Trump Explains Why He Called Off Airstrike on Iran
“Not proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone.”
Thursday night, at the last minute, Trump called off three strikes on Iran.
Friday morning, Trump explained why he called off the strikes. As he tells it, he reasoned that the potential casualty rate would be too high, that the response was not proportionate to having a drone struck down, and that the US would continue to pursue sanctions as a means of cracking down, at least for the time being.
In his own words:
President Obama made a desperate and terrible deal with Iran – Gave them 150 Billion Dollars plus I.8 Billion Dollars in CASH! Iran was in big trouble and he bailed them out. Gave them a free path to Nuclear Weapons, and SOON. Instead of saying thank you, Iran yelled…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 21, 2019
….Death to America. I terminated deal, which was not even ratified by Congress, and imposed strong sanctions. They are a much weakened nation today than at the beginning of my Presidency, when they were causing major problems throughout the Middle East. Now they are Bust!….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 21, 2019
….On Monday they shot down an unmanned drone flying in International Waters. We were cocked & loaded to retaliate last night on 3 different sights when I asked, how many will die. 150 people, sir, was the answer from a General. 10 minutes before the strike I stopped it, not….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 21, 2019
….proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone. I am in no hurry, our Military is rebuilt, new, and ready to go, by far the best in the world. Sanctions are biting & more added last night. Iran can NEVER have Nuclear Weapons, not against the USA, and not against the WORLD!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 21, 2019
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Comments
We’ve owed Iran a bloody nose since 1979. Payment is way overdue.
Which 150 Iranian men who weren’t even alive in 1979 get to die ? Who gets to scream in pointless agony? Who gets forced to pay the taxes to pay for the adventure? Which Americans get to die if something goes wrong, or if the conflict escalates?
I’ll vote for you on the last two questions. Leave the rest of us out of it.
Carter or Reagan should have collected that bill when the debt was fresh. Holding a grudge over decades is how they operate; the only way out of that cycle is genocide. If we engage in that thinking too, it’s hard to make a case that we are responsible enough to own nukes but they aren’t.
Gave em one in 88. Read up on Op Praying Mantis. We’ll do it again.
Payment with compounded interest, he should destroy their power grid.
Scott Adams has a better take, or actually several better takes, on what Trump might be up to.
https://blog.dilbert.com/2019/06/21/episode-573-scott-adams-fixing-the-iran-situation-for-you/
That was good. Thanks for the link.
Adams is good in text but far too tedious to listen to. Even playing him at 2x speed is just too damn slow. We all have a finite allotment of time; at my age I don’t want to waste it on windbags who can’t get to the damn point.
Thank you for the link. I have watched Scott Adams (creator of the Dilbert cartoon) before – his video show is one for fans, and amazingly enjoyable because he takes his time to make his arguments.
I personally prefer to watch him when he speaks – I tried to listen to the audio link in the article you posted, but without visually seeing him much is lost – and he does have a bit of a droning voice.
For those who aren’t boycotting YouTube, here is a link to watch Scott Adams’ vlog Episode 573 “Fixing the Iran Situation for You.”
Honestly, his reasoning makes sense to me. Damaging material is wrong but it’s not yet worth killing over.
The problem in Iran is they’ve got no way to back down, and they know it, but they also have no real way to win, and I think their leadership knows it. We are no longer dependent on Iranian oil or the Straits of Hormus, so we have time to explore the options on how to resolve this without blowing up the Middle East again. Iran does not have that luxury anymore.
The Democrats are all desperately disappointed that Trump didn’t attack – you could tell this morning that everyone in the MSM and all of their websites had all of their TRUMP=WARMONGER! hit pieces ready to go, and Schumer was issuing statements about Trump blundering us into war – and then suddenly OOPS Trump didn’t really start a war after all!!!! So now they’re desperately rewriting all of their attacks to say “how come Trump didn’t attack? Trump is weak, he has to attack now!!!!”
I know – it was hilarious to watch them suddenly spin the “crazy orange-man-bad is going to get us in a war” to “crazy-orange-man-bad is weak before our enemies!”
