UPDATED: All's Well That Ends Well?

Hopefully.

Deterrence appears to be being reesrablished. That’s how you stay out of war. Good. pic.twitter.com/EExLfQZryx

— Dave Rubin (@RubinReport) January 8, 2020

If tonight's #IranAttacks indeed failed to kill any Americans, #Trump restraint right now wd put him in a much stronger position - both domestically and internationally - to hit back hard again after another #embassy attack-like provocation.  #Soleimani #foreignpolicy #MiddleEast

— (((Alan Tonelson))) (@AlanTonelson) January 8, 2020

That war sucked. Lets take Greenland. We could own the place by breakfast time.

— Adam Townsend (@adamscrabble) January 8, 2020

UPDATE: Just ahead of President Trump's address to the nation, we're learning that Iran warned Iraq of the coming missile strikes and--wink, wink--Iraq warned the US, including that Iran did not seek war with the US:

If you're just waking up, here's what's happening:

■ Iran launched a ballistic missile attack at two Iraqi bases which house US troops in the early hours of Wednesday morning local time.

Here's what you need to know: https://t.co/8joSEITX47 pic.twitter.com/wqGe35Uk29

— CNN (@CNN) January 8, 2020

UPDATED: Breaking: US Preparing To Pull Out Of Iraq?

UPDATE: Good thing I put a question mark in there. The answer for now seems to be: Maybe not. As reported at TGP via Sky news (or vice versa) SecDef Esper says it was just a draft that shouldn't have been released. Hmmm. I was starting to really like the idea. Now that the letter's been released, maybe we should just go ahead?


Zerohedge has a longish account: US Army Tells Iraq It Is Preparing To "Move Out" Out Of "Respect For Sovereignty". The obvious question, based on the letter from Brigadier General Seekly to the Iraqi DoD, is: Is this a complete withdrawal or partial? Here's the letter:

sLTG Abdul Amir 

Deputy Director, Combined Joint Operations Baghdad Iraq - Ministry of Defense 

Your Excellency, 

Sir, in due deference to the sovereignty of the Republic of Iraq, and as requested by the Iraqi Parliament and the Prime Minister, CJTF-OIR will be repositioning forces over the course of the coming days and weeks to prepare for onward movement. 

In order to conduct this task, Coalition Forces are required to take certain measures to ensure that the movement out of Iraq is conducted in a safe and efficient manner. 

During this time, there will be an increase in helicopter travel in and around the International Zone (IZ) of Baghdad. This increased traffic will include CH47, VH-00, and AH-64 security escort helicopters. 

Coalition Forces will take appropriate measures to minimize and mitigate the disturbance to the public. In addition, we will conduct these operations during hours of darkness to help alleviate any perception that we may be bringing more Coalition Forces into the IZ. 

As we begin implementing this next phase of operations, I wish to reiterate the value of our friendship and partnership. We respect your sovereign decision to order our departure. 

Very Respectfully, 

WILLIAM H. SEEKLY III
Brigadier General, U.S. Marine Corps
Commanding General, TF-Iraq

It sure sounds to me like a complete withdrawal. We'll see how it develops.

Meanwhile, as Zerohedge puts it:

The decision to withdraw begs the question: Was Trump playing 5-D chess after all?

It also appears to answer Pat Lang's question that I quoted this morning:

Will Trump welcome the ejection of the US from Iraq? - He should.

Refreshing, and maybe another lesson in never misunderestimating Trump.

More Pondering On The Current Crisis In The Middle East

Since the assassination of Gen'l Soleimani I've been of two minds. I was initially strongly opposed to this action, seeing in it a Deep State ploy to deepen US involvement in the region--up to and including open war on Iran. I said at the time, and still believe, that America has so many problems here at home that we'd be well advised to abjure foreign adventuring.

OTOH, the world isn't about to stand still while the US tries to get its house in order. Dubya and Obama made a hash of our foreign policy and put "the current crisis in the Middle East" on steroids. It's near impossible for Trump to undo that mess, which has strengthened the hands of regional powers with strong expansionist and anti Western tendencies: Turkey and Iran. Was it possible, I wondered, that Trump's extreme action--assassinating an official of foreign power A on the soil of foreign power B against the wishes of both A & B--could have clarified the current situation.

From that standpoint I can see the need to secure the flow of oil to allied nations from the Persian Gulf. However, I think history has pretty much proven conclusively that America as a nation--for a variety of reasons--is unable to confine itself to that circumscribed role. That's partly our own fault, but also the fault of others and beyond our control.

I won't pretend to have a solution--if there is one. Overall, I have for many years subscribed to Samuel Huntington's theory of the Clash of Civilizations. The complicating factor, of course, is that our own civilization is involved in its own civil war--its own "clash of civilizations," if you will. This intra civilizational civil war makes it virtually impossible to have a coherent policy vis a vis other world civilizations with which we sometimes cooperate and at other times come into conflict. Further, our own intra civilizational civil war has to a great extent led to the destabilization of other civilization with which we have come into close contact.

