The goal is for Russia not to have too much power over them if they are completely dependant on Russia or Russian allies/proxis

pipelines from the gulf

sunni versus shiite pipeline plans

Why would western Europe depend on syria?

The pipelines would run through syria(or not)

plus Russia has a naval base there

Analyzing this stuff is how putin got into power

his master's thesis is about this game

Quite the theory you got there

Putin's major political philosphical view is that the Russian government should be an active player in Russia' energy resoruce exploitation, which includes geopoliltics

lol so unity just knows nothing about foreign policy. Got it.

us intel officers were/are force to read his stuff

us think tanks do etc so we know his thoughts at least regarding his published work

and we can certainly see his moves as an official/president

Indeed. But I doubt wasting billions of taxpayer dollars in Syria would benifit the U.S at all

@Unity.Nat so why take out suleimani?

Why send more troops to the Middle East?

Because he's a terrorist, of course.

Hm?

Yes

Why send troops to defend KSA?

in Trump's case, if he is a russian operative, letting Russia 'have' syria would be the point

KSA and Russian talks and business share exchange would be the fait accompli from teh saudis on that

and brin gthem into the Russian plan

US versus Iran would weak both

helps Russia, helps Saudi Arabia

see my other links on Soleimani's role in fightin gthe taliban after 9/11 working with us

Letting Russia have Syria. I could care less.

Ok unity let lie back up and give you more benefit of the doubt

Do you think killing suleimani was a good idea?

Indeed

Why?

His job was to guide and commit terrorist activities in the middle east at the benifit of Iran

So?

It’s the Middle East, who cares

Let Iran have it right? What do you care

I thought Trump was supposed to stop meddling in ME affairs.

Focus on the US.

Shit like that, no?

@Unity.Nat under what principle does that matter?

```n the months after 9/11, Soleimani saw an opportunity to defeat the Taliban once and for all by unconventional means—namely, cooperation with the United States. Early in the war, he directed Iranian diplomats to share intelligence on Taliban military positions with their U.S. counterparts. The Americans, in return, told the Iranians what they knew about an al-Qa`ida fixer hiding out in eastern Iran.33

For a brief moment, it seemed as if this contact might lead to a more general thawing of relations between Iran and the country its leaders refer to as the “Great Satan.” Indeed, back in Tehran, behind closed doors, Soleimani was pronouncing himself “pleased with [the] cooperation,” and musing at the highest political levels that “maybe it’s time to rethink our relationship with the Americans.”```

just for the record again

Since Iraq is a nice neutral zone between Saudi and Iran

Says who

Says me.

Lol

Ok so you’re not going to even attempt to make a cogent argument

A strong U.S ally like the Saudis would be better off to have some border state then an actual border

Just Syria is different than Iraq cuz.

Rubio talking about partioning iraq etc

So you care about US allies in the region?

Syria was bombed into submission

are the Saudis our allies or are they using us?

Depends on the region

did they commit 9/11?

The region we’re talking about dumbass

The Middle East

THey are draggign us into situation in Yemen

They wanted the guy who was fighting ISIS killed

If, say, Israel doesn’t want Putin to be in control of Syria

Isn’t that reason enough to prevent it? Since we care about our allies in the region?

I would prefer Turkey to have Syria then anything but meh

Turkey, kicked out of the f-35 program for working with russian iads

an increasingly less reliable NATO and US ally

Well i'm sure your opinion is noted by the Russians

@Unity.Nat are you capable of answering the question?

Why does the KSA matter but Israel doesn’t?

basically you dont mind what happens as long as the US is harmed

I mean let’s be honest here

unity is a trump line-toer. He will defend anything that trump does, and has no other principle.

I don't believe Israel and Russia are at odds

There’s no underlying theory of the case, no actual worldview

Just trump good.

that looks to be accurate

Who said I would defend everything Trump does?

Obviously Israel and Russia are at odds

<:TaroThonk:534032224291389440>

@Unity.Nat because you do and have

Not my fault the media is treating the guy unfairly

Lol

What does that have to do with anything?

Draw me the line from our conversation to that comment

I don't support manipulative publications

Who’s talking about publications of any sort?

odd take that

wassupwitdat

was that the next phrase on the cue card

Lol

Is the low flush toilet critique next

Or are we on the greatest hits setlist

The media is treating Trump very fairly in my opinion but see if you saying you don't draw your views from media because they say negative things about him, saying positive things about him because the media is doing it is another form of manipulation

You would be defending Trump simply because the media isn't

Obviously the media does not treat trump unfairly- quite the opposite

But my point was that unity has no internally consistent viewpoint on the Middle East

Isn't Fox News also still the biggest news outlet? Lol

It’s just him contorting to support trump

The media treats trump with kid gloves

They really do

I mean look at the lax security protocols around trump’s phone or ivanka’s email server

Worse than anything Clinton ever did

Anyway I also want to point out the hypocricy with saying Suleimani killed many Americans

Yet no one talks about it

What hypocrisy?

That was mainly the PMF

You could say Suleimani supported them but...

Fascinating pivot

If that means that Suleimani was directly possible...

Where are you from Boo?

Wouldn't that mean that the US is responsible for the death of many Iranians?

Yeah, Iran could by that same reasoning assassinate Trump

Now don't think i'm a Nationalist for a second because I'm an Internationalist

Trump has personally killed lots of Iranians now