So if and when PDJT has to respond to another, more provocative military action by the mullahs and their revolutionary guard with a couple dozen well placed cruise missiles, we have the media and the Dem clown car occupants on record saying how very necessary strong military action really is.
They just can’t help denouncing his EVERY move, playing into his hand at this point.
If those 150 theoretical casualties included a portion of regular Iranian military personnel and/civilians (vs. Revolutionary Guard), then this decision makes sense. The Islamic regime distrusts both, and in the long game both should be treated as potential assets in ending it. Racking up casualties among either is not to our advantage.
I agree with the President’s actions, in this matter. There is no need to launch an immediate military response to Iran’s actions. In the last couple of weeks, Iran’s action have lost them support from Germany. GERMANY. The Uber Iran Loving Nation of Germany. When the Germans go public with Iran criticism, you can bet that there are no European countries who are willing to support Iran. And, now it is going to get worse, as the US ramps up sanctions against companies and nations trading with Iran. It also gives the US time to build a broader coalition of allied nations.
Now the ball is back in Iran’s court, with considerable top spin. Further military or terrorist actions will only serve to reduce international support for Iran and increase support for US actions.
Though I am not positive, I think that the recent report on the last Syrian release of chemicals, which led to the US bombing Syria for the second time, may have had something to do with Trump’s hesitation. Now, we have reports on both chemical releases which cast considerable doubt on who was the responsible party there. Here is the latest: https://needtoknow.news/2019/05/syria-leaked-chemical-weapons-watchdog-report-suggests-assad-not-responsible-for-2018-gas-attack/.
That should have been the second question he asked. (The first being, “How many of our people will be killed or injured?”)
We’d topple the government but we are tired of playing babysitter a la Iraq.
Ahh what to do with a whiny little pest like the Ayatollah.
DJT’s reasoning seems sound.
It’s most unusual for anyone in government to bother to give us a plausible explanation for anything without watering it down to the point of useless, or just lying outright. I could get used to this. It’s nice to be treated like an adult.
The Iranian’s were hoping for a disproportionate response so they could break the US sanctions. President Trump is the wrong man to tangle with using strategy. Excellent move, Mr. President!!!
Here is a comment I posted at Breitbart a few hours ago:
“I am certain that our military learned plenty from the curtailed attack. I guarantee that Iran believed that this is it. War. Their nerves were rattled. That is why Iran is now appealing to the UN for protection.
Iran was forced into action which means that their radar and communications lit up, weapons re-aimed, ships and other assets moved into positions, etc… It’s a war of nerves and Trump immediately followed up with a request to pow-wow while their nerves are rattled. This was only a test. But we gained a big edge.”
After suffering that terrifying moment where they were about to be destroyed, maybe they won’t be so quick with the threats about destroying the “Great Satan”.
With some evidence, I’m of the opinion that they were pushed into this (or at least encouraged) by American Democrat leaders. We know for certain that both Kerry and Pelosi have maintained close relations with the Iranian leadership, and nothing would please them more than for Trump to be blamed for starting a war by retaliating, and I can see why the mullahs would be happier with Trump gone in 2020.
Someone read their copy of “The Art of War.”
Tell the Shiittehead mullahs that, beginning now, all US aircraft, manned, unmanned, will be carrying Qur’ans. We need not tell the Muzzies that their book is strapped to each Sidewinder.
I highly recommend Scott Adams’ video.
There’s a lot more strategy going on than is being reported. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YPJiEyGYigA
I’ll have to admit, this was genius. In one stroke, he terrified our enemies, knocking them right off their expectations and forcing them to scramble for some sort of response. They never expected he would have the courage to do it, and now they’ve been reduced to gibbering nonsense in press releases.
The Iranians were pretty well set back too.
I saw what you did, there!
I wonder what Iranian soldiers and civilians in harm’s way think about a US President of the Great Satan, who is careful of their lives.
Exactly! He just told, as Scott Adams said in his vlog, that the President of the United States cares more about the people of Iran than their government and leaders.