My concern is that the hope that Trump could lead America back to something resembling greatness in a civilizational sense could become a casualty of any expanded involvement in "the current crisis in the Middle East."

Two Recommended Reads On Iran

There appears to be a growing consensus that Iran finds itself in a difficult position in the wake of President Trump's assassination of Gen'l Soleimani. Paul Mirengoff at Powerline has an excellent post, dialoguing a bit with Thomas Friedman's Was Soleimani overrated? (Here's the link to Friedman.)

Friedman's idea is that Soleimani was the dumbest man in Iran, because he and Iran took Obama's deal and then--instead of simply accepting all the benefits for the good of their country--tried to push the regional expansionist envelope, "freak[ing] out U.S. allies in the Sunni Arab world and Israel." And that led to Soleimani's own assassination.

Mirengoff's response is that that doesn't prove that Soleimani was dumb, just that he's a hardcore ideologue. Which, of course, leads people to do dumb things.

I liked this quote from Friedman that Mirengoff includes (but there's more at the link):

Today’s Iran is the heir to a great civilization and the home of an enormously talented people and significant culture. Wherever Iranians go in the world today, they thrive as scientists, doctors, artists, writers and filmmakers — except in the Islamic Republic of Iran, whose most famous exports are suicide bombing, cyberterrorism and proxy militia leaders. The very fact that Suleimani was probably the most famous Iranian in the region speaks to the utter emptiness of this regime, and how it has wasted the lives of two generations of Iranians by looking for dignity in all the wrong places and in all the wrong ways.

Of course, the reality is that a regime reflects a culture and a society. This is true in Iran as much as it's true in America.

Scott Ritter's Take On The Soleimani Assassination

Scott Ritter has an interesting article today at The American Conservative in which he analyzes Trump's action in authorizing the assassination of the Iranian general Qassem Soleimani. Unlike some of the virulently and repetitiously anti-Trump screeds at TAC, Ritter's analysis is in measured terms and worth considering. You can read the entire article hear: Iranian Revenge Will Be a Dish Best Served Cold.

For our purposes I want to focus on the last part of the article, in which Ritter speculates regarding the form that Iran's threatened retaliation might take. My own view regarding "the current crisis in the Middle East" is hardly novel--I think most commentators view the situation in overly simplistic terms. There are simply too many moving pieces involved for the types of solutions we so often see advanced to be viable. That, I think goes for Ritter's analysis as well. Nevertheless, his view is worth taking into account.

Ritter is correct in focusing on Iran's overall goal and in identifying that goal as the withdrawal of US military forces from Iraq. That is an achievable goal, but one which is most likely attainable by avoiding a direct war with the US. To the extent that the US assassination of Soleimani makes such an open military conflict more likely we see two things: 1) The likelihood that the assassination may have been staged in order to force such a conflict; the orchestrators in such a case would likely be non-Trumpist Deep State actors, headed by Mike Pompeo, whose goal is to maintain the US military presence in Iraq; 2) the assassination puts Iran in a difficult position because it pushes Iran toward action that would interfere with its long term goals. So, Ritter writes:

YUGE Big Picture Stuff

I just finished reading Conrad Black's excellent article today at American Greatness: Only the People Can Decide. That may not sound like anything out of the ordinary run of current commentary on impeachment, but it it's far more than that.

Then I turned to Don Surber, who quotes portions of Black's article in a must read blog: Deflecting Trump's Iranian success. Again, the title doesn't do credit to the content.

Surber argues that Trump is on the brink. On the brink of pulling of a real deal with Iran. I ask you: If Trump can do that, after all his other successes, what is there to hold him back from accomplishing the objectives that Conrad Black discusses? How will the American electorate treat a party and a media that is consumed with hatred for such a president?

Surber begins his discussion with Trump's mastery of the "illusion of chaos." Using Bolton's presence as misdirection, to keep the mullah's guessing.

Of course the Dems, as always, misunderestimated Trump:

What About Iran?

That has to be the number one thing on Trump's mind these days. My view, my hope, is that Trump is coming to the realization that his policies--and they are his policies, no matter who advised or persuaded him for whatever reasons--have put him in a box with no good alternatives. The Iranian mullahs--possibly assisted by foreign advisers--know that, for the US, war with Iran would be an act of insanity. The only sufficient reason for undertaking such an act would be an act of mass terrorism that dwarfs anything in our past. We've done nothing about past Saudi attacks on the US, so why would we do anything so insane as attacking Iran? The Iranians understand that, and now the rest of the world understands that. Which puts Trump in a box.

While we wait for Trump to sort all this out and, hopefully, find advisers who will prevent future impasses of this sort, here are a few articles/blogs that lay out some of the issues involved.

