Remember That Mike Pompeo Called It 'a Little Noise'

[G_j]

https://www.thenation.com/article/mike-pompeo-iran-assassination/

If Americans Die in the Escalating Iran Crisis, Remember That Mike Pompeo Called It ‘a Little Noise’

It’s hard to say what’s worst about Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s role in the assassination of Iran’s top military commander, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, and the overall escalation of hostilities with Iran. He is widely reported to have been a major force behind the killing, after Donald Trump’s decision not to retaliate for Iran’s downing of a US surveillance drone, which left Pompeo “morose,” according to The Washington Post. The former Kansas representative, widely thought to be eyeing a 2020 Senate run, has been a career-long Iran hawk, seeing a coalition of pro-Israel donors and right-wing evangelical Christians as the cornerstone of his political ambitions. The Post reports he’s been pushing Trump to kill Suleimani “for months.”

The Secretary of State is normally in charge of diplomacy, but Pompeo seems all in for war, and he’s peddling it with the same mix of mendacity and recklessness the George W. Bush crew used to justify their 2003 Iraq debacle. “I saw last night there was dancing in the streets in parts of Iraq,” he claimed on Friday. “We have every expectation that people not only in Iraq, but in Iran, will view the American action last night as giving them freedom.” That ludicrous claim rivaled then–Vice President Dick Cheney’s pre-war prediction that American troops in Iraq “will, in fact, be treated as liberators.” (Spoiler alert: They were not.)

In fact, the million-plus people in the streets of Iran Monday were not dancing but angrily mourning Suleimani (two months ago, 200,000 were instead protesting the regime, according to the interior minister); Iraqi leaders were livid, with lame-duck Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi denouncing the assassination, and the Iraqi Parliament passing a (non-binding) resolution demanding that the US withdraw its troops from Iraq. The Pentagon seems to be in freefall, with someone releasing a letter from a brigadier general that seemed to indicate the U.S. was leaving Iraq out of respect for Iraqi sovereignty; officials had to backtrack and say the letter was a draft not intended for release. It’s all a shitshow. Heck of a job, Mikey!

Pompeo also beclowned himself on all five major Sunday shows, robotically accusing the Obama administration of “appeasing” Iran, even though Trump has been in office for three years and ended Obama’s Iran deal, and the Iranian regime has only gotten more bellicose. Pompeo also moved away from his earlier claim that a strike by Suleimani was “imminent,” only insisting that Americans, and the world, will be safer with him gone. On Meet the Press, NBC’s Chuck Todd wasn’t entirely convinced, given that Pompeo’s State Department is telling its employees to get out of Iraq immediately.

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[Baitball Blogger]

1. What a shitshow.

Anyone with a grudge can use this president to order a kill.

Let's say it: This clown clutch is a national security problem.

[crickets]

2. K&R for visibility