Perpetual Middle East Geopolitical Quagmire Megathread

[bolverk 30228]

17 minutes ago, TriStone said:

My bad.  It's illegal because lemonlime says it is.  I apologize for my impertinence.

This the best I could find for this circumstance:

Trump administration lays broad legal grounds for military strike on Iran

 

In this June 30, 2019 file photo, President Trump walks across the South Lawn as he arrives at the White House. (Andrew Harnik/AP)

By 

Karen DeYoung and 

Missy Ryan 

July 3, 2019 at 5:40 p.m. CDT

As it has contemplated military action against Iran, the Trump administration has opened the door to virtually every legal authority it might use to justify an attack, from tying Iran to al-Qaeda, to President Trump’s assertion that it would not involve American ground troops and “wouldn’t last very long.”

Democrats and some Republicans have tried repeatedly to pin the administration down, including last week’s unsuccessful attempt to muster 60 Senate votes for an amendment requiring Trump to ask Congress before launching any military engagement.

When asked directly about legal justification, senior administration officials have offered undetailed assurances that any action would “consistent with our Constitution,” as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last month, or they deferred to lawyers.

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“I’m not a scholar in this area,” Brian Hook, Pompeo’s special representative for Iran, recently told the House Armed Services Committee under persistent questioning.

Where was the U.S. drone when Iran shot it down?

Iran shot down a U.S. drone near the Strait of Hormuz on June 20, escalating tensions. Each country has different accounts about the location of the incident. (Joyce Lee, William Neff/The Washington Post)

Concern about the possibility of U.S. military action against Iran has grown since the administration cited new intelligence that Iran or its proxies were planning to attack U.S. troops or American interests in the Middle East. The United States has also blamed Iran for attacks on oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz. Most recently, Iran shot down a U.S. drone it said — and the U.S. denied — had crossed into its airspace.

Trump and Iranian leaders have traded insults following the U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement and subsequent reimposition and escalation of sanctions, and Iran’s announcement that it was stepping up its uranium enrichment. Following President Hassan Rouhani’s assertion on Wednesday that Iran could enrich to “any amount we want” in the absence of a nuclear deal, Trump warned him to “be careful with the threats . . . They can come back to bite you like nobody has been bitten before.”

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Although Trump canceled a U.S. strike against Iran following the drone shoot-down, the administration has continued to lay the legal groundwork for a strike.

Iran has surpassed the uranium enrichment cap. Here's what you need to know.

Amidst high tensions with the U.S., Iran said July 8 it had surpassed the limits on its enriched uranium stockpile. What does that mean for the nuclear deal? (Joyce Lee/The Washington Post)

‘I stopped it’: Inside Trump’s last-minute reversal on Iran

Pompeo, in public and classified testimony, according to lawmakers, has said there are ties between Iran and al-Qaeda. Such a relationship would seem to provide the foundation for military action against Iran under the 2001 congressional Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) against the perpetrators of the al-Qaeda attacks that year.

Such a determination has doubters even within the administration. Defense officials have taken unusual steps in recent weeks to distance themselves from Pompeo’s assertion amid fears that the administration may be driving toward a conflict that most Pentagon officials expect would be long, costly and detrimental to American interests in the region.

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In a statement, Cmdr. Rebecca Rebarich, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said the department “does not believe 2001 AUMF can be used against Iran.” That position has been affirmed by the Pentagon’s top lawyer, Paul Ney Jr., according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to address internal deliberations.

While Pentagon officials do not deny that al-Qaeda has had ties to Tehran, those links are generally seen as limited and nonoperational.

Defense officials say they have not put forward such links as a basis for connecting military action against Iran to the 9/11 attacks and the AUMF that resulted from them.

Mick Mulroy, the Pentagon’s top policy official for the Middle East, said in a statement last week that neither he nor Katie Wheelbarger, another senior Pentagon policy official, raised al-Qaeda’s links to Iran — or the AUMF — during a classified congressional briefing on Iran last month, as the New York Times reported.

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“The historical and ongoing ties between Iran and the Taliban, not al-Qaeda, were raised at the briefing,” Mulroy said.

Taking up Hook’s suggestion to ask government lawyers about both the 2001 AUMF and a subsequent 2002 congressional resolution authorizing the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot L. Engel (D-N.Y.) wrote last week to Marik String, who became acting State Department legal adviser six weeks ago.

Engel asked for “any and all legal analysis” relating to whether either measure was “applicable to any actions that could be undertaken by the Executive Branch in or against the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

A brief reply from the State Department’s legislative affairs bureau came three days later. “The administration has not, to date, interpreted either AUMF as authorizing military force against Iran,” it said, “except as may be necessary to defend U.S. or partner forces engaged in counterterrorism operations or operations to establish a stable, democratic Iraq.”

