War Iran-United States Military Crisis of 2020 - US Baghdad embassy under siege, rocket fire in US Baghdad green zone, Ukrainian Airlines flight 752 crash, and more!

January 10th:
Exclusive: Informants in Iraq, Syria helped U.S. kill Iran's Soleimani - sources (archive)(post)
Iraqi Shia cleric whose militia killed American troops says crisis is over following Iran strike and Trump speech (archive)(post)
Iraqi PM tells US to decide mechanism for troop withdrawal (archive)(post)
Mike Pence says Congress might 'compromise sources and methods' if fully briefed on the Soleimani strike (archive)(post)
Unidentified planes hit Iraqi militiamen in Syria, killing 8 (archive)(post)
Iraq: The Master Of Mayhem Meets A Missile (archive)(post)
Eliminating Qasem Soleimani was Donald Trump’s Middle East farewell letter (archive)(post)
Iran uses BULLDOZERS to clear debris from plane crash site while accusing US of ‘big lie’ that they shot it down (archive)(post)
Swiss Back Channel Helped Defuse U.S.-Iran Crisis (post)

January 11th:
UKRAINIAN AIRCRAFT WAS BROUGHT DOWN IN IRAN DUE TO 'HUMAN ERROR' (archive)(post)
Iran minister says 'human error' caused by 'US adventurism' led to deadly crash of Ukrainian jetliner (archive)(post)
Ukrainian aircraft was brought down in Iran due to 'human error' (archive)(post)
Trump, at Ohio rally, says Democrats would have leaked Soleimani attack plans (archive)(post)
The Atlantic's David Frum blames Trump for downing of plane in Iran, deaths of 176 (archive)(post)
Associated Press changes ‘shockingly bad’ headline about Soleimani, Ukrainian plane crash after backlash (archive)(post)
GOP Rep. Doug Collins apologizes for saying Democrats are 'in love with terrorists' (archive)(post)
Iran demands West 'show findings' as new video reveals aircraft was struck before fiery crash (archive)(post)
Warren town hall interrupted by angry protester accusing her of ‘siding with terrorists’ (archive)(post)
Trump administration announces new sanctions on Iran (archive)(post)
Prepare For the Worst From Iran Cyber Attacks, As DHS Issues Warning: Experts (archive)(post)
Trump tells Fox News' Laura Ingraham 'four embassies' were targeted in imminent threat from Iran (archive)(post)
Trump tweets support for Iranian protesters as they demand Khamenei quit (archive)(post)
Trump warns Iran against ‘another massacre’ as protests flare over downed jet (archive)(post)

January 12th:
Trump tweet in Farsi 'the most liked Persian tweet' in history of Twitter (archive)(post)
Iraq warned to keep US troops or risk financial blow-WSJ (archive)(post)
Iran arrests UK ambassador in what Britain calls ‘flagrant violation of international law’ (archive)(post)

January 13th:
Trump authorized Soleimani's killing 7 months ago, with conditions (archive)(post)

edit: This is a WIP. All links are posted in the order they appear in the thread, not in chronological order of their publication.


---Original OP before the merge---
Iraqi supporters of Iran-backed militia attack US Embassy
https://apnews.com/75228a8a607a44863b57021ac33264dc (http://archive.vn/ljm9Y)

By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA12 minutes ago

BAGHDAD (AP) — Dozens of angry Iraqi Shiite militia supporters broke into the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad on Tuesday after smashing a main door and setting fire to a reception area, prompting tear gas and sounds of gunfire.

An Associated Press reporter at the scene saw flames rising from inside the compound and at least three U.S. soldiers on the roof of the main building inside embassy. It was not clear what caused the fire at the reception area near the parking lot of the compound. A man on a loudspeaker urged the mob not to enter the compound, saying: “The message was delivered.”

