Pompeo makes unannounced visit to Baghdad amid rising tensions with Iran

Washington Post ^ | May 7, 2019 | Carol Morello

[Innovative]

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made a sudden, unscheduled trip to Baghdad on Tuesday, as an aircraft carrier and Air Force bombers headed to the Middle East amid warnings that Iran was contemplating an attack on U.S. troops in the region.

The surprise visit came after Pompeo abruptly canceled a trip to Germany, where he was scheduled to meet with Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Heiko Maas. The State Department initially said only that the change was made because “pressing issues” had arisen.

Pompeo’s visit to Baghdad, which followed an Arctic Council meeting in Finland, took on an air of urgency as regional tensions rose on the eve of the first anniversary of President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear agreement.

[Innovative]

This is understandable.

Our allies in the ME need to help us against Iran.

[bray]

Iran must be having problems in their economy.

[grania]

Or perhaps those who benefit from MidEast war don’t want it to wind down.

[Edgerunner]

We need help to handle I Ran?

[no-to-illegals]

Bomb Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran. Civilians be darned but let’s find those mullahs

[no-to-illegals]

Fision and no ... Meca Medana and no ....

[Alberta's Child]

I wish I had a "Like" button for your post.

Even after the nonsense of the last 2-3 years, a lot of Freepers haven't figured out that media outlets like CNN, the Washington Post and the New York Times are CIA operations whose sole purpose is to disseminate "Deep State" propaganda to U.S. citizens.

The uprising in Venezuela last week apparently didn't happen, so let's use the old standby punching bag for our military industrial complex instead.

[Zhang Fei]

[Even after the nonsense of the last 2-3 years, a lot of Freepers haven’t figured out that media outlets like CNN, the Washington Post and the New York Times are CIA operations whose sole purpose is to disseminate “Deep State” propaganda to U.S. citizens. ]

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Right. Iran really did not take our Embassy people hostage for 444 days. Iran wasn’t behind the killing of 200 Marines via suicide bombing. Iran did not mine the Persian Gulf. While I completely agree with you on a lot of economic issues, you need to consider the possibility that some right-wingers are just former left-wingers who are taking it as gospel that Uncle Sam is the focus of evil in the modern world.

[Soros Billions]

Yea the airliners full of cash have stopped landing.

[Alberta's Child]

I actually just consider the possibility — no, the NEAR CERTAINTY — that I’m never going to get the truth from any of these assholes.

[Zhang Fei]

[I actually just consider the possibility — no, the NEAR CERTAINTY — that I’m never going to get the truth from any of these assholes.]

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So you do think that none of the events I cited happened? And that Persia hasn’t actually waged war repeatedly, over the past 3000 years, back when our forebears were running around in animal skins, over that region and beyond, in the course of establishing an empire, losing it and going through that same cycle repeatedly? Everything being said about Iran has a basis in history and recent events. Iran has been launching ballistic missiles at Riyadh (Saudi Arabia’s capital) from Yemen. That is the equivalent of the Soviets launching ballistic missiles at Washington from North Vietnam during the Vietnam War. The mullahs are reckless and getting more reckless as Iran’s economic situation goes from bad to worse. The day Shanahan announces that we are doing Osirak II, but over the course of a month of air strikes, I’ll raise a glass.

[Alberta's Child]

I’ll let you know when I give a sh!t what happens to those Islamic dumps over there.

I voted for Donald Trump because I got tired of living under a Sunni Muslim government in this country. MAGA.

[Dacula]

Can we get a FOIA on a former president?

[Paulie]

If I’m not mistaken, the USA has terminated the exemptions a handful of countries enjoyed so they could still purchase Iranian oil.

China was one of those countries and reportedly intends to continue to buy oil from Iran anyway.

Point being our B 52’s and USS Abraham Lincoln may be sent there to also give them an easier time to enforce the sanctions so that Iran sells virtually no oil at all.

Seems to me it will be all but impossible to avoid war under these circumstances.

I think I will postpone my trip to the Holy Land this summer.

[Bonemaker]

Saddam had Iran totally at bay until the Bush handjobs f’d evrthing up.

[Paulie]

Absolutely right.

Hardly anyone recognizes that fact.

[Zhang Fei]

[Saddam had Iran totally at bay until the Bush handjobs f’d evrthing up.]

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Why would we allow Saddam to unify the Gulf oilfields under his rule? Because we don’t think gas prices are high enough? Because we think he should finally get the resources he needed to replace the nuclear program the Israelis destroyed at Osirak?

[NorseViking]

“” “” Why would we allow Saddam to unify the Gulf oilfields under his rule? “” “”

Because he couldn’t. Iran wasn’t a single entity in the region at odds with Saddam. It was pretty much Iraq against everyone else and it made a sort of status quo. All ruined by Bush in favor of Gulf Arabs. And since the latter always were and would be a marginal power it was factually in favor of Iran.
In fact Iran is quite valuable in maintaining a certain status quo of today. They are the most interested in keeping the Sunni extremism at bay. With Iran down you’d see another ISIS and more powerful very soon.

[Zhang Fei]

[Because he couldn’t. Iran wasn’t a single entity in the region at odds with Saddam. It was pretty much Iraq against everyone else and it made a sort of status quo. ]

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Saddam could have rolled over all the Gulf kingdoms. He paused because he thought Uncle Sam might let him keep Kuwait, but definitely would not let him keep Saudi Arabia. The Saudi royals were petrified. They knew they could not keep him at bay. And guerrilla warfare would have done no good. Saddam would have killed them all, guerrillas as well as their civilian supporters. He did it to Kurds and Marsh (Shiite) Arab rebels alike.

[Zhang Fei]

And to be honest, defense planners were pretty sure that neither the 82nd nor the 101st Airborne, combined, could stop Saddam’s army, but that’s all they had, so they put them on the Saudi border to highlight to Saddam the fact that if he went any further, he’d be at war with the US of A. He should have kept going. It would have been a lot harder to fight Saddam if he had occupied the entire Arabian peninsula. To mount Desert Storm, an amphibious invasion might have been required, instead of an attack from land bases in Saudi Arabia.