it was 2002 it goes to show you how out of touch our leaders are it’s a short video but really disturbing .

In 2010 when my best friend came back from Afghanistan he said the last stop on the GWOT train would be Iran.

14 years foresight is some serious prophetic skillz.

I guess former CIA douche bags going on podcasts and running their mouths, is in.

Does that mean there will be less Navy Seal books?

It's hard to say who I would trust less, Cheney and Rumsfeld or anyone from the CIA. They are pretty much all useless and retarded assholes.

It would be another protracted war we'd waste generations of men & women in.  Do blockades/sanctions and starve them out.  It wouldn't take long.

Tom Clancy’s works of FICTION gave the U.S. Government and the CIA in particular WAAAAAY more credit for integrity and competency than was deserved. We read the books, we wanted to believe and then we were shocked to find that the CIA was run by a bunch of self-serving, petty, little, politicos impressed by their own unwarranted sense of self-importance.

It's kind of a NO SHIT SHERLOCK thing today, considering what is now known about our fake compromised by foreign interests government. Geez, the supposed Republican speaker of the house who KNOWS that we have a open border for 4 years now, and who, replaced the OTHER RINO who ALSO did jackshit about it - he gave ZERO dollars for border funding while giving close to 100 billion for Ukraine and Israel and Taiwan + 2 or 300 million for Ukraine's border patrol...it's LOL all around is it not. Jokes on us.

We were being bent over and fucked/lied too about WMDs too under Cheney and Dubya. Clinton lied too. We the public are lied to all the time by the media which is really part of the government apparatus to deceive the public and get public support up for whatever BS diabolical next war that is planned.

Wouldn't have been a bad thing. Iran is the real problem.

I don't believe we should have invaded Iraq. I think we should have cut a deal with Saddam.

We should have taken out NK first. Then SK could have done all the garrisoning. Then turn to Iraq and do not dismantle their gov. Finally hit Iran and use Iraqi forces to garrison. Problem solved. Time to turn internal.

Pretty sure we have had generations of sanctions to no avail.

They are to no avail when other nations...and our own sometimes.....circumvent them.

Cracking down hard on them would start a wider war.

I got my brief in May but none of this stuff he’s saying was mentioned, just the 2003 invasion of Iraq but I was only in an SOF unit.

Rumsfeld opposed actions against DPRK

Not useless and retarded, useful and sociopathic.

Useful to who is the right question.

https://www.iranintl.com/en/202302157586

https://apnews.com/article/iran-nuclear-program-iaea-yemen-israel-gaza-95fa2eea23f4cfc58678f60b8715d93e


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They'll cap off a nuke before the US does fuck-all other than fund everyone but our own citizens.

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Irans-Dark-Fleet-of-Oil-Tankers-Continues-to-Thrive-Despite-Sanctions.amp.html

The concept is sustainable war.

We needed Iraq as a counter balance to Iran in the region .

I watched it.  Some of my thoughts at the time like maintaining a military footprint in the region (in Iraq) as we vacated from KSA were-according to this guy-true.  

I think KSA has since seen the error of their ways.  Maybe that’s why we allow the Iranians to do what they do;  militarily threaten the western aligned ME OPEC nations to further push same to align with U.S. interests out of fear of the Mullahs.  It doesn’t hurt that said nations keep production lines open when they buy U.S. weapons.  Maybe in that context Iran IS the stability in the region, but I digress.

Initially, there were many Iraqis that indeed welcomed the coalition forces as Saddam was deposed due to his excesses and that of his entitled little fuckhead son Uday, but then Sunnis that lost their privileged status in a majority Shia country organized and started an insurgency often referred to as the “Sunni Uprising” that metastasized around the time the Blackwater contractors were ambushed, killed, and their charred, dismembered bodies hung from a bridge in or near Fallujah.  That insurgency lasted until the “Sunni Awakening” when Iraqis became tired of being slaughtered on the streets and in their homes and took to the streets to police their neighborhoods and communities.  That’s when things REALLY started to calm down with Iraqis actually naming names of insurgents to U.S. forces, but the Marines I spoke with often said things weren’t that active even as far back as 2005.  That was in the Sunni Triangle nonetheless.  Nature of an insurgency I suppose.  

I think things were pretty well off by 2008 just before Obama was sworn in and he pulled out prematurely.  We have (or had until recently-not sure if we still do) a BDE in Iraq on what is basically a stability mission.  We should have treated Iraq like a W Germany, Japan, or Sous Korea and left a substantial presence in-country, but as soon as we take military action that lasts more than a week, the leftist peaceniks are out there beating the drum of surrender and defeat to win elected office, and it works.  One sees the same language / talking points exercised here.

