Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,
Iran has just made a tragic mistake. When Iranian proxies directly attacked the U.S. embassy in Baghdad on Tuesday, it sent shockwaves across the entire planet. Of course it immediately reminded many of us of the Iranian hostage crisis, and that episode turned out great for the Iranians. In November 1979, a group of Iranian militants stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran, and they took 52 American citizens hostage. For the next 444 days, the United States was absolutely humiliated by the Iranians. President Jimmy Carter looked like a pathetic weakling in the eyes of the rest of the world, and his inability to get the hostages back helped to pave the way for the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.
Perhaps the Iranians were attempting to recapture that magic by having their proxies storm the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, but it is not 1979 anymore, and Donald Trump is not Jimmy Carter.
The Iranians appear to think that they can intimidate Trump the same way that they have intimidated other U.S. presidents, and they also seem to believe that if they put enough pressure on him that the U.S. will eventually relent and leave the region.
But anyone that knows Trump understands that he never backs down.
Throughout his life, he has had a personal rule that when someone hits him, he hits back even harder.
And even though Iran is attempting to claim that they had nothing to do with the embassy attack, everyone knows that their proxies never do anything like this without permission from Tehran, and President Trump is promising that the Iranians “will be held fully responsible”…
Iran killed an American contractor, wounding many. We strongly responded, and always will. Now Iran is orchestrating an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Iraq. They will be held fully responsible. In addition, we expect Iraq to use its forces to protect the Embassy, and so notified!
In a subsequent tweet, Trump declared that Iran will pay a “very big price” for what they have done…
….Iran will be held fully responsible for lives lost, or damage incurred, at any of our facilities. They will pay a very BIG PRICE! This is not a Warning, it is a Threat. Happy New Year!
So what does that mean?
It means that we should soon expect U.S. military action, and it will most likely target Iran directly.
In the immediate aftermath of the attack, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper ordered 750 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division to immediately deploy to the Middle East…
Esper said that at President Trump’s direction, “I have authorized the deployment of an infantry battalion from the Immediate Response Force (IRF) of the 82nd Airborne Division to the U.S. Central Command area of operations in response to recent events in Iraq. Approximately 750 soldiers will deploy to the region immediately, and additional forces from the IRF are prepared to deploy over the next several days. This deployment is an appropriate and precautionary action taken in response to increased threat levels against U.S. personnel and facilities, such as we witnessed in Baghdad today. The United States will protect our people and interests anywhere they are found around the world.”
And it is being reported that the total number of paratroopers being deployed from that unit could soon reach 4,000.
Of course we already have tens of thousands of troops in the region. In fact, Fox News says that there are already “roughly 60,000 U.S. troops” deployed in the Middle East…
There are roughly 5,000 U.S. troops currently deployed to Iraq now, among the roughly 60,000 U.S. troops currently deployed to the region. According to the Pentagon, 14,000 have been added since May as the threat from Iran increased.
The aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman has been in the Gulf of Oman, its strike group armed with hundreds of Tomahawk cruise missiles in addition to the dozens of strike aircraft aboard Truman.
But those troops will not be used against Iran right away.
Instead, I would expect to see airstrikes or cruise missiles used to send a message to Tehran.
Ultimately, I don’t think that President Trump wants a war with Iran. A war could seriously mess up his chances of winning again in 2020, and Trump is deeply obsessed with winning next November.
But the whole world has now seen images of Shiite militants smashing their way into the U.S. embassy, vandalizing U.S. property, and setting a reception area on fire.
Trump cannot let that go without a response, because if he allows the Iranians and their proxies to get away with this, they will just be emboldened to conduct more attacks.
So Trump is going to hit Iran, and then the Iranians and their proxies will almost certainly retaliate. And unless one side decides to back down, a series of escalations could very easily lead us into a cataclysmic war that would not benefit anyone.
This is a very tough test for Trump.
If he does nothing, he will look weak, indecisive, and the comparisons to Jimmy Carter will begin.
But if he hits Iran too hard, we could literally find ourselves in the middle of World War 3.
2020 was shaping up to be a chaotic year anyway, but this crisis threatens to start it with a real bang.
To most people, life in America seems pretty stable right now, but things are about to start changing in a major way. Global events are already starting to accelerate significantly, and many believe that they will start to reach a crescendo during the coming year.
Let us hope and pray that a war with Iran can be avoided. Because if the U.S. and Iran go to war, a whole bunch of others will be dragged into the conflict as well, and that includes Israel.
