As expected, and very cleanly and clearly. No attempt to obfuscate:
At least two airbases housing US troops in Iraq have been hit by more than a dozen ballistic missiles, according to the US Department of Defence.
Iranian state TV says the attack is a retaliation after the country’s top commander Qasem Soleimani was killed in a drone strike in Baghdad, on the orders of US President Donald Trump.
As I noted when Iran general (and war hero) Qasem Soleimani was assassinated, Iran pretty much had to retaliate.
Soleimani was effectively the most powerful General in Iran. Think of him as a combination of Eisenhower and someone who fought on the front lines: to Iranians, a genuine hero. The man who actually was most responsible for defeating ISIS, among other things.
You could regard him as the second most important man in Iraq.
If the US could kill him without consequences, no one in Iran’s leadership was safe, except possibly Khameini (the Supreme Leader) and maybe not even him.
Retaliating is a matter of personal survival for Iran’s leadership. Personal.
But Soleimani was also tremendously popular. So, as often happens when attacked by outsiders, even Iranians who dislike the Iranian regime have rallied around. (Americans may remember something similar after 9/11.)
I note that Iran has retaliated by hitting military targets. Which is to say: The US killed someone in their military, they have retaliated by attacking the US military. I would say that this is legitimate.
Only bullies think that their victims are obligated to sit still while being hit and not punch back. Oh, and a lot of Americans.
Trump threatened that if Iran retaliated he would hit multiple targets, including cultural ones. Iran has said that if he does so they will escalate, including hitting Israel and Dubai.
What they are trying to indicate is that they are not going to be Iraq. It isn’t going to be some nice clean war where the victim sits still while bombed to shit by US forces and only a few American soldiers die, which no one actually cares about who matters. (No, no, don’t pretend that American leaders actually care about American casualties, their actions indicate they do not and you’ll look like an idiot and a fool.)
Remember that Iran is an ally of both Russia and China. China needs Iran in order to complete its Belt and Road Initiative (the centerpiece of both their economic and alliance strategy and Xi Jinping’s signature policy, upon which his legacy rests). Russia is run by Putin, who has made not allowing the US to destroy any more Russian allies the centerpiece of his foreign policy. It’s why he went into Syria, and it’s why he hates Hilary Clinton so much, as he regarded her as the prime US actor in destroying Libya.
So this war has a real chance of serious escalation. Iraq was isolated and had no friends. Iran is somewhat isolated, yes, but it does have powerful friends who believe it is in their self-interest to keep Iran from being blown into failed state status by the US.
Again, the logic here is the same as Iran’s as regards escalation: If Russia (and China) let the US take out their allies whenever the US wants, then what is to stop the US from just doing that until these countries have no allies left?
This is a dangerous moment, and the US is not in the right here. The US unilaterally caused this problem by assassinating a senior government official. All the whinging on about how Soleimani has been involved in Iranian proxy attacks on the US is ludicrous: The official US policy is to fund and aid terrorists attacking Iran (look it up.) US officials, certainly including every President since Bush, have made decisions leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians and other countries’ military personnel.
This is realpolitik, not some morality play. There are no good guys here, there are just people who are acting on orders or in what they think are the interests of their country. (Or, in Trump’s case, his own interests.)
The correct action right now is to not escalate again. Escalation will lead to a lot of dead people, for no gain for either Iran or the US.
Note that I despise Iran’s regime. I am a left-winger who believes in the equality of men and women, kindness and universal humanity, not in theocratic government. If Iran’s government were to fall tomorrow, I’d be OK with that.
But that’s internal Iranian business. It’s not America’s business to start a war with Iran. It will not make anything better, any more than attacking Iraq did, or attacking Libya (which now has its famous open air slave markets).
It should also be noted that, if the war happens, the Europeans are going to get slammed with another bunch of refugees. Perhaps they should pre-empt this by sending some troops to Tehran, so that if Trump attacks, he has to kill Germans and French.
Kidding, kidding. I know that the EU has no actual morals and not enough guts to do this. But, y’know, in an alternate universe where they actually had the bravery to stand up to the US either in their own interests, or in something approaching a desire to do the right thing…
We’ll see how this plays out.
But remember, Iran isn’t planning on sitting still and taking it. This isn’t going to be Iraq of Afghanistan. If this turns into a real war, they will hit back with everything they have, rather than hoping that if they just lie there and let the US kick them, the US will stop before kicking them to death.
And China and (especially) Russia don’t want them kicked to death.
