Three US soldiers killed and up to 34 injured in drone attack.

[grampahol]

You know what is being left out of the whole conversation?  The right wing has never seen a war they haven't fallen in love with nor a single tax bill to pay for it. 
News flash!  Washington!  White House announces war is f**king expensive..Details at 11..

[Matt_Crimson]

Not gonna lie. I was shocked to see the below opinion piece posted alongside CNN's top headline this morning regarding Iran. With the amount of "Orange man bad" news that has come out of CNN over the last 8 years, it is very surprising to see them posting something like this about Trump. Especially during an election year.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/31/opinions/trump-biden-iran-jordan-attacks-dubowitz-schanzer/index.html

Quote:Opinion: Trump knew how to deal with Iran. Now Biden needs to step up


Opinion: by Mark Dubowitz and Jonathan SchanzerFebruary 1, 2024

Editor’s Note:  Mark Dubowitz is chief executive officer at Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where Jonathan Schanzer is senior vice president for research. FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy. Follow them on X @MDubowitz and @JSchanzer. The opinions expressed in this commentary are their own. View more opinion on CNN.


CNN  — 

The death of three US service members in Jordan Sunday, along with more than 40 injured, is just the latest – and deadliest – example of Iranian-backed militias targeting American forces in the Middle East. The Sunday drone attack came just weeks after two Navy SEALS died while trying to disrupt a weapons smuggling operation by Iran-backed Houthi militia members off the coast of Somalia. American targets, meanwhile, have sustained at least 165 different attacks by Iran-backed militias since mid-October.


Mark Dubowitz/FDD

Slowly but surely, the Islamic Republic of Iran has pulled the United States into the war it is waging across the Middle East. The Houthis have all but shut down international trade in the Red Sea, a major shipping route from Asia to Europe. And it is Iran that helps fund and supply the Hamas and Hezbollah terror organizations now fighting against Israel.



Jonathan Schanzer/FDD

It’s clear that President Joe Biden desperately wishes to avoid a wider war in the region. However, the regime in Iran has a vote, and it doesn’t appear to be backing down.




Throughout the fall, the Biden administration avoided the language of confrontation. After this weekend, the president said he has decided how he will respond to “radical Iran-backed militant groups” operating in Iraq and Syria, but has not disclosed what that response will be. However, surgical strikes on rockets, drones and warehouses of Iranian proxies — what the US has mostly done until now in response to the attacks on US bases over the past three months — will not be sufficient to end the violence.



America must be prepared to use force directly against Iran, including its expanding nuclear weapons program. The fear of sparking wider conflict is understandable in the wake of failures in our “war on terror.” But declining to respond to aggression by proxy is often seen by Tehran as an invitation to escalate. And that is exactly what the regime has done since October.



As retired Gen. Wesley Clark told CNN on Sunday of the anticipated US response, “If you do this strike the right way, the Iranians will understand they can’t afford to escalate into war,” Clark said. “They can’t stand up to the United States,” especially given the domestic opposition the regime faces. “This government in Iran is on very shaky grounds, and it’s in no position to have a war with the United States,” he continued, suggesting that it’s time “to go to the source of the trouble in Iran.”



Republican senators, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Roger Wicker, Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton, are also urging the president to take such a step.



Sadly, some of Biden’s current challenges with Iran are of his own making. The policy of non-confrontation, interrupted by occasional, limited and proportionate strikes against Iran-backed proxies while giving Tehran itself a free pass, was an approach adopted by the Obama administration and one that emboldened Iran.



This satellite photo from Planet Labs PBC shows a military base known as Tower 22 in northeastern Jordan, on Oct. 12, 2023. Three American troops were killed and "many" were wounded Sunday, Jan. 28, 2024, in a drone strike in northeast Jordan near the Syrian border, President Joe Biden said. He blamed Iran-backed militia groups for the first U.S. fatalities after months of strikes against American forces across the Middle East amid the Israel-Hamas war. U.S. officials identified Tower 22 as the site of the attack. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)




President Donald Trump’s use of sanctions pressure and American military power saw less Iranian aggression in comparison to what followed under the Biden administration, according to the JINSA Iran Projectile Tracker. The think tank’s tracker charts Iranian malign activities such as missile strikes, maritime aggression, cyber intrusions and hacking, kidnappings and wrongful detentions, terrorist attacks, weapons tests and production.

Biden reflexively returned to the previous status quo. His administration’s combination of billions of dollars in sanctions relief, in the form of weak sanctions enforcement that led to a spike in Iranian oil sales and revenue for Iran, and relaxe­d international pressure on Tehran’s nuclear program has only served to benefit the Islamic Republic.