For the Iranians and their allies, the conflict would literally be a matter of life or death, and they would throw everything they have at us.
But how are we going to avoid such a war?
Iranian proxies invaded U.S. soil on Tuesday and they set our embassy on fire. Are we supposed to just do nothing and allow them to intimidate us like that?
I don’t know what the solution is, but what I do know is that President Trump is fuming right now.
And Iran should not want to mess with a pissed off Trump.
“This Is Not 1979, And Donald Trump Is Not Jimmy Carter”
and 2020 iran is not 1979 iran.
These people only understand force. They understand death and defeat only. You must teach them in the only way the can understand and that is brutal force.
“These people only understand force.”
sounds like projection.
the republican party sent me a contribution request letter and survey – “how do yo feel about the following pre-selected issues?” I wrote on the survey that I didn’t support any war with iran, especially for israel. a week later trump decided not to retaliate for iran’s downing of that drone. I like to think my comment played some tiny role in that, but since then I’ve been bombarded with further donation requests.
gman,
that’s a good idea to comment but those letters usually go back to people who handle the $,not political/policy people–
if you notice,the address that it is mailed from is usually different from the address on the return envelope–
send it back to the address from where it was mailed–
this is the internet age. polling and survey results can be communicated anywhere via database access.
if of course the policy people actually are interested. and they will be at least superficially interested, guaranteed.
Register as an independent and if either party really, really needs to woo independents (not like the d-rats need independents in California) they will send you all kinds of mailings.
All they want is the check and the “poll” gets thrown away.
” the ‘poll’ gets thrown away”
oh no. even a rampant dictator over a compliant population will want to know what his property is thinking. and the u.s. is nowhere near having a rampant dictator over a compliant population – as long as voting and the will of the people play a role then polls will not be thrown away but will be consulted.
They all have professional pollsters to do the scientific polls like the ones that showed Hi LIAR y had a 91% chance of winning in ’16. The RNC letters are purely fund raising efforts, nothing else.
“like the ones that showed Hi LIAR y had a 91% chance of winning in ’16”
oh nonsense, that’s just the propaganda they told you, a campaign effort to influence the vote. oh no, they do indeed have (real) professional pollsters who do the (real) scientific polls that those in the upper echelons of political control have full access to that they will never ever let us see.
Thus the reason they will toss the poll and cash the check.
Why is TBP running this shit? Anybody following the latest Wikileaks story about the US-aligned terrorists staging chemical weapons attacks in Syria to provide a pretext for bombing the fuck out of Assad’s forces should be a little suspicious of this narrative. Iran fires a pretty much ineffective barrage of missiles with absolutely nothing to gain, knowing it would result in getting the fuck bombed out of them? Give me a break! The only people who could believe this shit are the same people who believe Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Or Saddam was somehow involved with the Twin Towers.
It amazes me that TPTB keep running the exact same play, and the same people fall for it over and over and over.
Yes, it is truly amazing that the sheeple keep falling for it over and over. Even Alex Jones, who I used to listen to often until he turned into a Trumptard, is apparently falling for it also.
Note that I am not saying that Iran definitely isn’t at fault in the Iraq embassy attack. But given the track record of TPTB with their incessant lies, there is at least a 95% probability that they are lying this time also.
Embassy security had a very reserved response, not what you’d expect if they’d been hit by “Iranian proxy forces”. I’m guessing the protesters were just what they seemed: pissed-off Iraqi civilians. Obviously sympathetic with Iran and Shia, but that doesn’t change anything.
Nixon cut a side deal with the Vietnamese to extend the war and Reagan did the same with the Iranians so your premise is faulty from the git go. All you are doing is short-circuiting the public’s thought process on the whole shit-show being prepared. Nothing like a little yellow press article to get the hoi-polloi ready for war.
My question is why the F do we have an embassy in Iran in the first place.
We don’t. We should.
The embassy that was attacked is in Iraq.
Good reader.
Haha. Jimmy Carter. What an ineffective piece of shit. Worst president in my lifetime. Besides Obama of course. And the Bushes. And the Clintons…its amazing how much more acceptable incompetence is than malfeasance. These fuckers do the worst things, call it a mistake (begging the question” how great are ivy league colleges if guys like that can make such gaffes with all the quarlity educashum they get”), and somehow manage to avoid the gallows because the voices that would have them swing are drowned out by the din of bread n’ circuses. NOT winning.
He was a good president and he whipped inflation but Ronnie took credit for that. The helo crash and the mass desertion from the military fucked him over. Uncle Ronnie taught us that buffing up the military is the way to go. To paraphrase the Arpege commercial, promise them peace but give them war.
