Trump ordered US drone strike that killed Iran general Qassem Suleimani

One exception ... self-defense.including defense of an ally. In that regard, Iran would be more likely to qualify because it's weaker than the U.S.

The Shia and Sunni population are roughly the same size and only about 30% of total. Iran is destabilizing Lebanon as part of trying to expand its influence in the region.

Iraq has a majority Shia population while Syria had a strong Sunni majority. Iran will never be a natural fit for dominating Syria.

You're financing a paramilitary in the weakened, failing state you helped undermine. The map below (Sunni green, Shia red) suggests your efforts to extend your influence are unlikely to meet with long-term success.


Islam by country

 

Why in God's name would I have to do that? You on the other hand seem to have a problem with Trump giving the OK to take out the commander of a militia group who's members have killed hundreds of American soldiers. You should apologize for giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

 

Bush created the mess and you're blaming Obama. What did you expect him to do to save the situation?

 

I assume you would be included with the bunch who condemned Trump for pulling 50 troops out as abandoning our ally? Can't the same be said here concerning Iraq?

 

Kings and emperors are dictators, too.

Oh, please--Native Americans migrated to North and South America, Africans migrated to Europe and Asia, and Muslims "just Had to leave..." the Middle East.

 

I asked what he judged Obama should have done in Iraq.

 

Not pulling thousands of troops out before the region was secure? I would also add not make the region even more unstable by taking out Gaddafi and then sending Libyan arms to neighboring jihadists.

 

Your understanding of Lebanon's sectarian divide is possibly wrong, although that is not your fault. In Lebanon, actual demographic information and census is like a state secret in order to preserve the outmoded outdated constitutional formula for sectarian division of power in Lebanon based on a census in the 1930s! In that model, called the National Pact, the presidency was reserved for a Christian (when Christians may have been a slight majority of Lebanon's population and had the support of the French colonial administrators in any case), the prime minister's office to a Sunni (when the Sunnis were the dominant Muslim caste under their Ottoman predecessors and possibly outnumbered the Shia), with Shia given the speaker of the parliament position. While the Economist claimed in 2016 to have obtained an accurate picture of Lebanon's demographics, showing the Shia 29%, Sunni 28%, and Christians 21% of the population, even that information is based on voter registration information from Lebanon's interior ministry, which quite likely overstated the Sunni population and underestimated the Shia.

In any case, and regardless of the actual demographics, since Lebanon is (along with Iraq) the most democratic country in the Arab world, and since it is isn't Iran which has any problem with the actual decisions of the Lebanese government and state, with Iran and Hezbollah having good relations with the main Christian party which occupies the presidency in Lebanon, none of that changes what I said. Iran's influence in Lebanon is based on what the Lebanese people have chosen. Not by virtue of Iran invading and occupying Lebanon.

Please! Lebanon has not know as much stability as it has during the height of Iran's influence in that country. Iran's assistance to Lebanon has helped Lebanon free itself of civil war and foreign occupation. Lebanon, which experienced a devastating civil war from 1976 until the 1980s, and then Israel invasion in 1982, the US/Israeli attempts to install a minority philangist dictatorship on the country, then occupation of southern Lebanon by the Israelis until the 1990s, and had to endure a war waged by Israel in 2006, is now relatively safe and secure precisely because it is one of the few places around Israel which has the power to hit back at Israel if it is attacked again.

It is amusing to me when people with little understanding of the actual history of the region, try to tell me about it and its actual divisions. I am glad you understand the Shia/Sunni divide, but that is just the top of the iceberg and to truly understand the region, requires an understanding of its history that is lacking by most people in the west. Even educated people are generally ignorant on these issues.

I will give you a quick and easy run down: the Middle East was the EAST united under one roof by the Persian empire, bringing together all the ancient civilizations of the region (Egypt, Mesopotamia etc), juxtaposed against a nascent western civilization in Greece. Arabia (home of the real Arabs) was not part of his divide. The East-West division persisted through seven centuries of warfare between Iran under the Parthians and Sassanian empires and the Roman and Byzantine empires. Rome claimed Alexander's realm as its own; Iran claimed the mantle of the ancient Achaemenid empire which Alexander had conquered. The EAST was then conquered by the Arabs, who extended its dominion to areas which the Roman/Byzantine empires had conquered but which were still culturally part of the EAST (including Syria and Egypt) as well as to new frontiers extending from Spain to India. The Persians didn't recognize the legitimacy of these new Arab upstarts, although they had converted to Islam. Eventually, the Persian renaissance and fragmentation of the Abbasid caliphate (which had already come under Persian influence as it had come to power as a result of a revolution started in IRAN), saw the "Iranian Intermezo" followed by a period of several centuries where Turkic tribes (originally slave soldiers converted to Persian culture and Islam by their contacts with IRAN in the eastern fringes of the Muslim world) became the dominant military caste in the Islamic world. As a result, for a long period, the region was ruled by various empires which may have had "Turkic" rulers but which were considered "Persianate" (with Persian as the lingua franca, Persian models of administration and court practice, and an understanding of history through Iran's epic, the Shahnameh). These Persianate societies included both the Ottoman empire and their rivals in Iran, the Safavids, as well as the Mughal empire in India. During this time and until the discovery of oil, the Arabs were basically sidelined politically and culturally. The division in Islam between the Ottomans which upheld Sunni orthodoxy and the Safavids and subsequent dynasties in Iran (which upheld the so-called Shia heresy from the majority Sunni perspective) was mostly an 'inter-family' dispute between two Persianate societies. This was the case until the rise of westernization and modern nationalist notions. With the rise of such notions, you had Turkish nationalism in the latter stages of the Ottoman empire make them a Turkish state in the 19th century, while Arab nationalism became another force as well. (Iranian national identity and nationalism is ancient and has long historical roots). These divisions between westernized elites in these countries didn't change the fundamental cultural dynamics for a majority reared in Persianate and Eastern cultural norms. The Arabs, in the Arabian peninsula, however were never really part of any of this and they lamented the fact that they had been sidelined and stuck back in the deserts of Arabia in relation to an "Islamic world" which had taken up the religion they had brought with their conquest. As such, among these Arabs, there was a long standing movement to cleanse "Islam" (Iranian Islam in the words of Bernard Lewis) from its Persian 'corruption" and looked to propagating the prestine Islam of the times of the Bedouin Arabs of the time of the prophet. That was the fundamental driver behind the Wahhabi ideology prevalent in Arabia, whose interior always fell outside of the dominant empires of the East and West due to its forbidding terrain and climate.

