Cocked and Loaded
No Hurry to Confront Iran
The Wall Street Journal reports Trump Says He’s ‘In No Hurry’ to Confront Iran
“We were cocked & loaded to retaliate last night on 3 different sights when I asked, how many will die,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter. “150 people, sir, was the answer from a General.”
Iran said Friday it had warned the U.S. spy drone to turn around before shooting it down, and that another spy plane with around 35 crew members was flying near the drone, but Iran chose not to target it.
The downing of the drone Thursday came after Iran said the drone had flown into Iranian airspace with transponders turned off. The commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Aerospace Force, Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, said Iran warned the drone four times, and that the drone would have transmitted the warnings to its “central stations.”
Drone Debris
The incident has set off a scramble to retrieve the parts of the $130 million spy plane. Iran also unveiled Friday what it said was debris from the downed drone collected off the shore of Kuh Mobarak in Iran. “This is in fact evidence of the U.S. air invasion of our territorial waters,” said Mr. Hajizadeh, adding that the parts had been sent to Tehran.
Location Dispute
Specific Claim
The Iranian Claim is very specific.
Reasons to Lie
Both sides have strong reasons to lie but specific claims sound more convincing.
Regardless, imagine an Iranian or Russian drone flying 25 miles from New York City.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
I’m near apoplectic about Trump dumping the nuclear deal w/ Iran. What a “lose-lose” game that has put us into with near no realistic upside.
Today I see Trump says ‘Iran’s ICBM’s must be part of any Iranian deal’. That’s it – I’m full apoplectic about Trump dumping the Iran nuclear deal. WT# would Iran agree to dump it’s sovereign right to ICBM’s? Who would? I mean N. Korea won’t give up it’s nukes as that would lose all their bargaining chips. Much less ive up their EXPANDING ICBMs. Heck, and who in the Middle East WOULD CHOSE TO UNILATERALLY DISARM?? Why doesn’t Trump just insist Iran’s leaders send him their wives?!? There’s no way any decent sized country is going to relinquish their ICBM rights. THAT IS AN UNREASONABLE DEMAND – on top of already unreasonable demands.
“Such information is typically discussed early in the deliberations between a president and national security officials.”
All the more likely this was staged theater
The only reason this story is interesting is because of the Russia and China connections. Putin has said attacks against Iran will escalate into at least a regional conflict. China hasn’t said anything publicly that I can find, but has obvious vested interests.
Bingo. My feeling is that Russia let Trump know what would happen if he attacked Iran. Just like they did when Trump was all “Cocked and Loaded” to regime change in Venezuela. Do you hear him talking about Maduro anymore after he talked to Putin?
Trump is a blowhard. I doubt he ever came close to retaliation on Iran but reality TV in him needed to make it look like he did so he can differentiate himself from other presidents who would have done nothing as well.
I suspect this entire Iran fiasco, from the tanker ‘attacks’ to the drone, is one big bluff to scare the Iranians into thinking they would be bombed if they didn’t make a deal with Trumpet. They have called the bluff and, to demonstrate their honesty, published a video of it while denying the tanker attacks. The rest of the world finally has US figured out.
LOL@The commenter’s on here acting as if war with Iran wouldn’t collapse the GLOBAL economy!!!LOL!!!!!!
And you’re acting as if collapsing the “Global Economy” would be some sort of bad thing. Now that’s LOLable….
Can someone tell me what’s wrong with Iran? Seems to me they’re a country on the other side of the planet, possessing no borders with the United States, and having minimal to no trade with the US.
This Iran ‘crap’ has Bolton’s fingerprints all over it.
It’s okay Mish, you can compliment Trump. Bush, Clinton and Obama would have caved to the military industrial complex, and Trump did NOT.
But he caved to some one. We just do not know who.
I think Trump did the right thing. We have nothing to gain by launching an attack and everything to lose. The best outcome is if Iran was at fault and we don’t respond. It would give us leverage during future negotiations. Losing a single drone is meaningless from a military point of view.
I’m guessing this is not the behavior Trump was expecting when he scuttled the nuclear deal and declared economic war on Iran. I’m sure he wanted to make 1 minor change to it, like extending it from 10 to 12 years, and then declaring the worst deal in history to suddenly be a tremendous deal. Now what’s he going to do? they are shooting at us.
President Trump controls the narrative and the news cycle. The nattering nabobs of lame stream media are side lined.
He does it in “his” country, almost as thoroughly as Kim does in his. Not quite, though. Kim is still a bit ahead in the Great Leader game. But we’ll get there, no doubt.
He’s like Obama,a bluffer,Trump got no stomach for war and the Iranians know it,Saudi’s know it.Will Tehran’s next target be a carrier??
The debris in the pictured is weathered. I doubt it is this drone.