Iran vs the US Thread

[Sundowers]

that would have been more funny if A. it was true, and B. everybody had not been making it for the past half hour

Going to address this now yes that was a tragedy, but I read some of the report and a combination of combat stress and past Iranian actions led to it. Also what does that have to do with the first meme?

[Sundowers]

This just smells of Tonkin. Far too convenient. If the US does somehow invade the war will be quick but it will be Afganistan 2: Electric Boogaloo. To make it all worse global opinion by the powers that be are mostly against the US. Expect Russian arms to be supplied to Iran. They will not risk heavy US presence so close to their motherland. Not uncontested.

You people need to brush on your history, this has happened a shit ton of times and yet now becuase Bolton and Trump have power people seems to be crying Gulf of Tonkin wherever they go.

[Sundowers]

This just smells of Tonkin. Far too convenient. If the US does somehow invade the war will be quick but it will be Afganistan 2: Electric Boogaloo. To make it all worse global opinion by the powers that be are mostly against the US. Expect Russian arms to be supplied to Iran. They will not risk heavy US presence so close to their motherland. Not uncontested.

Yeah I argue that this is a strategic disaster, lives lost for little gain.

are you talking about a war that could happen or the current incident? if you are talking about the current incident then this confuses me, no one died.

[Mystic Warriors]

False flag attack. Trump is trying to instigate a war with Iran to save his administration. Scary thing is his base will buy it.

[The Great Swedish Empire]

This just smells of Tonkin. Far too convenient. If the US does somehow invade the war will be quick but it will be Afganistan 2: Electric Boogaloo. To make it all worse global opinion by the powers that be are mostly against the US. Expect Russian arms to be supplied to Iran. They will not risk heavy US presence so close to their motherland. Not uncontested.

You people need to brush on your history, this has happened a shit ton of times and yet now becuase Bolton and Trump have power people seems to be crying Gulf of Tonkin wherever they go.

I chose Tonkin because most people know what happened.

[Aeritai]

False flag attack. Trump is trying to instigate a war with Iran to save his administration. Scary thing is his base will buy it.

Are you sure about that? Someone on here just said that most of the Republicans were siding with the Democrats to stop Trump from warring with Iran.

[Sundowers]

False flag attack. Trump is trying to instigate a war with Iran to save his administration. Scary thing is his base will buy it.

how original glad to see I can add one more to this stupid bandwagon. The US wont go to war over something that has happend hundreds of times in the past, in the late 80s a US Navy ship was attacked and we did not even declare war. This time its two foreign ships that had no American sailors on them. Hardly a cause for war.

[The Great Swedish Empire]

False flag attack. Trump is trying to instigate a war with Iran to save his administration. Scary thing is his base will buy it.

Are you sure about that? Someone on here just said that most of the Republicans were siding with the Democrats to stop Trump from warring with Iran.

Nobody wants another Afghanistan. Very little are actually for it.

[Sundowers]

You people need to brush on your history, this has happened a shit ton of times and yet now becuase Bolton and Trump have power people seems to be crying Gulf of Tonkin wherever they go.

I chose Tonkin because most people know what happened.

uh yeah but the issue is that this is nothing like Tonkin which is why this line of reasoning makes little sense.

[Sundowers]

Are you sure about that? Someone on here just said that most of the Republicans were siding with the Democrats to stop Trump from warring with Iran.

Nobody wants another Afghanistan. Very little are actually for it.

why Afghanistan, if anything it would be more like Iraq. If that.

[The Lone Alliance]

False flag attack. Trump is trying to instigate a war with Iran to save his administration. Scary thing is his base will buy it.

They aren't buying it. I've been watching them since I learned about this, most of them would rather go to war with Mexico than Iran.

I'm going that this was either done by some Iranian hardliners wanting to derail any attempts at peace or by the Saudis.

Or CIA cause they're CIA... which at this point I can't see the CIA doing anything to help Trump cause they hate him too.