```One of the many myths that have been used to justify the push for war with Iran led by National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is that Tehran is responsible for the killing of more than 600 U.S. troops during the Iraq War.

```

And I don't agree with Suleimanis philosophy

https://truthout.org/articles/lies-about-iran-killing-us-troops-in-iraq-are-a-ploy-to-justify-war/

and taht was way before this assassination

Pompeo also lied about the imminent threat yada yada

Here's the thing

There's a reason many in the ME don't like the US

Especially Iranians (although there are many Iranians who support the US)

There are certain things that the US has done which sparked this extremism and anti-Americanism

For Iranians a case would be shooting down Flight 655 Iran Air by a US warship

Or sanctioning Iran during the Iran-Iraq war whilst directly supporting Saddam

Yea that anti-Americanism didn't just pop out of thin air

our prodding of iran goes deep and long

Now the US had two chances in the last two decades to fix relations with Iran

First would be after 9/11 as Sh0t pointed out

The second was the Iran deal

In both cases, the majority of the Iranian population was hopeful and optimistic about starting on the way towards peace

So again where do you really think this anti-Americanism comes from?

Well, I know Obama propped them up during his presidency. Allowing them to continue terrorist weapon dev. I’m glad that Trump is taking a stand. Look at this logically people! Stop getting stuck on wild goose chases.

This sounded a bit like "open your eyes, sheeple!".

Terrorist weapons development?

What does that even mean?

A war industry?

Almost every nation has that

Also that's a bit of an odd statement to say considering the US still supports the KSA

@Yusa Do you know Saudis also heavily invest into terrorism? Sometimes with the weapons we sell them, which they don't even use for any long period?

https://twitter.com/oliverdarcy/status/1214611609412349954

"we want de-escalatin" "we want to sit down with iran and discuss a best approach"

So Esper and Iraqi PM are overtly in contradiction

https://twitter.com/timaeppel/status/1214549306469957632?s=21

@Puerto Rican Nelson Oh? Has Trump sold them any weapons? My sources say he hasn’t. They also say that he put sanctions on 17 Saudi officials.

@Yusa Justin Trudeau sold arms to Saudi Arabia

Canada is not America, and is certainly not Trump.

@Yusa If this is news to you, then you have no sources at all. This happened right after Khasoggi, where Trump batted for the Saudis claiming nobody knew anything
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_United_States%E2%80%93Saudi_Arabia_arms_deal

He's going as far as telling congress to eat shit to do it
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/06/12/infuriating-congress-trump-administration-pompeo-pushes-new-saudi-arms-sales-iran-khashoggi-hearing-oversight-state-department/

It won’t let me view the wiki page you linked me to.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-saudi-arms/republicans-in-congress-push-back-on-trump-weapons-packages-to-saudi-arabia-uae-idUSKCN1TD2JX

@Yusa I told you that. As it means the US probably did aswell

He's also lied about how much money we'll make or how many jobs it will create

hhttps://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhartung/2019/06/24/do-u-s-defense-firms-really-need-arms-exports/#24951e0b63eb

Building on the Saudi mega-deal – which independent analysts have determined may be as little as 10% as large as the $110 billion figure the president claims – Trump has thrown out incredible estimates of the U.S jobs generated by the Saudi sales, from 40,000 to 500,000 and up to one million if one counts related deals outside the military sphere. An estimate I did for a report by the Center for International Policy indicates that the real number of jobs generated by the roughly $2.5 billion a year in arms deliveries to Saudi Arabia over the past decade is likely 20,000 to 40,000 jobs, a tiny fraction of the more than 150 million jobs in the U.S. economy.

Oops, sorry, my bad...

One thing you need to know is that virtually every Middle Eastern power contributes to what the US will call terrorism.

You’re right. They’re all terrorists

@Deleted User one queen to another: https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1214572665857548289

Lol

Fuck tulsi

Even the likes of Rashid Rahman and Malala, @Gоd?