All this for me to tell you this: the real divisions in the ME are't the ones you show in that map. They involve westernized nationalism and nationalist divisions. They involve Persianate sunni culture of the former Ottoman lands. They involve Persian Shia culture of the Iranian world. And finally the Sunni Wahhabi ideology of the Saudis and their ilk. The only reason the "Sunni" Wahhabis appear more closely allied to the Sunni Arabs in the former Persianate world is because of modern Arab nationalism. Otherwise, culturally, the Wahhabi Arabs are more distant from the Sunni Arabs of Mesopotamia and the Levant than the Persian Shia are from them.

 

I remember Abu Sina here in the forum.
He was against peace and tolerance in Egypt.
He supported the Muslim brothers and always attacked the West, USA , Israel and others
One day he vanished .. i believe he was killed over there.
Qassem Suleimani the butcher was responsible for killing many of your Persian brothers and sisters.

 

Please don't waste your time, or mine, telling me about Qassem Suleimani. He wasn't involved in killing any Persian brothers or sisters or mine or anyone else for that matter, as his portfolio and responsibility had nothing to do with internal security. He was, indeed, a revered military figure, widely popular among Iranians -- even many who oppose the regime (except the very small minority who are basically following the US-Israel propaganda narratives). The past few days, tens of millions of Iranians have been in the streets mourning the death of Suleimani all over Iran, people from all stripes in (except a very small minority) are filled with grief and anger.

Now, certainly, for anyone who (as you appear to be) is interested in the neocon script and any of the propaganda and ideologies underlying PNAC et al, Qassem Suleimani was certainly the "enemy". Assassinating him was, I am confident, a stupid move by the US, but this story has chapters yet to be told. The Americans are confident in their (using Trumpian terminology) "beautiful" armaments and toys to do the trick for them. We will see if they will prove beautiful at all, never mind effective, as my money is for the US to end up humiliated by this action.

 

I accept that. But a call to war for a "cowardly attack" in this case will be
lots of cowardly attacks, mostly against civilians.

 

And America's issue is with the Shiite muslims, they are a minority and
hated by the majority Sunni muslims.

 

My Persian friend .. think again before you put your money on US to end up humiliated by this action.
Qassem Suleimani was involved in killing Persian citizens.
Which country besides Iran, China and North Korea kill and torture houndreds ?
I hope that soon the people of Iran will kick out their evil region ! Inshallahh

 

I think this twitter feed unfortunately sums up the mentality of a lot of the pro war American's on here

https://twitter.com/AManInTheSun/status/1213047489659584513


Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity however see things quite differently

https://consortiumnews.com/2020/01/...yet-another-march-of-folly-this-time-on-iran/

 

Yes, migrated. They didn’t set out with an arrogant notion to convert the barbarians of the world and have them sing “Jesus loves me” all day.

 

Its, very disappointing. If Trump was half the brilliant hero he believes himself to be, he wouldn’t stop with one flea, he’d squish the queen vermin spewing them out like a plague upon the human soul—Khamenei and his Council of Experts. Now that would be heroic. Still, a vile piece of human feces is no longer. Deserves at list a wry smile.

 

You have no worries about Jesus loving you. Just read my stats below.
Jesus is about the last thing on anyone's mind in this narcissistic and
nihilistic world. And who knows - we will no doubt go back to the paganism
of our past, or worse. As they say - be careful what you wish for.

 

Who reckons soldiers are "criminals" ?
You would need to define "criminal"
And, OUR soldiers, or THEIRS?

 

What difference does it make? Reality remains as it always has, Jesus or no Jesus.

 

Really. Think about it. The only solution to Iran is regime change, and the fastest way is drone them. Cost efficient in lives and money.




Squishing a flea won’t solve our flea problem, fumnigating the btch spewing them out will.

 

This type of thinking is exemplary of one who comes from the land of Dunkin Donuts. It’s no wonder that America could barley last 200 years as a “civilization.”

The Shiites lost their greatest hero a thousand years ago, son. Do you honestly think they give a ****?

 

And who tells me how and what to think? name them. I'm waiting

 

After many years of military aggression and drone killing of innocents, the US has more enemies in this world than Carter has pills. Sad but true.

 

How is regime change a solution?

It didn't seem to solve much in Libya.

Iran has every bit the crappy government it deserves right now. Let them keep it.

 

Than Carter has pills?

Okay, boomer.