The Soleimani assassination. I hope this tremendous gamble and subversion of the Constitution does not lead to war.

and lest we forget,we dismantled saddams baathist party,which opened the door for the shia militias.
which gave a back door for iran to just walk in and slowly take over the political levers of power in Iraq.

the situation is incredibly complex,and has a rich historical timeline.

sadly,the American corporate media has done a horrendous job of informing the American public.

Good point. Assassinating Soleimani is a dramatic escalation, but it is part of the same belligerent trajectory Trump has pursued vs. Iran ever since unilaterally withdrawing from the JCPOA.

iran has been struggling with US sanctions,which have been crippling economically,and were causing societal strife,hardship and resulted in protests.which the US state department gleefully applauded.(it was,after all,their intent in the first place).

however,with this new dynamic added to the mix.i fear that the fractured elites,both religious and political,will now come together in solidarity.

mike Pompeo and the trump administration just handed the Iranian government the biggest present they ever could have offered.both the bush and Obama administration both understood this,and the bush administration had more grounds to take soleimani out.
this action by the US will solidify the resolve of a nation that was struggling only weeks ago.

there will be a response.
in what form I do not know but I suspect that iran will be discussing the matter with both Russia and china to gauge the red line.

but make NO mistake,there WILL be a response.
and the state department knows this,because the first order of business was to declare all American citizens to flee Iraq.

which,may be the soothing oil for iran.
to have Iraq with zero American presence.
maybe..possibly...I don't know.
this can go in so many directions,and none of them are very good.

this can go sideways very,very fast....
and I am witnessing so many of my fellow americans that appear to be excited at the prospect of war with iran.
this is just....dumb...it is soo f**king dumb.

even our own military have done the predictions with a war with iran.
it would be devastating to both countries.
f**k me..this is some scary shit.

:(

This has zero to do with 'impeachment'.

Did you ask Trump himself? Did he give you a big, beautiful assurance of that?

You guys have been crying muh wagging the dog for years. It should be a fallacy. "The misguided belief that every military action is to boost popularity"

Trump doesn't even stand up for those that campaigned hardest for him. If all he cared about was popularity and re-election he'd crack down on FB and Twitter that crack down on him and his supporters.

I wouldn't call anything else Trump has done militarily as wag-the-dog.

I refuse to count Trump's willingness not to shut down social media like a tin-pot dictator (assuming he could even do this under our Constitution -- doubtful) as a point in his favor

Your expectations about him are really, really low. And you keep defending him!

If you think standing down to a bunch of terrorists is the way to stay safe, you are sorely mistaken. Never stand down to a bully! They killed some of our people and they attacked our embassy. The ball was in our court to so something and Trump DID! We don't need a wishy washy President to stand down after those assaults! That would leave our people more vulnerable. We would be seen as weak. Trump did the only thing he could do and he was not alone in the decision, but had the support of high rank military. So stop with the scare tactics. We are much safer with Trump at the helm.

About the only thing Trump had going for him was staying out of many major new war for the past 3 years, and now even that is in jeopardy.

Iran and the U.S. both have ample justification to go to war with each other. That doesn’t mean we should.

You don’t do something like this without thinking through the consequences.

I don't agree with your idiotic liberal stance on what he had going for him, but his job is to protect American interest and he is doing that. So, you are saying that since he was being impeached he should stand down and allow Americans to be killed and Embassy to be attacked? And, if he did that, and more Americans are killed and more embassies attacked, then blame him for that, too. It is easy for you to spout stupid shit when you are not even privy to military intelligence which is the very reason for this counter attack. If it wasn't for the millions your precious OBAMA sent them, they wouldn't have had the balls to attack our embassy in the first place. Where is your condemnation for that?

Maybe if Trump got us out of a totally unjustified illegal war and continuing occupation like he promised when campaigning and stopped aggravating Iraqis this wouldn't be happening.

The millions of dollars you refer to are from private bank accounts illegally frozen by Carter in 1979.

Try learning something outside of a script.

It’s an act of war, and there wasn’t the slightest debate about it in Congress.

Iran wouldn’t be doing half the shit they are doing now if the JCPOA were still in place.

Trump ripped it up unilaterally and if that decision plus all the other actions he’s taken since then help land us in WWIII, blood is on his hands.

He responded to all this by tweeting an American flag. Prior to this, he purged Iran specialists. As usual he has no strategy but is just reacting to the last thing he’s seen on television.

Did Obunghole debate about going into Syria?

For the war on ISIS in Syria, Obama relied the 2001 AUMF which authorized the U.S. to pursue Al-Qaeda, and which had been previously used to justify U.S. actions in Afghanistan and a whole host of other countries.

It was a pretty weak justification in my opinion, since ISIS is different from Al-Qaeda. But: at least there was one, and Congress didn't speak up to voice any objection to interpreting the AUMF that way. Although would prefer that Congress had explicitly ratified those actions in Syria, or re-executed a new AUMF.

Trump proceeded upon that same theory in continuing the war on ISIS. Neither Obama nor Trump targeted the Syrian government, which in my opinion would have required a new AUMF.

Prior to the Iraq War, Congress passed a different AUMF in 2002 that was specifically directed against the Iraqi government.

A War against Iran would require at a bare minimum, a new AUMF. Iran's war-making capabilities are at least a hundred times that of ISIS.

Rather than pay Billions of dollars so they wouldn't kill us

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.politico.com/amp/news/2020/01/02/soleimani-trump-iran-iraq-093102