| Trump Threatens To Attack 52 Iranian Targets, Including Cultural Sites Posted: 04 Jan 2020 05:07 PM PST  The president on Saturday warned Iran leadership against targeting U.S. assets, tweeting that Iran "WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD."
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| Trump says 52 targets already lined up if Iran retaliates Posted: 04 Jan 2020 05:04 PM PST  President Donald Trump issued a stark warning to Iran on Saturday, threatening to hit dozens of targets in the Islamic Republic "very fast and very hard" if it retaliates for the targeted killing of the head of Iran's elite Quds Force. The series of tweets came as the White House sent to Congress a formal notification under the War Powers Act of the drone strike on Gen. Qassem Soleimani, a senior administration official said.
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| Protesters in US rally against prospect of war with Iran Posted: 04 Jan 2020 04:38 PM PST  Demonstrators chanting "no war on Iran" rallied Saturday in Washington, New York and across the US to protest the assassination of a top Iranian military commander in a US drone strike. Organizers said demonstrations were convened in some 70 US cities to denounce the killing of Major General Qasem Soleimani early Friday in Baghdad on orders from President Donald Trump. "We will not allow our country to be led into another reckless war," one speaker outside the White House said.
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| Cooler weather brings respite in Australian wildfire crisis Posted: 04 Jan 2020 04:28 PM PST  Milder temperatures Sunday brought hope of a respite from wildfires that have ravaged three Australian states, claiming 24 lives and destroying almost 2,000 homes. Saturday was a day of high tension as soaring temperatures and strong winds fanned fires in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, forcing thousands to flee and bringing flames to the suburban fringes of Sydney. As dawn broke over a blackened landscape Sunday, a picture emerged of disaster of unprecedented scale.
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| Bernie Sanders introduces law to stop Trump from starting war with Iran Posted: 04 Jan 2020 04:22 PM PST  Bernie Sanders and fellow progressive Ro Khanna have introduced a law to block funding for "military force in or against Iran" without congressional approval, in an effort to stall a potential new war in the Middle East.The pair introduced the legislation just a day after Donald Trump approved a targeted airstrike against Qasem Soleimani, a general with the Iran Revolutionary Guard's elite Quds Force.
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| Protests across US condemn action in Iran and Iraq Posted: 04 Jan 2020 03:51 PM PST  Demonstrators in dozens of cities around the U.S. gathered Saturday to protest the Trump administration's killing of an Iranian general and decision to send thousands of additional soldiers to the Middle East. President Donald Trump ordered Friday's airstrike near Baghdad's international airport that killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran's elite Quds Force who has been blamed for attacks on U.S. troops and American allies going back decades. Iran has vowed retribution, raising fears of an all-out war, but it's unclear how or when a response might come.
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| Pompeo decries pro-Iran factions warning to Iraqi troops Posted: 04 Jan 2020 03:51 PM PST  US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Saturday hit back at a hardline pro-Iran faction in Iraq, after it urged Iraqis to move away from US forces. The warning from Kataeb Hezbollah came as tens of thousands mourned Iran's Major General Qasem Soleimani, whose death in a US strike early Friday brought vows of "severe revenge" from Tehran. Kataeb Hezbollah's "thugs are telling Iraqi security forces to abandon their duty to protect (the US embassy in Baghdad) and other locations where Americans work side by side with good Iraqi people," Pompeo tweeted.
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| Trump threatens to target 52 Iranian sites 'VERY FAST AND VERY HARD' if it retaliates against any American assets Posted: 04 Jan 2020 03:30 PM PST  Trump said the 52 targets the US has identified represent the 52 American citizens held in Iran for more than a year during the hostage crisis.
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| Trump: We’ve ‘Targeted 52 Iranian Sites’ to Strike if Necessary Posted: 04 Jan 2020 03:10 PM PST  President Trump warned Iran in a series of tweets Saturday that if the country strikes any Americans or American assets in retaliation for the killing of Qassem Soleimani, the U.S. has chosen 52 Iranian sites to target. "Let this serve as a WARNING that if Iran strikes any Americans, or American assets, we have targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD," Trump said. The president's comments came a day after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the "the U.S. remains committed to de-escalation" with Iran. Trump, whose threats against Tehran on Saturday seemed to be a far cry from his claim immediately after the airstrike that he simply wanted to "stop a war," also defended his decision to kill Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani. He said the top Iranian general "had just killed an American, & badly wounded many others, not to mention all of the people he had killed over his lifetime, including recently hundreds of Iranian protesters.""He was already attacking our Embassy, and preparing for additional hits in other locations," Trump wrote. The president has said Soleimani was preparing "imminent" attacks on American interests, and administration officials on Friday told lawmakers at a classified briefing that Iran had plans to kill "hundreds" of Americans, though they offered no details on these plots. Critics of the move have largely agreed with the assessment that Soleimani was a a foe to the U.S. but have questioned the timing of the killing—ahead of Trump's impeachment trial and amid his 2020 re-election campaign— and his decision to order the airstrike without congressional approval. Trump Told Mar-a-Lago Pals to Expect 'Big' Iran Action 'Soon'Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Draft website crashes after Soleimani's death, Selective Service says 'business as usual' Posted: 04 Jan 2020 02:42 PM PST  The Selective Service System, which holds a list of potential recruits in the event of a draft, maintains that it's "business as usual" amid growing concerns of war with Iran. Growing interest in the draft agency emerged after Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani was killed in an airstrike on Thursday, which was ordered by President Donald Trump. Following Soleimani's death, Iranian leaders stated that the United States can expect "harsh retaliation" for the attack.
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| Warren Defends Using ‘Assassination’ for Attack: Campaign Update Posted: 04 Jan 2020 02:39 PM PST ![Warren Defends Using 'Assassination' for Attack: Campaign Update]( "Warren Defends Using 'Assassination' for Attack: Campaign Update") (Bloomberg) -- Senator Elizabeth Warren defended her decision to call the U.S. strike that killed a top Iranian general an "assassination," a stance she took after criticism for first calling Qassem Soleimani a "murderer."When asked by reporters on Saturday in Manchester, Iowa, whether "assassination" is the right word to describe the airstrike that killed Soleimani late Thursday, Warren said, "Yes, it is."President Donald Trump ordered the strike on Soleimani, who led Iranian-backed militias around the Middle East. The general was considered responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American troops and thousands of others.Warren tweeted on Thursday that Soleimani was a "murderer, responsible for the deaths of thousands, including hundreds of Americans" while also criticizing Trump's move as "reckless."After criticism from progressives, Warren issued another statement on Friday, calling the attack an "assassination," mirroring the words of rival Bernie Sanders. That decision ignited criticism that Warren was flip-flopping. On Saturday, Warren dodged a question on the language change."So I think it's important to talk about where Donald Trump is taking us. He has taken us to the brink of war," she said. "The administration has no credibility for truth telling you either at home or around the world," she added.Sanders Demands End to Trump Iran Escalation (4:18 p.m.)Bernie Sanders said Congress must take immediate steps "to restrain President Trump from plunging our nation into yet another endless war," after U.S. forces killed a top Iranian general in a drone strike the Vermont senator called a "dangerous escalation."Speaking in Dubuque, Iowa, Sanders said he, Representative Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, and others plan to "advance legislation to assert Congress's constitutional authority and responsibility to prohibit any funding for offensive military force in or against Iran without Congressional authorization."Sanders said he would vote against funding a war in any event, "but if Congress wants to go to war, let Congress have the guts to vote for war. Do not let this president take unilateral action."The 2020 presidential candidate also backed a resolution by Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia to force a vote to end unauthorized U.S. hostilities against Iran.Separately, Sanders brushed aside questions about his age, saying it was an advantage. "I'm 78. I plead guilty," he said. "Unlike all these kids I'm running against, you can check my record going back a long way. A long way." -- Ros KrasnyButtigieg Hits Back After Trump Mocks His Faith (3:02 p.m.)Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg on Saturday responded to President Donald Trump's questions about his faith during a stop in New Hampshire.Trump mocked Buttigieg on Friday during a rally with evangelical Christians at a Miami megachurch, saying the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, was "trying to pretend he's very religious" but had become so "about two weeks ago.""I'm not sure why the president's taken an interest in my faith journey, but certainly I would be happy to discuss it with him," Buttigieg, 37, said at a town hall meeting in Nashua."I just don't know where that's coming from, you know. Certainly it has been a complex journey for me, as it is for a lot of people, but I'm pretty sure I've been a believer longer than he's been a Republican."Buttigieg, an Episcopalian and former Catholic, has spoken regularly at campaign events about his faith, and sometimes attends services while on the trail. -- Tyler PagerCOMING UP:Democratic candidates are fanning out across early-voting states this weekend, notably Iowa and New Hampshire.Five Democrats -- Joe Biden, Buttigieg, Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar -- have qualified for the next debate, on Jan. 14 in Iowa.Trump is scheduled to hold a campaign rally in Milwaukee on the same night as the debate, as well as a rally in Toledo on Jan. 9.The first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses will be held Feb. 3.(Michael Bloomberg is also seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.)