It is hard when you have a nation, a whole religion, that prefers death over peace and prosperity that allows their people to serve their god……..
Iran, prior to the 1979 revolution, was oppressed by the Shah but they had so much more freedom, prosperity, opportunity for ALL (men and women)! The oppression and control today are similar to Lenin’s and Stalin’s USSR, to Mao’s China, to today’s Cuba, North Korea, or Venezuela.
The people are split – many love the US, many hate us as they’ve been taught to hate. But when Obama refused to help the people during the failed Green Revolution (Note: BBC video so it is biased to the left, calling the new “president” “moderate” ha! his “greatest achievement was the disastrous Obama “treaty” so….yeah.), he put more hate for America in the Iranian peoples’ hearts than almost anything else could.
I pray they can overcome the theocracy that is literally killing them……by starvation, by isolation.
This from yesterday:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/06/21/iranian-americans-march-in-dc-call-for-regime-change-in-iran/
I wonder….
Of course we didn’t have planes in the air; that’s why you didn’t see them on your radar. What? You think we’ve got invisible planes?
Well, technically, that is the point of having stealth fighters and bombers. To make them invisible to radar. They’re not invisible to the Mark 1 Mod 0 eyeball.
It’s important to have justification for any military action, especially one other than you’re innOR hot water for failing to keep your dingle dangle out of strange territory.
Who the casualties are is just as important as how many.
I still recall the strike at the Iranian Intel HQ after their attempt to assassinate Bush Sr.
I believe a response was justified in that instance.
But the strike was in the middle of the night when the only people there were cleaning staff and night guards – neither of which had any input in setting HQ actions and goals.
If you Trump, you know this is the tip of an iceberg he has lying in wait. And he knows the Mullahs know it.
Head games. A win win.
As a previous poster said, a win against the enemies of America, and against Iran as well.
I took this as a clear warning to Iran that they better make sure no US serviceman is killed by their shenanigans. It also puts them off balance — they don’t know what he will do next. That’s how Trump likes it– keep em guessing. He’s done it to China, the Norks, and today to the Dems (again).
Our VSG keeps me chuckling.
I’ve read a lot of idiotic commentary on Trump’s rationale. None more idiotic than Kellyanne Conway’s deranged husband, George, who hates Trump all the time no-matter what.
He emotes on Twitter that if Trump didn’t realize this response to the drone shootdown was disproportionate until ten minutes before the strike then Trump needs to resign for lack of judgement.
It should be obvious to any sane person why Trump would have made such an announcement. Since that clearly leaves out denizen let me use the smallest words possible to explain it.
Trump wants the mullahs to think he is capable of such an act. He doesn’t want them to believe they can predict what he will do if they provoke him. So it’s best not to provoke him.
Here’s the kind of thing the mullahs will do if they believe they know exactly what a US President will do in the face of the gravest provocation; mass murder on US soil. In the nation’s capitol no less. Because they know that other than begging for a nuclear deal and sending them billions of dollars in cash, like with his red lines in Syria Obama would have done worse than nothing had the Iranian agents pulled this off. He would have refused to link the Iranian government’s ties to the act.
And of course denizen would have been fine with that.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/11/iranians-charged-us-assassination-plot
“…A dangerous confrontation was developing on Tuesday between the US and Iran after the Obama administration directly blamed the Iranian governnment for an alleged plot to blow up the Saudi ambassador and scores of others at a Washington restaurant with the help of a Mexican drug cartel.
The US attorney-general Eric Holder said Iran would be “held to account” over what he described as a flagrant abuse of international law. While the US says military action remains on the table, it is at present seeking instead to work through diplomatic and financial means to further isolate Iran.
The US Treasury department immediately imposed sanctions against five individuals allegedly linked to the plot.
Two men, one an an American-Iranian, Manssor Arbabsiar, 56, and Gholam Shakuri, an Iranian, have been charged in New York with the alleged “murder-for-hire” plot to pay a Mexican drug cartel to help assassinate Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi ambassador and close confidante of the Saudi king.
