Iraq/Iran Megathread - Latest: U.S. to close Baghdad embassy

[The Undefeatable Debbie Stabenow]

I have absolutely zero faith in the White House being able to successfully deescalate this situation, and that’s assuming they even want to deescalate it. For all of the joking about relations with North Korea, I never really felt like the stakes were all that high. This, though, feels much more ominous to me. I’ve kinda never been more apprehensive about having someone so reckless running the show (both for the sake of American interests and for the sake of the innocent people in the Middle East who will, once again, only endure greater suffering if this gets worse).

[The Undefeatable Debbie Stabenow]

Dwelling on Soleimani’s record is missing the forest for the trees. Just because he was a bad person does not mean that killing him will necessarily be advantageous for American interests or conducive to stability in the Middle East; the gratification of taking out someone we don’t like, and really nothing more, is not worth any significant detriment to those causes.

If you’re trying to justify this, you need to explain how it will advance, or at the very least not inhibit, those causes, instead of just repeating that Soleimani deserved to be killed. If this causes more civilian deaths in the region, more American deployments (which it already has), and/or any other form of significant escalation, I fail to see how it could’ve possibly been worth it, no matter how reprehensible Soleimani was.

[The Undefeatable Debbie Stabenow]

Trump is literally running around threatening to commit war crimes.  Soleimani was a horrible person who got what he deserved, but that strike was illegal and quite possibly unconstitutional.  It made the world a more dangerous place for Americans.  Trump is the villain of this particular situation and the idea that stating this basic fact makes one anti-American is absurd on its face.  We don't pledge sycophancy to the President, that's not how things work in America.  Trump is not America.  And frankly, I don't blame the Iraqi government for expelling our troops after the crap we just pulled on their soil.  

We don't pledge sycophancy to the President; this is true.  Trump, indeed, is not America, but to suggest he is the "villain" in this matter, that he is "threatening to commit war crimes", is a posture I will question from any poster.

Solemani is dead because he planned an attack on our Embassy.  He is directly responsible for hundreds of American deaths, and his status of being a "government official" was a fig leaf.  He was killed on Iraqi soil, for attacking Americans on American soil, and our Embassy in Baghdad is as much American soil as wherever you're posting from right now.  That, by the way, is not starting a war with Iran, and it's not a War Crime.  

There are points on which I disagree with Trump on Iran policy.  I do not agree with his decision to pull out of the accord with Iran, but I do think that there's clear evidence that, nukes or no nukes, Iran continues to sponsor terrorism in various parts of the World.  The wisdom of his actions are subject to debate that is what the democratic process is about, and I'm all for that.  But this casting him as a "villain" or to cast his death as an "assassination", especially by sitting members of Congress, is hardly prudent, hardly in America's interest, and a case of partisanship overcoming American interest.  (And that's not even taking into account Tlaib and Omar, who are flat-out anti-American.)  

I'm a father of a veteran of Afghanistan.  My son saw crap over there he doesn't talk about, and the next suicide attempt from a soldier from his unit will not be the first.  From my point of view, I'm OK with a President whose Foreign Policy Doctrine is one of, "You kill Americans, and we'll kill you!".  Solemani has been killing Americans with impunity, and he hasn't been taken out . . . because we were afraid of the response???  Trump is the first President to recognize that Solemani's actions were not going to stop, and were not going to be checked by the Iranian government.  I keep hearing about the blowback we're going to face for killing him; what would be the blowback if he was allowed to go on unchecked from this attack?  That's a fair question.  The families of Americans serving in high-risk military and diplomatic assignments do deserve an answer to that question, and they are not wrong in pondering the idea that the last four (4) Presidents after Reagan did not have the same level of concern for the safety of Americans abroad as our current President does, and responding with "Trump's a narcissist; he only cares about himself!" doesn't really address their concerns.

The strike will likely put more American soldiers at risk of falling victim to exactly what your son and his unit fell victim to. We did not kill Soleimani in a vacuum. You have to ask yourself whether it’s worth putting the well-being of more American soldiers (or Middle Eastern people) in jeopardy just to make a statement or get vengeance for past wrongs. It’s an easy “no” for me.

For the hundredth time, it may feel good to punish bad people, but that does not mean it is worth the very significant consequences we are now staring down.