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Tom
“All the whinging on about how Soleimani has been involved in US attacks on Iran is ludicrous”
I think you meant: All the whinging on about how Soleimani has been involved in Iranian Proxy Attacks on US Soldiers is ludicrous.
Ian Welsh
Woops. Yes, thank you Tom.
Mark Pontin
And Iran’s Foreign minister Javad Zarif has just stated that his country has “concluded proportionate measures” in terms of retaliation and doesn’t seek war. And Trump has tweeted “All is well.”
So far it’s a performance of tit for tat, in other words. Someone somewhere may still miscalculate and things may still go bad. And if I was the Iranians, I might wait a year or three and then hit some of Trump’s properties when everybody has relaxed.
But in the meantime they really didn’t – and don’t – have too much serious room to escalate.
Mark Pontin
Ian wrote: ‘I know that the EU has no actual morals and not enough guts to do this. But, y’know, in an alternate universe where they actually had the bravery to stand up to the US ….’
In the real world, the Fed has been doing an ongoing daily $1 billion QE to obviate the lack of liquidity in the inter-bank repo markets. The recipient banks include not just U.S. banks, but foreign ones. That means, above all, Deutsche Bank, which continues to be a black hole in the world economy to the tune of $46-50 trillions’ worth of derivatives.
For this and other reasons, therefore, Germany, and thus the EU, will continue to respond ’how high’ whenever the US tells them to jump, even when it’s against their other interests as is the case with the Russian Nordstream II pipeline or sanctions on Iran.
Charlie
I know the Iranian regime is full of authoritarian despots, but I’m really failing to see the downside of the destruction of Dubai. Hitting that playground of the rich would make it personal in a lot of ways and might even have a positive effect on policies if the right message was sent as to why the destruction occurred. As Ian noted in other post, nothing happens until it becomes personal.
Charlie
Going further, threatened retaliation against those two places might be the reason behind Trump’s “All’s well.” But we’ll see if talks begin now.
Ten Bears
“whinging?” Levity aside (pun intended), I have long been a proponent of the best policy for dealing with a bully is punch them in the nose. That if we had had our noses punched sooner we may not have gotten to this point is moot in the generally accepted vernacular. We are here, it is what it is.
The downside to the destruction of Dubai, which left to an increasingly hostile atmosphere hasn’t much future … A number of years ago I suggested all were built along the Mason-Dixon line, and was arguably rightfully criticized for the harm it would reap upon the not-whites trapped there … there is a larger population of not-rich in Dubai that are having a rough enough time of it as it is.
Not unlike quartering the military in civilian centers.
Ten Bears
Wall along the Mason-Dixon line. Stupid smart phone.
450.org
Pompeo is Israel’s pick for Secretary of State. All of Pompeo’s actions prove this assertion. Israel wants America to go to war with Iran. The only way America could “win” a war with Iran is to nuke it. As others have said, the terrain prohibits a successful ground campaign. Donald Trump has proven he will cross any and all lines. He has proven that there are no lines, there is no convention, he will not cross or ignore. In the intervening months, will the Pentagon include nuking Iran as one of its list of options to Trump when things escalate further? Just as it did with the Soleimani assassination? America is basically engaging in gangland, drive-by thuggery at this point and for thugs, all weapons are on the table and all weapons eventually get used. Iran’s hand is forced at this point, existentially. It must attain a nuclear advantage in order to survive. Will Russia and/or China ally with Iran in its existential fight for survival? We’ll see. We’ll see.
450.org
Can someone please find that photo where Soleimani posed over the corpse of a dead American “contractor” after he stabbed said “contractor” in the neck while said “contractor” was sedated? That’s the proof we need to convince Donnie Darko that Soleimani was a warfighter and he made a big mistake assassinating him rather than pardoning him.
I’m sorry of that seems like I’m spewing hate. On second thought, no, I’m not sorry at all. Truth is truth no matter how hateful some may consider it.
Hugh
Trump is an idiot and created a situation that did not need to happen. I agree with Mark Pontin that this tit for tat is an excellent and sane place for both sides to back off. The rhetoric doesn’t bother me and should tone down over time.
A conflict with Iran could cost us several hundred dead and upwards of $500 billion. This is less than than the Iraq War but this is because we would be occupying little or no Iranian territory. It could cost those in the region thousands to tens of thousands of dead. It would likely stop the flow of oil through the Straits of Hormuz for months as well as put everyone’s oil facilities at risk also for months. This would tip the world economy into a pretty severe recession. Iran, a nation of 82 million, would likely end up like Iraq or Syria or Yemen, a permanently failing state.