Which is the real lesson here;  if the U.S. goes to war, it has to end quickly or the left will exploit U.S. casualties to consolidate political power and leave the U.S. weaker than before we were when the conflict started.  The left doesn’t care what the cost to America is as long as they are given an opportunity to increase their power over you.  

If Iranian Mullah’s had been removed, the outlook in SWA would certainly look different now.  That of course assumes it could have been done quickly enough to circumvent anti-American sentiment organizing here at home to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  

ETA:  Militarily, Iran would be a metaphorical speed bump with logistics being the more difficult challenge as we maneuvered to secure nuclear sites deep in Iran.

Not really as most troubles in the middle east stem from Iran.

Of course, the CIA telling everyone else about how the CIA is always right and everyone else is wrong.

It's like everyone's forgotten the "Axis of Evil" speech from 2002.

No need to invade and send ground forces.

Hit some strategic targets, cut off trade with the world, drone strike any trucks coming into Iran.  The people can rise up like 1979 and install a decent government.  IF not they can suffer.

I've got a video that shows what the CIA does and is good at

Correct. And smell their own farts.

Lots of money to be made there no doubt. Another big thing is taking out all strong nationalist leaders. They’re an impediment to one world government.

Blegh!

The thing about many dusty shitholes is that they are tenuous at best. Very few drinking water sources. Most of their food will come from a couple of imported locations. They tend to drop eleventy kids and have huge passels that one dude needs to feed.

If you are going to make war "invasion" is a fucking stupid way to go about it.


-edit-
For those of you that will intentionally misinterpret the above.
Bomb the oil wells. Bomb the pumping stations. Bomb the ports. Blow up the damns. Blow up the water wells.
Iran will cease to exist in 90 days.  
That "Death to America" horse shit might hold on until they figure out what that actually looks like in outcome.
Anyone who utters the words "humanitarian crisis" afterward should be tossed out of a helicopter

I'm sure the Iranian people would welcome us with open arms, just like the Iraqis did in 2003

That's sarcasm by the way.

QFT

Iran is something that should have been fixed 40 years ago


Now either quarantine them, proxy war them, or nuke them

Boots on the ground ain't gonna work

What would you say if I told you…..

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Are you talking about Texas or Iran?

Maybe not but they sure as fuck wouldn’t miss the Iranian government https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68840881.amp

Caspian is a bit out of reach from the gulf

Lol, they had ample opportunity to topple Iran without firing a shot in 2008 and again in 2013 and not only did they not take those opportunities, they sent appeasement cash.  They are using Iran as a proxy pariah state against Israel who they hate more. They need Iran.

Trade has been cut hence China and Russia

https://www.ft.com/content/6b944786-9809-11e9-8cfb-30c211dcd229

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https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/irans-foreign-minister-calls-eu-sanctions-regrettable-2024-04-23/


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@Pallas

+1

I think the U.S. government should have found the right people to bring Saddam back into the fold, and taken down the government of Iran, by whatever means necessary.  It’s unbelievable how the U.S. government has fucked things up.  Allowing Iran to develop nuclear weapons was colossally stupid.

They want Iran to have nukes, they believe that they’re “leveling the playing field” with Israel by promoting proliferation.

Enabling Iran against Israel allows them to undermine Israel and maintain deniability. It’s their butt buddies in the Muslim Brotherhood that concocted this scenario. The MB also gets deniability “it’s those Shia bastards in Hezbollah, not us!”

Got to sell them baseball and apple pie with a side of babes in bikinis.

Everyone thinks 6th century barbarians can just be changed in a few years.

take a look at a map of iran and let me know how easy it would be to 'cut off trade with the world' since places like roosha, chyna and best korea arent gonna cooperate. and you have a large coastline, so trucks arent what you would need to target.

a war with iran can only be fought effectively by this country with nukes. its larger than iraq, mountainous and would require a very large conventional ground force to effectively deal with the country. and where are you gonna get the huge number of troops to wage war? draft them? not gonna fly unless iran nukes us first.

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Look at the basic competence of any government agency you've interacted with and remember that the ones you haven't dealt with are not a damn bit better or more competent.

You guys mean another deal with Saddam right?  He was our boy before he was our bad guy.

Ha! Brilliant repartee

I assume you're of the "Rescue them from themselves" war college of democracy spreading?