2020 Baghdad Int. Airport Airstrike / Current Situation in Iran

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The Armchair Soldier
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2020 Baghdad Int. Airport Airstrike / Current Situation in Iran

Post by The Armchair Soldier »

This topic is to discuss the ongoing situation in Iran following the U.S. airstrike which killed Qasem Soleimani.

A brief overview of the situation so far and the background: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-51018120

Iran attack: US troops targeted with ballistic missiles
Iran has carried out a ballistic missile attack on air bases housing US forces in Iraq, in retaliation for the US killing of General Qasem Soleimani.

More than a dozen missiles launched from Iran struck two air bases in Irbil and Al Asad, west of Baghdad.

It is unclear if there have been any casualties.

The initial response from Washington has been muted. President Trump tweeted that all was well and said casualties and damage were being assessed.

Two Iraqi bases housing US and coalition troops were targeted, one at Al Asad and one in Irbil, at about 02:00 local time on Wednesday (22:30 GMT on Tuesday). It came just hours after the burial of Soleimani, who controlled Iran's proxy forces across the Middle East.
Read More: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-51028954

abc123
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Re: 2020 Baghdad Int. Airport Airstrike / Current Situation in Iran

Post by abc123 »

It seems as pretty weak Iranian response. On the other hand, they have no good options. Maybe the best option for them is to sit and watch how this expulsion of US troops from Iraq will develop.
Fortune favors brave sir, said Carrot cheerfully.
What's her position about heavily armed, well prepared and overmanned armies?
Oh, noone's ever heard of Fortune favoring them, sir.
According to General Tacticus, it's because they favor themselves…

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Re: 2020 Baghdad Int. Airport Airstrike / Current Situation in Iran

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Roll on THAAD, to avoid sequels
- like in S. Korea (or DIY in the UAE)

Or may be just 'point defence' Patriots, as the two targeted bases are so far apart
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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Re: 2020 Baghdad Int. Airport Airstrike / Current Situation in Iran

Post by abc123 »

ArmChairCivvy wrote:Roll on THAAD, to avoid sequels
- like in S. Korea (or DIY in the UAE)

Or may be just 'point defence' Patriots, as the two targeted bases are so far apart

Yeah, maybe the PAC-3 Patriots are enough.
Fortune favors brave sir, said Carrot cheerfully.
What's her position about heavily armed, well prepared and overmanned armies?
Oh, noone's ever heard of Fortune favoring them, sir.
According to General Tacticus, it's because they favor themselves…

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Re: 2020 Baghdad Int. Airport Airstrike / Current Situation in Iran

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Which parts of the nuclear agreement have yet not been tried?

The EU seems to be the most active 'actor' in what remains of the agreement. Tomorrow's meeting could decide to start the arbitration clause, but if nothing comes of it in 30 days (fixed!), then Iran will be put in front of the Security Council... the end (of the agreement).

Russia and China have been 'silent partners': enter Merkel who will take the Friday meeting findings/ preliminary decisions to Moscow on Saturday... again, what comes out remains to be seen

Worst (and quite likely) case: both Iran & the Saudis will have nukes (not to forget Israel, but for that part the sentence is in the wring tense)
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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Re: 2020 Baghdad Int. Airport Airstrike / Current Situation in Iran

Post by abc123 »

ArmChairCivvy wrote:Which parts of the nuclear agreement have yet not been tried?

The EU seems to be the most active 'actor' in what remains of the agreement. Tomorrow's meeting could decide to start the arbitration clause, but if nothing comes of it in 30 days (fixed!), then Iran will be put in front of the Security Council... the end (of the agreement).

Russia and China have been 'silent partners': enter Merkel who will take the Friday meeting findings/ preliminary decisions to Moscow on Saturday... again, what comes out remains to be seen

Worst (and quite likely) case: both Iran & the Saudis will have nukes (not to forget Israel, but for that part the sentence is in the wring tense)
The nuclear agreement is as dead as dodo from the moment when the US pulled back. I really don't see any sense by continung this charade.
Fortune favors brave sir, said Carrot cheerfully.
What's her position about heavily armed, well prepared and overmanned armies?
Oh, noone's ever heard of Fortune favoring them, sir.
According to General Tacticus, it's because they favor themselves…

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Re: 2020 Baghdad Int. Airport Airstrike / Current Situation in Iran

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

The world often does not make sense
... before it gets crazy.