Cashing in on this reversion, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) funneled weapons capabilities to its terrorist allies, financed their operations, trained their fighters and provided overall strategic direction. Though the regime also funded its proxies under Trump, his “maximum pressure campaign” denied it tens of billions of dollars that could have otherwise flowed to its proxy armies and its economy. The result: cuts in proxy funding as the Iranian currency cratered. Today, the regime’s proxies — Hezbollah, the Houthis and other militias — are more powerful than ever before.



And all of this could get worse. A widening war in the Middle East may serve as a “weapon of mass distraction” to obscure one of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s most important goals: advancing the nuclear program, which could enable the regime to build a weapon of mass destruction.

The regime is now enriching uranium to levels just shy of 90% weapons-grade, stonewalling UN weapons inspectors and working on another underground facility – one that may be impervious to American and Israeli bombs. All told, Iran is on the cusp of a nuclear weapon, having amassed enough enriched uranium to make weapons-grade uranium for a nuclear device in just 12 days.



Despite repeated White House denials, our organization, Foundation for Defense of Democracies, has found that since May 2018, when Trump withdrew the US from the 2015 nuclear deal, the most dangerous steps in the expansion of the nuclear program have occurred since Biden’s election, though some of the seeds were planted during Trump’s term when Iran began to take preliminary steps towards developing nuclear weapons including enrichment using advanced centrifuges and breaching caps on enrichment and heavy-water levels imposed under the 2015 nuclear deal.


But these were only tentative and incremental steps compared to the massive expansion of Iran’s nuclear program under Biden, according to our assessment. As we have charted, the regime remained cautious as it faced Trump, who demonstrated his willingness to use punishing sanctions and military force.



This changed development under Biden is easy to explain: The administration abandoned Trump’s campaign of financial pressure – which Biden derided as counterproductive – and gave no indication that it would threaten military force, then allowed Khamenei access to billions of dollars in frozen oil funds while China purchased hundreds of millions of barrels of Iranian oil. Iran thus saw no downside to expanding its nuclear program.

We opposed the Iran nuclear deal that Obama accepted from the start. Those who argue it was a mistake for Trump to exit the 2015 nuclear deal, or that maximum pressure didn’t work, are overlooking the fact that the deal itself enabled Iran to legally expand its nuclear program in the next decade, attempt to reach threshold nuclear weapons capability starting in 2030 –  though it would have restrained the nuclear program in the current decade – and reap what our organization estimates would be $1 trillion in sanctions relief. Had the US remained in the pact, Biden could be dealing with an even wealthier enemy today.



In the wake of the war Hamas launched on October 7, the bill for America abandoning its pressure on Iran has come due. The White House acknowledged this, at least in part, by redesignating the Houthis as a terrorist organization after delisting the group in 2021 (in a move it described as motivated by humanitarian concerns but may well have been a preemptive concession to Tehran), though the president left many loopholes for the terrorists to exploit per our analysis.


This is not to say that Trump’s policy was perfect. Far from it. But the numbers don’t lie. Thanks to aggressive sanctions enforcement, Iranian oil sales plummeted to 100,000 to 350,000 barrels per day in June 2020 from 2.5 million barrels per day in January 2017 (they were back to 1.29 million in 2023), and fully accessible Iranian foreign exchange reserves cratered to $4 billion from highs of $122 billion in 2018 (they were back to $21 billion as of 2022).



Trump also struck a military blow by ordering the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, the deadly IRGC-Quds Force commander who built Iran’s proxy army into a lethal fighting force. And he nurtured the regime’s domestic opposition by voicing support for the masses of Iranian people who oppose the regime. As a result, the Islamic Republic’s economy sputtered, the regime’s aggression appeared to slow, and its nuclear activities even stalled for several months after the death of Soleimani.



The maximum pressure campaign lasted only two years before Trump’s electoral defeat in 2020. Shortly thereafter, Biden terminated the policy; it could have borne further fruit if allowed to run its course.


Biden may not want to acknowledge Trump’s relative success in an election year. But he should nevertheless revive the policy of maximum pressure and put his own mark on it. He can do that by undertaking things that Trump could have done more to advance, like providing maximum support for the Iranian people.