For his part, Soleimani had been escalating tensions for months with the attacks on tankers, the shooting down of the US drone, and very much more the cruise missile attack on Saudi oil facilities out of Yemen. In Iran, Quds represented the hard line against protesters resulting in hundreds of deaths.
Iran did play a significant part in the fight against ISIS, but mostly on the periphery. It provided support and training in Western Syria, but even more so it was the Russians and Lebanese Hezbollah that saved the Assad junta. It was the US with the Kurds who took out the core of ISIS and the US with parts of the Iraqi army principally and with Iranian backed militias playing a secondary role that drove ISIS out of Mosul and most of Northern Iraq.
Ché Pasa
Whoa. Propaganda is a drug worse than religion as the opiate of the people. Both sides in this particular conflict seem to understand that very well, so here we are.
A pause for the moment in the titting for tatting. Whether it will last is unknowable, and I won’t make predictions about this “new” war in the Middle East, but I will say that Trump has itched to whack Iran from the outset of his campaign, putting the lie to his non-intervention bullcrap from day one.
Reminder: He’s a bully. He’s a conman. He lies.
The Iranians seem to know and understand that; what they do or don’t do about it is the question.
Europe doesn’t matter at this point. They have sidelined themselves into irrelevance many times over. No, this is between the bully in the White House, the US military (also out for revenge for what they believe is the mess Iran has been responsible for in Iraq and elsewhere) , Israel and the bully still ruling there despite all, the Saudi kleptocracy and the bully ruling there, and the Islamic Republic and its mullahs.
The Islamic Republic is tenacious and scrappy and has long been in survival mode. Losing their top general is no easy thing for them to deal with, but they’ve dealt with so many crises over the years, and they have a particular view of these things that is alien to the West. Incomprehensible.
The bully in the White House has no idea what he’s dealing with, and no one can explain it to him. But someone apparently told him he did something stupid. And he may not win this time.
The missile barrage on the two remote bases in Iraq did not inspire the bully in the White House to glass Tehran, so there’s that. At least. The problem is that there are no calmer heads left in Washington. It’s all bloodlust all the time, on every side of the aisle, through every high profile think tank, and every media outlet is eager for more war.
More acts of extermination — like the destruction of dozens of cities, towns and villages that commenced on the arrival of Trump in the White House — is almost certain, almost regardless of who sits in the Big Chair. It’s baked in.
It doesn’t matter what we, the Rabble, want, either.
What the Iranian Rabble wants, though… if the crowds at the funerals are any indication, it’s not pretty.
Strap in. The ride gets bumpier from this point.
450.org
This is odd. Is it a head fake? The Iranian missile strike against the American bases in Iraq was allegedly, according to some sources, a complete flop and allegedly the plan was divulged to Iraq prior to the strike giving America ample time to prepare for it should it have been successful. It sounds like Kabuki Theater. What’s going on? This makes no sense. Or, is America lying about the strike’s success to downplay the tit for tat? Wow, if so, talk about fake news.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/01/08/iran-launches-missile-attack-us-bases-iraq-latest-news/
450.org
Also, the Ukrainian plane crashing shortly after takeoff from Tehran en route to Ukraine can’t be a coincidence. It was a Boeing 737-800, by the way. The plot thickens as the pot gets stirred. First, you make a roux.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/01/08/after-boeing-crash-near-tehran-who-will-investigate/
Joan
Another migrant crisis in Europe would be really bad. I’m not just pearl-clutching at Europeans enjoying a high standard of living and not wanting to share it. This could cause Europe to blow up, swing way to the right, and elect anyone who promises to put people on a train and send them off somewhere. The last time that happened was only two generations ago. It’s not over and done with; there’s a significant likelihood of it happening again.
Charlie
@450
I do believe the local militias gave an edict to stay away from US based in Iraq shortly after the general’s death. I for one can’t make heads or tails of the casualty counts, if any, that would be associated with the missile strikes. Some US friendlies on the Iraqi side might have given a head’s up.
@Ten Bears
Yes, that is a downside, though the non-rich in Dubai tend to suffer more than us poors stateside. This isn’t a morality play though. It’s justice. Plus it is possible to escape. One aspect that isn’t likely with a wall.
