This is a little late to the party, but then the actual truth usually does lag behind propaganda by a significant amount. For those of you have been saying that Iranians were completely thrilled and were dancing in the streets, it turns out that for the past few years University of Maryland has been doing public polling inside Iran. Most recent poll was from October. Even though most Iranians completely disagreed with his politics Soleimani was easily the most popular public figure in the country recently polling at about 80%, for a variety of reasons. Much more popular than any other public figure in the country by a wide margin. The comparisons that I saw were Schwartzkopf after the 1st Gulf War, or maybe Stanley McChrystal during the 2nd, but he polled higher than McChrystal ever did. He was viewed as the guy who protected Iran from ISIS, and a guy who stayed out of domestic politics to "do his job". There is absolutely a disconnect between approving what the guy believed in and wanted and approving the man, but public opinion rarely makes sense. Why should it start now? Not trying to say he was anything but a trash human being who was competent at being a bad guy, but the narrative that was being pushed about thrilled Iranians rejoicing right after he was killed is total propaganda, presumably made up by people with an agenda, and swallowed uncritically by people who want to think it was true. His popularity rating inside Iran was such that public figures in the US rarely match it. This post isnt in service of any larger agenda, but actual (sometimes nonsensical and contradictory) truth over convenient narriative continuity. When I started looking at this, I was actually surprised as I had swallowed all the propaganda, too, apparently.
trump supporters accusing others of loving terrorists. what year is this again? 2003? trump said POWs are not heroic b/c they were captured and insulted a gold star mother and you dorks loved him for it. trump repeatedly sided with putin and russia over our own country and constantly goes around praising authoritarian thugs all over the world...and you dorks love him for it. you trumpublican suck-ups have zero crediblity when you accuse others of not being sufficiently patriotic.
Let's not forget Trump has repeatedly publicly questioned and degraded our intel services including siding with Putin over our intel services and is now citing them to support his actions. To be more precise he is citing them but not actually any intel.
These polls also show that Trump's max pressure has turned ordinary Iranian more negative toward the US and more supportive of policies that the US were working against. IOW, Trumps' max pressure is doing the opposite of what the US intended. With the popularity of the general, I'm sure that has been accelerated.
This is a very important point. Iran is not in good shape. It's economy is in shambles and it's people, especially the younger generation, are chafing under the regime. There have been several outbreaks of protests and political infighting in Iran. History has shown that the surest way to unify a country is to threaten it with an outside threat and has Sun Tzu has said unity is the most valuable thing in warfare. Another saying is "never get in the way of your enemy when they are self-destructing." We've basically handed the Regime more rhetorical ammo when they were already weakening.
Trump's platform was against **** up wars and he even trashed Bush. I don't think he wants war, just the appearance of strength to feed his slack jawed groupies.
trump has had such a bad effect on the running of our country. Here is a C-SPAN video from 2011 with then congressman Mike Rogers, who at the time was the chair of the House Select Intelligence Committee, discussing the Bin Laden raid. Note how he praises the intelligence community. Also note he states he and others were pre-briefed on the raid (contrary to claims made by mcconnell and mccarthy). Contrast that with how the IC is now treated by trump and his enablers.
I didn't follow this thread or US TV, but wasn't 99% of media coverage saying he was a national hero,millions of people protested in his honour and were outraged?
I dont really follow US TV either. My assumption based on what I read at the time was that national hero meant national government hero and the people in the streets were the 40%-50% thar are generally supportive of the government. Obviously it is much more and people who generally dislike the Islamic Republic still thought favorably of him.
I know it sounds like an excuse, but there is a huge cultural difference between the USA and the Middle East, especially a captivated population like Iran. There were pockets of people in Iran and Iraq that mourn his death and viewed him as a hero. There were also pockets of people in Iran and Iraq that cheered his death. However he was mostly feared and respected for his power. "Liking" has very little to do with it.
thats another example of how disconnected most of his supporters are. the average trump supporter was also a bush/iraq war supporter. that is the case with EVERY SINGLE trump supporter i know. these are the people who 15 years ago called you unpatriotic, treasonous, bush hater, ect if you were against the war. but 15 years later trump trashes the bushs and says that iraq was our nations biggest mistake and these same buffoons love him for it. just shows how short-term their memories are and how little policy actually matters to them.
Also let's not forget that there was actually Congressional approval to kill both OBL and Awlaki. Congress did authorize military force against Al Qaeda following 9/11. Gadafi wasn't killed by US forces or on the orders of Obama. He was killed by a rebel Libyan militia.
