to get the bits of a country that you really want, debilitate its military so it can't respond to your power, and then let it sort out its own problems with the threat that if it causes any trouble you will move into the rest of it. Of course, you can always offer concessions and defense agreements to the new government.

Little bit like the East India Company actually.


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