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The Chance of War with Iran

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by mtbrays, May 15, 2019.

  1. Rocket River

    Rocket River Member

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    If a country asks you to leave
    and you refuse to
    Does that make you an invading force?

    Rocket River
     
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  2. No Worries

    No Worries Contributing Member

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    Occupying.
     
    #1262 No Worries, Jan 11, 2020
    Last edited: Jan 11, 2020
  3. dachuda86

    dachuda86 Member

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    I call it a knee jerk reaction... they would be foolish to piss us off.

    But essentially yes...
     
  4. dachuda86

    dachuda86 Member

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  5. Os Trigonum

    Os Trigonum Contributing Member
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    haven't seen WaPo or the NYT pick up on this yet

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/swiss-...-u-s-iran-crisis-11578702290?mod=hp_lead_pos2

    Swiss Back Channel Helped Defuse U.S.-Iran Crisis
    The U.S. sent an encrypted fax via the Swiss Embassy in Tehran urging Iran not to escalate, followed by a flurry of back and forth messages
    By
    Drew Hinshaw,
    Joe Parkinson and
    Benoit Faucon
    Updated Jan. 11, 2020 5:04 am ET

    BERN, Switzerland—Hours after a U.S. strike killed Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the Trump administration sent an urgent back channel message to Tehran: Don’t escalate.

    The encrypted fax was sent via the Swiss Embassy in Iran, one of the few means of direct, confidential communication between the two sides, U.S. officials said.

    In the days that followed, the White House and Iranian leaders exchanged further messages, which officials in both countries described as far more measured than the fiery rhetoric traded publicly by politicians.

    A week later, and after a retaliatory Iranian missile attack on two military bases hosting American troops that inflicted no casualties, Washington and Tehran seemed to be stepping back from the brink of open hostilities—for now.

    “We don’t communicate with the Iranians that much, but when we do the Swiss have played a critical role to convey messages and avoid miscalculation,” a senior U.S. official said.

    A spokesman at Iran’s mission to the United Nations declined to comment on the exchanges but said “we appreciate [the Swiss] for any efforts they make to provide an efficient channel to exchange letters when and if necessary.”

    One Iranian official said the back channel provided a welcome bridge, when all others had been burned: “In the desert, even a drop of water matters.”

    From the Swiss Embassy, a Shah-era mansion overlooking Tehran, the country’s role as a diplomatic intermediary has stretched through four turbulent decades and seven presidencies, from the hostage crisis under Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama’s nuclear deal. It has seldom been tested like this.

    The Americans’ first note was sent immediately after Washington confirmed the death of Gen. Soleimani, the most important figure in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the U.S. officials said.

    It arrived on a special encrypted fax machine in a sealed room of the Swiss mission—the most enduring method since the 1979 Islamic Revolution—for the White House to exchange messages with Iran’s top leadership.

    The equipment operates on a secure Swiss government network linking its Tehran embassy to the Foreign Ministry in Bern and its embassy in Washington, say Swiss diplomats. Only the most senior officials have the key cards needed to use the equipment.

    Swiss Ambassador Markus Leitner, a 53-year-old career diplomat, delivered the American message by hand to Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif early on Friday morning, according to U.S. and Swiss officials.

    Mr. Leitner, reached by email, declined to comment. The Swiss Foreign Ministry confirmed there had been an exchange of messages, but declined to comment further.

    Mr. Zarif responded to the U.S. missive with anger, according to an official familiar with the exchange. “[U.S. Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo is a bully,” he said, according to one U.S. official briefed on Mr. Zarif’s response. “The U.S. is the cause of all the problems.”

    The Swiss ambassador regularly visits Washington for closed-door sessions with Pentagon, State Department and intelligence officials eager to tap his knowledge about Iran’s opaque and fluid politics.

    Mr. Leitner spent the days after Gen. Soleimani’s killing shuttling back and forth in a low-key but high-wire diplomatic mission designed to let each side speak candidly. It was a contrast to the jabs of President Trump and Mr. Zarif on Twitter.

    On Jan. 4, the day after the killing, Mr. Trump tweeted that he had picked out 52 targets, including Iranian heritage sites for potential retaliation if America suffered losses. “Those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD,” the tweet said.

    Mr. Zarif replied the next day: “A reminder to those hallucinating about emulating ISIS war crimes by targeting our cultural heritage,” he wrote. “Through MILLENNIA of history, barbarians have come and ravaged our cities, razed our monuments and burnt our libraries. Where are they now? We’re still here, & standing tall.”

    That same day, Mr. Zarif called the Swiss ambassador to take a message to the U.S. It was more restrained, according to the U.S. officials. Statements from both sides helped prevent miscalculations, the officials said.