Let's see what Putin says about continued uranium supplies
- and then call James Bond, next :idea:
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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Re: 2020 Baghdad Int. Airport Airstrike / Current Situation in Iran

Post by abc123 »

So Iran admitted they have shoot down that Ukrainean airline "by mistake". Don't see how you can make such a mistake. :o
Fortune favors brave sir, said Carrot cheerfully.
What's her position about heavily armed, well prepared and overmanned armies?
Oh, noone's ever heard of Fortune favoring them, sir.
According to General Tacticus, it's because they favor themselves…

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Re: 2020 Baghdad Int. Airport Airstrike / Current Situation in Iran

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

abc123 wrote:So Iran admitted they have shoot down that Ukrainean airline "by mistake". Don't see how you can make such a mistake. :o
Sensitive military installations ... under the flight path of take-offs from an Int'l airport. yeah

Don't sell SAMs to crazed folks; and even more so, don't supply them with uranium (out of which can be made :?: ).
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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Re: 2020 Baghdad Int. Airport Airstrike / Current Situation in Iran

Post by abc123 »

ArmChairCivvy wrote:
Don't sell SAMs to crazed folks;.
It's not good to sell any weapons to crazed folks, but that goes both ways. Or headcutters in frex Syria and their supporters in Qatar or Saudi Arabia aren't crazed?
Fortune favors brave sir, said Carrot cheerfully.
What's her position about heavily armed, well prepared and overmanned armies?
Oh, noone's ever heard of Fortune favoring them, sir.
According to General Tacticus, it's because they favor themselves…

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Re: 2020 Baghdad Int. Airport Airstrike / Current Situation in Iran

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

As of COB today, the good old RT has brought us news from Moskva (no mention of uranium sales, but of course all other possible means should be tried):

"Speaking to journalists in Moscow following her meeting with Putin, Merkel said that “everything must be done to keep the JCPOA going” and vowed to use “all the diplomatic tools to help this agreement.”

Putin also described the deal as “tremendously important” ["]

The criticism of the time [long back by now] when the Bushehr reactor project (fuel included) was started was deflected in this way:
Sergei Kiryienko, the director-general of Rosatom, Russia's federal atomic energy agency, stated the official Russian position to be that "broad access to civilian nuclear power must be guaranteed while at the same time there must be a guarantee that weapons of mass destruction will not proliferate under any circumstances."
- well, these chicken have come back to roost, but will they glow like chicken a la Kiev
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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Re: 2020 Baghdad Int. Airport Airstrike / Current Situation in Iran

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

The more images surface from the Tehran downing of the airliner, the more they look like this kind of close to each other penetrations derived from proximity fuse initiated projectiles: https://ichef-1.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/me ... _624in.jpg
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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Re: 2020 Baghdad Int. Airport Airstrike / Current Situation in Iran

Post by Lord Jim »

If Iran keeps proclaiming it will now pursue a nuclear weapon, how long will it be until the Israelis take action with the consent of the US, as I am sure Trump would rather they do the work rather than risk US forces.

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Re: 2020 Baghdad Int. Airport Airstrike / Current Situation in Iran

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

just that Israel does not have anything to drop the massive penetrator
... one of which the USAF dropped onto A-stan, just to show that they have some in stock
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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Re: 2020 Baghdad Int. Airport Airstrike / Current Situation in Iran

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Full assurances being sought again (that Iran won't detain diplomats, as Iran's ambassador to the UK Hamid Baeidinejad was summoned to the Foreign Office after Rob Macaire was detained ):
"No 10 said it was "seeking full assurances" the detention would not happen again."

It did not go so well with the previous assurances:
"https://news.yahoo.com/iran-says-tanker ... 01509.html
Sep 11, 2019(which is ) the owner of the oil sets the sale destination of the oil," Baeidinejad told the state news agency IRNA. Britain said on Tuesday Iran had sold the oil cargo of tanker Adrian Darya 1 to Syria, breaking assurances it had given over the vessel which had been detained in Gibraltar for a suspected breach of European Union sanctions."
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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Re: 2020 Baghdad Int. Airport Airstrike / Current Situation in Iran

Post by abc123 »

ArmChairCivvy wrote:Full assurances being sought again (that Iran won't detain diplomats, as Iran's ambassador to the UK Hamid Baeidinejad was summoned to the Foreign Office after Rob Macaire was detained ):
"No 10 said it was "seeking full assurances" the detention would not happen again."