The embassy attack followed deadly U.S. airstrikes on Sunday that killed 25 fighters of the Iran-backed militia in Iraq, the Kataeb Hezbollah. The U.S. military said it was in retaliation for last week’s killing of an American contractor in a rocket attack on an Iraqi military base that it had blamed on the militia.

Dozens of protesters marched inside the compound after smashing the gate used by cars to enter the embassy. The protesters, many in militia uniform, stopped in a corridor after about 5 meters (16 feet), and were only about 200 meters away from the main building. Half a dozen U.S. soldiers were seen on the roof of the main building, their guns were pointed at the protesters.

Smoke from the tear gas rose in the area, and at least three of the protesters appeared to have difficulties breathing. It wasn’t immediately known whether the embassy staff had remained inside the main building.

The protesters hanged a poster on the wall: “America is an aggressor.”

Shouting “Down, Down USA,” the crowd tried to push inside the embassy grounds, hurling water and stones over its walls. They raised yellow militia flags and taunted the embassy’s security staff who remained behind the glass windows in the gates’ reception area. They sprayed graffiti on the wall and windows in red in support of the Kataeb Hezbollah militia: “Closed in the name of the resistance.”

Hundreds of angry protesters, some in militia uniforms, set up tents outside the embassy. As tempers rose, the mob set fire to three trailers used by security guards along the embassy wall.

No one was immediately reported hurt in the rampage and security staff had withdrawn to inside the embassy earlier, soon after protesters gathered outside.

The U.S. attack — the largest targeting an Iraqi state-sanctioned militia in recent years — and the subsequent calls by the militia for retaliation, represent a new escalation in the proxy war between the U.S. and Iran playing out in the Middle East.

Tuesday’s attempted embassy storming took place after mourners and supporters held funerals for the militia fighters killed in a Baghdad neighborhood, after which they marched on to the heavily fortified Green Zone and kept walking till they reached the sprawling U.S. Embassy there.

AP journalists then saw the crowd as they tried to scale the walls of the embassy, in what appeared to be an attempt to storm it, shouting “Down, down USA!” and “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.”

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday’s strikes send the message that the U.S. will not tolerate actions by Iran that jeopardize American lives.

The Iranian-backed Iraqi militia had vowed Monday to retaliate for the U.S. military strikes. The attack and vows for revenge raised concerns of new attacks that could threaten American interests in the region.

The U.S. attack also outraged both the militias and the Iraqi government, which said it will reconsider its relationship with the U.S.-led coalition — the first time it has said it will do so since an agreement was struck to keep some U.S. troops in the country. It called the attack a “flagrant violation” of its sovereignty.

In a partly televised meeting Monday, Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi told Cabinet members that he had tried to stop the U.S. operation “but there was insistence” from American officials.

The U.S. military said “precision defensive strikes” were conducted against five sites of Kataeb Hezbollah, or Hezbollah Brigades in Iraq and Syria. The group, which is a separate force from the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, operates under the umbrella of the state-sanctioned militias known collectively as the Popular Mobilization Forces. Many of them are supported by Iran.

.

 

[Gustav Schuchardt]

The US should have maintained strategic ambiguity about whether or not it killed him by claiming it might have been done by a 'wild Predator drone' and that 'you can buy Hellfire missiles on the Dark Web'.

 

[SteelPlatedHeart]

Why people think this will end up with war is beyond me.

This is typical response counter response. Iran will instigate a war, not the US. As far as we're concerned, we've resolved the incident. The general behind the attacks was reduced to fine red mist. There's no need to retaliate further. Iran's foreign operations have been dealt a hard blow that will take years to recover.

I want to posit all "ITS DA JOOOS" posters here.

Should we have done absolutely nothing as Iran starts shit and attacks our soil with impunity? Embassies are US territory, functionally attacking an embassy is attacking the US itself. Should we have let this massive faggot continue to plan attacks on our assets, diplomats and soldiers with impunity? If Yes, you're a cucked faggot and you should shut your fucking mouth. If no, it under minds your fucktarded "JOOOS" arguement.