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Democrats have interpreted that response as leaving the door open to administration assertions that such authorization is justified in the future.

“We’re very concerned the administration hasn’t categorically said Congress hasn’t authorized war with Iran,” a Democratic congressional aide said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the concerns of lawmakers. “The AUMF has already been stretched.”

Three successive administrations have cited the 2001 AUMF as a basis for fighting an array of militant groups across the Middle East, South and Central Asia, and Africa, as Congress has failed in repeated efforts to pass a new authorization that would apply to military actions that seem far afield from those originally authorized.

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Moreover, the legal caveat referring to Iraq, the subject of the 2002 authorization, appears to cast a wide net over interference in U.S. or partner forces’ operations in that country.

Iranians describe hardships as Trump expands sanctions

The State Department did not respond to questions about the scope of its statement.

The other legal authority available to the president, short of Congress’s approval under its constitutional authority to declare war, is the president’s own constitutional power as commander in chief of the armed forces, in charge of keeping the nation secure. Here, previous presidents and the current Justice Department have laid a broad foundation for action that Congress has done little to constrain.

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The only public statement the administration has made interpreting those powers was a May 31, 2018, opinion by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel on authority for the April 2018 U.S. airstrikes against Syrian chemical weapons facilities.

The strikes were legal, the OLC concluded, because “the President reasonably determined that this operation would further important national interests” and that “the anticipated nature, scope and duration of the operations were sufficiently limited that they did not amount to war in the constitutional sense and therefore did not require prior congressional approval.”

The Justice Department OLC did not respond to requests for comment.

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The 2018 opinion, which drew substantially from an Obama-era justification for the 2011 air operations in Libya, put an attack against Iran squarely in the context of decades of U.S. military operations, including Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Libya and many others, conducted without authorization from Congress.

Citing previous definitions of the “national interest,” the Trump OLC opinion cited protection of U.S. people and property, assistance to allies, and the promotion of regional stability — all of which have been mentioned by the administration as U.S. goals regarding Iran.

The second test examined whether U.S. troops would be directly involved in hostilities, noting that the Clinton administration OLC, in judging the Bosnia deployment, concluded that the size and duration of operations, and the deployment of ground troops, were key tests.

In an interview last week with Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo, Trump said that “If something should happen, we’re in a very strong position. It wouldn’t last very long, I can tell you that. It would not last very long.”

“And I’m not talking about boots on the ground, I’m not talking we’re going to send a million soldiers. I’m just saying if something would happen, wouldn’t last very long.”

It looks like the House passed language to limit his authority but, of course, Bitch McConnell refuses to bring it to a vote.

 

Edited January 3, 2020 by bolverk
Shit, I forgot the right [?] for spoliering.

[StruggleBus 3922]

Note to self: When a terrorist is blown up in your vicinity, don't move in close to get a sweet video for Worldstar.

[TriStone 1724]

10 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

look at nixon, on the right side of history. china detente and the veto of this stupid act.

Thank you for that.

[Brisketexan 106614]

[TriStone 1724]

3 minutes ago, bolverk said:

It looks like the House passed language to limit his authority but, of course, Bitch McConnell refuses to bring it to a vote.

Thank you for the information.

[hayden_horn 11401]

1 minute ago, TriStone said:

Thank you for that.

no worries. also, i should note, nixon was a terrible president who did terrible things and was a terrible man, but we have to also note the good things he did as well. people are complicated and are often a result of their environment. i think the same of bush. for some reason, he surrounded himself with terrible people and ended out doing terrible things because of that, but fundamentally, i think he's a good person. people are complicated.

[bolverk 30228]

Just now, TriStone said:

Thank you for the information.

Sorry about the fucked up formatting. I'm on the phone and the spoilering tag isn't available on mobile.

[TriStone 1724]

1 minute ago, hayden_horn said:

no worries. also, i should note, nixon was a terrible president who did terrible things and was a terrible man, but we have to also note the good things he did as well. people are complicated and are often a result of their environment. i think the same of bush. for some reason, he surrounded himself with terrible people and ended out doing terrible things because of that, but fundamentally, i think he's a good person. people are complicated.

I wish I had been around for the debate on that one.  Hard to imagine a President (especially Nixon) vetoing an expansion of his powers.

[CowboyFred 1162]

2 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

no worries. also, i should note, nixon was a terrible president who did terrible things and was a terrible man, but we have to also note the good things he did as well. people are complicated and are often a result of their environment. i think the same of bush. for some reason, he surrounded himself with terrible people and ended out doing terrible things because of that, but fundamentally, i think he's a good person. people are complicated.

