Arie Egozi and Colin Clark, Breaking Defense: Leaks, Drones, Mystery Attacks: US-Iran Tensions Boil Hot, But…
As troops and hardware are on the move in the Gulf, diplomats signal that no one is eager for war.
TEL AVIV: In a rapid-fire series of events, Iran has reportedly rolled large numbers of missiles into the open, potentially signaling to American forces they can overwhelm them if necessary. Elsewhere, its drones have reportedly attacked Saudi Arabian oil facilities, and American B-52s were shown yesterday taking off from a base in the Persian Gulf. Back in Washington, plans for moving up to 120,000 troops to the region are leaked by seven Trump administration officials to the New York Times.
President Trump, reacting to the Times report, said today the US has not “planned” to send troops to Iran. “I think it’s fake news, okay? Now, would I do that? Absolutely. But we have not planned for that. Hopefully we’re not going to have to plan for that. And if we did that, we’d send a hell of a lot more troops than that,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
That’s the current state of play between the US, Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia and her regional allies.
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Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- May 15, 2019
America Must Not Stumble into a Third Gulf War -- John Dale Grover, National Interest
Are tensions between US, Gulf allies and Iran coming to a head? -- James Reinl, Al Jazeera
How to Stop Iran's Gulf Aggression -- James Stavridis, Bloomberg
Tensions over Iran show cracks in a time-tested alliance -- Gregory Katz and David Rising, AP
Are Russia and Turkey making deals or parting ways in Syria? -- Joe Macaron, Al Jazeera
No easy options for China as trade war, U.S. pressure bite -- Kevin Yao and Michael Martina, Reuters
US, China trade conflict was 20 years in the making -- Paul Wiseman, Martin Crutsinger, and Christopher Rugaber, AP
Clash of civilizations and the China conundrum -- Gordon Watts, Asia Times
Chinese Foreign Policy Is Not Responsible for the ‘Asian Peace’ -- Van Jackson, War On The Rocks
What Putin and Pompeo did not talk about -- Pepe Escobar, Asia Times
At odds on many fronts, US and Russia hope for better ties -- Jim Heintz and Francesca Ebel, Military Times/The Associated Press
Russia is Finally Getting the 'Great Power' Talks That It Always Wanted -- Nikolas K. Gvosdev, National Interest
AP Interview: EU elections could be boon for conservatives -- Karel Janicek, AP
The global Interest Is Disintegrating -- Aslly Adee, BBC
10 comments:
"US fails to get international support for Iran policy"
Its a waste of Pompeo's time to lobby any NATO nation on this. Much less Russia. The coalition that the US will need if the balloon goes up is Israel, Saudi Arabia and UAE. Maybe Egypt but probably not.
NATO was formed for defensive action not imperialistic aggression.
Look at those countries low spending on defense. They are useless today. No surprise they are running for cover. The funniest aspect is there will be no war between the USA and Iran. Not at all. We do know Britain, France and Germany are bit players with little to offer the USA .
Bob, if you're trying to frame US action against Iran as imperialistic aggression, you would be again mistaken.
Iran has proclaimed Death upon Israel ad nauseam - working to acquire nuclear arms at a furious pace. Launched a ballistic test last month. Had lots of help from Obama in those endeavors ($150B).
Iran cannot be allowed to shut the Strait of Hormuz for macro-economic reasons you may or may not understand. And which would be a very aggressive and imperialistic action on Iran's part.
Iran has maintained a proxy-war Hell hole in Yemen for no other reason than to harass Saudi.
You hate America and Americans. I get it. But to call the US imperialistic, it sounds like you're regressing back into snowflake adolescence. You were doing good for a while.
MSU,
HUMANITIES,
DEGREE,
R,
I do not hate America or Americans, that is floozie talk. But history has shown that America and by extension Americans as a group, are not trust worthy.
Great. So 2 nations that can actually fight.
A good offence is the best defence
When America's enemies control the media narrative and are able to Foist there narratives on others virtually unopposed as they generally have been, of course America will appear to be untrustworthy. They could utilize UN Tribunals but this would be problematic as there is a risk of the full details being presented unlike in the media which is a medium they virtually control unopposed. America will need to find a way to do a better job at messaging.
Since a good offense is the best defense, messaging (some might call it propaganda) is going to be important. Historically America has been very, very bad at this while its adversaries have been very, very good at this.
We must redouble or efforts to keep the alliance not only intact but strengthen it. Russia knows it cannot defeat the US militarily. But they can defeat the US cultural influence by slowly converting Europeans. Merkel is pretty much in Putin's pockets, she looks like he's her master and she has no backbone or integrity left at all. Instead of helping the US she - just like the previous Chancellor - makes gas and oil deals with gasprom. Europe's revolving door is to work for Russia's gasprom. On top we risk losing the European populations because they are being indoctrinated through leftist, socialist, often Kremlin financed academics, media hosts etc. The war has long shifted from conventional warfare to asymmetric, cultural warfare. And we're losing this if we think Europeans will always be pro west. They won't. They are being brainwashed 24/7 over there for more than 2 decades now. In schools in universities in media. And the US is not doing any counter operation. They spend their budgets unwisely only on technology, not on cultural and mind warfare
B. Poster
Trump is reneging on a deal that is all that is happening regarding China. What is that reneging accomplishing from the Deal Breaker's perspective, and who is benefiting?
1. Trump has created a distraction from his own sorry record, for a while that is.
2. Trump has further enhanced the tax rebate gift he gave to the wealthy corporations in the form of price increases to the tax paying American public. The corporations importing the products that were tariffed will simply add that to the price of their products. You can bet it will be tariff plus a small margin of profit.
3. Corporation being what they are they will add an equal amount to the price of similar goods imported from other foreign countries.
4. Ivanka products are most likely not tariffed but will be surcharged accordingly.
What has happened in really simple. Trump has pulled a con on Americans and in the process is violating a trade agreement, albeit a lousy agreement but an agreement, with the possibility of very serious consequences.
The lesson to the world; America has violated yet another agreement. Think very carefully before you enter into a business deal with that country in the future. You can see Europe pulling away. The rest of Asia knows they are next after China if Trump wins in 2020.
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