\--With assistance from Tyler Pager and Ros Krasny.To contact the reporter on this story: Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou in Washington at megkolfopoul@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Steve GeimannFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Protesters Across U.S. Condemn Trump’s ‘New War’ After Soleimani Killing Posted: 04 Jan 2020 02:35 PM PST  As Trump spent the day tweeting about his approval ratings Saturday, Americans in dozens of cities marched in the street to protest his latest foreign policy escalation.The protests followed the White House-ordered killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, which many saw as a provocation of war with Iran. In response, the anti-war coalition Act Now to Stop War and End Racism, or ANSWER, scheduled protests in 70 different locations around the U.S., including outside the White House and Trump Tower. In a statement on their website, ANSWER said they planned to "protest against a new war in the Middle East and [call] for the withdrawal of all U.S. troops and bases in the region.""For all who believe in peace, for all who are opposed to yet another catastrophic war, now is the time to take action," they wrote.While Trump has said the airstrike was intended to "stop a war" and not start one, the move has already inflamed tensions. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani vowed to take "revenge" on the U.S. for the killing of Soleimani, who led the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, while Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said the country would bear "responsibility for all the consequences"of the strike. The U.S. sent about 3,000 additional troops to the region on Friday, but said the deployment was in response not to the strike but to the storming of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. On Saturday, protesters marched through the streets of major U.S. cities, carrying signs reading "No More War," and "Hands Off Iran." Protesters in New York's Times Square sang chants and clanged cowbells, while more than 100 people lined the snow-lined streets of Minneapolis with signs and banners. Outside of the White House, protesters chanted "U.S. out of the Middle East; No justice, no peace."It's unclear how many people participated in the protests, but hundreds were listed on Facebook as having attended in cities like Boston and Detroit. More than 500 people were marked as "interested" in a protest in Berlin, Germany.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| China Names New Hong Kong Liaison Head, Signaling Frustration Posted: 04 Jan 2020 02:00 PM PST ![China Names New Hong Kong Liaison Head, Signaling Frustration]( "China Names New Hong Kong Liaison Head, Signaling Frustration") (Bloomberg) -- China replaced its top liaison official for Hong Kong, signaling Beijing's growing frustration with pro-democracy protests that have dragged on for months.Luo Huining will take over from Wang Zhimin as the Hong Kong liaison office director, the government said in a two-sentence statement that didn't elaborate on the changes in the semi-autonomous financial hub.The new official served as Shanxi party secretary from 2016 until November, and became deputy chairman of the financial and economic committee of the National People's Congress a month later."Luo's appointment probably signals a hard-line policy from Beijing -- that we don't give a damn about your feelings," said Chen Zhao, co-founder of the Montreal-based research firm Alpine Macro, who has insights on China after attending university with some of the nation's high-ranking officials. "He's just a party boss -- he has no connection with Hong Kong and no foreign affairs expertise."Compared with Luo, his predecessor was the former director of China's liaison office in Macau before he was appointed the top representative in Hong Kong in 2017. Hong Kong, a former British colony, was handed back to China in 1997 and is now a special administrative region of the country, while Macau was returned two years later by Portugal.Hong Kong has been gripped by more than six months of protests by activists demanding greater autonomy from Beijing, with the protests often turning violent with subway stations, shops and banks vandalized. China's government has consistently backed Chief Executive Carrie Lam, including on a mid-December visit to Beijing where she met Chinese President Xi Jinping."Luo has no relationship with the business community or political arena in Hong Kong," Zhao said. "I think it will be very difficult for him to be helpful for the Hong Kong government, whereas the previous guy knew Carrie Lam well."Why Hong Kong Is Still Protesting and Where It May Go: QuickTakeWith support for the protests undiminished after months of violent unrest, speculation of Wang's removal from the position has been growing, particularly after pro-government candidates suffered a resounding defeat in Hong Kong district council elections in November. While the polls were for what's considered to be the lowest rung of the city's government, the results demonstrated the underlying public sentiment."Wang's dismissal was long predicted because he appeared to be associated too closely with the pro-Beijing elites and business leaders, without reaching out widely to all social sectors especially the poor and the needy," Sonny Lo, a Hong Kong-based political commentator, said Saturday. "His miscalculations of Hong Kong" may have led to his downfall, particularly after the elections.Lam praised Wang for his "staunch support" for the government's efforts "to curb violence and uphold the rule of law," according to a statement. She also welcomed Luo and said that under his leadership the liaison office worked to promote "prosperity and stability" and "the integration of Hong Kong into the overall development of the nation and the positive development of the relationship between the mainland and Hong Kong."Police ViolenceLam's administration proposed a bill last year that would have allowed extraditions to China for the first time, prompting the protests. While she has since withdrawn the legislation, the demonstrations persisted and has extended to additional demands including an independent inquiry into police violence and direct leadership elections.Xi used his New Year's Eve address to defend China's system for running Hong Kong, in an unusually high-profile acknowledgment of the Asian financial center's political turmoil."Without a harmonious and stable environment, how can people live in peace and enjoy their work?" Xi asked. "I sincerely wish Hong Kong well. Hong Kong's prosperity and stability is the wish of Hong Kong compatriots and the expectation of our motherland."Luo worked for the Anhui government between 1982 and 1999. In 2010, he was appointed governor of Qinghai before being made party secretary in the province in 2013.\--With assistance from Natalie Lung.To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Sarah Chen in Beijing at schen514@bloomberg.net;Iain Marlow in Hong Kong at imarlow1@bloomberg.net;Ben Bartenstein in New York at bbartenstei3@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Shamim Adam at sadam2@bloomberg.net, Linus Chua, Ian FisherFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Libyan authorities report airstrike on military academy Posted: 04 Jan 2020 01:40 PM PST ![Libyan authorities report airstrike on military academy]( "Libyan authorities report airstrike on military academy") An airstrike slammed into a military academy in Libya's capital, Tripoli, on Saturday, killing at least 16 people, most of them students, health authorities said. Malek Merset, a spokesman with the Tripoli-based health ministry, told The Associated Press that the airstrike took place in the capital's Hadaba area, just south of the city center where fighting has been raging for months. Tripoli has been the scene of fighting since April between the self-styled Libyan National Army led by Gen. Khalifa Hifter and an array of militias loosely allied with the weak but U.N.-supported government that holds the capital.
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| An Iranian military commander says there are '35 vital American positions in the region' which they can strike in response to top general's assassination Posted: 04 Jan 2020 01:33 PM PST  The potential targets include US ships stationed near Iran, as well as cities in Israel, one of America's closest allies.
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| US government agency website crashes amid panic over military draft Posted: 04 Jan 2020 01:29 PM PST  Selective Service System said on Twitter its website was receiving high traffic volume 'due to the spread of misinformation' * Fonda and Ellsberg protest against escalating conflict with IranIn the aftermath of the US drone strike that killed the Iranian general Qassem Suleimani in Baghdad, the phrase "World War III" began trending on social media.More startlingly, a US government agency which registers young men for a potential military draft saw its website crash."Due to the spread of misinformation," the Selective Service System (SSS) tweeted on Friday, "our website is experiencing high traffic volumes at this time … We appreciate your patience."It added that it was "conducting business as usual" and emphasised that a return to the draft is not imminent: "In the event that a national emergency necessitates a draft, Congress and the president would need to pass official legislation."On Saturday, as Twitter panic subsided, the SSS website was up and running, if slowly.The US first drafted soldiers during the civil war in the 1860s, prompting deadly, racist riots. A hundred years later, opposition to conscription fuelled protests against the Vietnam war. There has been no draft since 1973."I think it's fair to say that the draft has never been wildly popular," Jennifer Mittelstadt, a history professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey, told the New York Times.Experts including Mittelstadt, however, have said reinstating the draft might in fact help build a more inclusive society.Should the US and Iran go to war, America's fighting will be done by its volunteer military, about 1.3 million strong and dominated in the enlisted ranks by recruits from working-class and minority groups.Writing for the Guardian in 2014, the long-serving New York Democratic congressman Charles Rangel said: "The same familiar faces have served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. A more inclusive military draft … would compel everyone in the nation to stop and rethink about who we send to wars, how we fight – and why we fight them at all."All American men aged 18 to 25 are required by law to register with the SSS. Many do so when applying for a driver's license or applying for student loans. Those who do not register cannot receive federal financial aid or work for the federal government.The agency says it has registered 91% of eligible men. Despite playing an increasing role in the US military and filling combat roles, women are not required to register.A return to the draft may remain unlikely, but the SSS says it is prepared to "rapidly provide personnel in a fair and equitable manner while managing an alternative service program for conscientious objectors".According to the agency's website: "Current plans are frequently tested, evaluated, and revised as necessary."If implemented, they will guide the Selective Service System in making a smooth transition from current reduced readiness levels to full conscription within six months."