Agreed on Bush.  

[Bateshorn 9989]

I will paraphrase, for the 100th time, the only correct thing Ron Paul has ever said:

They hate us because we are over there.

Guilani got a big applause line out of ridiculing the statement and people scoffed, Paul was not wrong.  Now that we have robust supplies of domestic petroleum, there's even less rational for why we are in the middle east.

Also, as an aside:  I have aged out draft eligibility under the AUMF, and I have had a son age in.  He was 1 when it was passed.  That's fucking insane.

Edited January 3, 2020 by Bateshorn

[TriStone 1724]

9 minutes ago, bolverk said:

Sorry about the fucked up formatting. I'm on the phone and the spoilering tag isn't available on mobile.

No worries.  It removes the strikethroughs if you paste it to notepad. 

[Anastasis 23699]

12 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

no worries. also, i should note, nixon was a terrible president who did terrible things and was a terrible man, but we have to also note the good things he did as well. people are complicated and are often a result of their environment. i think the same of bush. for some reason, he surrounded himself with terrible people and ended out doing terrible things because of that, but fundamentally, i think he's a good person. people are complicated.

I am not sure Nixon got that one right.  He vetoed it because he viewed it a constraint on the power of the CIC. 

[MissingInAction 25478]

I doubt they would call my crusty old ass back in, but desperate times may call for desperate measures.

The bright side is that there will be a ton of young ass available while all the combat aged men get drafted away. #winning

Edited January 3, 2020 by MissingInAction

[atomheartbevo 90542]

2 hours ago, TriStone said:

I don't believe you.  Do you have a link on that?

You already have your answer from others that Pelosi, Schumer, etc. were not briefed.  

Now let it sink in that Eric Trump was briefed and boasting on twitter about it, when the senior elected members of the opposition weren’t, including the Speaker of the House.   

Eric Trump.  

[atomheartbevo 90542]

1 hour ago, CowboyFred said:

hope you're the first one signing your kids up to be enlisted because Merica.  I wouldn't sign up to die for a country where my commander in chief (or even anybody in his family) would be willing to die for our country. fuck trump and fuck you

Don’t have to worry about any Trump family members dying in battle, since they are all too chickenshit to serve.  

[Brisketexan 106614]

1 minute ago, atomheartbevo said:

You already have your answer from others that Pelosi, Schumer, etc. were not briefed.  

Now let it sink in that Eric Trump was briefed and boasting on twitter about it, when the senior elected members of the opposition weren’t, including the Speaker of the House.   

Eric Trump.  

This.

Imagine if fucking Amy Carter, or Malia Obama, or Jenna Bush, had been "read in"....and fucking BOASTED ABOUT...a US Military attack before it happened.  Jesus shitdicks, this is the DUMBEST FUCKING TIMELINE.

[SubliminalHorn 6995]

8 minutes ago, MissingInAction said:

 

The bright side is that there will be a ton of young ass available while all the combat aged men get drafted away. #winning

Not for me. Grindr would be really empty 😭

[bad_teammate 13479]

The Rock knew about the OBL hit before people in Congress did under Obama.

Who fucking cares who was briefed and who wasn't?

[Red Five 41593]

5 minutes ago, MissingInAction said:

The bright side is that there will be a ton of young ass available while all the combat aged men get drafted away. #winning

I feel as if I was too quick to judge this strike. We could use a nice prolonged ground war a long distance away. Maga!

[TriStone 1724]

3 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

You already have your answer from others that Pelosi, Schumer, etc. were not briefed.

I have Pelosi's statement that "Congress" was not informed.  The President doesn't have to notify "Congress."  He only has to notify the Senate and House majority and minority leaders and the chair and ranking minority members of the House and Senate intelligence committees.  Pelosi would have a slam-dunk impeachment charge to bring against him if he did not, yet she's not banging that drum.  I believe the Speaker is playing politics with her statement.

[MissingInAction 25478]

3 minutes ago, SubliminalHorn said:

Not for me. Grindr would be really empty 😭

Are trans folks stilled banned from serving? If you are willing to learn there is still hope, buddy. 

[wildcat09 29556]

2 minutes ago, TriStone said:

I have Pelosi's statement that "Congress" was not informed.  The President doesn't have to notify "Congress."  He only has to notify the Senate and House majority and minority leaders and the chair and ranking minority members of the House and Senate intelligence committees.  Pelosi would have a slam-dunk impeachment charge to bring against him if he did not, yet she's not banging that drum.  I believe the Speaker is playing politics with her statement.

He's already been impeached.

