Max Boot says Joe Biden deserves credit for his tough but restrained response to the killing of three US soldiers at a base in Jordan a couple of months ago by an Iranian-backed militia:
On Feb. 2, U.S. forces dropped more than 125 precision munitions on 85 targets in Iraq and Syria belonging to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force and its affiliated militia groups.... Five days later, on Feb. 7, a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad killed a senior commander of Kataib Hezbollah, one of the most dangerous Iranian-backed terrorist groups.
....The clear message was that other Iranian commanders would be next if they didn’t knock off their attacks against U.S. troops. And guess what? Iran did stop. Things could change at any moment, but a senior U.S. defense official told me last week that there hasn’t been an Iranian-directed attack against a U.S. military base in either Syria or Iraq since Feb. 4.
This is typical Biden. It's not flashy, and he didn't brag endlessly about it on Twitter. But it got the job done.
He keeps getting the job done. Not the way everyone would prefer, but that's never in the cards. Somehow, though, he continues getting almost no credit for it.
Is there some relationship between:
and
I wonder. A certain Gilbert and Sullivan lyric comes to mind:
If you wish in this world to advance,
Your merits you're bound to enhance.
You must stir it and stump it and blow your own trumpet
Or trust me, you haven't a chance!
For a lot of things to work, it has to stay off the front pages.
If he was crowing about pushing the Iranians around, they'd have to respond.
Respond how? Complain? Make threats? That will only help to show that Biden's actions were effective. Another attack? Not likely after Biden proved he could and would retaliate effectively.
"Another attack? Not likely, ..."
Keith, you have an admirable tendency to want to treat adversaries as if they were rational actors. Sadly, there are many of them whose rationality is only in the fore so long as they are not shown to be beholden to it.
I can't prove I'm right except by having Biden, or better yet his supporters, start crowing about how Iran fooled around and Biden made them find out, and see what the Iranians do about it.
But what the Iranians think is much less important than what Americans think, and if they don't hear about what Biden has actually accomplished they'll believe he hasn't accomplished anything. And that will make them vote for his opponent. Quiet successes just ain't going to cut it in American politics. They never have and never will. They guy who said "speak softly and carry a big stick" made sure to say it loud enough for people to hear.
A US citizen visits a dying family member--instant hostage.
The other half of why Iran backed down: It doesn't want to escalate and accidentally go to war with either Israel or the US.
They only want to be a thorn in the side of the US to get America out of the Middle East so that it can dominate geopolitical and military affairs in the region. A war would be devastating for Iran, a country that relies on an air force fleet that comprises mostly of very old US jets (F-4s, F-5s, and F-14s).
A war between the US and Iran would be one in which neither side could come out ahead. In that sense, it would be the perfect companion piece to Israel's operation in Gaza.
The US would "win" the war, but then it would be left with a mess to clean up. That's the part no American president, post-Bush '43 would want to do, at least for a couple of decades until memories fade.
In the vein of
from: https://jabberwocking.com/gen-z-isnt-getting-its-hands-dirty/ How far apart were attacks before? That would determine how long one would need to wait to know it isn’t simply post hoc ergo prompter hoc.
I guess you are asking about the nearly daily attacks that were occurring against US forces in the region? The ones that took almost no effort to find out about while they were happening? The ones that I would hear about when I would take the few minutes it took to click on and watch youtube videos - where the reliable commentators would give the date and location of each attack along with maps and links to go and verify the information yourself? Those?
The attacks that you presumably never bothered to find out about, but want to give your counterpoint on? The attacks that I never hear about any more? Isn't that interesting. I literally never hear about them anymore. I bet it has been 2 months since I heard about any. Gee, I wonder why?
Yes. Those. You see sometimes the rock under which I live is quite large …
Oh, yeah, I remember that story. Jordan is a foreign country and the U.S. built an attack drone base there so that we could fly attack drones into Iraq and Syria - which are also foreign countries - to blow shit up. That this is an act of war should go without saying. The reason that the foreign attack drone made it up to our base is that it looked just like the attack drones we were sending out. The simple solution is to get our guys the f*** out of Jordan.
The non-conservafucks in this country have always had a marketing problem.
"Somehow, though, he continues getting almost no credit for it. . ." from . . . ?
. . . your colleagues, Kevin, in the "liberal" media. Conventional beltway wisdom says only Republicans are tough manly men. So if a Democrat was credited with toughness, it would force our beloved political journalists to have to think.
The current Left isn't impressed by violence, use of military force -- aka, brutality and war crimes. They don't credit it as "toughness." That's a right wing concept.
Did anyone read Damon Linker's column in the NYT today? He said that Joe Biden's problem is he's too optimistic and needs more pessimissim to "meet American's where they're at".
Really, Biden needs his own "malasie" speech? Boy we're a long way from Ronald Reagan's optimism being a political weapon from the "gloom and doom" Democrats of the 1980s.
I think Joe will pass.
And that's my point. The best thing about Biden as President as that he keeps his head while everyone else is freaking out. Because when you've been around the block long enough you may be old but you've see a lot of history. We may well be in "That 70's Show" moment once again but those moments come and go. Staying the right course is all that matters