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| With hours' notice, US fast-response force flies to Mideast Posted: 04 Jan 2020 12:40 PM PST  Hundreds of U.S. soldiers deployed Saturday from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to Kuwait to serve as reinforcements in the Middle East amid rising tensions following the U.S. killing of a top Iranian general. Lt. Col. Mike Burns, a spokesman for the 82nd Airborne Division, told The Associated Press 3,500 members of the division's quick-deployment brigade, known officially as its Immediate Response Force, will have deployed within a few days. A loading ramp at Fort Bragg was filled Saturday morning with combat gear and restless soldiers.
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| From resort amid palm trees, Trump settled on Iran strike Posted: 04 Jan 2020 12:06 PM PST  Days earlier, a rocket attack by an Iranian-funded group struck a U.S.-Iraqi base, killing an American contractor and wounding several others. Trump's advisers presented him with an array of options for responding, including the most dramatic possible response: taking out Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran's elite Quds Force and the man responsible for hundreds of Americans deaths. Trump immediately wanted to target Soleimani.
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| Here's why neither George W. Bush nor Barack Obama killed Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani, who the US just took out in an airstrike Posted: 04 Jan 2020 11:57 AM PST  Former officials said that the potential for retaliation from Iran against US troops and allied forces is why neither Bush nor Obama killed Soleimani.
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| Iran crisis: Pompeo criticises UK and other US allies for ‘not being helpful’ in response to Soleimani killing Posted: 04 Jan 2020 11:47 AM PST  US secretary of state Mike Pompeo has criticised the UK and other allies for "not being helpful" in their response to the Trump administration's killing of Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani.A number of European countries have expressed concern over the killing of Soleimani, a top military general in Iran, amid fears of retaliation and a further escalation to all-out war.
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| Reports: Rockets Fall Near U.S. Embassy In Baghdad Posted: 04 Jan 2020 11:31 AM PST  Iran has promised to retaliate after President Donald Trump ordered the assassination of a top Iranian general.
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| Knife attack near Paris treated as terror-related Posted: 04 Jan 2020 11:05 AM PST  French prosecutors said a knife attack on Friday that left one man dead and two women injured in a park in the Paris area is being treated as terror-related. In a statement Saturday, they said investigations over the past few hours revealed that the assailant, who was shot dead by police, had been radicalized and had prepared the attack in Villejuif, in the southern suburbs of Paris. Earlier Saturday, Creteil prosecutor Laure Beccuau described the assailant as a 22-year-old man with a long and serious psychiatric history.
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| Why A U.S.-Iran War Isn't Going To Happen Posted: 04 Jan 2020 10:56 AM PST  The coming weeks and months may see irregular warfare prosecuted with newfound vigor through such familiar unconventional warmaking methods. It's doubtful Tehran would launch into conventional operations, stepping onto ground it knows America dominates. To launch full-scale military reprisals would justify full-scale U.S. military reprisals that, in all likelihood, would outstrip Iran's in firepower and ferocity
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| Kim Jong-un's Big Speech Is Missing Something: South Korea Posted: 04 Jan 2020 10:30 AM PST  The report of the 5th Plenary Meeting is a stark reminder of the depleted role that South Korea plays in negotiations with North Korea. This wasn't always the case.
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| Fox News' Tucker Carlson slammed 'chest-beaters' for 'choosing' conflict with Iran over US problems, but he didn't call out Trump Posted: 04 Jan 2020 10:17 AM PST  Fox News host Tucker Carlson questioned why some elected officials are promoting military acts against Iran instead of focusing on internal problems.
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| NATO suspends training mission in Iraq citing security Posted: 04 Jan 2020 10:17 AM PST ![NATO suspends training mission in Iraq citing security]( "NATO suspends training mission in Iraq citing security") NATO says it has suspended a training mission for soldiers in the Iraqi army in the wake of the killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani. Soleimani was the head of Iran's elite Quds Force and the mastermind of its regional security strategy. "We continue to take all precautions necessary," NATO spokesman Dylan White said in a statement.
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| Trump was reportedly worried he looked weak on Iran before ordering airstrike against Soleimani Posted: 04 Jan 2020 10:03 AM PST  One of the major questions in the wake of President Trump's order to kill Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani via airstrike concerns the timing of the action. In short, why now?Soleimani was a powerful strategic adversary of the U.S., who has been viewed as a national security and has been accused of orchestrating numerous acts of violence against the U.S. But Washington has held steady in the past.Well, The Washington Post reports U.S. officials said one reason Trump decided to act this time was because his advisers told him that not sending a message — as was the case after Iran was accused of mining ships, shooting down a U.S. drone, and attacking a Saudi Arabian oil facility — would mean Iran might "think they can get by with anything." Trump also reportedly didn't love the media coverage he received after his previous decisions and feared that reports of his internal deliberations made him look weak.Apparently it was time to change that perception. Read more at The Washington Post.More stories from theweek.com America is guilty of everything we accuse Iran of doing Trump's perilous delusions about Tehran Can Mike Vrabel's Titans add to the theory that Bill Belichik struggles against his protégés?
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| Iran news – live: Rockets fall near US embassy in Baghdad as Tehran warns of revenge attacks over Soleimani killing Posted: 04 Jan 2020 09:57 AM PST  Iran's ambassador to the United Nations has warned the US "has started a military war by an act of terror" with the killing of Qassem Soleimani, as Donald Trump claimed he ordered the Quds Force general's death to prevent war rather than provoke it.The country's UN diplomat declared Iran "has to act, and we will act", while secretary general Antonio Guterres joined global calls for de-escalation as he cautioned the "world cannot afford" another Gulf War.
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| Here's how tensions with Iran might affect the U.S.'s ability to fight ISIS Posted: 04 Jan 2020 09:27 AM PST  The United States' recent actions in the Middle East have been centered around Iran, but as tensions rise between the Tehran and Washington, what will become of the latter's fight against the Islamic State?The New York Times' Rukmini Callimachi, one of the world's leading reporters on ISIS, said that the U.S.'s burgeoning conflict with Iran has been hindering the ISIS front for months now, and that's not likely not to change after President Trump ordered an airstrike against Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' elite Quds Force.Callimachi spoke to Iraq expert Michael Knights who said that throughout 2019, Iran-backed groups denied American forces airspace and access to operations to go after ISIS, though there have been a few provinces where the U.S. has remained on the offensive.> 15\. "It's all been downhill," @Mikeknightsiraq told me, in terms of America's access to the ISIS battlespace in recent months due to Iranian pressure on Iraqi officials. One upshot? US special operations forces have been on the offensive in Diyala, Nineveh and Kirkuk provinces> > — Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) January 4, 2020Ultimately, though, it looks like — at the moment, at least — the focus on Iran will draw the U.S. away from the ISIS challenge.> 16\. A likely outcome of the recent strike is that small, out-of-the-way outposts for special operations forces will be deemed too vulnerable and will be eliminated. Fighting ISIS is no longer the priority if the outer wall of the US embassy is being attacked.> > — Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) January 4, 2020Politico reports that the strike that killed Soleimani could even lead to Iraq kicking U.S. troops out of the country, therefore ending the U.S. mission to train the Iraqi military to fight the terrorist group. Read more at Politico.More stories from theweek.com America is guilty of everything we accuse Iran of doing Trump's perilous delusions about Tehran Can Mike Vrabel's Titans add to the theory that Bill Belichik struggles against his protégés?
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| Trump is not a fan of civil liberties, and Americans are more willing to give up their rights when they're scared. Here's why there's reason to be concerned, regardless of what happens with Iran Posted: 04 Jan 2020 09:12 AM PST  With fears of war with Iran on the rise and a president hostile to civil liberties, a terrified public could willfully give up their own rights.