    “When tensions with Iran were high, the Swiss played a useful and reliable role that both sides appreciated,” said a senior Trump administration official. “Their system is like a light that never turns off.”

    The Swiss have served as messengers between Washington and Tehran since 1980, in the wake of the seizure of the American Embassy—and 52 hostages —in Tehran by Iranian revolutionaries. Swiss diplomats call the role the “brieftrager” or “the postman.”

    In the years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Swiss shepherded messages to help avoid direct clashes. When President Obama assumed office, Switzerland hosted the talks that led to a nuclear deal. When Washington lifted sanctions, Swiss businesses had an early jump on rivals.

    When Mr. Trump reimposed sanctions, he gave the Swiss a phone number to pass the Iranians, saying: “I’d like to see them call me.”

    So far, Tehran has continued to speak through the Swiss.

    Former Swiss ambassadors say the diplomatic channel is effective because the U.S. and Iran can trust a message will remain confidential, be delivered quickly, and will reach only its intended recipients. Statements passed on the back channel are always precisely phrased, diplomatic, and free of emotion, they said.

    Landlocked Switzerland, a country of nine million with no standing army, parlays its role as “postman” to lever access to the great powers.

    Currently, Swiss diplomats are working to get Washington’s green light for Swiss banks to finance exports to Iran that aren’t subject to sanctions—like food and medicine.

    “We do things for the world community, and it’s good,” said a former ambassador. “But it is also good for our interests.”

    Iran isn’t the only geopolitical hot spot where the Swiss Embassy represents U.S. or other countries’ interests after the breakdown of diplomatic relations.

    The Swiss now holds six mandates including representing Iran in Saudi Arabia, Georgia in Russia and Turkey in Libya. In April 2019, the Trump administration asked Bern to represent it in Venezuela but President Nicolás Maduro’s government has yet to approve.

    As tensions between Washington and Tehran have escalated, the channel has remained active. In December the two countries released prisoners at the same time at a special hangar in the Zurich airport.

    U.S. special envoy on Iran Brian Hook and Iran’s Mr. Zarif sat in separate rooms as the Swiss directed the carefully choreographed exchange.

    “The Swiss channel has become enormously important because of what they can do in the short term to lessen tensions,” said former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who worked with the Swiss on the prisoner exchange. “It’s the only viable channel right now.”

    —Dion Nissenbaum contributed to this article.​
     
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  6. NewRoxFan

    NewRoxFan Contributing Member

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  7. No Worries

    No Worries Contributing Member

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    Trump's self serving claim is false?

    I.did.not.see.that.coming.
     
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  8. B@ffled

    B@ffled Member

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    I know we we’re told there was eminent danger. Most of us logically link that to something that was going down within days. The admin has not given anyone concrete proof to satisfy the assumption that there was an immediate threat although they still say there was and to give more detail would jeopardize their intel methods.

    Now that tensions appear to settle down, why is this such an issue? In my opinion, the act was justified as a response to this guy organizing the militias to attack our embassy. After Benghazi, our embassies’ are a sensitive issue and I believe a strong message must be sent to deter future attacks on our embassies by anyone. I think it was a reasonable response that serves as a deterrent.

    Why not let it go at this point? Yes we it appears we were lucky that there wasn’t a full blown response by Iran. But perhaps the military advisers knew more about their capabilities than is being made public.

    All that being said..my opinion.... The flippant attitude in the intell briefing that angered those being briefed should be addressed. I do wonder if it had been ONLY GOP congressmen in the briefing that there would have been more disclosure. Was the briefing contrite because there was Dem’s in the briefing and there is a trust issue or more likely a go F yourself attitude? That would obviously be wrong. Congress should perform oversight. Period. But has circumstances now eroded this relationship? I get it. It would be wrong though. Someone needs to stop the political bullshit we are seeing on both sides. It has to stop.
     
  9. No Worries

    No Worries Contributing Member

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    Did Obama ever act this cowardly?

    One could imagine the conversation ...

    Little Donnie, I thought that we had this talk. Iran is one of Papa Putin friends. I don’t want you picking a fight with Iran. That would Papa Putin in a very awkward position. And we don’t want that, right, little Donnie?
     
  10. Os Trigonum

    Os Trigonum Contributing Member
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    "U.S. Warns Iraq It Risks Losing Access to Key Bank Account if Troops Told to Leave":

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-wa...ps-told-to-leave-11578759629?mod=hp_lead_pos2

    U.S. Warns Iraq It Risks Losing Access to Key Bank Account if Troops Told to Leave
    Loss of access to New York Fed account, where international oil sale revenue is kept, could creating cash crunch in Iraq’s financial system

    By
    Ian Talley in Washington and
    Isabel Coles in Beirut
    Jan. 11, 2020 11:20 am ET

    The Trump administration warned Iraq this week that it risks losing access to a critical government bank account if Baghdad kicks out American forces following the U.S. airstrike that killed a top Iranian general, according to Iraqi officials.