[US-SSR]

fwiw the most compelling explanation I've seen so far has been divers with limpet mines. If Iran is behind it then it's most likely a signal to the US: you can't back out of your agreements with us and impose sanctions on us without expecting certain consequences.

That being said blowing up random tankers in the Gulf and tossing missiles and bombs around (and at least one of the bombings on Pompeo's list was formerly claimed by the Taliban, not Iran) is a fairly obtuse way of sending that kind of a message. And hitting a Japanese tanker just after the Japanese PM paid a call on you is, well, not a good look. It's entirely possible imo that the right hand doesn't know or care what the left hand is doing here.

And that being said given the whole Iraq/UMD/yellowcake/aluminum tubes thing the US, like the boy who cried wolf, is going to have to be more convincing than it has been so far. There is a very real risk imo that if it tries to mobilize support in the way it's been doing it is going to wind up very much alone, or maybe with Mister Bone Saw holding its coat for it while it fights his enemy, which is after all the same thing.

Nobody wants another Afghanistan. Very little are actually for it.

why Afghanistan, if anything it would be more like Iraq. If that.

Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq. Gallipoli and Suez spring to mind.

[Samudera Darussalam]

why Afghanistan, if anything it would be more like Iraq. If that.

I guess it's more because of geography. A large portion of Iran is mountainous, same as Afghanistan.

[Nakena]

The fire is rising. Good.

[Mystic Warriors]

False flag attack. Trump is trying to instigate a war with Iran to save his administration. Scary thing is his base will buy it.

Are you sure about that? Someone on here just said that most of the Republicans were siding with the Democrats to stop Trump from warring with Iran.

You assume Trump realizes that much less cares. The GOP fought him on his wall too, didn’t stop him. This is not a normal administration.

[The Lone Alliance]

Are you sure about that? Someone on here just said that most of the Republicans were siding with the Democrats to stop Trump from warring with Iran.

You assume Trump realizes that much less cares. The GOP fought him on his wall too, didn’t stop him. This is not a normal administration.

But Trumps' base wanted the wall, Trump's base is right now screaming that this is all an evil plot by John Kerry and the CIA.

[North German Realm]

Two types of people here are hilarious. The type that try to rationalize actions taken by the Islamic Republic as if Iran's being led by Rational Actors (and thus reach the rational conclusion that Iran couldn't have been responsible) and the type that try to pretend Trump gives a fuck what the Republicans or the Democrats in the Congress say.

The tankers are almost definitely Iran's fault, and they will result in absolutely nothing, unless the UN separately decides it was Iran, and a country independent of the US decides this is a casus belli for war. Trump isn't going to start a war with Iran just because Iran did something stupid. Iran's been doing stupid shit of this grade for years now, and he's have invaded a year ago if he actually had an invasion in mind. Bolton may be playing the drums of war, but that's because Iran is under the pretense that it can somehow "Win" with neither fighting nor negotiating -by outliving the sanctions, somehow- and so is trying to test the waters and see if they can trigger the US into declaring war first.

[Vassenor]

False flag attack. Trump is trying to instigate a war with Iran to save his administration. Scary thing is his base will buy it.

Despite one of his big campaign promises being that America would never go to war with anyone else ever.

[Dogmeat]

It's hard to see who benefits from this. Iran would love to disrupt Saudi Arabia's trade, but making the Gulf of Oman unsafe ultimately hurts them as much as anyone.

[Mostrov]

When I first heard of this, I dare say, the idea that Russians did it came to mind. They would benefit from increased conflict (and American commitment) in the middle-east, even if I suppose it does put one of their allies at disadvantage, and it certainly isn't the only time they would have committed such a brazen act.

Of course, the saner alternative is that the Iranians actually did so and the fact that western intelligence agencies have had a history of condemning them for their actions suggests that they aren't as innocent a state-actor as some might pretend—certainly their presence in Syria, where their revolutionary guard has been, at the least, complicit in war crimes; although, that said, it is a very dirty war all around.

[Caracasus]

Nobody wants another Afghanistan. Very little are actually for it.

why Afghanistan, if anything it would be more like Iraq. If that.

