a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by user-inactivated

This means nothing, just my thoughts with no particular insights, but:

I've got a feeling shit will start flying after the funeral. Iran's leaders got their casus belli and will not back down, even if they wanted to, judging by the mass of people in the funeral march. I don't think the US war hawks will respond with anything less than brutal retaliation, unless Trump thinks he can get something out of it domestically or with his base. I think we might see another war in the region, but I really hope I'm wrong.





kleinbl00  ·  1788 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Just spitballing here - not going to pretend to be an expert on the middle east by any stretch of the imagination - but Iran has no reason to hurry. The Marine barracks bombings were nearly three years after the hostages were released and Buckley was taken five months after that.

Iran has also been holding joint naval drills with China and Russia so there's likely to be some discussion of geopolitics beyond Iran/USA.

The US doesn't look good here. Not even vaguely. Following that up with threats against cultural sites?

How well do you think the rest of the world will be observing sanctions against Iran now? Making an unsympathetic attack against an American target kinda kills their momentum. If I had to guess I'd guess we'll see a mourning Iran, a bellicose Iran, a sympathetic Iran, but not a shooting Iran.

Not until they can really make it hurt.

user-inactivated  ·  1788 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I hope you're right, but with all the recent domestic unrest I'm not so sure. If I was an American officer or similar in, say, Afghanistan, I'd be watching over my shoulder/the sky. More than usual, that is.

kleinbl00  ·  1788 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Here's the thing, though: Suleimani's martyrdom basically allows the IRGC to consolidate. Any moderate opposition is now pretty much out. Mohammad Khatami was a reformer who took power to work with a moderate United States; he was defeated by Ahmadinijad pretty much the minute Bush added Iran to the Axis of Evil.

We totally fucked Rouhani when we reneged on the nuclear deal. At this point the hardliners get whatever they want and nobody's gonna give a second thought to crackin' skulls if it's good for the regime.