Iran Retaliates - Hits US Air Bases in Iraq with More Than a Dozen Ballistic Missiles

and one could argue Truman backed out in 1952 because of Korea

 

Usually president get a huge boost at first from war, but the longer it drags on, they pay for it on the back end. After 9/11 GWB's approval was above 90%, which is kind of hard to fathom based on the end of his second term.

People rally around the flag at the abstract threat to the country. Once their nephews and neighbor's kids, etc start coming home in body bags the tide swings in the opposite direction.

The idea of starting a war at the end of the first term is that by the popularity bill comes due, you are beyond elections.

 

He was dying.

 

Those mice are lucky they missed

 

When did I say I love Iran pog?

 

Wrong you should really read up on the actual situation instead of getting fed to you by agent orange’s rallies

 

Grow up. What are you in fifth grade or something? If you are going to troll at least try to be intelligent when doing it.

 

Wrong, your boyfriend fchowd0311 is the one with the 5th grade education argument and a phallus fixation.

 

Will you two just shut up and kiss already.

 

Lol

 

Does the entire bbs not have "generalthade" on ignore yet? Shame.

I peeked just to see what the hell was happening. Shame.

 

I prefer not to have anyone on my ignore list because it can make some threads really odd to read with no context.

 

As Tenacious D said: You take the high road, I'll take the low.

 

We are all dying.

 

I am glad we apparently have avoided war. The general terrorist guy can rot in hell.

 

Aren't they pure terrorists?

 

the wrong Bush.

After Bush Sr, via Swartzkoff and Colin Powell, stopped Saddam Hussein's incursion into Kuwait, operation Desert Storm,
his approval rating shot up to 90%, but then he lost re-election to a hick from Arkansas

 

God bless him, Bush Sr was an effective manager and a smart, clever guy but possibly the least charismatic man to ever be president. He never would have won the first term without riding Reagan's coat tails. Eeagan destroyed him in the primaries in 1980, with Bush only winning in a few liberal NE states. And that hick from Arkansas is pretty objectively in the eyes of the American public a charisma machine.

But what I wrote is true of W. From Wikipedia:

 

buried in this NYT article about Iran's retaliation include events leading up to Suleimani's killing:

Appearing on a video screen was Gina Haspel, the C.I.A. director, who was monitoring the crisis from the agency’s headquarters in Northern Virginia. In the days before General Suleimani’s death, Ms. Haspel had advised Mr. Trump that the threat the Iranian general presented was greater than the threat of Iran’s response if he was killed, according to current and former American officials. Indeed, Ms. Haspel had predicted the most likely response would be a missile strike from Iran to bases where American troops were deployed, the very situation that appeared to be playing out on Tuesday afternoon.

Though Ms. Haspel took no formal position about whether to kill General Suleimani, officials who listened to her analysis came away with the clear view that the C.I.A. believed that killing him would improve — not weaken — security in the Middle East. ​

fwiw a friend of mine who recently retired from the CIA (very high up) and who is absolutely no fan of Trump's, is a huge fan of Haspel's. If this reporting is accurate and Haspel did in fact argue "the threat the Iranian general presented was greater than the threat of Iran’s response if he was killed," then I take that as very good intelligence indeed. again fwiw

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/08/...tion=click&module=Top Stories&pgtype=Homepage

 

Good find, thanks for quoting that.