Support for anti-regime Iranians should include: rolling out technology platforms to help Iranians circumvent regime surveillance; declassifying intelligence about the movement of internal security forces to assist Iranians mounting protests; developing labor funds to finance Iranians who go on strike; isolating the regime in all international forums; and massively expanding security for the brave Iranian dissidents abroad. Biden can also direct American officials to speak out more forcefully against the regime’s leadership and security forces who have killed, tortured and sexually abused protesters.

Admittedly, the very possibility of engaging in new conflicts during an election year will be viewed by the president’s advisers as risky. But the failure to respond sufficiently to continued aggression from the Islamic Republic is a recipe for a wider war.

[Luvnit2]

(01-31-2024, 02:40 PM)grampahol Wrote: You know what is being left out of the whole conversation?  The right wing has never seen a war they haven't fallen in love with nor a single tax bill to pay for it. 
News flash!  Washington!  White House announces war is f**king expensive..Details at 11..

I agree with the old Rhino (not far right) wing of the party loving war. But Trump supporters are just the opposite, he does not want us in war and while in office destroyed ISIS (without a war) and did not get us into 1 war. He did more for middle east peace than any President in history only. to have Biden destroy it quickly by reversing Trump middle east policies.

It seems now it the Democrats who want us in wars, otherwise Biden would have not been on an appeasement policy decision with Iran which allowed Iran to build up their bank accounts and have their terrorists attack US troops. It is easy to see the Biden middle east policy decisions are getting soldiers killed (Afghanistan and Jordan) and placing the troops in harm's way.

[Luvnit2]

(02-01-2024, 09:27 AM)Matt_Crimson Wrote: Not gonna lie. I was shocked to see the below opinion piece posted alongside CNN's top headline this morning regarding Iran. With the amount of "Orange man bad" news that has come out of CNN over the last 8 years, it is very surprising to see them posting something like this about Trump. Especially during an election year.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/31/opinions/trump-biden-iran-jordan-attacks-dubowitz-schanzer/index.html

It is true, Trump did have Iran in check and the middle east under Trump was more stable than it has been for decades. It is shocking CNN give Trump any credit, but it easy to look at how Trump handled the middle east and then how Biden removed policies Trump had that were working and now middle east is back to a chit show.

[Mickeypoo]

Even the racist, seething with hate and all around miserable person Joy Reid got caught on a hot mic saying Biden is starting another war.

They all know it, you all know it.  Biden is a dementia ravaged idiot whose almost every policy is bad for the USA.  Obama has known he's an idiot for years.  They just can't say it cause OMB narrative above anything else.

It's ok to understand Biden and his admin are complete and utter failures at almost every level.  It doesn't mean you like or support Trump.

We only see a sliver of Biden's demented idiocy, what do you think the other 23:45 of every day look like?  Wake up sheep.

I'm sure Biden will have some strong words for Iran after his ice cream cone, poopie, and takes his nap on the beach in Delaware. They'll need to pump him full of drugs first so he can even speak coherently.

[Dill]

(02-01-2024, 03:34 PM)Mickeypoo Wrote: Even the racist, seething with hate and all around miserable person Joy Reid got caught on a hot mic saying Biden is starting another war.

Most of the right wing in the US, in this forum and nationally, think Biden is too soft on Iran.

You seem to think he is too hard.  Where do you stand on this?

[*Nately120*]

(02-01-2024, 07:43 PM)Dill Wrote: Most of the right wing in the US, in this forum and nationally, think Biden is too soft on Iran.

You seem to think he is going too far.  Where do you stand on this?

I know you aren't asking me, but right now the main thing seems to be Trump taking what Biden does, or reading the tea leaves on what he might do and then saying he'd do the exact opposite and it'd be way better and then conservatives taking Trump's side and coming up with reasons why he's right...even when it means arguing against bombing the shit out of Iran which has been a GOP talking point or promise for decades.

Keep in mind that as much as we frame this as "what is Biden going to do" I've been assured that the president is not a single entity.  At least when people had to justify a second term for mentally-declining Reagan and electing a total boner-head in George W Bush I was told that you don't just vote for the president, you vote for the brain trust he surrounds himself with...or something. 

[Dill]

(02-01-2024, 12:23 PM)Luvnit2 Wrote: It is true, Trump did have Iran in check and the middle east under Trump was more stable than it has been for decades. It is shocking CNN give Trump any credit, but it easy to look at how Trump handled the middle east and then how Biden removed policies Trump had that were working and now middle east is back to a chit show.

Er  CNN is not "giving Trump credit." Unlike Fox, they offer a range of opinion.

