Stupidity personified ...

BRT has written copiously about Iran and the ramifications of what it means if the US is stupid enough to start a war with this country. Well, it seems Agent Orange, under the control of the deep state, Israel and Saudi Arabia, along with the complicit press, is just that stupid, not understanding that a possible WW III looms, something akin to WW I whereby a totally avoidable catastrophe turned into a monstrous atrocity due to the same kind of stupidity we are witnessing today.

US attempts to portray Soleimani as a master terrorist leader, like say, ISIL's (ISIS's) Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is wrong and misses the big picture. Soleimani may have been controversial, even a bloody "shadow commander", but he served at the pleasure of Iran's supreme leader, Ali Hosseini Khamenei, to protect and expand the regime's interests in the Middle East. The killing of Soleimani is an attack on the Iranian state.

From one liar to another.

Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, under indictment for criminal charges, was the first and only national leader to support Trump’s action, while claiming that that Trump acted entirely on his own.

“Just as Israel has the right to self-defense, the United States has exactly the same right,” Netanyahu told reporters in Greece. “Qassem Soleimani is responsible for the deaths of American citizens and other innocents, and he was planning more attacks.”

The question to ask here is ... who wins and who loses?

WHILE THE MEDIA focus for three years of the Trump presidency has centered around “Russia collusion” and impeachment, the most dangerous collusion of all was happening right out in the open — the Trump/Saudi/Israel/UAE drive to war with Iran.

On August 3, 2016 — just three months before Donald Trump would win the Electoral College vote and ascend to power — Blackwater founder Erik Prince arranged a meeting at Trump Tower. For decades, Prince had been agitating for a war with Iran and, as early as 2010, had developed a fantastical proposal for using mercenaries to wage it.

At this meeting was George Nader, an American citizen who had a long history of being a quiet emissary for the United States in the Middle East. Nader, who had also worked for Blackwater and Prince, was a convicted pedophile in the Czech Republic and is facing similar allegations in the United States. Nader worked as an adviser for the Emirati royals and has close ties to Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince.

Conjecture. What is the possibility of Iran signing a defense deal with Russia and China as China depends on Iranian oil for energy while Russia needs Iran to keep peace with Muslims in Russia?

Washington’s murder of Soleimani is a criminal act that could start World War 3 just as the Serbian murder of the Austrian Archduke set World War 1 in motion.  Only Putin and Russia with China’s help can stop this war that Washington has set in motion.

... The destabilization of Iran serves both Washington and Israel.  For Israel Iran’s demise stops support for Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia that has twice defeated Israel’s army and prevented Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon.  For Washington Iran’s demise allows CIA-supported jihadists to bring instability into the Russian Federation.

Unless Putin submits to American and Israeli will, he has no choice but to block any Washington/Israeli attack on Iran.  

The easiest and cleanest way for Putin to do this is to announce that Iran is under Russia’s protection.  This protection should be formalized in a mutual defense treaty between Russia, China, and Iran, with perhaps India and Turkey as members. This is hard for Putin to do, because incompetent historians have convinced Putin that alliances are the cause of war.  But an alliance such as this would prevent war.  Not even the insane criminal Netanyahu and the crazed American neoconservatives would, even when completely drunk or deluded, declare war on Iran, Russia,  China, and if included in the alliance India and Turkey.  It would mean the death of America, Israel and any European country sufficiently stupid to participate.

End game

The assassination is not going to change any of these policies; in fact, it will merely accelerate them.

If history is any guide, Iran will absorb the attack at first and avoid an all-out war with far superior US military forces. Trump may have challenged Khamenei for a duel, but the supreme leader prefers fighting in the shadows.

So, respond, he will. His options are plentiful and his timetable is open-ended. This includes assassinations, covert operations, low-intensity warfare and oil and maritime disruptions in the Gulf region.

Addendum

WASHINGTON — In the chaotic days leading to the death of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, Iran’s most powerful commander, top American military officials put the option of killing him — which they viewed as the most extreme response to recent Iranian-led violence in Iraq — on the menu they presented to President Trump.

They didn’t think he would take it. In the wars waged since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Pentagon officials have often offered improbable options to presidents to make other possibilities appear more palatable.

By late Thursday, the president had gone for the extreme option. Top Pentagon officials were stunned.

A contrary opinion: let's hope it's the right one ...

Finally, there is the possibility that this is tied into the impeachment process that will get going again this month. Senate Republicans like Mitt Romney and Ben Sassy are wholly owned by Jerusalem. In order to get their vote in the impeachment fight, Trump may be forced to give into the forever war crowd. If anyone thinks this is too conspiratorial, just look at the  anti-BDS campaign.

The likelihood of this scenario leading to war, however, is low as the impeachment lever has a clear expiry date on it. There is an election brewing and Washington needs to dispense with the impeachment issue by February at the latest. That’s enough time to do some drone strikes and saber rattling, but not enough time to gin up support for a war with Iran. Instead it will just make negotiating with Iran impossible for the remainder of Trump’s tenure, which may be the real point.

Last but not least, here's a quick bio on Qassem Suleimani.

Suleimani’s biography as a pivotal figure in Iran and the region is well known. Since the late nineteen-nineties, he was engaged in trying to remake the Middle East to Iran’s advantage, directing his proxies to kill or dispatch anyone who impeded his vision of an Iranian-dominated sphere of influence stretching from Tehran to the Mediterranean Sea. He was remarkably successful, legendary even—certainly the most influential operative in the region in modern times. He was involved in sponsoring terrorist attacks, propping up despots like Bashar al-Assad in Syria, helping to assassinate at least one foreign leader—the Prime Minister of Lebanon, Rafik Hariri—and killing hundreds of American soldiers along the way. In the latter years of the American war in Iraq, Suleimani’s militias deployed a particularly bloody weapon against U.S. soldiers—the “explosively formed penetrator,” or E.F.P.—which tore through the armor of U.S. military vehicles and wreaked havoc on soldiers and marines. It was no small irony that he died on the road to the Baghdad International Airport, where so many Americans soldiers and Iraqis died by ambush.

A dangerous and competent man without a doubt.