    The State Department warned that the U.S. could shut down Iraq’s access to the country’s central bank account held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, a move that could jolt Iraq’s already shaky economy, the officials said.

    Iraq, like other countries, maintains government accounts at the New York Fed as an important part of managing the country’s finances, including revenue from oil sales. Loss of access to the accounts could restrict Iraq’s use of that revenue, creating a cash crunch in Iraq’s financial system and constricting a critical lubricant for the economy.

    The prospect of U.S. sanctions against Iraq arose after the Jan. 3 U.S. airstrike that killed Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani at Baghdad International Airport. The Iraqi parliament voted Sunday to urge Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi to work toward the expulsion of the approximately 5,300 U.S. troops.

    In response to the nonbinding resolution, which was backed by the prime minister, President Trump threatened to impose sanctions against Iraq if the U.S. was forced to withdraw its troops.

    Mr. Abdul-Mahdi moved ahead with those plans this week, requesting the U.S. agree to talks to plan the safe withdrawal of American troops, according to an Iraqi description of a Thursday call with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

    Mr. Pompeo disagreed with Iraq’s version of his call with Mr. Abdul-Mahdi and said the U.S. would continue its Iraq-based campaign against the Islamic State extremist group. The State Department declined to comment on the U.S. warning to Iraq about its New York Fed account.

    The warning regarding the Iraqi central bank account was conveyed to Iraq’s prime minister in a call on Wednesday, according to an official in his office, that also touched on the overall military, political and financial partnership between the two countries.

    Spokesmen for the Iraqi prime minister, its central bank and its embassy in Washington didn’t respond to requests for comment. The U.S. State and Treasury Departments and the Federal Reserve Board declined to comment.

    The Federal Reserve Bank in New York, which can freeze accounts under U.S. sanctions law or if it has reasonable suspicion the funds could violate U.S. law, said it doesn’t comment on specific account holders.

    The potential economic and financial fallout is weighing on Iraqi officials as they try to address the presence of American troops without provoking a backlash. In recent days, Iraqi officials have stressed the need for friendly relations with the U.S., even as pro-Iranian militias and politicians exert pressure to expel American troops.

    “Whenever you have any amicable divorce, you still have the worry about the children, pets, furniture and plants, some of which are sentimental,” said a senior Iraqi politician.

    Mr. Abdul-Mahdi has said the departure of U.S. troops is the only way to avoid conflict in Iraq because the U.S. doesn’t trust the country’s security forces to protect its troops.

    But there are questions over his authority to evict them, given his status as a caretaker prime minister. Among other potential obstacles are Kurdish and most Sunni leaders, who boycotted the session at which parliamentarians voted on the troop expulsion.

    During the parliamentary debate, the speaker, a Sunni, urged Shiite lawmakers to be mindful of the potential backlash: “One of the steps the international community could take is to stop financial transactions with Iraq, and we would be unable to fulfill our commitments to our citizens at any moment,” Mohammed al-Halboosi said, based on a video of the proceedings viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

    The financial threat isn’t theoretical: The country’s financial system was squeezed in 2015 when the U.S. suspended access for several weeks to the central bank’s account at the New York Fed over concerns the cash was filtering through a loosely regulated market into Iranian banks and to the Islamic State extremist group.

    “The U.S. Fed basically has a stranglehold on the entire [Iraqi] economy,” said Shwan Taha, chairman of Iraqi investment bank Rabee Securities.

    The prospect of sanctions has unsettled ordinary Iraqis, for whom memories of living under a United Nations embargo during the 1990s are still fresh. Pro-Iranian and other Shiite factions leading the charge to oust U.S. forces from Iraq have sought to reassure the public by telling them Iraq could pivot to China.

    An adviser to the prime minister, Abd al-Hassanein al-Hanein, said that while the threat of sanctions was a concern, he did not expect the U.S. to go through with it. “If the U.S. does that, it will lose Iraq forever,” he said.

    Besides the financial impact, many politicians, including some Shiites, worry that a U.S. withdrawal would allow Islamic State to re-emerge as a major threat. They also view the U.S. as a necessary counterweight to Iran, which has tightened its grip on the Iraqi government during Mr. Abdul-Mahdi’s premiership.

    The U.S. is concerned that an exodus of American forces could allow U.S. currency to be redirected to Iranian accounts and to other adversaries, according to people familiar with the matter.

    The Trump administration’s sanctions campaign against Iran has squeezed the flow of U.S. dollars to the government in Tehran over the past year. The American dollar, the most traded currency in the world, is used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to pay its foreign proxies fighting against the U.S. and its allies in the region, including in Iraq, U.S. officials say.

