WE WIN? LOOKS LIKE WE DID

Our forces are just out there to serve as targets, apparently.”
Well.. is that not a role of the military in general? They are the ones trained and equipped to defend themselves from attacks. It’s a long accepted fact that our presence in the Middle East at all since 9/11 was, in fact, to keep the War on Terrorism away from the U.S.

Interesting? Not really, unless one thinks those wonky constitutional checks and balances on the president’s war powers are necessary enough to be interesting. You’re smart enough to look this up for yourself though. There are at least two Republican senators that think that assassinating an Iranian state official without evidence of a specific and imminent threat (petty much an act of war against that state) falls outside of Trump’s constitutional mandate. That would be a good place to start your research.

Thanks. I’ve seen that dog and pony show so many times there’s no need. And I notice you did not answer my questions.
see below.

While you’re looking it up though, try if you can to imagine that Obama did exactly the same expansion of presidential power – would you still think that it’s ok?
Every time there is a military action there is dissent about its legality. Some people say every combat engagement since WWII is illegal. Others stick to pure partisanship, or ideology (For example, a libertarian would never back combat action even if he calls himself a Republican, ditto any number of RINOs…for example, Ron Paul says he would not have authorized the mission that led to the death of Osama bin Laden).
There remains, in my lifetime, only one military engagement that I questioned the constitutional legality of. That was the engagement that was directly vetoed by Congress.
Never questioned the legality of Obama’s actions, though many many people did. I questioned the prudence of those actions, but not their legality. There are obvious practical limitations to requiring Congress to approve all military targets before any action can be taken. Our soldiers are in Iraq and Syria, hundreds are dead due to the actions of this individual who was in charge of these operations. Targeting him was the right thing to do.

When the Iranians showed that they were accurate enough to miss, weren’t they also proving that they were accurate enough to hit?
Weren’t they also showing that all the OTHER times they attacked bases in Iraq?

Thanks to Trump, some reports have the Iranians as little as six months from nuclear breakout.
They announced they were done abiding by our agreement months ago, as a response to sanctions. You think we shouldn’t have imposed sanctions?

Now they have just proved to us that they can hit us with nuclear weapons.
They’ve proved the can hit Iraq, many times…many many times. They have a very rigorous chemical weapons program too, as well as improving ballistic missile systems…but we knew that when we made that agreement with them in 2015 and none of it was included in the agreement. Nor was an end to their sponsoring of terrorism.

Grr…my italics are wonky too.
New, edited copy:
Interesting? Not really, unless one thinks those wonky constitutional checks and balances on the president’s war powers are necessary enough to be interesting. You’re smart enough to look this up for yourself though. There are at least two Republican senators that think that assassinating an Iranian state official without evidence of a specific and imminent threat (petty much an act of war against that state) falls outside of Trump’s constitutional mandate. That would be a good place to start your research.
Thanks. I’ve seen that dog and pony show so many times there’s no need. And I notice you did not answer my questions.
see below.

While you’re looking it up though, try if you can to imagine that Obama did exactly the same expansion of presidential power – would you still think that it’s ok?

Every time there is a military action there is dissent about its legality. Some people say every combat engagement since WWII is illegal. Others stick to pure partisanship, or ideology (For example, a libertarian would never back combat action even if he calls himself a Republican, ditto any number of RINOs…for example, Ron Paul says he would not have authorized the mission that led to the death of Osama bin Laden).
There remains, in my lifetime, only one military engagement that I questioned the constitutional legality of. That was the engagement that was directly vetoed by Congress.
Never questioned the legality of Obama’s actions, though many many people did. I questioned the prudence of those actions, but not their legality. There are obvious practical limitations to requiring Congress to approve all military targets before any action can be taken. Our soldiers are in Iraq and Syria, hundreds are dead due to the actions of this individual who was in charge of these operations. Targeting him was the right thing to do.

When the Iranians showed that they were accurate enough to miss, weren’t they also proving that they were accurate enough to hit?

Weren’t they also showing that all the OTHER times they attacked bases in Iraq?
Thanks to Trump, some reports have the Iranians as little as six months from nuclear breakout.
They announced they were done abiding by our agreement months ago, as a response to sanctions. You think we shouldn’t have imposed sanctions?
Now they have just proved to us that they can hit us with nuclear weapons.
They’ve proved the can hit Iraq, many times…many many times. They have a very rigorous chemical weapons program too, as well as improving ballistic missile systems…but we knew that when we made that agreement with them in 2015 and none of it was included in the agreement. Nor was an end to their sponsoring of terrorism.

And the Iranians are looking at N. Korea to see how Trump negotiates. There Trump basically blamed Obama, legitimized the nuclear status quo, and declared himself a peace making victor.
You asked me to take off my partisan hat and I’m trying.
Can you do the same?
If so, remember what you thought just after the attack, when you implied full out war was expected with Iran.
Today you are saying Trump has simply continued with the status quo.
It has literally been two days.
They promised retaliation and the targeting of 38 sites.
Trump said if they did that we’ll target 52 (one for each hostage).
Retaliation depended on their response to quote one of the “experts”
“It depends on what they hit. If they hit nothing, then the situation may de-escalate. If they hit something substantial and if they hurt Americans, then they can expect this will lead to a significant U.S. retaliation,”
So there it goes.
How anyone can turn this into either status quo or a win for Iran is truly beyond me.

Yes, Iranians are looking at N Korea, and N Korea, you can bet…is looking at this.

FWIW, the DPRK and Iran present very different sets of problems. Iran is expansionist, the DPRK is not..at least not in any way that will ever be feasible…they aren’t going to take over the south. The main security concern for the ROK is just millions of refugees spilling over into the south and the instability that comes with that. Also the selling of weapons (we’ve done about all we can there). At present the DPRK is contained…much more contained than it was four o five years ago. But you never know.

Per nukes and Iran…since it was impossible to impose any real penalties on Iran for their behavior and expect them to abide by the joint agreement, the joint agreement wasn’t going to work. That was indeed money wasted. Iran has been “a year away from getting nuclear weapons” for more than a decade. By 2015 they were “only 3 months away”. We should probably assume they have enough fissile material for a weapon at this time.
For years every time the DPRK threatened the world with nukes he was rewarded**. That set a bad precedent for other nations who might have otherwise disarmed. At present, we have not lifted any sanctions and won’t until we see progress. There’s also the little matter of Libya, which relinquished their weapons program and seven years later the leader who agreed was dead with our help. That’s kinda hard to forget too.

To get back to your question: Were they sending a message with the missiles? Yes, probably. I don’t think our adversaries are dumb. They’re probably smarter than we are in a lot of ways.
FWIW, My spouse spent a good bit time in the ME working with the populations (and training UAE, Saudi, and Kuwaiti pilots, at their bases…he has more than just a passing knowledge of the culture). His opinion is they respect strength, and he fully approved of the attack on that terrorist General.

**examples available upon request