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| Donald Trump Jr and Ivanka Trump among top Republican picks for 2024 Posted: 04 Jan 2020 08:49 AM PST  Twenty-nine per cent of poll responders want president's son to be nominee in future election, while 16% support first daughter * Trump campaigns after airstrike – but election is still far offDonald Trump Jr and Ivanka Trump are among Republican voters' top picks for the GOP presidential nomination in 2024, according to a new poll.Forty per cent of respondents to the survey by news site Axios and Survey Monkey wanted the vice-president, Mike Pence, to be the Republican nominee in 2024, whether to succeed Donald Trump in the Oval Office or to take on a Democratic incumbent if this year's race is lost.Twenty-six per cent wanted Nikki Haley, formerly governor of South Carolina and ambassador to the United Nations under Trump.But 29% plumped for Donald Trump Jr, a regular surrogate for his father despite nominally being separated from the political side of the family by joint control, with his brother Eric, of the Trump Organization.Ivanka Trump, with her husband, Jared Kushner, a senior adviser in the White House, was supported by 16%.Donald Trump Jr recently published a political book, Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us. It was a New York Times bestseller, if surrounded by questions about Republican efforts to help it, and the tour to promote it attracted sizable crowds, if not uniformly adoring.Reviewing the book for the Guardian, Lloyd Green said it was "a better campaign biography than most" and was "best viewed as the opening salvo of the Trump child with real political chops".The president's oldest child, Green wrote, "truly connects with the party's base" and "is convention speech [in 2016] warranted the attention it received"."Bottom line, come 2024 Don Jr could well be on the ticket."Like her father before 2016 and her brother now, Ivanka Trump has never held elected office. But she has been reported to have political aspirations.In his blockbuster White House exposé Fire and Fury, for example, the journalist Michael Wolff said she and Kushner had made a deal: "The first woman president, Ivanka entertained, would not be Hillary Clinton: it would be Ivanka Trump."Often portrayed as a liberal and restraining influence on her father, Ivanka Trump has claimed success over paid family leave for federal workers and federal sentencing reform.She has also represented her father on the world stage, to widespread criticism and occasional apparent mockery from actual international leaders.The Axios/Survey Monkey poll noted that younger Republican voters tended to back the Trump children while older respondents favoured Pence and other national figures.Other leading Republicans who scored respectably included the Florida senator Marco Rubio (15%), US secretary of state Mike Pompeo (13%) and Texas governor Greg Abbott (13%).Pompeo seems headed for the Senate in Kansas, a prelude to an expected White House run. Rubio has run for the nomination before, in 2016, when he was briefly seen as a leading contender before Trump blew him out of the water.Many observers now think the Trump takeover of the party of Lincoln makes a family succession more likely than not.Speaking to the Los Angeles Times last month, the Republican strategist and Trump critic Rick Wilson said: "I honestly think Don Jr or Ivanka will be the nominee in 2024 … because the party doesn't care about any of the issues that used to drive the party. Now they care about Trump."I don't think the party has any shot at recovering from Trump," Wilson added. "I think someday there will again be a centre-right economic and individual liberty conservative party again. But I don't think it'll have a Republican brand."The Axios/Survey Monkey poll was conducted immediately before Donald Trump was impeached.In that sense the president remains in constitutional limbo, neither convicted and removed nor cleared. The Democratic-controlled House is withholding the articles of impeachment it approved last month, seeking concessions from Republicans who control the Senate over the rules of the president's trial.
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| Pompeo: European response to Suleimani killing 'not helpful enough' Posted: 04 Jan 2020 08:36 AM PST  US secretary of state unfavourably compares European reaction with 'partners in the region'Mike Pompeo has expressed disappointment with European reaction to the US killing of the Iranian general Qassem Suleimani, suggesting the UK, France and Germany have not been sufficiently supportive.The US secretary of state compared the European response unfavourably with US "partners in the region", a likely reference to Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which Pompeo consulted after the Suleimani assassination."I spent the last day and a half, two days, talking to partners in the region, sharing with them what we were doing, why we were doing it, seeking their assistance," Pompeo told Fox News. "They've all been fantastic. And then talking to our partners in other places that haven't been quite as good."Frankly, the Europeans haven't been as helpful as I wish that they could be. The Brits, the French, the Germans all need to understand that what we did, what the Americans did, saved lives in Europe as well. > This was a good thing for the entire world, we are urging everyone to get behind what the United States is trying to do> > Mike Pompeo"Qassem Suleimani led and his IRGC [Revolutionary Guard] led assassination campaigns in Europe. This was a good thing for the entire world, and we are urging everyone in the world to get behind what the United States is trying to do to get the Islamic Republic of Iran to simply behave like a normal nation."European reaction to the drone-strike killing of Suleimani and Iraqi Shia militants travelling with him in Baghdad has been cautious and apprehensive. While noting Suleimani's destructive role in the region, governments have called for restraint.Policy towards Iran has been a deeply divisive issue between the US and Europe since Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 multilateral agreement with Iran that imposed strict limits on its nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief. European officials have blamed Trump's efforts to strangle Iran economically for the rising tensions in the Persian Gulf.There were immediate signs that in the short term at least, the killing of Suleimani would inhibit the broad coalition effort to wipe out Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Nato suspended its training of Iraqi security forces, currently led by Canada, and the US-led counter-Isis mission in the region, Operation Inherent Resolve, also cut back its activities, including the training of Iraqi counter-terrorist units."Over the last few days we've literally stopped the anti-Isis fight – everything stopped," said Michael Knights, an expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.Knights said the counter-Isis campaign had already been severely hindered over the past year as Shia militias extended their influence. US-led forces have been stopped from flying over a large part of Iraq and banned from communicating with Sunni tribal forces, which had been seen as an important part of the strategy for keeping Isis suppressed.The increased militia threat has also meant US special forces have had to abandon remote positions which they had been manning with Iraqi army units, because such small 30-strong detachments had become too vulnerable."You just can't do that because those guys could easily be overrun, killed or kidnapped by the militias, by the Iranians," Knights said."It's been very challenging to keep counter-Isis operations going under these conditions, and now with the really ramped-up threat to operating locations, it's even harder, and if they kick us out of the country, even harder still."If the Iraq parliament votes to eject the US military, other partner countries in the coalition will leave too, he said."It operates on an 'in-with-us out-with-us', meaning those countries that came in with the US, will leave with the US."
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| Trump accuses 'radical' Democratic candidates of trying to 'silence our churches' Posted: 04 Jan 2020 08:31 AM PST  President Trump is working on solidifying the evangelical vote.Trump on Friday evening launched his "Evangelicals for Trump" coalition at a re-election campaign event at King Jesus International Ministry in Miami, Florida. The gathering, which included church leaders praying over Trump, comes just weeks after Christianity Today, a leading evangelical magazine, called for the president's removal from office.During the event, Trump painted himself as a champion of religious communities and accused Democrats of pursuing an "extreme, anti-religious and socialist" agenda. Trump said religion in the U.S. was "under siege" and he would defend it against every Democratic presidential candidate, all of whom he said were trying to "silence our churches and our pastors."> WATCH: Christian leaders pray over President Trump during the launch of the Evangelicals for Trump coalition in Miami, Florida. https://t.co/WCEpzvNo8x pic.twitter.com/MpHGr6X8jg> > — NBC News (@NBCNews) January 4, 2020In light of the event, a non-profit group has asked the Internal Revenue Service to investigate the megachurch because it may have violated non-partisan rules by holding a rally, although its pastor, Guillermo Maldonado, said the church does not take positions in political campaigns. Read more at The Hill and CBS Miami.More stories from theweek.com America is guilty of everything we accuse Iran of doing Trump's perilous delusions about Tehran Can Mike Vrabel's Titans add to the theory that Bill Belichik struggles against his protégés?
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| US arms companies see stocks soar after Soleimani assassination as analysts predict Iran conflict Posted: 04 Jan 2020 08:15 AM PST  Major US arms companies have seen their stock prices jump following the Trump administration's assassination of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani.The US announced it was deploying nearly 3,000 extra troops to the Middle East on Friday as Iran vowed "severe revenge" on those responsible for Soleimani's killing.
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| US flags burn as thousands mourn general in Tehran Posted: 04 Jan 2020 08:11 AM PST  US and Israeli flags were set alight in Iran's capital Saturday as thousands mourned the loss of top military commander Qasem Soleimani, a day after he was killed by American forces. "We are with you," they chanted as they waved their hands in unison during the outpouring of grief at a rally in Tehran's Palestine Square, an AFP correspondent reported. Soleimani was killed on Friday in a US air strike outside Baghdad international airport that shocked the Islamic republic and sparked fears of a new war in the Middle East.
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| Australia has 'yet to hit the worst' of fires Posted: 04 Jan 2020 08:03 AM PST  Things may get worse before they get better in Australia.Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison — who has faced heavy criticism for his handling of the situation — announced Saturday that 3,000 reservists from the country's military will be called up to help fight the brush fires that have been spreading during one of Australia's worst wildfire seasons ever. Reservists who are fighting to save their own homes form the fires will be exempt from service, The New York Times reports. The government is also deploying another naval ship to assist with evacuations."Volatile" conditions in the southeastern state of New South Wales — where the fires have done serious damage — on Saturday include high winds and temperatures over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, which will likely exacerbate the flames, BBC reports. The New South Wales fire department is expecting more houses will be lost over the weekend, and New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the state had "yet to hit the worst of it."In total, 23 people have died, as have countless animals, more than 1,300 homes have been destroyed, and tens of thousands of acres of national park and forest land have burned since the fires began in September. Read more at The New York Times and BBC.More stories from theweek.com America is guilty of everything we accuse Iran of doing Trump's perilous delusions about Tehran Can Mike Vrabel's Titans add to the theory that Bill Belichik struggles against his protégés?