450.org
Charlie, yes, details are sketchy at best, but let’s roll with the Pentagon’s version of events which is Iran’s missile strike was an incompetent and feckless attempt unlike its incredibly spectacular feat when it was blamed for the drone strike against the Saudi refineries that it allegedly coordinated through the Houthis in Yemen. Either the intelligence that asserted Iran was responsible for the drone strikes against the Saudi refineries was a lie, or the Pentagon’s claim about the extent and effectiveness of the recent missile attack on American bases in Iraq is a lie. Iran can’t be both precision experts and imprecise incompetents.
Charlie
@450
True. Sounds too much like the “Putin as diabolical genius and blumbering idiot” at the same time neoliberal crock of garbage. We might see a pause in hostilities for the time being though. Might.
bruce wilder
Ché Pasa: Propaganda is a drug worse than religion . . .
Propaganda draws on the same eagerness to believe and the same appetite for meaning, but the sheer volume has been amped up past 11 by the technologies of the communications revolutions.
Trump, reality teevee star, is a fish swimming in an ocean of propaganda. The birther-in-chief knows full well that the truth of a charge is unrelated to its effect; what matters is the funnel hypnosis provides to the lizard brain of emotional associations. But, it would be wrong to imagine Trump has any detachment from what he does or his own understanding of why he does it. Like a fish, he navigates and propels himself pushing against the water in which he is submerged, but like a fish he knows not “wet”.
The problem, as I see it, is that most people are in the water with him and do not know it. Caitlin J opined the other day that Americans are the most propagandized people on earth, and I might believe it if I had never been to China.
The geopolitics — I am sure there must be some though I could not account what they are — are less important for the dynamics than what appears on teevee screens and Twitter feeds and flows thru the mouths of mindless pundits who became “experts” two seconds ago. It is dreamscape, this ocean of propaganda, where the laws of cause-and-effect are in flux, part of the unfolding “meaning” of a spectacle that may not mean much except that no one is really paying attention to what matters, because people at the top, people in charge, those in the driver’s seat, have been in a virtual world so long that they have lost consciousness that there is a real, functional world that might actually break down as a consequence of what they do.
Ché Pasa
@Bruce
+1
Stirling S Newberry
Trump got away with it. Iran took pitifull revenge which did not hurt Trump in any meaningful way. To Trump, this means he will do it again because it got him out of danger.
Bank on it.
NR
Bruce Wilder:
What you wrote about Trump unfortunately goes for a LOT of other Republicans, too. This current generation of Republican politicians is the first to be consumers, rather than producers, of Fox News propaganda. The ramifications of this are incredibly dangerous since they aren’t just posturing to fool the rubes, they actually believe their own lies. Honestly, it’s only a matter of time before that comes back to bite us in some horrible way.
450.org
Too funny, except it’s not. Trump, who has repeatedly decried and insulted NATO, is now calling for greater NATO involvement in the Middle East. He will send them the bill. You can’t satirize this shit. It’s already satire. Tragic comedy, in fact. He was effectively incoherent for his entire speech. I think he wrote this one himself. He was slurring his words and he was breathing heavy. Too many mispronunciations to count. He was all over the place. Pure chaos.
Make NATO Great Again
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/trump-calls-for-increased-nato-involvement-in-the-middle-east/
Ten Bears
They didn’t miss. “Counting coup” is not scalping, not taking your dead enemies’ hair, a white-man thing. Counting coup is taking a lock of your sleeping enemies’ hair. The Iranians deliberately missed. They could have landed those missiles on a barracks, or mess tent. They landed them in an empty adjacent field. We got our hair cut. They counted coup.
Let’s not miss the point: they can land a missile anywhere within the region. Anywhere.
Tom
Satellite pictures now available of the bases. Since Iran used SRBMs, early warning site in Maryland detected the launch, calculated the trajectory and warned soldiers to take cover. The base hangers and ammo depots were destroyed and several helicopters damaged, though extent is not known.
None of the bases had ABM defenses.
highrpm
@NR,
both poles are consumers of the channels of their own choices. they wouldn’t be in the game if they didn’t more or less enjoy it. and yes, it’s only a matter of time before the bully gets whacked. long overdue for the lords of nuclear, the bully weapons of choice these days. (the right to bear arms? (cue, laugh.) nuclear poppers in joe’s closet?) until we the people have the means to hold the sociopaths & bullies in gumit accountable to our majority wishes, it’s simply wishful thinking.
