
U.S. airstrike kills top Iran general Qassim Suleimani - nicholas73
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/airstrike-kills-top-iran-general-qassim-suleimani-baghdad-airport-iraqi-n1109821
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throwaway5752
It's a terrible sign this can't stay on the front page of Hacker News. In
theory this should be a smarter than average group of people.

Short term, your gas price went up 4% starting tomorrow and we are going to
see how resilient our computing infrastructure is to an actual cyber offensive
with destructive intent (rather than simple information theft or monetary
theft/ransom). Medium term the odds of a war with substantial US casualties
has increased substantially. Long term it's possible this will be seen as the
tipping point for PRC as the dominant global power. This is a historic event
and not in a good way.

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dirtyid
PRC (and many other countries, western allies included) depends on Hormuz
security for oil, US doesn't need ME oil anymore thanks to domestic shale.
This maybe hobble China in the short-term, but it will take the rest of the
world with it.

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throwaway5752
The US is an enormous importer of oil. We import 8 million barrels every day.
And that is priced internationally. Do you think CCI and Mayan priced markets
aren't going to sell us crude at a discount.

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dirtyid
US is the largest oil producer as of last year, they're on the way to being
net exporter, they mostly import and finish Canadian oil. US is energy secure
as of last year, which is why they've been so emboldened in ME. I do agree
that cyber attacks and other costly blowback is on the horizon. This is
certainly extremely troubling development.

E: Sorry account seems to be rate-limited?

US net exported crude and other petroleum in September and is projected to be
sustained net exporter in the next year. I'm not suggesting they are
completely inoculated against global energy market shift, but they have
nominal guaranteed energy security because USNavy can protect all those
transit routes. Whereas China, Japan, Korea, most of Europe with limited blue
water projection capabilities would struggle very hard to maintain ME oil
access if Iran decides to start tanker wars in the Hormuz.

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throwaway5752
This US is nowhere close to net crude export. We export refined products and
NGL. We have reduced dependency on ME crude, yes, but Mexican and Canadian
market are priced internationally and are not captive sellers.

edit: to discourage deep threading they don't show the reply button in a
thread for a cooling off period.

edit 2: the "US net exported crude and other petroleum [products] in
September" statement does not appreciate "other petroleum products" part. The
US imports lots of crude from Mexico and Canada (and the ME), and export the
refined products because of the US's very large refining capacity and
pipeline/terminal infrastructure. We also create NGL as a fracking byproduct
since the lighter fractions don't have the domestic demand but can be
collected and shipped in economically. This isn't even getting into the tail
production economics of a fracking well and if it is viable long-term. In any
case, the September news isn't as positive as it sounds.

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nicholas73
Canada is fairly captive...

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spamizbad
It's important to note that this guy isn't just a top general: He's basically
the guy responsible for Iran's foreign policy. It would be like an Iranian
airstrike taking out the likes of Dick Cheney during the Bush years.

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throwaway5752
I wonder if anyone knows we are now at war with Iran. I honestly don't know
what will happen. This is really, really bad. There could be tens of thousands
of casualties by the weekend.

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flukus
Just Iran? If he was at Baghdad Airport then he's presumably a guest of their
country and this is an act of war against Iraq as well.

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cameronfraser
He wasn't at the airport, he was in a convoy near the airport.

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ohiovr
I read that Iraqis died during the strike as well.

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erentz
Going from history there’s going to be a lot of democrats hand wringing about
“process” but the Democrats and the media will still fall in behind an
escalation to war. They’re already doing it. Media are already unquestionably
repeating claims of the pentagon that Suleimani was planning attacks. Calls
against war will be called unpatriotic and largely silenced. This feels quite
scary. I was hoping for an eventual end to war.

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na85
>I was hoping for an eventual end to war.

No US President has ever lost a run for re-election during wartime. I think we
all knew a new war was coming this year.

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throwaway5752
This is such a infuriatingly off the mark comment. This isn't domestic
politics. This is a regional power in the most geopolitically important
location in the world. The can strike the oilfields of the entire Person Gulf.
The can close the Strait of Hormuz. They have a large modern military, large
on-the-ground intelligence service in the region, and advanced offensive
military cyber capabilities. This is profoundly bigger than the US
Presidential election. It is a bad sign that this is so many peoples' take.

This is _real_ war, the likes of which we haven't seen since Vietnam or the
Korean peninsula. Professionals have dreaded this for a long time, and that
was with extraordinarily more competent executive function.

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na85
What I'm suggesting is that had this flashpoint not occurred, your commander
in chief would have found another.

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ohiovr
Iraq and Iran are natural allies. Could we fight both? What if NK decides to
make an offensive? Sure we could nuke them back but what if they storm SK and
then launch? There are games they can play.

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kichik
Didn't they have a very long war in the 80s?

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Gibbon1
Iraq in the 80's was run by Sunni tribal groups from central Iraq related to
Saddam Hussein. Iraq after 2003 is run by Shiite tribal groups from Southern
Iraq.

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robmiller
Well, Iran is after all the last of the Wes Clark Seven.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RC1Mepk_Sw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RC1Mepk_Sw)

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stopads
Aren't we supposed to need congressional approval to start a war?

So many things I was taught in civics class turned out to be complete fiction.

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megous
US executive doesn't need congress approval to kill heads of US designated
terror groups (IRGC). At least it doesn't seems so.

(I guess it already has it)

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cagenut
good news for electric vehicles

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dirtyid
May we live in interesting times.