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| Nato suspends Isis operations in Iraq, as Iran vows revenge on Trump after killing of top commander Posted: 04 Jan 2020 07:49 AM PST  Nato has suspended ongoing efforts to fight Isis in Iraq amid demands by Iran and its allies for revenge against the US following the assassination of an Iranian leader by American forces.Thousands of supporters of Iranian commander Qassem Suleimani and Iraqi Shia militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes gathered in Tehran, Baghdad and other cities to beat their chests and chant religious slogans to mourn the two men, who were killed in a US airstrike outside the Iraqi capital on Friday.
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| Pence Links Soleimani to 9/11. The Public Record Doesn't Back Him. Posted: 04 Jan 2020 07:26 AM PST  In a series of tweets Friday defending President Donald Trump's decision to authorize the drone strike that killed Iran's top intelligence commander, Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Vice President Mike Pence reeled off a list of some of Soleimani's most notorious attacks and machinations. Pence described "an evil man" who had threatened American national security interests for decades.In one of his tweets, Pence claimed that Soleimani helped 10 of the men who would go on to carry out the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks cross through Iran and enter Afghanistan. That does not match established historical accounts of Soleimani or public U.S. intelligence about the hijackers.WHAT WAS SAIDPence said on Twitter that Soleimani "assisted in the clandestine travel to Afghanistan of 10 of the 12 terrorists who carried out the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States."This lacks evidence. How Pence arrived at this number and this account is unclear. From what is commonly known about Soleimani and the group of men who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks, their paths did not cross.To start, many observers were quick to point out that 19 terrorists, not 12, were involved in the attacks. Katie Waldman, a spokeswoman for Pence, clarified that he was referring to a subset of 12 of the attackers who are known to have traveled through Afghanistan. She did not provide any evidence supporting the claim that Soleimani chose to assist only 10 of them.The notion that Soleimani abetted the attackers at all also appears dubious.By 2001, Soleimani had already been named head of the Quds Force, the powerful security branch that often coordinates with other terrorist groups worldwide. Yet the general was not named at any point in the 9/11 Commission Report.In fact, the report states in no uncertain terms that neither the Iranian government nor Hezbollah, a group that Soleimani worked closely with, ever knew anything about the attacks or helped facilitate them: "We have found no evidence that Iran or Hezbollah was aware of the planning for what later became the 9/11 attack. At the time of their travel through Iran, the al-Qaida operatives themselves were probably not aware of the specific details of their future operation."Why Soleimani, leader of a hard-line Shiite Muslim military apparatus, would have come to the aid of members of al-Qaida, a Sunni extremist group with strong ties to Saudi Arabia, is also unclear.Soleimani spent much of his career undermining Saudi Arabia, and once even plotted to have the Saudi ambassador to the United States assassinated. At various points, he was also said to have helped facilitate the capture of al-Qaida militants on behalf of the United States.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| A Shocked Iraq Reconsiders Its Relationship With the U.S. Posted: 04 Jan 2020 07:22 AM PST  BAGHDAD -- American oil workers were fleeing Iraq on Friday, as fears grew of war between the United States and Iran. At sermons in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, worshippers chanted, "Death to America!"And in Tahrir Square in central Baghdad, where anti-government protesters have gathered for months, a banner went up with a pointed message to both Iran and the U.S.: "Keep your conflicts away from Iraq."Iraqis awoke to the news Friday that Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani of Iran, the architect of Iran's dominating influence over Iraq, had been killed in a U.S. drone strike, along with several others.Even before the shock of the brazen killing wore off, Iraqi factions were weighing their responses. Militias with ties to Iran vowed bloody revenge. Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi condemned the attack as "an outrageous breach to Iraqi sovereignty" and said parliament would meet to discuss the future of the U.S. presence in Iraq.Anti-government protesters, who have been protesting Iran's stifling influence in the country, were worried their movement could be snuffed out by pro-Iran militias. And throughout the country, there was the familiar feeling that Iraq was a mere bystander in the broader geopolitical conflict between the U.S. and Iran taking place on Iraqi soil.More broadly, the events raised a single, overarching question: can the U.S. maintain a cooperative security relationship with Iraq given the upheaval the assassination has provoked? The question was already coursing through the halls of power in Baghdad, even as the Trump administration said Friday that it was rushing new troops to the region in response to the crisis.The airstrike on Soleimani "was a clear breach of the terms of the American forces' presence," Abdul Mahdi said.He said that parliament would meet in the coming days to consider "appropriate measures to preserve the dignity of Iraq and its security and sovereignty," including whether to ask the Americans to leave.It could well turn out that the killing of Soleimani, intended as a shot against Iran, could accelerate one of Iran's long-term objectives: pushing the U.S. military out of Iraq."I think in his death he put the final nail in the coffin of the U.S. military presence in Iraq," said Mohammad Shabani, a doctoral researcher at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London who focuses on Iran-Iraq relations. "If Iran can erase the U.S. military presence in Iraq and all it has to do is give up five Iranian military men, would Iran do it? I think the answer is yes."The U.S. has nearly 5,000 troops in Iraq on a handful of bases. But whether they stay or go, U.S. power in Iraq was only likely to be diminished."One sure result of the U.S. strike is that the era of U.S.-Iraq cooperation is over," Richard N. Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former American diplomat, wrote on Twitter. "The U.S. diplomatic & mil presence will end b/c Iraq asks us to depart or our presence is just a target or both. The result will be greater Iranian influence, terrorism and Iraqi infighting."More than 16 years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, a devastating conflict that cost close to $1 trillion and claimed about 5,000 American lives, Iran is the dominant power in Iraq, and its grip on Baghdad was on vivid display this week, even before Soleimani's killing.When U.S. airstrikes attacked the bases of a pro-Iranian militia Sunday, killing at least 24 of its fighters, Iraqi officials spoke in one voice condemning the U.S. for violating Iraqi sovereignty, but few criticized the militia for carrying out the attack that killed an American contractor and precipitated the airstrikes.When militia fighters marched on the U.S. Embassy on Tuesday, Iraqi security forces stepped aside to let them pass.And as they lay siege to the embassy, setting fire to buildings and effectively blockading embassy personnel in the embassy overnight, Abdul Mahdi found that he was powerless to get them to leave.For 24 hours, he held almost constant emergency meetings with the militia leaders, urging them to withdraw, according to officials involved in the meetings."Please, you are putting me in a critical situation," he begged, according to Brig. Gen. Abdul Karim Khalaf. "We are a state, and we have to conduct ourselves as a state. We have to protect these embassies."He finally persuaded the militia leaders to withdraw their forces only by threatening to leave his job and "leave the country to chaos," according to Iraqi officials familiar with the exchanges.Experts said that if the Trump administration had a strategy to work with the Iraqi government to achieve stability and sovereignty -- through diplomatic and economic engagement -- the killing of Soleimani in a drone strike near the Baghdad airport early Friday would have provided a measure of leverage.Kenneth M. Pollack, a former CIA official who is an expert on Iraq and Iran at the American Enterprise Institute, said the assassination means that, at least for a time, "Iraqi politicians will be less fearful of Iran and more willing to listen to the Americans." The Iranians in Iraq, he said, having lost their leader, will be on their heels, trying to figure out what to do next.But, he said, the U.S. seems to have no policy on Iraq beyond using the country as a base to confront Iran."I have been talking to my friends at state and there is no effort to use this to push Iraq in a better direction," he said. He called the killing "a tactical move directed at Iran without a wider regional strategy."Iran, on the contrary, is deeply embedded in Iraq on many levels."The United States has only one color, it is the military color, that is all that it spends its money on," said Qais al-Khazali, the leader of a pro-Iranian militia. "But Iran has many colors -- in culture, in politics, in religion, in many spheres."On the streets, some Iraqis celebrated Soleimani's demise. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo posted an image of Iraqis waving their country's flag, describing them as, "dancing in the street for freedom; thankful that General Soleimani is no more."The reality on the streets, where anti-government protests have swelled, with calls for an end to Iran's influence, was something else, though, as fear of what may come outweighed any jubilation over the killing of Soleimani.Faiq al-Shakhe, a member of parliament, said the demonstrators showed, "no signs of happiness or celebration." Instead, he said, they were worried about a violent response from Iran-aligned militias, who have already killed many protesters and may now, more than ever, see them as agents of the U.S."It was a wrong act from America because America should have coordinated with the Iraqi government," said Ameer Abbas, a protester, who shared the widespread view that the U.S. attack was a violation of Iraqi sovereignty.Another protester, Mustafa Nader, said, "we are all against foreign interventions, whether from Iran, Saudi Arabia or the United States. We do not have a personal problem with Iran, but if America were to intervene at the same level as Iran, you will see as much objection as there has been against Iran, and maybe stronger."Emma Sky, a former adviser to U.S. forces in Iraq and a senior fellow at Yale, said the U.S.-Iraqi relationship "is going to be really damaged" by the killing. "I think there will be more calls for the U.S. to withdraw troops," she said.She said Americans will be hard pressed to justify a continued presence in Iraq because of the perception that its objectives are not aimed at promoting a stable Iraq, but containing Iran."The U.S. doesn't have a policy on Iraq," she said. "It has a policy on Iran."While Iraq's parliament is sure to take up the issue of the U.S. troop presence, few expect the government to actually expel the Americans. Many Iraqi leaders still view an American presence as vital to its security, and depend on U.S. training of the Iraqi security forces and, for better or worse, as a counterweight to Iranian influence.Still, the Americans are left with few vital defenders in Iraq."No one is going to speak up for us, despite all we've done and in spite of the mistakes -- and God knows we've done some bad ones," said Ryan Crocker, a former U.S. ambassador to Iraq and now the diplomat in residence at Princeton University. "All we've given Iraq, and the Shia in particular, were things they could never have dreamed of before 2003. But that was then and this is now."