…According to the US justice department, the aim was to bomb a restaurant in Washington frequented by Jubeir with the possibility of a hundred or more bystanders being killed in the explosion. US officials said the Iranians put a $1.5m price tag on the assassination.”
I suppose denizen if just fine with Iranian proxies Hezbollah and Hamas operating on our southern border with the Mexican drug cartels from Brownsville to San Diego as long as the Iranian operatives weren’t born until after 1979 or whatever his incoherent Occasional-Cortex style rant was supposed to mean.
But note the Obama administration did nothing to hold the Iranian government to account. Obama’s treasury department linked five Iranian officials to the plot but refused to admit that no one in Iran would have authorized this without the “Supreme Leader’s” consent? This is right up there with the former administration’s hair-splitting about Hamas having a political and military wing as if there are two separate organizations within Hamas and some sort of barrier between the two. That’s ridiculous, but that’s the kind of mental gymnastics the Obama administration had to be willing to engage in to get their precious unenforceable, unmonitored, “on-your-honor, Iran,” nuclear abortion while turning a blind eye to everything else.
denizen’s blather aside, no Iranian was going to die for what happened 40 years ago. They will die for what they’re doing now. denizen clearly values not knowing what he’s talking about because that would spoil the fun of going of on uninformed rants. But the drone was shot down by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Whether 18 or 60 if an Iranian is or was a member of the IRGC (and the Baseej which can best be thought of as the part-time reserve force for the IRGC. The split between the regular Iranian forces and the IRGC can best be thought of as the split between the WWII Wehrmacht and the Waffen SS.
I can just hear it now; the 1943 version of denizen making excuses for the members of the SS Totenkopfverbande (Death’s Head units) because they weren’t even born when Hitler tried to overthrow the government in his 1923 beer hall putsch in Munich and most weren’t old enough to vote when he became chancellor.
I’m not going to even ask if denizen spent even a day in uniform. For two reasons; 1) anybody can say anything on the internet and 2) so what if he did? So did Bradley Manning and Johnny Walker “Red.”
I get why Ilhan Omar hates America and it should be no mystery to anyone else. Tucker Carlson keeps asking. It’s an ideology called Islam that commands her to hate non-Muslims, and by extension countries ruled by non-Muslims. It is after all Islam that divides the world into Dar al Islam (the house of Islam) where Muslims rule and Dar al Harb (the house of war) where non-Muslims have not submitted to the rule of Islam. It amuses me that western pols keep insisting that we’re not at war with Islam. According to orthodox Islam, both Sunni and Shia, we are at war with Islam.
Surah (chapter) 60 commands Muslims from the opening ayah (verse) not to love non-Muslims but that they are to hate Allah’s enemies as their own. Which is why Allah commands Muslims to follow Abraham’s example in verse 4 when he and his followers declare their hatred for their own people. In Abraham’s case he declares his “animosity and hatred forever” to his own father until he worships Allah alone.
“There has already been for you an excellent pattern in Abraham and those with him, when they said to their people, “Indeed, we are disassociated from you and from whatever you worship other than Allah . We have denied you, and there has appeared between us and you animosity and hatred forever until you believe in Allah alone” except for the saying of Abraham to his father, “I will surely ask forgiveness for you, but I have not [power to do] for you anything against Allah . Our Lord, upon You we have relied, and to You we have returned, and to You is the destination.”
But Muslims are not to pray for non-Muslims, not even for Allah to enlighten them. According to the Quran and the ahadith collections Allah wants to fill hell with the souls of men and jinn (genies).
The whole of chapter 9 is filled with exhortations to Muslims to hate non-Muslims, to violently subjugate the “people of the book” (Jews and Christians primarily) and that they are the instrument of Allah’s wrath in this life while hellfire is Allah’s instrument of wrath in the next. Surah 3:28 commands Muslims not to take non-Muslims as friends, for if they do they have turned their backs on Allah. But if they fear they are in danger from non-Muslims they can pretend to be friends with non-Muslims. The verse uses a form of the word taqqiyyah, which is Arabic for concealement, one of the four main forms of divinely approved lying to protect Islam and the ummah.