It did not go so well with the previous assurances:
"https://news.yahoo.com/iran-says-tanker ... 01509.html
Sep 11, 2019(which is ) the owner of the oil sets the sale destination of the oil," Baeidinejad told the state news agency IRNA. Britain said on Tuesday Iran had sold the oil cargo of tanker Adrian Darya 1 to Syria, breaking assurances it had given over the vessel which had been detained in Gibraltar for a suspected breach of European Union sanctions."
After the 1979 hostage crisis I sincerely don't see why would any civilised country have an embassy in Iran?
Maybe out of intelligence reasons, but that's all.
Fortune favors brave sir, said Carrot cheerfully.
What's her position about heavily armed, well prepared and overmanned armies?
Oh, noone's ever heard of Fortune favoring them, sir.
According to General Tacticus, it's because they favor themselves…

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: 2020 Baghdad Int. Airport Airstrike / Current Situation in Iran

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Well, the mullahs will not try to reform as they remember what happened to the Shah when he embarked on that road. Here is the IRGC bajeej auxiliaries' version of a 'mounted charge' getting ready: https://ecp.yusercontent.com/mail?url=h ... wIRzhw--~C
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

abc123
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Re: 2020 Baghdad Int. Airport Airstrike / Current Situation in Iran

Post by abc123 »

A conspiracy theory I read somewhere: Maybe all this flare up was actually an internal conflict between IRCG and mullahs/regular army. With somebody of them informing the Americans about his movements...
Fortune favors brave sir, said Carrot cheerfully.
What's her position about heavily armed, well prepared and overmanned armies?
Oh, noone's ever heard of Fortune favoring them, sir.
According to General Tacticus, it's because they favor themselves…

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Re: 2020 Baghdad Int. Airport Airstrike / Current Situation in Iran

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Brett McGurk is "back" and writing about US policy in the ME (vs. any Grand Strategy)

"No president has lived up to the Project Solarium [ Eisenhower putting finishing touches on the 35-year long policy of containment, with allies, rather than direct confrontation] standard, but U.S. President Donald Trump has set a new one on the opposite side of the scale. The current White House runs a foreign policy with irreconcilable objectives, no internal coherence, and no pretense of gaming out critical decisions before they are taken. Maximalist objectives are set with little thought to what might be required to achieve them. When the real world intrudes, with adversaries, competitors, or allies pursuing their own objectives independent from the United States’, Trump lurches from doubling down on risky bets to quitting the field altogether, as happened recently in Syria [and McGurk resigned], leaving friends bewildered."

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles ... m_campaign
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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Re: 2020 Baghdad Int. Airport Airstrike / Current Situation in Iran

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

This could be utter 'tosh' as above the header a photo of a certain blond is displayed and at the end

https://geopolitics.co/2020/01/29/cia-c ... n-taliban/

of the text (and the photos from the crash site) there is this 'highly related' :lol: ending statement:
"You can actually participate in crippling the Deep State organized criminal cabal, while enjoying healthcare freedom at the same time, by boycotting Big Pharma for good."

However, mapping it against other news sources may be of interest.
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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Re: 2020 Baghdad Int. Airport Airstrike / Current Situation in Iran

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Iran has a situation, itself.

But from that apart, Turkey has asked for a NATO Article IV consultation (not V ;) - they are a combatant outside their borders, so doubt that one would apply.
- nut a no-fly zone is 'on the menu'
- who would enforce it? A Shader, under a new name? The original Op Shader, is it even running, as a deployment?
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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Re: 2020 Baghdad Int. Airport Airstrike / Current Situation in Iran

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Idlib, in turn, has a dynamic of its own... was Trump a genius, after all, in getting 'out of the way'? Just wanted to finish (and exit) with a big bang, at the Baghdad airport.

Now luckily we have @abc here to help us with (the meaning of) the Russian press, more specifically the respected
Kommersant headlining ”Erdoğan, Erdoğan, Erdoğaništše!”

Tšukovsky (not the general, but the author, Kornei) wrote”taragan, taragan, taraganištše”.

Sounds like a call from the football terraces, of opposing sides ;)
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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Re: 2020 Baghdad Int. Airport Airstrike / Current Situation in Iran

Post by Phil Sayers »

Two SyAAF warplanes shot down over Idlib today. Reportedly SU-24s downed by F16s (probably from within Turkish airspace) but that has not been confirmed yet. SANA have admitted the losses - the pilots safely ejected and are fine.

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Re: 2020 Baghdad Int. Airport Airstrike / Current Situation in Iran

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Isn't it funny that the New Sultan was so loud about getting Russian SAMs and now wants Patriots plenty quick?
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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Re: 2020 Baghdad Int. Airport Airstrike / Current Situation in Iran

Post by Phil Sayers »

Yep and it should have been obvious to him that any relationship with Russia would just be of a short term transactional nature whereas deep strategic enduring ties are the ones to cherish and prioritise (rather than piss off all of your partners when you are likely to need them on board). That said Turkey does not seem to be having problems at this precise moment - their UCAVs are decimating the SAA.

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