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Will There Be a Draft? Young People Worry After Military Strike Posted: 04 Jan 2020 07:19 AM PST  For decades, American men over the age of 18 have gone through the ritual of registering with the government in case of a military draft. In recent years, this action has felt more like going through the motions, simply checking a box.But Friday, after a U.S. drone strike in Iraq killed Iran's top security and intelligence commander, prompting concerns about the possibility of a new war in the Middle East, that oft-forgotten paperwork became a reason for spiking anxiety among many Americans."World War III" started trending on social media. Young men suddenly recalled registering after their 18th birthdays, many having done so while applying for college financial aid. One Twitter user posted that he had blocked the account of the U.S. Army, with the (faulty) reasoning that: "They can't draft you if they can't see you."Interest was so high that it apparently crashed the website for the Selective Service System, the independent government agency that maintains a database of Americans eligible for a potential draft. "Due to the spread of misinformation, our website is experiencing high traffic volumes at this time," the agency said on Twitter, adding, "We appreciate your patience."Here is an explanation of the current military system and what it would take to enact a draft in modern times.Is there going to be a military draft?The United States first conscripted soldiers during the Civil War and continued to use the draft in some form on and off through the Vietnam War, said Jennifer Mittelstadt, a professor of history at Rutgers University who has studied the military.But there has been no conscription since 1973, when the draft was abolished after opposition to fighting in Vietnam. "There was huge support for ending the draft across the political spectrum," Mittelstadt said.The modern-day military is now an all-volunteer force, with about 1.2 million active-duty troops.To change that, Congress would have to pass a law reinstating the draft, and the president would have to sign it, actions that would likely require broad political support.What is the draft age?All men from 18 to 25 years old are required to register with the Selective Service System. Many young men check a box to register when getting a driver's license. Others sign up when applying for federal student aid to attend college.But just because you have registered does not mean you will be drafted. "Right now, registering for selective service really means nothing about the likelihood of you serving in the current military," Mittelstadt said.Joe Heck, chairman of the National Commission on Military, National and Public Service, a committee created by Congress to evaluate the Selective Service System, put it this way: "Registration is ongoing. A draft would require an act of Congress."What are the consequences if you don't register?If you do not register for Selective Service as a young man, you can be subject to lifetime penalties. For example, men who did not register cannot receive federal financial aid, and they cannot work for the federal government, Heck said.To check if you have registered, visit the Selective Service System's website (once it is up and running again).Can women be drafted?No.Historically, only men have been eligible for the draft. But the question of whether to register women has gained traction in recent years, as women have taken on broader roles within the military.In 2015, the Pentagon opened up all combat jobs to women. Last year, a federal judge in Houston ruled that excluding women from the draft was unconstitutional.As part of its work, the National Commission on Military, National and Public Service is considering whether to expand the registration requirement to include women. The group's final report, on that and other issues, is expected to be released in March.Are there arguments for reinstating the draft?In the 1860s, mobs of mostly foreign-born white workers took to the streets in New York City to protest conscription during the Civil War, burning down buildings and inciting violent attacks against black residents.A century later, burning draft cards became a symbol of protest against the war in Vietnam."I think it's fair to say that the draft has never been wildly popular," Mittelstadt said.But she said there were arguments in favor of a modern-day draft, including the potential to make the military more representative of society. The current all-volunteer force is more likely to recruit people from the working class, she said, with higher percentages of nonwhite Americans serving in uniform."I don't know what it means in a democracy that you let some people fight your wars and everybody is not responsible," she said. "American citizens are not implicated in the consequences -- bodily human life, economically -- of war, and they should be."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Is There a Risk of Wider War With Iran? Posted: 04 Jan 2020 07:16 AM PST  In the hours after a U.S. drone strike in Iraq killed Iran's most important military leader, Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, a question has dominated discussion in the Middle East, in Congress and on social media. Could this lead to war between the United States and Iran?In a sense, it already has. The killing of Soleimani, commander of Iran's Quds Force, it elite security and intelligence unit, meets virtually any definition of an act of war, a categorical difference from the shadow conflicts that the United States and Iran have engaged in for years. To Iranian eyes, it is akin to Tehran ordering the death of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.But it remains uncertain where this attack, which follows weeks of tit-for-tat escalations between the two countries, will lead.What follows is a guide to the risks of greater conflict between the United States and Iran, how the killing of Soleimani plays into those risks and what might come next.Does this increase risks of conflict?-- Soleimani's killing all but forces Iran to retaliate, most analysts say. That's not primarily out of national pride or saving face but because of the fundamental drive of any state: self-preservation, which includes preserving its top leadership.Killing one of those leaders is more than a slap in the face or a blow to military capabilities; it is a threat to the functioning of the state itself. Iran will feel compelled to retaliate, if only to demonstrate that killing its leaders will trigger counterattacks dire enough to deter the United States from doing so again. But it is difficult to predict how severe that retaliation will be, casting a cloud of uncertainty over the region.-- Iran has an extraordinarily difficult needle to thread. It will likely aim for counterattacks damaging enough to convince the United States that killing Soleimani was not worth it -- a high bar, given his value and the far superior U.S. military strength -- but not so damaging as to trigger an all-out conflict.If Iran succeeds, the results could be costly to the United States and its allies but fall short of triggering outright war. But there is no way for it to know for sure what actions would meet both goals. And miscalculation could lead things to spiral out of control.-- The past month suggests that both the United States and Iran are already failing to properly calibrate their counterattacks. Each cycle of tit-for-tat escalations has, rather than forcing the other side to back down, instead led the other to ramp up, triggering another round more costly than the last.In a sense, both sides have already lost control: It's not as if the United States wanted its Baghdad embassy stormed or Iran wanted its Quds Force commander killed.Is escalation inevitable?-- Another dynamic makes this cycle even harder to control: American intentions have at times been unclear. Official statements have described limited aims, such as deterring Iranian attacks. But senior officials have also described more sweeping goals like expelling Iran from the wider region or even toppling its government.The uncertainty, along with the simple fact of overwhelming U.S. military might, puts pressure on Iranian leaders to plan for the worst. And it makes it harder for them to know when they can safely back down.-- Faced with a potentially existential threat, any state has two options: stand down and negotiate or hit the source of that threat hard enough to make it back down.Iran chose to cut a deal most recently in 2015, when, to relieve U.S.-led economic sanctions, it surrendered the bulk of its nuclear program and permitted invasive inspections. But the United States had made that easier by seeking to demonstrate that Iran would not expose itself to existential threats by curbing its nuclear program. Monthslong negotiations allowed Iranian leaders to feel confident that the terms were in their interest and had wide international backing.But President Donald Trump's penchant for making sudden policy changes, disdaining international support and withdrawing from agreements, including that very nuclear accord, could shift Iran's calculus. It may see gambling on retaliation as the safer option.What could escalation look like?-- Iran is a regional power with far more sophisticated military capabilities than any country that the United States has gone to war with since World War II. It is a far cry from Saddam Hussein's crumbling Iraq or armies of North Vietnamese irregulars. And it has invested years of preparation in enduring a possible war.-- Iran's escalations are expected to be asymmetric, which means using proxies or small attack groups to target American forces, allies or economic interests. Iran has also shown a willingness to target civilians.U.S. adversaries have had little success in using asymmetric attacks to force Washington to back down -- just as the United States has never found a reliable strategy for deterring asymmetric attacks.-- The greatest risk may be that asymmetric Iranian warfare reaches a point in which the United States feels compelled to strike Iran directly. Analysts fear that this could lead to a direct, sustained war, but no one can say for sure how easily that might happen.Iran could hardly win a shooting war with the United States, but its conventional forces would make any ground war costly and drawn out, analysts project. Iran also has extensive medium-range missiles that could strike U.S. bases or allies throughout the Middle East.Would a conflict go wider?-- Iran could call upon proxy militias in Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Syria. But no governments are eager to join it in an outright war. U.S. allies in the region -- Israel and Gulf States such as Saudi Arabia -- would be unlikely to join unless dragged in by Iranian attacks.-- Iraq is coming under growing pressure to choose between the United States and Iran. Should American forces be expelled, Washington would lose a point of significant influence in Iraq, likely granting Iran greater sway in the country.-- While the possibility of an unintended slide to war is impossible to rule out, fears of World War III -- a phrase that trended overnight on social media -- are overblown. Russia and China might strenuously object to U.S. attacks, but they are no more likely to join the fight than they were when the United States invaded Iraq or helped to topple Libya's government.Is either side ready for what's next?-- The suddenness of this escalation makes it difficult to know how fully Trump's administration has thought through and planned for the potential consequences.Early signs suggest that Trump's trademark impulsiveness may have played a role. It is unclear whether European allies were notified in advance. Even Israeli leaders appeared to scramble in response.-- Iran's willingness to take risky actions -- perhaps driven by a perception that the scale of the U.S. threat leaves it with no other choice -- increases the danger to all sides.The greatest stakes are not purely political. It can be easy for Americans to forget that Iran is not just an adversary, it is also home to over 80 million civilians, many of whom are already suffering under sanctions. Millions more across the Middle East, where proxy fights are likely to play out, would also be at risk. The burdens of any conflict are likely to fall overwhelmingly on those regular families, as they always do.