Of course Ilhan Omar doesn’t show any gratitude to America. We haven’t accepted Allah and Muhammad as his prophet. She may not be particularly religious and I’m sure she never read the Quran as I’ve never met more than a few Muslims who grew up in the West (Omar got here when she was thirteen) who have. Gratitude? She’s supposed to hate us, not be grateful to us. Along with her virulent anti-Semitism (which is half the equation right there) she is supposed to revile us. She would have absorbed that much at least. Muslims don’t need to read the Quran or regularly attend Friday sermons at the Mosque (when the sheikh or Imam isn’t preaching that western women are prostitutes, pieces of “uncovered meat” as the former grand mufti of Australia put it, you can guarantee they’re preaching some other form of hate i.e. against non-Muslims) to absorb that much through osmosis.
I’ve read a lot of idiotic commentary on Trump’s rationale. None more idiotic than Kellyanne Conway’s deranged husband, George, who hates Trump all the time no-matter what.
He emotes on Twitter that if Trump didn’t realize this response to the drone shootdown was disproportionate until ten minutes before the strike then Trump needs to resign for lack of judgement.
It should be obvious to any sane person why Trump would have made such an announcement. Since that clearly leaves out denizen let me use the smallest words possible to explain it.
Trump wants the mullahs to think he is capable of such an act. He doesn’t want them to believe they can predict what he will do if they provoke him. So it’s best not to provoke him.
Here’s the kind of thing the mullahs will do if they believe they know exactly what a US President will do in the face of the gravest provocation; mass murder on US soil. In the nation’s capitol no less. Because they know that other than begging for a nuclear deal and sending them billions of dollars in cash, like with his red lines in Syria Obama would have done worse than nothing had the Iranian agents pulled this off. He would have refused to link the Iranian government’s ties to the act.
And of course denizen would have been fine with that.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/11/iranians-charged-us-assassination-plot
“…A dangerous confrontation was developing on Tuesday between the US and Iran after the Obama administration directly blamed the Iranian governnment for an alleged plot to blow up the Saudi ambassador and scores of others at a Washington restaurant with the help of a Mexican drug cartel.
The US attorney-general Eric Holder said Iran would be “held to account” over what he described as a flagrant abuse of international law. While the US says military action remains on the table, it is at present seeking instead to work through diplomatic and financial means to further isolate Iran.
The US Treasury department immediately imposed sanctions against five individuals allegedly linked to the plot.
Two men, one an an American-Iranian, Manssor Arbabsiar, 56, and Gholam Shakuri, an Iranian, have been charged in New York with the alleged “murder-for-hire” plot to pay a Mexican drug cartel to help assassinate Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi ambassador and close confidante of the Saudi king.
…According to the US justice department, the aim was to bomb a restaurant in Washington frequented by Jubeir with the possibility of a hundred or more bystanders being killed in the explosion. US officials said the Iranians put a $1.5m price tag on the assassination.”
I suppose denizen if just fine with Iranian proxies Hezbollah and Hamas operating on our southern border with the Mexican drug cartels from Brownsville to San Diego as long as the Iranian operatives weren’t born until after 1979 or whatever his incoherent Occasional-Cortex style rant was supposed to mean.
But note the Obama administration did nothing to hold the Iranian government to account. Obama’s treasury department linked five Iranian officials to the plot but refused to admit that no one in Iran would have authorized this without the “Supreme Leader’s” consent? This is right up there with the former administration’s hair-splitting about Hamas having a political and military wing as if there are two separate organizations within Hamas and some sort of barrier between the two. That’s ridiculous, but that’s the kind of mental gymnastics the Obama administration had to be willing to engage in to get their precious unenforceable, unmonitored, “on-your-honor, Iran,” nuclear abortion while turning a blind eye to everything else.
denizen’s blather aside, no Iranian was going to die for what happened 40 years ago. They will die for what they’re doing now. denizen clearly values not knowing what he’s talking about because that would spoil the fun of going of on uninformed rants. But the drone was shot down by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Whether 18 or 60 if an Iranian is or was a member of the IRGC (and the Baseej which can best be thought of as the part-time reserve force for the IRGC. The split between the regular Iranian forces and the IRGC can best be thought of as the split between the WWII Wehrmacht and the Waffen SS.