Pat Buchanan asks, Can Trump Still Avoid War With Iran? and sets forth some of the strategic misunderstandings in Trump's policy of "maximum pressure."

[I]f neither America nor Iran wants war, what has brought us to the brink? 

Answer: The policy imposed by Trump, Pompeo and John Bolton after our unilateral withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. 

Our course was fixed by the policy we chose to pursue. 

Imposing on Iran the most severe sanctions ever by one modern nation on another, short of war, the U.S., through "maximum pressure," sought to break the Iranian regime and bend it to America’s will. 

Submit to US demands, we told Tehran, or watch your economy crumble and collapse and your people rise up in revolt and overthrow your regime. 

... 

The demands Pompeo made were those that victorious nations impose upon the defeated or defenseless. Pompeo’s problem: Iran was neither. 

... 

Hence Tehran’s defiant answer to Pompeo’s 12 demands: 

We will not capitulate, and if your sanctions prevent our oil from reaching our traditional buyers, we will prevent the oil of your Sunni allies from getting out of the Persian Gulf. 

... 

America might emerge victorious in such a war, but the cost could be calamitous, imperiling that fifth of the world’s oil that traverses the Strait of Hormuz, and causing a global recession.

Iran And Impeachment

Did the impeachment question play into Trump's decision not to launch an attack on Iranian assets? The obvious answer is: Maybe yes, maybe no. However, there's a second question: Did impeachment play into Democrat calculations? While the answer remains the same--maybe yes, maybe no--my inclination is to believe that it was a significant factor. Consider this--it's a video that purports to show Chuck and Nancy in a celebratory after the meeting at the White House:

FmrBetoBro‏ @FmrBBronie

Well now we know why Chuck and Nancy were celebrating last night. They thought the Deep State had goaded Trump into war, exactly as they planned with their FF. Trump outsmarts them again! #WRWY #GreatAwakening #WWG1WGA #Qanon #MAGA #MEGA #WeThePeople

/>

0:06

717 views

6:26 AM - 21 Jun 2019

Now, it's entirely possible that Chuck and Nancy were in a celebratory mood because they agree with the likes of Pat Buchanan and Carlson Tucker that war with Iran would guarantee Trump as a one-term president. That would be understandable. However, depending on how such a war proceeded, as well as other political factors, I believe that the Dems may have believed that war with Iran could have put them in a stronger position to impeach Trump for exceeding his war powers--and to make the impeachment stick.

Wisdom From Dennis Kucinich

And he said it in a lot fewer words than I did:

"The same deep state actors who have tried to put [Trump] out of office will succeed if they get him into war with Iran."

And how about this from Cliff Sims, a former communications aide?

"Trump's gut instincts on foreign policy are spot on. It takes a lot of backbone to remain clear-eyed when the foreign policy establishment, even inside his own White House, starts banging the drums of war. He showed real strength by refusing to buckle to pressure to immediately strike Iran."

My guess? Americans like a president who shows strength under pressure.

UPDATED: The War Party, The Russia Hoax, And The Deep State War On Trump

Trump never ceases to amaze. With the War Party almost openly gloating that Iran (at who's prodding?) had boxed Trump into a foolish war, with his supporters near despair ... Trump proceeds to pull the plug (for now) and schools the post-Christian world on classical Just War Theory, invoking "proportionality." As if to say, Here's for you voters out there who want a balanced, grounded, America First president. This guy is simply deeper than most people will grant.

Look, I can't tell you what's really behind this. Was the tanker attack a false flag, or was Iran responsible? Did Iran down the drone in international airspace in an attempt to box Trump into war with the long term in view? On balance, I suspect that's what it's about. Perhaps just as important is the big picture, extending back many decades. There definitely appears to be a deja vu element to this and, as it happens, I have at hand some materials to offer a bit of perspective on the War Party's total war against Trump--in the overall context of the Russia Hoax.

One feature of the Russia Hoax struggle, drawn out over the past three years or so, has been that prominent liberals have found themselves, seemingly against all odds, defending Trump. Think of the likes of Alan Dershowitz, Stephen Cohen, Jonathan Turley, Mark Penn, and others. I've cited their views on a semi-regular basis, because they happen to be authorities in their fields with informed opinions to offer. In common with one another, these public intellectuals share a commitment to constitutional order and the distressing perception that this commitment--once common to liberals as well as conservatives--has been abandoned by the ascendant "progressive" movement within the Democrat party and its low information followers.

Another common feature is that, while these intellectuals have been associated with liberalism and even leftism, they usually have niche concerns that have been central to their public and academic lives. For example, Dershowitz is known first and foremost as a "civil libertarian". Stephen Cohen, who has for decades been associated with the far left The Nation magazine, is a Russia expert who is particularly known for his lifelong advocacy of detente with Russia. Both men see these core concerns being trampled underfoot by "progressives."