In this case, they give space to two prominent members of the US Israel lobby,

who cannot seem to connect Iran's resurgent bomb-grade nuclear fission program,

now at zero breakout time (see post # 37 above), with Trump's trashing of the Iran deal. 

No mention, either, of how trashing that deal opened holes in the sanction program all down the line.

No consideration of how moving the US embassy to Jerusalem or validating appropriation of Golan

contributed to the current Gaza conflict.

"Trump had Iran under check"--wow, I hardly know where to begin on that one.

You don't actually follow ME events; you follow Fox reporting on ME events.

[SunsetBengal]

(02-01-2024, 08:12 PM)Dill Wrote: Er  CNN is not "giving Trump credit." Unlike Fox, they offer a range of opinion.

In this case, they give space to two prominent members of the US Israel lobby,

who cannot seem to connect Iran's resurgent bomb-grade nuclear fission program,

now at zero breakout time (see post # 37 above), with Trump's trashing of the Iran deal. 

No mention, either, of how trashing that deal opened holes in the sanction program all down the line.

No consideration of how moving the US embassy to Jerusalem or validating appropriation of Golan

contributed to the current Gaza conflict.

"Trump had Iran under check"--wow, I hardly know where to begin on that one.

You don't actually follow ME events; you follow Fox reporting on ME events.

I'm sorry, but you're going to have to clarify what "ME" events are.  I tried googling, and all I got were a bunch of self love and esteem boosting parties..

[Dill]

(02-01-2024, 07:55 PM)Nately120 Wrote: I know you aren't asking me, but right now the main thing seems to be Trump taking what Biden does, or reading the tea leaves on what he might do and then saying he'd do the exact opposite and it'd be way better and then conservatives taking Trump's side and coming up with reasons why he's right...even when it means arguing against bombing the shit out of Iran which has been a GOP talking point or promise for decades.

Keep in mind that as much as we frame this as "what is Biden going to do" I've been assured that the president is not a single entity.  At least when people had to justify a second term for mentally-declining Reagan and electing a total boner-head in George W Bush I was told that you don't just vote for the president, you vote for the brain trust he surrounds himself with...or something. 

Excellent point about the inverted logic of Trump's current policy pronouncements. They are simply off-the-cuff reactions. But consistent with his
foreign policy as president, when he did "opposite Obama" on so many critical issues.

The bolded was true of every presidency until we got to Trump. GHW Bush and Clinton had pretty good trusts, comparatively speaking.

Trump doesn't quite fit the mold in that most of his "Trust," even far-right Iran hawk John Bolton, disagreed with his policies and spent much of
their energy in damage control. Virtually all of his FP advisors quit up into the last year of his presidency, and his former secretaries and the head of
the Joint Chiefs have spoken against another Trump presidency, citing the policy chaos. Nothing like this on any other president's record.

Yet now we see this fantasy narrative arising of a ME which had been stable under Trump only now spinning out of control under Biden.
 Count on the 55+ million to buy that.         Scary.

[Dill]

(02-01-2024, 08:22 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: I'm sorry, but you're going to have to clarify what "ME" events are.  I tried googling, and all I got were a bunch of self love and esteem boosting parties..

Middle East events.

E.g., The GCC embargo of Qatar or Israel's annexation of the Golan or Iran's missile attack on Saudi oil fields

would be "ME" events.

[*Nately120*]

(02-01-2024, 08:26 PM)Dill Wrote: Excellent point about the inverted logic of Trump's current policy pronouncements. They are simply off-the-cuff reactions. But consistent with his
foreign policy as president, when he did "opposite Obama" on so many critical issues.

The bolded was true of every presidency until we got to Trump. GHW Bush and Clinton had pretty good trusts, comparatively speaking.

Trump doesn't quite fit the mold in that most of his "Trust," even far-right Iran hawk John Bolton, disagreed with his policies and spent much of
their energy in damage control. Virtually all of his FP advisors quit up into the last year of his presidency, and his former secretaries and the head of
the Joint Chiefs have spoken against another Trump presidency, citing the policy chaos. Nothing like this on any other president's record.

Yet now we see this fantasy narrative arising of a ME which had been stable under Trump only now spinning out of control under Biden.
 Count on the 55+ million to buy that.         Scary.

I'm not sure how hyperbolic it even is to say a second Trump presidency would have him stuffing his cabinet with the most loyal cultists who just let him run wild. We've really gone from a 2016 mindset where Trump is just making a big show and will calm down and be more reasonable when he's in the white house to an idea that he's the only person who can and should be making decisions regarding this country in capacities that range across the entire spectrum.