I can just hear it now; the 1943 version of denizen making excuses for the members of the SS Totenkopfverbande (Death’s Head units) because they weren’t even born when Hitler tried to overthrow the government in his 1923 beer hall putsch in Munich and most weren’t old enough to vote when he became chancellor.
I’m not going to even ask if denizen spent even a day in uniform. For two reasons; 1) anybody can say anything on the internet and 2) so what if he did? So did Bradley Manning and Johnny Walker “Red.”
I get why Ilhan Omar hates America and it should be no mystery to anyone else. Tucker Carlson keeps asking. It’s an ideology called Islam that commands her to hate non-Muslims, and by extension countries ruled by non-Muslims. It is after all Islam that divides the world into Dar al Islam (the house of Islam) where Muslims rule and Dar al Harb (the house of war) where non-Muslims have not submitted to the rule of Islam. It amuses me that western pols keep insisting that we’re not at war with Islam. According to orthodox Islam, both Sunni and Shia, we are at war with Islam.
Surah (chapter) 60 commands Muslims from the opening ayah (verse) not to love non-Muslims but that they are to hate Allah’s enemies as their own. Which is why Allah commands Muslims to follow Abraham’s example in verse 4 when he and his followers declare their hatred for their own people. In Abraham’s case he declares his “animosity and hatred forever” to his own father until he worships Allah alone.
“There has already been for you an excellent pattern in Abraham and those with him, when they said to their people, “Indeed, we are disassociated from you and from whatever you worship other than Allah . We have denied you, and there has appeared between us and you animosity and hatred forever until you believe in Allah alone” except for the saying of Abraham to his father, “I will surely ask forgiveness for you, but I have not [power to do] for you anything against Allah . Our Lord, upon You we have relied, and to You we have returned, and to You is the destination.”
But Muslims are not to pray for non-Muslims, not even for Allah to enlighten them. According to the Quran and the ahadith collections Allah wants to fill hell with the souls of men and jinn (genies).
The whole of chapter 9 is filled with exhortations to Muslims to hate non-Muslims, to violently subjugate the “people of the book” (Jews and Christians primarily) and that they are the instrument of Allah’s wrath in this life while hellfire is Allah’s instrument of wrath in the next. Surah 3:28 commands Muslims not to take non-Muslims as friends, for if they do they have turned their backs on Allah. But if they fear they are in danger from non-Muslims they can pretend to be friends with non-Muslims. The verse uses a form of the word taqqiyyah, which is Arabic for concealement, one of the four main forms of divinely approved lying to protect Islam and the ummah.
Of course Ilhan Omar doesn’t show any gratitude to America. We haven’t accepted Allah and Muhammad as his prophet. She may not be particularly religious and I’m sure she never read the Quran as I’ve never met more than a few Muslims who grew up in the West (Omar got here when she was thirteen) who have. Gratitude? She’s supposed to hate us, not be grateful to us. Along with her virulent anti-Semitism (which is half the equation right there) she is supposed to revile us. She would have absorbed that much at least. Muslims don’t need to read the Quran or regularly attend Friday sermons at the Mosque (when the sheikh or Imam isn’t preaching that western women are prostitutes, pieces of “uncovered meat” as the former grand mufti of Australia put it, you can guarantee they’re preaching some other form of hate i.e. against non-Muslims) to absorb that much through osmosis.
I have no idea how I managed to make a duplicate comment.
But it gives me the opportunity to comment on Iran’s claim that Trump tried to send a “back-channel” communique to Iran asking for talks.
That’s a joke. Not that I doubt the story. But he’s said the same thing publicly several times. It’s not like Iran is divulging some state secret.
I bet Trump never intended the strikes to go ahead. The whole thing was a demonstration to the mullahs of how serious he is. He intended to to scare them, and he did.