[StruggleBus 3922]

1 minute ago, wildcat09 said:

He's already been impeached.

Yeah, but has anyone ever been impeached twice?

[hayden_horn 11401]

5 minutes ago, TriStone said:

I have Pelosi's statement that "Congress" was not informed.  The President doesn't have to notify "Congress."  He only has to notify the Senate and House majority and minority leaders and the chair and ranking minority members of the House and Senate intelligence committees.  Pelosi would have a slam-dunk impeachment charge to bring against him if he did not, yet she's not banging that drum.  I believe the Speaker is playing politics with her statement.

i agree with this statement. she's being too coy by half. if she wasn't informed, however, she should be hollering from the roof about it. she is not. therefore, i conclude,

ah, well nevertheless,

[TriStone 1724]

3 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

He's already been impeached.

Fair enough.  She'd have an article of impeachment that was actually worth delivering to the Senate.

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20834]

 

[atomheartbevo 90542]

1 hour ago, Beantown Express 2.0 said:

I was listening to some experts on the BBC last night and they commented over and over again that this guy could have been taken out by us, Israel, etc... for years.  He was always in the open.  Israel and the US chose not to because it could lead to full out war so it wasn't worth it.  Apparently now it was worth it for some reason.  

I think it interesting that the Pentagon made it absolutely clear that this was done under Trump’s orders.   

[atomheartbevo 90542]

1 hour ago, MNLonghornFUKM said:

I remember being turning 18 3 days after 9/11. The thought of war/draft scared the shit out of me.

Thisll likely not start up a military draft ever, but it's something young minds are thinking about if Iran retaliates. Especially where it seems the younger generation leans more liberal. A lot of bone spur cases would be my guess when called to duty
 

It’s being joked about a lot on twitter, but a draft over this won’t happen.  Both chambers couldn’t and wouldn’t agree on it, and it would be a great way to get Millenials out and voting against the GOP.  

[CowboyFred 1162]

1 minute ago, TriStone said:

Fair enough.  She'd have an article of impeachment that was actually worth delivering to the Senate.

she does have articles worthy of being delivered to the Senate.  Now if the Senate wasn't a bunch of spineless hacks that already said no fair trial on the current articles of impeachment thats a totally different story.  and here we are...

[atomheartbevo 90542]

10 minutes ago, TriStone said:

I have Pelosi's statement that "Congress" was not informed.  The President doesn't have to notify "Congress."  He only has to notify the Senate and House majority and minority leaders and the chair and ranking minority members of the House and Senate intelligence committees.  Pelosi would have a slam-dunk impeachment charge to bring against him if he did not, yet she's not banging that drum.  I believe the Speaker is playing politics with her statement.

 

[hayden_horn 11401]

1 minute ago, atomheartbevo said:

I think it interesting that the Pentagon made it absolutely clear that this was done under Trump’s orders.   

i made this point elsewhere, but i do not find this at all interesting, because the pentagon would have been the source of the intel.

i mean, i guess pentagon leadership could have been against this move, but they knew when and where this cat was going to be so we could rocket him.

[atomheartbevo 90542]

1 hour ago, SmokeyTheBear said:

What's the chance Trump takes this opportunity to back out of the middle east completely and cede it to Russia and China? Iraq will make some noise and he'll use that as an excuse to say they don't want our money so we are leaving. Turkey all over again. 

Too much invested from American companies over there.   The oil companies are already pissed that Americans were told to leave Iraq.  

Turtle wouldn’t let it happen, the GOP could not survive the O&G industry turning against them and funding the Dems.  

[Chad Fuck 18088]

4 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

I think it interesting that the Pentagon made it absolutely clear that this was done under Trump’s orders.   

Indeed.  That jumped out at me immediately.  

[atomheartbevo 90542]

4 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

i made this point elsewhere, but i do not find this at all interesting, because the pentagon would have been the source of the intel.

i mean, i guess pentagon leadership could have been against this move, but they knew when and where this cat was going to be so we could rocket him.

I was referring more to the fact that they knew this would cause a shitstorm, so they put this on 100% Trump.

[GRHorn 105]

1 hour ago, huge said:

Anyone care to comment on this?  Or are we sure it was illegal?  Do we really know?  Is that what really matters?

Generally if Never Trumpers defend POTUS it’s noteworthy. The only spot I would waver on that a bit is bombing people since that’s Neocon bread and butter. 
 

That said, French is a lawyer and a vet so I take his argument pretty seriously. Plus it makes sense to me from a common sense perspective, although that may not mean much. 

[The Hot Dog Buffet 1312]

1 hour ago, MNLonghornFUKM said:

I remember being turning 18 3 days after 9/11. The thought of war/draft scared the shit out of me.