Yes, I remember paying 18% interest on my start-up business in 78 – 80 when Reagan was President. Oh, wait a minute, Reagan did not move to 1600 PA Ave until January 20, 1981 and my business had folded 6 months earlier under Peanut Carter.
That’s the point, moron. Volcker whipped inflation and Uncle Ronnie got the praise. Ronnie’s voodoo economics led to Cheney’s ‘deficits don’t matter’ and here we are financialized to the eyeballs.
all you guys are both right & wrong about carter–remember,he challenged the deep state & lost,do you remember zero based budgeting?his own party was his greatest enemy–
he was also dealt a terrible hand to play & he didn’t play it well–
reagan was a good potus but he also had great luck & timing–
edit–this is tampared–what makes me default to anon?
Hoping for Double Your Pleasure in case RBG and Peanut croak the same week.
I love the way the article ends: “Iranian proxies invaded U.S. soil on Tuesday and they set our embassy on fire. Are we supposed to just do nothing and allow them to intimidate us like that?”
If we’re talking violating sovereignty at embassies, how about moscow-protests-against-fbi-searches-in-its-us-missions/?
If we’re talking actual “soil”, what about all the countries the USA has invaded?
And who’s intimidating whom? Map: US bases encircle Iran or US surrounding Russia with latest weaponry, thousands of troops in Baltic states
Michael Snyder is the Dr. Joseph Mercola of political writers.
Actually it was an accident that caused Jimmy’s so called fiasco. To be honest here was an American military force invading and landing deep inside a foreigh nation without them even knowing about it. The mistake was not setting a small nuke off to hide all traces, instead of leaving burnt out aircaraft and dead bodies to be found.
Jimmy Carter: I love the transmission part.
“Protecting American interests in Iraq” ?
What exactly are the American interests in Iraq? That question hasn’t been properly answered since Bush ordered the invasion.
War with Iran? What are we trying to cover up here?
OIL, Israel. SAME AS WITH EVERY MIDDLE EAST WAR!!! (except the ones fought to secure opium poppies for the CIA and their global heroin distribution network)
Anyone that wants to truly understand needs to read Prez Trump’s book: “The Art of Being Netanyahu’s Bitch”
And HISTORY did not begin in 1979 for the Iranians. For most of them it began with the CIA/Eisenhower/UK coup of the democratically-elected government of Iran and the forced imposition of the Shah. What followed was decades of US-paid and US-trained brutality of the Iranian people. Then the 80s was blessed with US-backed Saddam waging war against USSR-backed Iran in which millions died. Now, thanks to the invasion and permanent occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, Iran is surrounded on nearly all sides by forces hostile to them, forces that possess nuclear weapons, and are the targets of Saudi and Israeli propaganda and provocations. Then there is the economic terrorism of the sanctions.
No, Iran is no wonderful country, and their leaders are as horrible as every other government leader around the globe, but this is not a cut and dry issue, and US-Iranian history did NOT begin with Jimmy Carter.
We were much better off when Sadman was making war on Iran, not us. W & Cheney screwed the pooch with that one.
Look up ‘war criminal’ and you will find Dick Cheney’s picture instead of the expected Hitler.
But WE were funding that war.
That was also a mistake, but it kept Iran in check and did not cost nearly as much as we have spent the past 18 years.
If only the US and UK governments had minded their own business in 1953, but Anglo Oil was too big to fail, so we had to stop those Communists! Go, Ike!
If only France, UK, Spain, the US, and others, had simply allowed the Ottoman Empire to dissolve and reform in the myriad of very small, ethnic states that were contained within its broad boundaries. Instead, fake countries like Iraq were cobbled together much in the same way Britain cobbled together greater India (Pakistan/India/Bangladesh) so as to give NO ethnic group enough of a majority, and to keep them all fighting each other so they would never unite against their TRUE enemy – the UK. The problems truly began in 1919, not 1953.
i read somewhere that the brits were already backing away from the iranian coup & it was the us that went ahead & did it–
Co-conspirators are charged with the same crime as those who actually perpetrated the crime. It is all part of the “egging them on” phenomena that helps to overcome resistance of single actors.
If the Iranians are expecting a military response, let’s NOT give them one. Instead, how about some concrete backing to those dissidents in Iran that are currently giving the mullahs so much grief? Y’know, like Obama didn’t do when they first popped up years ago, asking for help?
Let’s help the Iranians clean up their own house.
Best response yet and I’m fervently hoping that will be our course.