This is Malagha Jaberi...Iranian. And yes, there are hotter pics of her than this.
We now return you to your serious political discussion.
Posted on 01/08/2020 5:22:07 AM PST by gattaca
By taking decisive action against Soleimani, Trump showed that Iran’s power is an illusion generated by D.C.’s willingness to look the other way
It’s no coincidence that in the wake of the targeted killing of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s most important military proxy has begun taking credit for terror attacks committed nearly four decades ago. For example, Hezbollah-affiliated media and activists are laying public claim to the organization’s responsibility for bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in October 1983, which killed 241 Marines. So why now?
The answer is, to scare Americans now that Donald Trump has thrown the regime in Tehran off balance by changing the 40-year-old rules of the game. The United States always knew that Hezbollah was responsible for the Marine barracks attack and that the Lebanese militia was armed, trained, funded and directed by Iran. President Reagan’s decision not to respond directly to the attack was part of a tacit agreement that America and the Islamic Republic entered into during the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover in Tehran. It mirrored similar arrangements with the Soviet Union in which neither superpower held the other directly accountable for the actions of proxies in order to reduce the likelihood of a nuclear cataclysm.
Yet, unlike the Soviet Union, the Islamic Republic was hardly a globe-spanning nuclear superpower. It was merely a hostile local power that threatened the American regional security order through terror attacks. Washington’s response was to look away, under the theory that it was beneficial to the larger order to pretend, in public, that rules still existed. In turn, Iran was happy to play make-believe and accumulate prestige and leverage.
The terms of this weird deal held fast for the next four decades, through the end of the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the First and Second Gulf Wars, Bush’s occupation of Iraq, Obama’s Iran deal, and other local and global milestones. Washington wouldn’t hold the clerical regime accountable for the violent proxies that it funded, armed, trained, and directed. In exchange, Iran and its partners would refrain from embarrassing the Americans by boasting about the murders they committed. The founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini, famously said that America couldn’t do a damn thing. It is more accurate to say our elected officials wouldn’t do a damn thing.
Donald Trump put an end to that arrangement by commingling the dust of Soleimani together with that of one of his chief Arab lieutenants, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, head of one of Iran’s Iraqi terror proxies. Now that Trump is holding Iran accountable for the actions its proxies take in its name, the leverage gained by helping America play make-believe is gone. Iran and its allies now feel liberated to bathe publicly in the blood of Americans and warn that more violence is coming their way.
The problem for Iran is that it isn’t actually all that powerful. For all the concern over retaliation, Trump’s trashing of the old rulebook has stripped Iran of the most important instruments in its arsenal—“plausible deniability.”
Iran’s ability to respond to the U.S. was already limited by the fact that its conventional military forces are old and rusting away. Yes, IRGC speedboats can harass, and target, the U.S. Navy in the Persian Gulf. But it can’t move large land forces into Iraq, never mind drop them into Florida or Alaska.
A good measure of Iran’s military weakness is that Qassem Soleimani was commander not of its regular army but rather the Quds Force, the expeditionary unit of Iran’s parallel military structure, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The Quds Force is relatively small, with estimates ranging from 3,000 to 15,000 fighters–i.e., a force the size of Hezbollah. For protracted campaigns like the Syria war, the Quds Force relies on what Israeli analyst Shimon Shapira calls the Shiite International—paid militias drawn from Middle East and Central Asian countries with Shiite populations, like Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.
The threat that Iran poses to a superpower America is “asymmetric”—kidnappings, embassy attacks, hijackings, bombings, etc., typically conducted by Iranian proxies. The military experts and political scientists who coined the term usually fail to note that the ability to wage “asymmetric” warfare is wholly dependent on an adversary’s willed blindness. If Iran’s targets decide to unsubscribe to the fiction that the Islamic Republic is not directly responsible for the actions of its proxies, Iran is rendered virtually powerless–with terror attacks being met with direct military hits on Iranian bases, airfields, ports, power plants, dams, and other infrastructure.
SNIP, read more at link
“It is only because Americans and other Western powers have declined to call out Iran and have instead appeased it...”
Bingo
Brilliant article. Should be required reading for the Trump Administration.
Should HAVE BEEN required reading for the Trump Obama Administration (and rest of the faceless "interagency" Deep State)
/fixed it, no charge
Let's see how the Elbonians do with donkeys hauling their artillery...
Sort of a 4GW Theory kind of thing. Legitimate weilders of violence (States) only deign to retaliate “legitimately” with other States wielding power. Families and tribes wielding violent force have always been categorized as “local and regional crime” that didn’t require an international response. Until “The Global War on Terror” which is a break from the old philosophy. Think tanks figuring out how to respond to “Asymmetrical Warfare” thing. In a way Trump is “cracking the code” on how to deal with this new awareness. My guess is look for Trump to begin applying what he is learning in Iran to the Mexican Cartels. It should be ridiculously simple to drone strike Mexicans.
In a just world ValJar would be hanged for espionage, treason, and an extremely bad haircut.
Bookmark
Right HERE, in the USA, is Iran’s greatest strategic ability.
I recommend you read this short novella from William Forschten, author of One Second After and others.
Day of Wrath (Dies Irae)
Learn more: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1625781547/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_tUDfEbSGPWJG2
Great article.
The article is basically saying that Trump changed the entire geopolitical climate regarding the relationship between the civilized world and the ME.
Well done sir. History may remember this as his single greatest and defining accomplishment.
No wonder the prominent democrats were on such an unexplainable hissyfit.
A good article to read, good find, thanks.
I always thought Reagan’s response to the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in October 1983, which killed 241 Marines, was tepid at best.
Should be required reading for every US Congressman, Senator and high school junior.
This is Malagha Jaberi...Iranian. And yes, there are hotter pics of her than this.
We now return you to your serious political discussion.
“...The answer is, to scare Americans...” NOT WORKING!
Six U.S. administrations were complicit in turning Iran into a regional power. In that context, the Obama administration’s decision to flood Iranian war chests with cash and recognize its right to build a nuclear bomb was the logical culmination of the rot eating away at the Beltway for four decades. It was perhaps to be expected that an outsider who often doesn’t know when to keep quiet, and can’t stay off Twitter, would be the one to sing out like the boy in the fairy tale. It’s true, the emperor has no clothes. The rules have changed but that doesn’t mean the Iranians won’t be looking for revenge.
My neighbor in La Jolla was married to a Persian lady (20 years ago) she was the most beautiful lady i have ever met, she had a baby and was even more beautiful after that. Had another lady in our apt building in San Diego, absolutely stunning also.
“The military experts and political scientists who coined the term usually fail to note that the ability to wage “asymmetric” warfare is wholly dependent on an adversary’s willed blindness.”
Those of us that were in theater could never figure it out. Why put up with all this sh!t from a 3rd world country? We all knew, just as US soldiers in Iraq knew, Iran was the ultimate seat of terror.
Bastards!
Yes...that should have started WWIII!
She lives in San Diego. She is a US Citizen.
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