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Pulling the Trigger on a Target Who Didn't Hide Posted: 04 Jan 2020 07:15 AM PST  WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump was deep in discussion with political advisers going over campaign plans at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida just before 5 p.m. on Thursday when he was abruptly summoned to another meeting. A while later he returned just as mysteriously, jumping back into the conversation without offering a clue to what was going on.In those few minutes, according to multiple people briefed on the events, Trump had made one of the most consequential foreign policy decisions of his presidency, giving final authorization to a drone strike halfway around the world that would eliminate one of America's deadliest enemies while pushing the United States to the edge of an escalating confrontation with Iran that could transform the Middle East.The military operation that killed Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian security and intelligence commander responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American troops over the years, was unlike the ones that took out Osama bin Laden or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, terrorist leaders caught after long manhunts. Soleimani did not have to be hunted; a high-ranking official of the Iranian government, he was in plain sight for years. All that was required was a president to decide to pull the trigger.Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama never did. Bush's administration made a conscious decision not to kill Soleimani when he was in the cross hairs and Obama's administration evidently never made an effort to pursue him. Both reasoned that killing the most powerful general in Iran would only risk a wider war with the country, alienating American allies in Europe and the Middle East and undermining the United States in a region that had already cost plenty of lives and treasure in the last two decades.But Trump opted to take the risk they did not, determined to demonstrate after months of backing down following previous Iranian provocations that he would no longer stand by while Soleimani roamed freely. "He should have been taken out many years ago!" Trump wrote on Twitter on Friday.The question was why now? "This guy has been killing Americans in Iraq since 2003," said Jon Soltz, chairman of VoteVets.org and an Iraq War veteran. "I was in one of his attacks in Taji in 2011. They were dropping 240-millimeter rockets on us. So this is not a surprise that he's involved in killing Americans.""But the question is what was different last night?" he added. "The onus is on Trump to prove something was different, or this is no different than another weapons of mass destruction play."Aides said Trump was angry about a rocket attack last week by forces linked to Tehran that killed an American civilian contractor and stewed as he watched television images of pro-Iranian demonstrators storming the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad in the days that followed, neither of which would normally result in such a seemingly disproportionate retaliation.But senior officials said the decision to target Soleimani grew out of a new stream of Iran threats to American embassies, consulates and military personnel in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. Soleimani had just left Damascus, the Syrian capital, where he was planning an "imminent" attack that could claim hundreds of lives, officials said."We'd be negligent if we didn't respond," Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters Friday in his Pentagon office. "The threat of inaction exceeded the threat of action."Still, officials offered scant details and only general explanations for why these reported threats were any different than the rocket attacks, roadside bombings and other assaults carried out by Soleimani's Quds Force over the years. "Size, scale and scope," Milley said without elaboration.National security experts and even other officials at the Pentagon said they were unaware of anything drastically new about Iranian behavior in recent weeks; Soleimani has been accused of prodding Shiite militias into attacking Americans for more than a decade.The drone strike came at a fraught time for the president, who faces a Senate trial after being impeached by the House largely along party lines last month for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. While advisers insisted politics had nothing to do with the decision, the timing was bound to raise questions in an era marked by deep suspicion across party lines.Soleimani was not a particularly elusive target. Unlike bin Laden or al-Baghdadi, he moved about quite freely in a number of countries, frequently popping up meeting with Iranian allies or visiting front-line positions in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. He traveled with an air of impunity. His fans distributed photographs of him on social media, and he occasionally gave interviews. One former senior American commander recalled once parking his military jet next to Soleimani's plane at the Irbil airport in northern Iraq."Soleimani was treated like royalty, and was not particularly hard to find," said Marc Polymeropoulos, a former senior CIA operations officer with extensive counterterrorism experience overseas. "Soleimani absolutely felt untouchable, particularly in Iraq. He took selfies of himself on the battlefield and openly taunted the U.S., because he felt safe in doing so."That public profile made him the face of the Iranian network across the Middle East, the so-called Axis of Resistance, which includes groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen and a range of militias in Syria and Iraq who share Iran's animosity toward Israel and the United States. Soleimani wanted to show that he could be anywhere and everywhere, a U.S. official said, knowing he could be a target but obsessed with proving he had his hand in everything.If Soleimani acted untouchable, for years he was. One night in January 2007, U.S. Special Operations commandos tracked him traveling in a convoy from Iran into northern Iraq. But the Americans held their fire and Soleimani slipped away into the darkness."To avoid a firefight, and the contentious politics that would follow, I decided that we should monitor the caravan, not strike immediately," Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, then head of the secretive Joint Special Operations Command, recalled in an article last year.Until now, Trump had shied away from military action against Iran too. While he talked tough after Iran was blamed for various attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman and oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, Trump declined to use force, at one point even calling off a planned airstrike with only 10 minutes to go.A U.S. official who asked not to be identified discussing internal deliberations said the president's advisers worried that he had indicated so many times that he did not want a war with Iran that Tehran had become convinced that the United States would not act forcibly. But the official acknowledged that the strike was a huge gamble and could just as likely prompt an outsize reaction from both Iran and Iraq.The operation culminated three years of rising tension since Trump took office and followed through on his pledge to withdraw from the nuclear agreement that Obama brokered with Iran in 2015. As part of a "maximum pressure" campaign, Trump reimposed sanctions on Tehran to strangle its economy while Iran tested the U.S. president with a string of provocative actions.The mission to target Soleimani was set in motion after a rocket attack last Friday on an Iraqi military base outside Kirkuk killed an American civilian contractor, according to senior U.S. officials. The military's Special Operations Command spent the next several days looking for an opportunity to hit Soleimani. Military and intelligence officials said the strike drew on information from secret informants, electronic intercepts, reconnaissance aircraft and other surveillance tools.The option that was eventually approved depended on Soleimani's arrival at Baghdad International Airport. If he was met by Iraqi officials, one U.S. official said, the strike would be called off. But the official said it was a "clean party" and the strike was authorized.Trump, who was spending the holiday season at Mar-a-Lago, participated in multiple meetings on the operation and aides said that he did not struggle with the decision, unlike over the summer when he changed his mind citing possible civilian casualties. "It was a very straightforward decision by the president to make the call on this," Robert C. O'Brien, his national security adviser, told reporters.As late as Thursday, officials were still weighing other less inflammatory options, including strikes against Iranian ships, missile batteries or militias in Iraq, one official said. But aides noted that Trump has grown wary of warnings that bold actions will result in negative consequences because in some cases those have not materialized, notably in his trade war.The president kept the discussions to a tight circle that included O'Brien; Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper; Gina Haspel, the CIA director; Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff; and Eric Ueland, the president's legislative liaison. Left out of the loop was the White House communications operation.Pompeo has been one of the administration's most persistent Iran hawks and the public face of the sanctions campaign but until now he had never persuaded the president to take military action.As a congressman, Pompeo assailed the former secretary of state Hillary Clinton over the deadly attack on an American diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, and he has been obsessed with embassy security in the Middle East, and in Iraq in particular, according to former officials and associates. The violent protests in recent days at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad spooked the secretary, officials said, prompting him to cancel an important trip to Ukraine.The administration said the strike was legal under the 2002 act of Congress authorizing the invasion of Iraq and also a matter of self-defense under international law and pursuant to the president's constitutional powers as commander-in-chief. "We had the right to self-defense," O'Brien said.The strike was particularly unusual in that it targeted a top official in a national government. Since the late 1970s, an executive order has banned "assassinations." But that constraint, while still in place on paper, has eroded in the fight against terrorism. Legal teams under presidents of both parties have argued that the term "assassination," which is not defined by federal law or the order, does not cover killing terrorists and other people deemed to pose an imminent threat to the United States because that would instead be self-defense.Against that backdrop, it may be relevant that last year, Trump designated Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a foreign terrorist organization -- the first time that the United States had so designated part of another nation's government.However the lawyers rationalized it, McChrystal, who passed on taking the shot at Soleimani 13 years ago, said Trump was right to take it now. "The targeting was appropriate given Soleimani's very public role in orchestrating Iranian attacks on the U.S. and our allies," he said in an email.But the general added a somber warning: "We can't consider this as an isolated action. As with all such actions it will impact the dynamics of the region, and Iran will likely feel compelled to respond in kind. There is the potential for a stair-step escalation of attacks and we must think several moves ahead to determine how far we will take this -- and what the new level of conflict we are prepared to engage in."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| On foreign policy, Trump flouts risks that gave others pause Posted: 04 Jan 2020 07:00 AM PST  President Donald Trump is not the first American leader to have Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in his sights, but he was the first to pull the trigger. On a range of national security matters, he has cast aside the same warnings that gave his predecessors in both parties pause. When Trump moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a pledge others had made but ultimately backed away from, it was against the advice of aides who argued it would inflame tensions in the Middle East.