```American Consumers, Not China, Are Paying for Trump’s Tariffs
New York Fed and academic researchers found that U.S. consumers and companies have borne the brunt of the president’s trade war.```

gotta love the tea party people that became magats

American Carnage covers that. "It wsa never about gov fiscal discipline"

no kidding, we know what it's about

```Manufacturing is slumping, a fact economists attribute at least partly to uncertainty stemming from the trade spats, and business investment has suffered as corporate executives wait to see how — or if — the tensions will end.

```

just saying

https://twitter.com/NatashaBertrand/status/1214626559253995526

```In previous research, the authors found that by December 2018, import tariffs were costing United States consumers and importing businesses $3.2 billion per month in added taxes and another $1.4 billion per month in efficiency losses. They did not update those numbers in the latest study.

```

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/06/us/politics/paul-gosar-obama-iran.html

maybe he chats in here

```What’s more, Mr. Rouhani is still the president, contradicting Mr. Gosar’s suggestion that he is no longer “in power.” ```

naturally he couldn't just admit it was wrong

```Several fellow Twitter users quickly criticized Mr. Gosar for sharing the doctored image, prompting the congressman to defend himself by tweeting more than 40 minutes later that “no one said this wasn’t photoshopped.”

```

That sounds like somebody in here 100% jesus

That's the same congressman whose family sponsored an ad against him

his own brothers and sisters endorsing his opponent

<:facepalm:583246304151470090>

https://youtu.be/6aFdhhUdIqw

See there is no war.

They raised a red flag symbolizing the declaration of war.

They wont do anything lol.

They won’t benefit

That’s not really how geopolitics works

They have a lot of internal pressure to respond, not responding could be internally destabilizing

And we didn’t benefit from suleimani’s killing in the first place but we still did it

Iraq War 2: Electric Boogaloo

I got into talking with a buddy about the Javad Zarif situation.

Theoretically, what would moving the UN HQ to Europe bring to the table?

Say, what if it was moved to Switzerland?

What do you guys think?

I Love Trump

Trump 2020

there is an ongoing missile attack on al asad airbase apparently

Iraq sanctions because they vowed to expell all foreign troops? what

That's true

Also good afternoon

Everyone!

<:nicememe:583236594484641823>

If a potential armed conflict with Iran is not enough to convince Trump supporters that their dear president is a moron, I don't know what ever could.

@Vlad damn

Looks like someone is getting a whooping

and Trump is going to be right on them

Who's getting a whooping?

Is the "update" current?

The US troops that are on the spot in the base that was hit by missiles?

Can't you read?

kid

there is no date

The article literally just came out 15 minutes ago.

Ok, just say that

When do you think the update was written?

Don't be tough

on it

Then don't be stupid.

"whooping"

I'm stupid, how funny

And you're a liberal too, I suppose. They tend to be a little light in the head. ha ha 🙂

Trump's a moron - sure he is.

No, he's not.

pathetic insult

Especially if that is an Iran attack.

Let's engage in an armed exchange over nothing.

I don't fully agree with the actions taken either. It's a hot mess and I don't know what to agree with at this point. If the general really was a threat to Americans, then maybe it was justifiable that he was assassinated. Maybe it had to be done. That's my opinion. I would have never tooken the approach, but we're all different. The boss had other plans.

Well now I know how ima die

WW3 here we go

I cringe when people say that

https://www.foxnews.com/world/missile-attacks-target-us-forces-in-iraq-senior-military-source-says-iran-suspected

I highly doubt lol

whoa a link, nice ! !

I mean ww3 is close af

World War conflicts are inevitable, but this doesn't seem like the one that would initiate one. I just don't see it that way. I dunno

In my opinion the general was may have being worthy of being killed but the actions that will now happen because of his assassination are the most dangerous.

In short I wouldn't visit New York soon.

It was a little dumb since this just further intensified the conflict that already existed

But there are pros and cons to all

they TOOK IT

Yeah

A lot of soldiers will die because of that action but politicians only see soldiers as numbers.

`The source told Fox News' Jennifer Griffin: "Under missile attack from Iran. These are either cruise missiles or short-range ballistic missiles. All over the country." The missiles struck near Al Assad Air Base in Anbar, among other locations.`

https://youtu.be/6u_IdCsKB1Y

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/07/trump-iran-suleimani-threats-retaliation

This aged well.

some dumb people out there

moving the UN headquarters has been a goal of Russia(and others) for a long time

Trump is there to make the US look as bad as possible

we are the baddies

https://youtu.be/0_RnLEd9jU0