The amount of gormless idiots shouting jews in this thread is hilarious.



Hey dumb cunt. Iran has plotted attacks on US soil against US civilians.

It’s bizarre to me that people seem to be under the impression that the President just randomly decided to strike a foreign country for shits and giggles. Instead of, you know, responding to a direct attack on American soil.

 

[samuraicrack]

I just don't want another fucking war. That could lose Trump the election, and he might deserve it.

We won't deserve whoever wins instead of him, though.

I don’t think a direct assault by the military is gonna be likely to happen. The DWS has stated it’s more likely to be a proxy/covert operation in retaliation to Iran’s activities than anything else.

https://twitter.com/defconwsalerts/status/1212965012400201730?s=21

 

[Agent of Z.O.G.]

To be honest it was probably a mix of Jews and Sauds(the jews of the middle east) who were behind this, given that attack on that Saudi refinery earlier this year and whatever other tensions they have going on.

 

[No Ma'ams Land]

True but it's got to end somewhere, it's just a cycle of shit. Let them kill themselves, no need for anyone to help them anymore

Attacking a US embassy is the foreign equivalent of killing themselves. Suicide by cop.

 

[Sexual Chocolate]

and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis -- the deputy head of the Iran-backed Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF)

The Unpopular Mobilization Forces aren't allowed to sit with them.

 

[MrTickles]

Meh, this seems like a reasonably proportional response to the attack on the embassy, not really seeing why so many people are getting worked up about it, Iran really isn't going to be able to do much in response that the colossus that is the US military won't be able to trivially smack the fuck down.

How about a bullet in trumps brain? It happened to Kennedy. Or 300 Us marines turned to jelly in a saudi base? Or trump tower in new york falling down with thousands inside. Nobody gonna smack that one down. Iran thrives on asymmetry. Us may be the world's biggest terrorist state, but Iran is also capable of these games. Tit for tat.

 

[Sped Xing]

Khamenei warned the fight would continue -- and added it had been Soleimani's wish for years to become a martyr.

Beauty and the Beast - Be our Guest

A Walt Disney Film The Beauty and the Beast. Do not own or make any money from this.

youtu.be

No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country.

 

[FunPosting101]

How about a bullet in trumps brain? It happened to Kennedy. Or 300 Us marines turned to jelly in a saudi base? Or trump tower in new york falling down with thousands inside. Nobody gonna smack that one down. Iran thrives on asymmetry. Us may be the world's biggest terrorist state, but Iran is also capable of these games. Tit for tat.

They can try, but odds are they will fail miserably. You have far too high an opinion of assorted third-world retards if you think that they can seriously pull off this sort of commando shit in the USA post 9/11. More likely they do some sort of attack on a US Embassy or posting somewhere closer to Iran, which may or may not kill/injure people, but what's even more likely is that they sit in the corner and cry about how the US is a big mean bully because the US military killed an asshole responsible for terrorist attacks against our interests abroad.

 

[Freddy Freaker]

Does this look like a thing that could blow into a war or people are blowing stuff out of proportion as usual? Kind of scared because of wars started with something tangibly unrelated (gulf of Tonkin and so on) because one side dope-slapped the other for being so headachingly stupid.

DUDE BLORMPFT JUST ROCKET STRIKED AN AIRFIELD IN SYRIA!!1! AND RUSSIANS WERE THERE!!!! ZION DON IS FINALLY SELLING US ALL OUT TO DIE FOR THE KIKES GAME OVER MAN!!!1!1!!

 

[ElAbominacion]

“Rose McGowan” was trending on Twitter, and for some reason I thought it was the name of the girl from Titanic, so I got curious and well...
View attachment 1080818
Yikes.

Guess that Weinstein fucked her brain up real good, bitch has always been insane, with cultist parents, and she's only gotten more so as she started the life of a roastie at 14.

