mrbig
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RE: Trump Administration
(01-05-2020 04:39 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote: We may never know the truth, but I think a more reasonable explanation is that Obama labored under this false impression that all he had to do was say something in people would do it, probably brought on at least in part by the fawning, slobbering approval that his every word received from the US (and world) media. Oh, look, Obama just drew a red line in Syria, now Assad will behave.
When that didn't work, he really didn't have a plan. There have also bees suggestions that Iran threatened to pull out of the nuclear deal negotiations if he enforced it, although those suggestions have been denied (in diplomatic circles, usually an indicator that they are true). According to these suggestions, Obama took it to congress precisely because he knew congress wouldn't approve and therefore he could get off the hook. See:
https://www.businessinsider.com/obama-re...ran-2016-8
Fun fact, but Jay Solomon, who is the source for the idea that Obama did not enforce the red line because of the Iran negotiations … was fired from the Wall Street Journal because … he got close enough to becoming business partners with an Iranian-born arms dealer that WSJ fired him.
https://apnews.com/d71bf1b8c2304329866441ec4089760f
So while your point of view is interesting (and I honestly mean that, I hadn't heard that take as it isn't something I followed closely), I'm a little skeptical of that particular source given his ethics issues.
(01-05-2020 04:39 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote: This is in contrast to the approach that I have proposed and you have misinterpreted.
You keep saying that I don't understand you or have misinterpreted you. I get what you are saying. I just don't believe it is possible to get the Iranian government to believe the USA will nuke Tehran to the point it will glow for a millennium without doing something so horrific that it basically negates the need for such a threat in the first place. Such an act (to set up the Tehran threat) would also completely isolate the USA in the international community, condemned by all of Europe, Asia, and everyone else. We would have no friends. And for that reason, I don't think your suggested approach is even close to reasonable or realistic. For anyone to believe the USA would do something so horrible, we would have to have already done something that horrible. You are saying that people will believe the threat without something horrible and I am disagreeing and saying that no one will believe it just because we thump our chests and launch some targeted strikes with some civilian casualties.
(01-05-2020 04:39 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote: Obama's red line did not work because Assad didn't believe he meant it. I say make Iran believe we mean it. I am not saying nuke 9 million people, but make Iran work under the assumption that we would--two totally different things. If Iran continues to hassle shipping in the Straits of Hormuz, obliterate the Bandar Abbas base from which those efforts are launched. If that doesn't stop them (and it will at least severely handicap them) then step up the response. Letting them know that we are wiling to step up the response until they comply will at least put the seed of doubt into their mind as to how far we would be willing to go.
Obliterating a base is a long way from making Tehran glow for a millennium. So while the destruction of a base is undoubtedly an aggressive act that would make the Iranians believe we would conduct similarly aggressive and slightly more aggressive acts, it is still a long way to waging a nuclear attack that kills 8+ million. I sense you are engaging in some hyperbole, and its OK to say that. But I don't think the USA would ever do anything bad enough to make the Iranians believe we would do something that horrific.
(01-05-2020 04:39 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote: We need to get rid of the idea of proportionate response. Proportionate response guarantees a tie or draw, otherwise known as a quagmire. We need to play to win, not to tie. Wars don't end in ties--you win or you surrender. Playing to tie means the war never ends.
I know that is a controversial position, and I expect some disagreement with it. While I'm on the controversial tack, I think we need to go a bit further. The only way to win an asymmetric war is to attack the head of the snake. We spent 10 years attacking the snake instead of the head in Vietnam, and we are working on 20 in Afghanistan and Iraq. We need to rethink our policy of not doing military assassinations, and we need to rethink our policy regarding collateral damage. The purpose of going into Afghanistan was not to become an army of occupation, but rather to kill Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar, and as many of their henchmen as we could. Kill from the top down, until they get tired of dying. Instead, we became an army of occupation, which the Brits couldn't make work and the Russians couldn't, so why would we expect to be able to do it? Pretty much the same in Iraq. Go in, kill Sadam, split the country into Kurdistan in the north, Shia Mesopotamia in the east, and Sunni Iraq in the west, the way it should have been done at San Remo, GTFO, and stay TFO. And when Sunni Iraq hooks up with Sunni eastern Syria in a civil war against Shia (Alawite) Assad, let them kill each other. And let Russia get tied down in that quagmire.
You have some valid points here. Don't bring a knife to a knife fight, bring a gun. What constitutes "acceptable" levels of collateral damage will obviously be hotly debated. It seems like there was a lot more collateral damage in Iraq War 2 than in Iraq War 1 and most people believe we won Gulf War 1 and less so Iraq War 2. So I'm not sure killing civilians is the answer. It does a good job of making everyone hate us, which leads to more terrorists. There isn't really a strategy that guarantees success, which is why a lot of smart conservatives and a lot of smart liberals haven't solved the problem yet. What the US needs is for some of these countries to be run by people with values more similar to ours (I'm not talking religious values, but shared goals of peaceful coexistence, trade, etc.). But getting to that point is ridiculously complicated, convoluted, and hasn't been possible yet.
(This post was last modified: 01-06-2020 02:47 AM by mrbig.)
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