    Iranian-owned or controlled foreign exchange houses and banks in Iraq have been an important source of funding for Iran and its proxies active in the country, including those fighting against U.S. forces, U.S. officials say.

    The New York Fed provides banking and other financial services for around 250 central banks, governments and other foreign official institutions, such as the account owned by Bangladesh from which North Korean agents were able to steal $81 million in 2016, U.S. officials have said.

    When Iraq needs hard currency, its central bank can request a shipment of bills that it then distributes into the financial system through banks and currency exchange houses. While the country’s official currency is the dinar, U.S. dollars are commonly used.

    The New York Fed doesn’t publicly disclose how much money it currently holds for Iraq’s central bank. But according to the Central Bank of Iraq’s most recent financial statement, at the end of 2018, the Fed held nearly $3 billion in overnight deposits.

    Restricting Iraqi access to dollars could cause the dinar’s value to fall, as it did in 2015, which could again trigger a dash for dollars in Iraq as people, companies and banks try to secure hard cash. Such a devaluation could cause broader economic woes as it cuts spending power for workers, companies and the government.

    —Courtney McBride in Washington contributed to this article.

     
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  11. B@ffled

    B@ffled Member

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    Do you consider it a cowardly act, or messing around to make a point?
     
  12. No Worries

    No Worries Contributing Member

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    The answer is not black or white.

    It does appear that Trump had buyers remorse after taking out Soleimani. This suggests that Trump did not consider the full consequences before droning Soleimani.

    As with all things Trump, one needs to ignore what he says and look at what he does. Trump ordered the assignation of Soleimani and shortly thereafter ordered the de-escalation. It is like Trump wanted to land a punch but did not want the fight.
     
    #1272 No Worries, Jan 11, 2020
    Last edited: Jan 11, 2020
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  13. Ottomaton

    Ottomaton Contributing Member
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    There is some indication that he might not have fully understood exactly Soleimani's position in the government of Iran - he may have been using the paradigm of a non-state/semi-state independent terrorist like al Baghdadi.
     
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  14. B@ffled

    B@ffled Member

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    That could be. I’m pretty sure he didn’t pick the target or concoct the response. His military advisers most likely presented a menu and recommendations.

    I don’t see anything cowardly in having to make the decision or his attempt to de-escalate. All around it sounds like a difficult position to be in. He also chose not to respond with force after the missle attack. To me that’s a no brainer. But he’s a wild card for sure.
     
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  15. rocketsjudoka

    rocketsjudoka Contributing Member
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    I don’t think we can downplay the importance of Iran downing the Ukrainian jet. I think that and the admission by Iran has really put them back on their heels.

    Another factor might be Iraq asking the US to leave. It’s long been Iran’s goal to get the US out of Iraq and if that happens without them taking any major action they would consider that a win even with the loss of Soleimani.
     
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  16. Nook

    Nook Member

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    Why is it such an issue? Are you serious? There is that whole Constitution. There is the fact that the President circumvented Congress by claiming there was an imminent danger, that is the only way he has the constitutional authority to do what he did.

    the imminent danger claim was always bullshit though. Lindsay Graham said he knew about the assassination days before it happened. The President has been staying with the minority congressional leader for days before the assassination.

    Essentially the President decided he would violate the separation of powers, violate the Constitution and assassinate a military leader of another nation in a third country without permission. Then to justify it he just lied.

    He isn’t a dictator, he is the President of the United States where we have a constitution and have checks and balances.

    He had likely committed yet another impeachable offense.
     
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  17. Sweet Lou 4 2

    Sweet Lou 4 2 Contributing Member
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    But her emails!
     
  18. No Worries

    No Worries Contributing Member

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    Trump's DoJ will someday nail her for that.
     
  19. Invisible Fan

    Invisible Fan Contributing Member

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    b**** Billy Barr is on the case flying worldwide!
     
  20. B@ffled

    B@ffled Member

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    I've heard a larger majority disagree with this. Even the former generals that come on CNN have said the act was within his constitutional authority. Actually, the only folks I can recall using this rationale are the folks running for president, who are hardly experts. The fact that it happened in a third country is actually important because it's the same country our embassy was attacked in, which adds to the argument that it was a theatre of conflict or battlefield.

    I get that this is something that the folks at CNN don't agree with. But trying to tack it on as an impeachable offense just adds to relentless rhetoric coming from the left regarding impeachment. There's nothing here that's impeachable yet here we are again trying to impeach him for it. It's like the Boy Who Cried Wolf. I'm not specifically saying you, I'm talking about the entire left media. It's also kinda sickening to hear them blame Trump for the plane that got shot down. I mean, cmon....
     

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