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| Iran general steps out of Soleimani's shadow to lead proxies Posted: 04 Jan 2020 06:34 AM PST  A new Iranian general has stepped out of the shadows to lead the country's expeditionary Quds Force, becoming responsible for Tehran's proxies across the Mideast as the Islamic Republic threatens the U.S. with "harsh revenge" for killing its previous head, Qassem Soleimani. The Quds Force is part of the 125,000-strong Revolutionary Guard, a paramilitary organization that answers only to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Guard oversees Iran's ballistic missile program, has its naval forces shadow the U.S. Navy in the Persian Gulf and includes an all-volunteer Basij force.
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| Trump campaigns with patriotism after airstrike – but election is still far off Posted: 04 Jan 2020 06:01 AM PST  Killing of Suleimani will help Trump among his supporters, but it could hurt him at the ballot box after promises of 'America first' * America's long, grim line of assassination attempts"We have God on our side." They have long been some of the most chilling words in the English language. Perhaps never more so than when uttered by Donald Trump in a re-election campaign.The president made the claim at an Evangelicals for Trump rally at a megachurch in Miami on Friday night, a day after taking America to the brink of war with the killing in Baghdad of Qassem Suleimani, Iran's top general and potential future leader."He was planning a very major attack," said Trump, against a backdrop of US flags, "and we got him!" The crowd – many wearing Keep America Great hats, shirts and other regalia – erupted in cheers and whistles.It was a sure sign of how, impeached and facing a Senate trial as he may be, Trump is already campaigning with a toxic brew of audacity, patriotism and appeals to the almighty. Reflecting on his shock 2016 victory, he told the crowd in Miami: "I really do believe we have God on our side. We're going to blow away those numbers in 2020."For a political outsider who promised to upend Washington, it all sounds remarkably like an old-fashioned Republican pitch. It casts Trump as strongman commander-in-chief, exploiting what the rest of the world has long suspected is an American weakness for jingoism and imperialism. And it seeks to portray his Democratic opponent, whomever it may be, as soft on national security and insufficiently patriotic or Christian.> He was planning a very major attack and we got him!> > Donald Trump"As we speak, every Democrat candidate running for president is trying to punish religious believers and silence our churches and our pastors," Trump claimed spuriously in Miami, eliciting boos. "Well, we can smile because we're winning by so much."Intriguingly, Trump singled out for criticism Pete Buttigieg, a leading Democratic candidate who is both a proud Christian and a military veteran. Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, tweeted in return: "God does not belong to a political party."Meanwhile a Trump campaign video depicts his predecessor, Barack Obama, as if through a dark-tinted lens and with nightmarish music as he talks about the campaign against Islamic State, then bursts into colour as it recounts the killing of its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, last year. Trump declares: "You don't stand a chance against the righteous might of the United States military."Faced with this brutally simplistic message, Democratic candidates on Friday asked voters to hold two thoughts at the same time: yes, Suleimani was an enemy of America, but yes, it was also staggeringly reckless of Trump to direct the killing of a government official from another country with little regard for the consequences.In their view, he is a child playing with matches. The question now is whether Iran will follow through on its promise of "severe revenge" and inflict American casualties, pushing foreign policy up an election agenda so far dominated by healthcare, immigration, taxes, gun control, the climate crisis and the president's own competence and impeachable conduct.If America pays in blood and treasure, Trump could be punished at the ballot box, especially as his first campaign was built around promises of "America first" isolation and withdrawing from endless wars in the Middle East.> The strike will definitely help Trump among his supporters. It is the kind of tough talk and action they seem to like> > Monika McDermottMonika McDermott, a political science professor at Fordham University in New York, said: "The strike will definitely help Trump among his supporters. It is the kind of tough talk and action they seem to like. Whether it will have any effects outside of that remain to be seen."It's still a long way to go for the general election. The only possible negative I can see from it, in terms of public opinion, is if it opens up a new type of conflict in the Middle East that drags on closer to the election."Before then, the killing of Suleimani could shake up the Democratic primary, with the Iowa caucuses only a month away. It offers an opportunity for Joe Biden – whose eight years as vice-president to Obama included the Iran nuclear deal, torn up by Trump – to tout his foreign policy pedigree.But it also offers anti-interventionist rivals, such as the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, the chance to attack Biden's 2002 vote in favour of the Iraq war.John Zogby, a Democratic pollster, said: "Sanders can certainly take advantage of Biden's vote on the Iraq war and draw a straight line from there to the destabilisation of the Middle East. Biden can make up for it by saying we negotiated the Iran nuclear deal, they were abiding by the deal and now is this what we want?"But overall, in the warp speed of the scandal-strewn Trump presidency, it is impossible to know whether Suleimani's death will loom large or be a half-forgotten footnote come November. Unfortunately for Trump, that outcome may well depend on decisions made in Tehran rather than Washington.Michael Steele, former chairman of the Republican National Committee, said: "We don't know how Iran is going to respond to it yet. We don't know exactly what it may or may not mean domestically here at home."How do the American people digest all of this? Because it's all happening so fast: people woke up this morning and, 'Oh! We just assassinated the No 2 in Iran.'"
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| Mississippi says two inmates escaped from troubled prison Posted: 04 Jan 2020 05:42 AM PST  Mississippi authorities were searching for two prisoners believed to have escaped Saturday from one of several prisons rocked by violence that has left at least five inmates dead in the past week. Gov. Phil Bryant on Saturday said via Twitter that he has directed "the use of all necessary assets and personnel" to find the two inmates who escaped from the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman. The state Department of Public Safety has deployed state troopers and the highway patrol's special operations group to help the Department of Corrections find the two inmates and to help restore order at the troubled facility that they escaped from, Bryant said.
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| Soleimani's funeral procession brings out thousands in Baghdad Posted: 04 Jan 2020 05:36 AM PST  Thousands gathered Saturday in Baghdad for the funeral procession of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps' elite Quds force who was killed in a U.S. airstrike this week in Iraq. His death has heightened tensions between Washington and Tehran, with the latter vowing to retaliate for the strike.Many of the mourners were reportedly militia members donning their military fatigues, and anti-American and anti-Israel chants could be heard coming from the crowd. Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, who has announced his resignation after a series of anti-government protests, and Iraqi militia commander Hadi al-Amiri attended the procession, which also honored Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and other Iraqis killed alongside Soleimani in the strike.> Thousands of Iraqis, including the prime minister, took part in the funeral procession for General Soleimani and the militia commanders killed in a US airstrike. pic.twitter.com/Hl1uVZJvB4> > — DW News (@dwnews) January 4, 2020Soleimani's body will reportedly make its way to Iran by Sunday after it's carried to Shiite holy sites in Iraq. The general's image has reportedly appeared on billboards on major streets in Iran, and a ceremony honoring him took place at a mosque in the Shiite holy city of Qom. Read more at The Associated Press and Reuters.More stories from theweek.com America is guilty of everything we accuse Iran of doing Trump's perilous delusions about Tehran Can Mike Vrabel's Titans add to the theory that Bill Belichik struggles against his protégés?
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