It really won't. Any potential war with Iran will be far, far worse than either Iraq or Afghanistan.

As for the incident itself? No-one has any clear evidence one way or another it seems. It's not impossible that it's the actions of some group or another affiliated with Iran on some level - especially considering the current wars in Yemen etc. Equally it's not impossible that some group affiliated to the US or SA has done this.

Still, it would be really surprising if Iran actually okayed this. They really do have very little to gain and an awful lot to lose.

[North German Realm]

why Afghanistan, if anything it would be more like Iraq. If that.

It really won't. Any potential war with Iran will be far, far worse than either Iraq or Afghanistan.

As for the incident itself? No-one has any clear evidence one way or another it seems. It's not impossible that it's the actions of some group or another affiliated with Iran on some level - especially considering the current wars in Yemen etc. Equally it's not impossible that some group affiliated to the US or SA has done this.

Still, it would be really surprising if Iran actually okayed this. They really do have very little to gain and an awful lot to lose.

They would also have a lot to lose and little to gain by inviting Shinzo Abe to the country, hosting a conference about "whether the situation with America should be solved", and then wasting both theirs and Abe's time by cutting off and saying "We will never negotiate with the United States", thus worsening Iranian-Japanese relations in addition to causing a diplomatic blunder. The problem is, you're assuming the martyr-crazed Iranian administration -in particular, the IRGC- actually thinks these things ahead.

[Caracasus]

It really won't. Any potential war with Iran will be far, far worse than either Iraq or Afghanistan.

As for the incident itself? No-one has any clear evidence one way or another it seems. It's not impossible that it's the actions of some group or another affiliated with Iran on some level - especially considering the current wars in Yemen etc. Equally it's not impossible that some group affiliated to the US or SA has done this.

Still, it would be really surprising if Iran actually okayed this. They really do have very little to gain and an awful lot to lose.

They would also have a lot to lose and little to gain by inviting Shinzo Abe to the country, hosting a conference about "whether the situation with America should be solved", and then wasting both theirs and Abe's time by cutting off and saying "We will never negotiate with the United States", thus worsening Iranian-Japanese relations in addition to causing a diplomatic blunder. The problem is, you're assuming the martyr-crazed Iranian administration -in particular, the IRGC- actually thinks these things ahead.

And frankly your problem is that you're assuming that the people who make up Iran's government are not capable of rational thought. If they weren't capable or willing to think things through and plan ahead, they simply would no longer be in charge of the country. There's a world of difference between dicking around with diplomacy (which frankly every nation does when there's a squabble) and actually sanctioning an attack on oil tankers which, even if it does not provoke an attack, will still hurt them.

[North German Realm]

And frankly your problem is that you're assuming that the people who make up Iran's government are not capable of rational thought. If they weren't capable or willing to think things through and plan ahead, they simply would no longer be in charge of the country. There's a world of difference between dicking around with diplomacy (which frankly every nation does when there's a squabble) and actually sanctioning an attack on oil tankers which, even if it does not provoke an attack, will still hurt them.

You mean like the time they did near Emirates on Arabia a few months ago? Or the time they -also- did near the Red Sea on Arabia when there was talks of closing the Hormuz? Iran's been doing this as the standoff with the US has been getting more and more desperate.

[Kowani]

They would also have a lot to lose and little to gain by inviting Shinzo Abe to the country, hosting a conference about "whether the situation with America should be solved", and then wasting both theirs and Abe's time by cutting off and saying "We will never negotiate with the United States", thus worsening Iranian-Japanese relations in addition to causing a diplomatic blunder. The problem is, you're assuming the martyr-crazed Iranian administration -in particular, the IRGC- actually thinks these things ahead.

And frankly your problem is that you're assuming that the people who make up Iran's government are not capable of rational thought. If they weren't capable or willing to think things through and plan ahead, they simply would no longer be in charge of the country.

Oh. Ohh. Ohhh-HAHAHAHA. Incompetence is no guarantee that one will be ousted whatsoever, just look at human history.