Thisll likely not start up a military draft ever, but it's something young minds are thinking about if Iran retaliates. Especially where it seems the younger generation leans more liberal. A lot of bone spur cases would be my guess when called to duty
 

It would be interesting to see how a draft works given the current obesity rate among our youth.

[Lagunamadre 1975]

7 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

i made this point elsewhere, but i do not find this at all interesting, because the pentagon would have been the source of the intel.

i mean, i guess pentagon leadership could have been against this move, but they knew when and where this cat was going to be so we could rocket him.

The Pentagon also knows Trump is a fucking idiot and that if they didn't want this shit to escalate all they had to do is let him play golf and tweet and not give him this as a viable option, he would have never been the wiser, shit i'd be willing to bet that until yesterday Trump had zero clue who this guy was. I'd be curious who would have even presented him with this option now that Bolton is out of there. I don't know enough about Esper, is he especially hawkish? 

[wildcat09 29556]

7 minutes ago, GRHorn said:

Generally if Never Trumpers defend POTUS it’s noteworthy. The only spot I would waver on that a bit is bombing people since that’s Neocon bread and butter. 
 

That said, French is a lawyer and a vet so I take his argument pretty seriously. Plus it makes sense to me from a common sense perspective, although that may not mean much. 

French's argument, in its entirety, is "we're in Iraq legally and he was in Iraq so killing him was legal." That's not a terribly compelling legal argument.

[TriStone 1724]

12 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

 

If they weren't informed, that's a clear violation of the law and Pelosi needs to move on it immediately.  If she does not, then I'm left to believe that Pelosi and the Democrats don't really want Trump removed from office and the whole impeachment proceeding was just political theater.

[Anastasis 23699]

LOL @ the Pentagon washing their hands of the action. 

[bad_teammate 13479]

David French is a fucking moron who is horny as shit for war.

Today is the 16th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, and Twitter is alive with condemnations of the conflict — countered by precious few defenses. Yet I believed the Iraq War was just and proper in 2003, and I still believe that today. When Donald Trump condemned the war during the 2015 primary campaign and claimed that if Saddam was still in power we “wouldn’t have the problems you have right now,“ I believed he was dead wrong. As I argued then, from the moment Hussein took power until he was deposed in 2003, there were few greater instruments of instability in the world than Saddam Hussein.

 

[bad_teammate 13479]

1 minute ago, TriStone said:

If they weren't informed, that's a clear violation of the law and Pelosi needs to move on it immediately.  If she does not, then I'm left to believe that Pelosi and the Democrats don't really want Trump removed from office and the whole impeachment proceeding was just political theater.

Yes.

[Brisketexan 106614]

1 minute ago, wildcat09 said:

French's argument, in its entirety, is "we're in Iraq legally and he was in Iraq so killing him was legal." That's not a terribly compelling legal argument.

Yeah, I'm having a bit of trouble with it.  He was a government official of a third-party country.  Let's say, for example, a Spanish general landed at Baghdad airport, and we smoked him (for whatever reason -- legit, not, doesn't matter for the purpose of this inquiry).  Would that have fallen within the AUMF?  Is Iraq as a whole a complete free-fire zone, per the AUMF -- the POTUS can kill anyone and everyone within the borders of Iraq, with no limitations?

Honestly, I'm asking the question -- if the AUMF is written that fucking broadly, and French is right....then that's a really fucking stupid AUMF.  Then again, "really fucking stupid" is our brand, so I wouldn't be too surprised.

[TriStone 1724]

dp

Edited January 3, 2020 by TriStone

[TriStone 1724]

2 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

Yes.

Very rarely do I agree with you, but I truly do believe that's the case.

[GhostOfTomJoad 9483]

Here we go..

[GRHorn 105]

4 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

Yes.

Yes. Thus my comment on impeachment thread. The whole thing was never taken seriously, even by most of the participants. 

[lemonlime 5503]

3 minutes ago, Lagunamadre said:

 shit i'd be willing to bet that until yesterday Trump had zero clue who this guy was.

I'd be willing to bet he still doesn't.

3 minutes ago, Lagunamadre said:

 I'd be curious who would have even presented him with this option now that Bolton is out of there. I don't know enough about Esper, is he especially hawkish? 

Putin?  MBS?  

[GRHorn 105]

3 minutes ago, lemonlime said:

I'd be willing to bet he still doesn't.

Putin?  MBS?  

Don’t be a jackass.

Pompeo perhaps. Or some other Unknown establishment Person. 

[Js1 86926]

Just checking, now the GOP believes the intelligence community without question?