Politics in this country have become more nationalized, less localized (as in I'm in PA and the border with Mexico is at the top of the list of issues people have realized this country has), and the one-sided bias of "when the other guy is in office we are his boss and when our guy is in office he's the boss and needs more power immunity" isn't even being ignored anymore, it's being celebrated.

It's like saying the Bengals need to have 7 downs to get 10 yards and the Steelers should only get 2 downs...it's what the founding fathers of the NFL would want. Me? Biased?  C'mon...ok you got me, so what?

[NATI BENGALS]

I’ll be interested to see if Biden catches heat for striking back. As far as I know congress never gave an authorization for use of military force to respond.

[Mickeypoo]

(02-01-2024, 07:43 PM)Dill Wrote: Most of the right wing in the US, in this forum and nationally, think Biden is too soft on Iran.

You seem to think he is too hard.  Where do you stand on this?

You misunderstand what I am saying.

[Dill]

(02-04-2024, 12:17 AM)Mickeypoo Wrote: You misunderstand what I am saying.

Might as well explain what I misunderstand, then.

[Mickeypoo]

(02-04-2024, 12:29 AM)Dill Wrote: Might as well explain what I misunderstand, then.

Biden is a demented idiot and everyone knows it even if they refuse to say it out loud.

Iran?  Our Gov't doesn't give a shit about the citizens of the USA anymore.  Whatever response is applied I am 100% sure it will be politically calculated.  

For all I care they can nuke Iran or do nothing.  Whatever they decide to do I am sure it will be for political reasons and it won't help the average American.


 

[Dill]

(02-04-2024, 01:11 AM)Mickeypoo Wrote: Biden is a demented idiot and everyone knows it even if they refuse to say it out loud.

Iran?  Our Gov't doesn't give a shit about the citizens of the USA anymore.  Whatever response is applied I am 100% sure it will be politically calculated.  

For all I care they can nuke Iran or do nothing.  Whatever they decide to do I am sure it will be for political reasons and it won't help the average American.

Well, maybe I understand where we disagree then.

You don't see that reducing conflict in the ME would help the average American, so not sure but I

guess you assume the US economy and US jobs are unaffected by international trade, war, and the oil market, stuff like that.

[Mickeypoo]

(02-05-2024, 01:39 PM)Dill Wrote: Well, maybe I understand where we disagree then.

You don't see that reducing conflict in the ME would help the average American, so not sure but I

guess you assume the US economy and US jobs are unaffected by international trade, war, and the oil market, stuff like that.

"Don't underestimate Joe's ability to @#$% things up".

"I think he (Joe Biden) has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”

Seems to me the ME conflict was almost non-existent when Biden took over.  

Since Biden took over I'm down 600-800 a month.  At this point I see no one on either side doing anything that isn't politically calculated.

The question of "Does this help America and her legal citizens?" should be asked before every policy/bill that is created/put forward.  America and her legal citizens first and foremost.  Once we are out of debt and have a balanced budget then we can look at helping others.

[*pally*]

(02-06-2024, 11:10 AM)Mickeypoo Wrote: "Don't underestimate Joe's ability to @#$% things up".

"I think he (Joe Biden) has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”

Seems to me the ME conflict was almost non-existent when Biden took over.  

Since Biden took over I'm down 600-800 a month.  At this point I see no one on either side doing anything that isn't politically calculated.

The question of "Does this help America and her legal citizens?" should be asked before every policy/bill that is created/put forward.  America and her legal citizens first and foremost.  Once we are out of debt and have a balanced budget then we can look at helping others.

and which economic policies of Biden caused that financial deficit considering that the pandemic rebound is a worldwide phenomenon causing world wide inflation at levels far exceeding that in the US

[*pally*]

(02-06-2024, 11:10 AM)Mickeypoo Wrote: "Don't underestimate Joe's ability to @#$% things up".

"I think he (Joe Biden) has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”

Seems to me the ME conflict was almost non-existent when Biden took over.  

Since Biden took over I'm down 600-800 a month.  At this point I see no one on either side doing anything that isn't politically calculated.

The question of "Does this help America and her legal citizens?" should be asked before every policy/bill that is created/put forward.  America and her legal citizens first and foremost.  Once we are out of debt and have a balanced budget then we can look at helping others.

Your 401K should be up significantly....

Considering the state of the worldwide economy in Jan 2021, and the worldwide pandemic rebound inflation fueled by massive levels of profit taking, specifically, which of Joe Biden's economic policies is driving your financial deficit?  and what policy should have been in place to prevent it?