 

[Adamska]

Let us out. LET US OUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTTTTTTTTTT

Unfunny implementation of a meme in text format aside; please, god. I don't want to keep having to see the US in the Middle East. Do we really need oil? What about Nuclear Power? Surely we have good enough material to ensure no meltdowns within cars and shit, right?

Even Thorium can't help you there chief, sorry to say. Miniaturization still won't be able to make a reactor small enough to lodge in a car without a buttload of shielding; it's not efficient man.

But...

#bringbacksteamcars.

Meh, this seems like a reasonably proportional response to the attack on the embassy, not really seeing why so many people are getting worked up about it, Iran really isn't going to be able to do much in response that the colossus that is the US military won't be able to trivially smack the fuck down.

Because these faggots want posturing until the chance of their blood may flow. And in the case of TDS fuckers, it's a sociopathic hypocrisy where they want him to get sucked into a war, because their 5th column the news can bleat the suffering of soldiers to turn the public against him.

 

[thismanlies]

....well, that’s a take.
View attachment 1080808

If Harvey Weinstein did what he did to her in Iran, they would have called her a whore and she'd be swinging from a rope.

 

[rando0675309]

Guess that Weinstein fucked her brain up real good, bitch has always been insane, with cultist parents, and she's only gotten more so as she started the life of a roastie at 14.

In the immortal words of Rick James, "cocaines a helluva drug"

 

[IsaacShraeder]

But I'm gonna be really optimistic and say what if this is a war that goes well?

A war half way across the world can't really "go well", even if it's a brilliant operational success like Desert Storm or the Invasion or Iraq was. Those were still processed as a national trauma, especially because the region proceeded to go to shit not even a decade later.

But if we're talking about how "less bad" a war would go, it all depends on how far the Pentagon is willing to take things. A purely air war could push Iran's shit in without question (their Air Force is very out of date, their pilots are poorly trained and they lack spare parts), but even then Iranian proxy groups would go into a gorilla warfare overdrive, harassing US allies in the ME and fucking their already unstable shit up even worse. This would kill public support for the war very soon, and the US could only hope to quickly bomb them into submission before hippies experience a revival, which is much easier said than done. People underestimate how long a regime like Iran can push it's people.

Now a Land war would be a total, complete disaster. Iran's land forces have modernized a lot in recent years, and they're more competent than any army the US has faced since WW2. They've got a large arsenal of cruise missiles and anti-armor stuff, complete with small fast boats that could be used to kamikaze right into potential landing crafts. Something like this would be extremely causality heavy:

Millennium Challenge 2002 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The only winning move here is not to play.

 

[frozenrunner]

Meh, this seems like a reasonably proportional response to the attack on the embassy, not really seeing why so many people are getting worked up about it, Iran really isn't going to be able to do much in response that the colossus that is the US military won't be able to trivially smack the fuck down.

Because we're tired of war, we're tired of the Middle East, and we're really tired of war in the Middle East.

Trump's term has been a respite from endless war. I don't want war now, especially not in an election year when it could hurt his chances.

 

[ElAbominacion]

A war half way across the world can't really "go well", even if it's a brilliant operational success like Desert Storm or the Invasion or Iraq was. Those were still processed as a national trauma, especially because the region proceeded to go to shit not even a decade later.

But if we're talking about how "less bad" a war would go, it all depends on how far the Pentagon is willing to take things. A purely air war could push Iran's shit in without question (their Air Force is very out of date, their pilots are poorly trained and they lack spare parts), but even then Iranian proxy groups would go into a gorilla warfare overdrive, harassing US allies in the ME and fucking their already unstable shit up even worse. This would kill public support for the war very soon, and the US could only hope to quickly bomb them into submission before hippies experience a revival, which is much easier said than done. People underestimate how long a regime like Iran can push it's people.

