“Let’s see what happens,” President Trump said Thursday after Iran shot down an American surveillance drone.
New York Times: Trump Approves Strikes on Iran, but Then Abruptly Pulls Back
WASHINGTON — President Trump approved military strikes against Iran in retaliation for downing an American surveillance drone, but pulled back from launching them on Thursday night after a day of escalating tensions.
As late as 7 p.m., military and diplomatic officials were expecting a strike, after intense discussions and debate at the White House among the president’s top national security officials and congressional leaders, according to multiple senior administration officials involved in or briefed on the deliberations.
Officials said the president had initially approved attacks on a handful of Iranian targets, like radar and missile batteries.
The operation was underway in its early stages when it was called off, a senior administration official said. Planes were in the air and ships were in position, but no missiles had been fired when word came to stand down, the official said.
Read more ....
Update: US prepped for strikes on Iran before approval was withdrawn (AP)
WNU Editor: The source for this New York Times story is from one anonymous White House official. I do not know if the NYT article is correct, but my gut tells me that the debate on what to do is still raging on in the White House. But if another incident like this happens, and/or an oil tanker is attacked, there is going to be no debate. The U.S. will be launching military strikes against Iranian targets. In the meantime, expect an even bigger U.S. military buildup in the region to be announced in the coming days.
22 comments:
I agree wnu,lf still expect some limited strike in the coming days or a double down on sanctions as a minimun, trump knows China is watching and if zero action is taken you can stop the south China Sea nonsense.
Iran will get paid hansomly by Russia and China. Especially China must hope an Iran conflict would stop a second Trump term and with it trillions in trade imbalance etc
the gut response from trumpiards is to question the NY Times. But now we have NO strike and every other news source also telling us this story.
The real question is why it was initiated and then suddenly canceled. Who changed the president's mind, and why
Honestly Iran needs to be punished, but I worry that a conflict with Iran will drag the US into a major conflict through mission creep that will drag on for years akin to Iraq or Afghanistan. They need to be punished, but we also need to conserve our resources, retrain, reequip for a potential conflict with China.
The NYT is a rag.
Why is someone so eager for war, when if we went to war they would be so eager to criticize?
Iran defeated itself already. Khomenei made sure of it. He baked in a demographic bomb. That is a graying population. They are running out of water. The sanctions hurt. Oil is too low and not being sold much anyway. The Iranian leaders are effed; only Obama can save them now by flying in more plane loads with pallets of cash.
anon
the NY Times is still regarded as both very important and highly respected. Thus, I would ask, if you are so scornful, tell us which paper you have great regard for. The cash nonsense you said has been put aside as total nonsense and that was years ago. For you information, since you seem not to be up on such matters, Obama simply allowed the return of money that legally belonged to Iran as a part of the deal to have a 5e nation agreement on nukes. Yes. Iran is a troubled nation. That said, it does not address the issue raised in this posted piece
Anon 8:59AM
Most of that $$ was owed by Iran to victims of some stunt of iran's years prior to this shoot down behavior. The money Obama had secretly sent to Iran was awarded through court action which, as you know, the most perfect human to stride the face of the earth ignored in all his supreme perfection.
the court action was secret?
perhaps time to put aside your anti-Obama bias. That money belonged to Iran. Returning it got the deal on nukes with other allies. Now you might agree with Trump that it was a bad deal, but then is what we currently have a major improvement?
I note in passing that the title of this article give the name of the paper as though to make the item questionable. My advice: if the distrust of the NYTimes is so great, why not simply NOT post any and all articles coming from that source? Among sources often posted here are some that are far left of the NY Times and some from Arab sources etc...Why then distinguish only those from, say NY Times and from time to time CNN (always badmouthed by anons here)
Highly respected by less than 50% of the population. That NYT?
The money is Iranian; that is true. That in no way shape or form means that we have to repatriate it now to the current government?
I mean are you stupid? I mean really, utterly, and irrevocably stupid? If say the there had been an International Court of Justice back in the day and they had ruled that Germany did not solely start WW1 and that the indemnity they paid should be given back, would that mean that Neville Chamberlain would have to give it to Hitler?
We can always hold on to the money; let it accrue interest; and send it back, when the is a better government in Iran. You know like one that does not shoot demonstrators, beat women for not wearing a hijab or hang gays? That is the leaders do that when they are not bashing ethnic Baluchis, Arabs and Kurds.
Why play patty cake with the Mullahs and let it be the next North Korea, when you can take them out through sanctions and let the people rise up?
PS1: I like your phrase "cash nonsense". Did you make that up yourself or did you steal that word soup from another addict?
PS2: “Oh, right, we liberals all get together once a month and decide how we’re going to cover the news!”
Exactly! It was called JournoList
PS3: The NYT is Left Center. Definitely to the Left!
https://www.allsides.com/news-source/new-york-times
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/new-york-times/
Khomeini made the same mistake Mao made and that Erdogan has tried to make.
Exhorted people to make babies like there was no tomorrow, which was then followed by a baby bust.
Idiot minds think alike.
The deal on nukes was a good thing?
In principle yes, but the wording and inspection exclusions.. .. Why wouldn't Iran sign it
Cracked or mad magazine
Iran a serious threat?
Well, yeah!
Germany was a serious threat in 1939. They had toy tanks, Mark I, and almost took over the world. Stalin almost abandoned Moscow; it was that close. If Hitler had taken Gibraltar and Malta, not held back at Dunkirk (Goering) and not declared war on the US, it would have been a lot worse.
50 Russian divisions sent from Siberia to the Eastern Front made the difference. If Japan had tied those divisions down with threats, demonstrations, or limited offensives, who knows.
Canaris and some scientists were not working for the NAZIs. This delayed the German Manhattan project and helped the American one.
Iran has proxies in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and throughout Latin America. I would not expect a macaw to know about Hezbollah in Paraguay, because all it mostly does is surf the net for smut. It is not like the macaw would take a vacation at Iguaçu and have its boots on the ground.
Ok, Andy...after you sign up to serve
IRAN IS >MAJOR THREAT
Neville the parrot has spoken.
Iran's problem is that it is on the list of Mid Eastern countries targeted for subversion and disruption developed some time ago.
A link from an interesting blog
https://xxx.freeimage.us/image.php?id=B277_5D0CE3DA
anon
signing on as anon is hardly manly enough of you to call me or anyone else names...if you do not like what I say, do not read.
You are going to target anyone that says 'Death to you' for 40 years. Well maybe not Bob. But you have to remember that Bob probably had his lunch money stolen in primary and secondary school.
Calling someone one a parrot is hardly calling them a 4 letter word. Note the word parrot has two syllable and is six letter long.
From polls that show 85% of journalists are Leftists to JournoList to Newsweek editor saying that the MSM is worth 15 points to any Democrat presidential candidate, your slavish devotion and dotage to a wingnut press is noted.
Well now Lapides, since you're so keen on signing up, how about we go into your record and what you really did when you called Ridgeway "Matt", you know when you ran the war effort.
Interesting, you bringing up a school yard bully stealing my lunch money. It did happen though, and only once that the school yard bully tried to boost me for my lunch money. I told him I didn't have it that day because before coming to school I left it on his mum's night table and then I beat the crap out of him and collected the money he had boosted up to that point.
It is interesting because I have the feeling that given your failure persona on this board you just might have been that bully. Tell me the name of your school, if you went to school that is.
the other people acting like... whatever... faz... you have to consider other actors.
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