Ian Welsh
Unfortunately I have to agree with Stirling. Now that we know the casualties, this is insufficient. Mind you, Iran said they would do more than one thing in retaliation, so we’ll see.
StewartM
+1 to Bruce’s comment on propaganda
The sad thing I also would add is that from American Teevee/movie culture, many Americans cannot separate fantasy from truth. Like (to Ian’s point on why Americans fixate on ‘leadership’) Americans also tend to think that knocking off the chief ‘bad guy’ “wins” and solves any problem…after all, doesn’t it work that way on the TeeVee shows and in movies?
Marvin Harris, my favorite anthropologist, said that the chief purpose of art has traditionally been propaganda.
realitychecker
Gee, I sure am glad that all the devoted TDS people did everything they could the last few years to push Russia away from us and toward China.
“Morons. I’ve got morons on my team.” —h/t Strother Martin
Running out of sighs here . . .
450.org
It’s true. The ancient cave paintings were made to inspire the boys to get up off their asses and out of the cave in pursuit of game so the cave dwellers could eat.
450.org
You know, deescalation is fine and welcome and encouraged, if that is what this is and I’m not so sure it is, but it still doesn’t excuse the fact that Trump, nimrod that he is, by breaching convention, has set a new precedent. It’s now acceptable to openly and brazenly target leaders. What’s the next convention to be jettisoned? Innocent bystanders? Like the assassination of leaders, the murdering of innocents is nothing new and it’s not new that sometimes it’s the goal to target them in modern warfare, but never openly and brazenly. There has always been an excuse, no matter how lame when held up to proper intelligent scrutiny. Some form of propaganda was/is conjured to weave a false narrative. Now, I suppose, the propaganda is no longer to cover for despicable behavior and create a false and misleading narrative, but instead to not only normalize the despicable act but in fact cheer it on. Trump is like the mythical anti-christ — the clown version. No one can stop him. They continue to stab him with their steely knives, but they just can’t kill the beast. John Gotti wasn’t the Teflon Don, Trump is. He’s like Hitler in this sense. No matter how many attempts were made to bring Hitler down, he was, for awhile at least, effectively invincible as though he had a force field around him. As though it was destiny. So it is written, so shall it be done.
different clue
If this strike was as zero-casualty and surgically precision-aimed as we are hearing, the IranGov has sent the message that they have that high a level of military surgical strike precision.
If Iran’s reply over the next few years imposes such high costs on the US that even US re-revenge-venge action won’t mitigate those costs, then the whimsical assassination of high members of governments or militaries by other governments may not take hold. Of course for low-mentality rich slobs like Trump, of whom there are others, only personal cost will matter. If the Iranians can figure out how to attrit and degrade the Trump Properties and Family Fortune all the way down to zero dollars and zero cents and no ability to borrow any more credit, such may deter other ” Mafia family dons” like the Erdogans and the Saudis.
If Iran does a bunch of quiet things over the next few years, and the IranGov knows that they did them; would they feel driven to make Trumplike public boasts? I remember reading an Afghan saying once: ” How sweet it is to sit by the banks of the river and behold the headless body of one’s enemy as it floats by.” And even sweeter if you yourself arranged to have the body of your enemy rendered headless and put in the river. And even sweetest of all if you are the only one who knows how it happened and nobody can pin anything on you.
DMC
The problem with campaigns of assassination is that they can be pursued by relatively small players. The USGOV uses high tech solutions but those are not the only solutions and once you start down that path to where it becomes “thinkable” for a wider array of actors, state and potentially, otherwise, life gets “interesting” in the the Chinese sense. Time to start eyeing the exits.
metamars
This is a scary thought, but I think I’m beginning to understand Trump.
Not only does he view himself as the key player in the ultimate reality TV show, but (and here is the new revelation, drumroll, please …..) Trump views the REST of the world as REALITY TV CONSTESTANTS. Yes, that’s right – everybody is on the show, even those who have been, or are going to get, fired.
So, Soleimani wasn’t killed as much as he was fired. Next!
If it seems like Trump doesn’t take his job too seriously, well that’s kind of obvious. But what is far less obvious, and required a genius stroke of intuition on my part (hold your applause, please), is that Trump is assuming that nobody else takes their role in the Ultimate Reality TV Show very seriously, either.
So, in Trump’s mind, Soleimani should be glad to have exited the show – for the final time – in the grandiose fashion that he did. I mean, even if you’re the first guy that got fired from Celebrity Apprentice, at least you had a national audience, right?