Now a Land war would be a total, complete disaster. Iran's land forces have modernized a lot in recent years, and they're more competent than any army the US has faced since WW2. They've got a large arsenal of cruise missiles and anti-armor stuff, complete with small fast boats that could be used to kamikaze right into potential landing crafts. Something like this would be extremely causality heavy:

Millennium Challenge 2002 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The only winning move here is not to play.

You can't go into a war with Iran without targeting:

South Lebanon, where Hezbollah has its headquarters, and that itself is a logistic nightmare because the Hezbs are cowardly shits who hide their buildings in the middle of residential areas precisely to prevent surgical strikes.

Large swaths of Syria, especially now that the U.S. succeeded at alienating Bashar al-Assad in the Obama and Trump years.

The resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan, when you realize those, too, are Shi'a Muslims.

So even if you blow Tehran up into pieces, you're going to have to contend with years and years of wars in other countries and destabilization of the entire Middle East area.

Which is 100% to Israel's benefit. Israel, who never fights a single land war against their enemies and expects the U.S. to do the heavy-lifting. I'm not sure anything but retaliatory strikes is worth the lives it'll cost.

Good on you for mentioning the Millennium Challenge. It got tabled because it showed American commonplace strategies fail to account for a scorched earth/kamikaze policy.

"
Red, commanded by retired Marine Corps Lieutenant General Paul K. Van Riper, adopted an asymmetric strategy, in particular, using old methods to evade Blue's sophisticated electronic surveillance network. Van Riper used motorcycle messengers to transmit orders to front-line troops and World-War-II-style light signals to launch airplanes without radio communications.

Red received an ultimatum from Blue, essentially a surrender document, demanding a response within 24 hours. Thus warned of Blue's approach, Red used a fleet of small boats to determine the position of Blue's fleet by the second day of the exercise. In a preemptive strike, Red launched a massive salvo of cruise missiles that overwhelmed the Blue forces' electronic sensors and destroyed sixteen warships. The losses were as follows: one aircraft carrier, ten cruisers and five of six amphibious ships. An equivalent success in a real conflict would have resulted in the deaths of over 20,000 service personnel. Soon after the cruise missile offensive, another significant portion of Blue's navy was "sunk" by an armada of small Red boats, which carried out both conventional and suicide attacks that capitalized on Blue's inability to detect them as well as expected."

 

[the fall of man]

Really doubting anything is going to change, geopolitically. Several excellent points have already been made, but there are a few larger concerns that also affect things:

1. Putin is about to get term-limited again, which will make him just Prime Minister again. We would have back-channeled Russia to let them know to get their dudes out of the area. Russia likes to show off its hypersonics and provoke the US, but a couple fast missiles (that keep exploding at the wrong times) aren’t a reasonable defense against drone waves.

2. China is getting oil from Iran. The best gift Iran could give us is an excuse to blockade everything and force China to buy LNG, which is so backed up right now we’re burning it in the fields because there’s nobody to sell it to. The middle kingdom is already buying pigs to make up for their accidental pork genocide, so why not a little oil to appease the psychopaths in the US?

3. North Korea already knows that any late gifts they give us will be reciprocated

4. Those of you talking about elections, did you think that letting Iran write “Soleimani is (lol, was) our leader” on our giant Baghdad micro-city of an embassy was going to make Trump more popular? We just did what we should have done for Benghazi. Iran is surrounded by mountains and swamps - it’s disadvantageous for us to try a land invasion. Why would we even bother with a land war when the obvious solution is to apply the Trump (twitter) doctrine to war - let our enemies rage and make threats, then drop a precision drone strike to ruin their fun and carry on shitposting

 

[Malodorous Merkin]

 

[Sped Xing]

Bah, Iran's ground forces would get their shit pushed in just like Saddam, and the 1944 Germans before him, for the exact reason you say the air war would be a curbstomp.

Air supremacy is a real bitch of a thing, no matter how tough and well trained your grunts are.


As for trying to pacify Iran after their military goes an hero, no fucking thanks. That's Afghanistan but without the tribal feuds we exploited there.