So, in my less-than-professional psychological opinion, Trump believes he has not only done Iran a favor, but Soleimani, also. He had a starring role, even if that of the villain. But how many Americans would even recognize Soleimani’s name, if not for number-one-star-of-the-show, Donald J. Trump?
450.org
Let’s run with that, metamars. Fyi, I don’t think you’re too far off with that assessment. Trump, and his followers and/or supporters, most definitely operate in a different reality than most of us. Their reality is Trumpworld (versus Westworld, I suppose).
What if Erdogan continues to push the envelope as he is? Let’s say he occupies Libya and ultimately takes part of Syria and flexes Turkey’s muscle elsewhere in the Middle East but in doing so pushes the American security state too far and they decide he has to go. They then get their apparatchiks and talking heads at Fox News and elsewhere in the media to transform Erdogan from a tyrannical strongman Trump respects into an American-murdering villainous terrorist. Since these sources are what Trump takes his cues from in making his decisions, he agrees to the option the Pentagon has provided him to assassinate Turkey. Just as Iran is not Iraq, Turkey is not Iran. The damage Turkey could inflict is much greater than the damage Iran could inflict. This is the danger of the precedent set by assassinating Soleimani. No one can any longer credibly say “nah, it would never happen.” With Trump at the helm, anything is possible. What more must he do to prove this to the naively sensible practicalists?
450.org
So, what happened with the Ukrainian Boeing 737? It was obviously deliberately brought down. Who was responsible? I highly doubt it was Iran who did this. That makes no sense. This WaPo article indicates it potentially could have been a Russian missile. If so, wow. Just wow. It doesn’t get any more clandestinely cowardly than that. At least Trump has the unabashed unapologetic audacity to announce and laud his cowardice.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/ukraine-flight-was-on-fire-in-air-and-returning-to-tehran-at-time-of-crash-iran-investigators-say/2020/01/09/9b27434c-3244-11ea-971b-43bec3ff9860_story.html
450.org
I don’t see how it’s possible Russia could have pulled this off if it was a Russian missile which I doubt it was. Russia would have had to have fired the missile from within Iran close to the airport and I find that far-fetched to say the least. My guess is a bomb on board. Who put it there? Cui bono? Who hates Kyiv enough to do this and would like it pinned on Iran to stir the plot further and thicken the chaotic roux? Hmmmm. This much is clear, Trudeau, if he wants to keep up with Trump and Trump’s new precedent, should assassinate the leader of whichever country is responsible. Does Trudeau have the balls to do what needs to be done in this brave new world Trump and Pompeo have created? Or does he allow the murder of those 60 Canadians to go unpunished because they don’t really matter all that much?
different clue
Metamars’s lay armchair psycho-political analysis of Trump is as good as any psycho-political analysis of Trump I could offer, and seems plausible. Colonel Lang offers other or maybe parallel theories of TrumpBrain over at Sic Semper Tyrannis. The Twisted Genius and possibly others indicate that the IranGov is not done retaliating and has likely just begun. They will play it out their own way in the years to come.
The IranGov has admitted that their missile-teers shot down the Ukrainaian plane. Their explanation so far is that their missile-teers panicked and had themselves a “Vincennes Moment”. They will make a visible point of being more honest in every way than the USgov was when it had IT’S “Vincennes Moment”.
One hopes that as the primary-caucus season grinds on, that Sanders will go back strictly onto economic message and avoid stepping into the Social Justard Warriasshole traps that all the Clintonite Gladio operatives are trying to lure and divert him into. One also hopes that thousands of Sanders volunteers on the ground are in a position to document in real-time all the Clintonite Gladio machinations to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of primary voters whom the Clintonite Gladio operatives suspect of being Sanders supporters. ( The ObamaBastards are also a threat and a menace and should not be ignored).
A Sanders versus Trump election would at least give voters a choice, not an echo. And people could be judged by their reactions and their votes. If Gabbard were to be Sanders’ VP running mate, the difference would be further heightened, sharpened and deepened. A Sander-Gabbard ticket would indicate that their would be no mercy , no prisoners, and no compromise with the Republicans OR with the malignant metastatic Clintonoma cells strategically positioned throughout the DemParty , the Fake Stream Media and the Establishment Institutions.
In such a scenario, Sanders would be doing the country a real favor by running on America’s immediate re-acceptance of the JCPOA and unilateral dropping of all the Trump Sanctions . . . . and then sitting back to observe the IranGov’s response. That would give the American voters a real choice of something to vote about.