Radio War Nerd EP #213 — Special Episode: Suleimani Assassination

Some good things as always as always but this episode is particlarly tedious with the repeating statement that Suleimani was not a nice guy and It vastly underestimate the destructive effect of the elimination of Suleimani on Iranian policy as I for one expected at the tiem and has proven to be correct. Effects still being seen to this dsy in 2026. THe closing part remarks about the Of course awful response to the Democratic Party response to this which treat as some huge change for it be a complete champion of NATO and US wars utterly mistates what the Democratic Party has been for the overwhelming majority of my seventy five year lifetime excepting only the latter porition of the Vietnam War (in part) and it's aftermath (again in part and for only a few years)

To my (admittedly very limited) knowledge, the Iranians have not yet retaliated. Would love to hear from anyone explain why not

Damn writing this in July.... remember when THIS was the biggest thing we were worrying about this year? I guess it was a good warning sign as to what 2020 was going to be like.

Fantastic episode, thank you. Vital background. But I’m wondering if you should be looking closer to home for reasons this was done now, and like this? Because it doesn’t make any sense as foreign policy or military strategy, but it’s *fantastic* election campaign material, and it’s going down a treat with all the gun-toting nationalists who think diplomacy is for pussies and that the US should just swat anyone that steps out of line. As domestic politics, it’s juicy vote-buying power projection theatre — and don’t tell me your Cheeto In Chief is somehow smarter than that…

I think that more attention should be paid to the fact that this assassination happened right after Suleimani did a Gene Sharp type operation. The protesters swarming the US embassy in Baghdad was exactly the same kind of tactic that US backed protesters used in Ukraine (and are currently using in Hong Kong) to great effect. The Persians are unique in that they are capable of studying our methodologies and tactics and appropriating them. When the US backed protesters took over Maidan square and started taking over various government building in Kiev, Viktor Yanukovych had two choices - either start shooting protesters or watch while his authority collapsed. It was and is a difficult choice. I think Washington's greatest fear is that the IRGC will become Gene Sharp's number one disciple.

This said, I haven't seen Machiavelli misquoted by politicians so much as in the last few daya

Hi Ellen, Viroli's interpretation is actually not fully new - it was already suggested by some author in the late XIX century. Most of Machiavelli experts I know tend however to reject it.

regarding your Pat Buchanan quotes, maybe you could get Anibale to do a show on Machiavelli?

As usual, you give Iran a complete bye on 40 years of "Death to America" bullshit. Is the US supposed to ignore that forever? If the US were doing this, you would say "When someone says they want to kill you, believe them." But in your woke condescension towards everyone outside the West, you pretend that none of that rhetoric ever happened...justified or not.

I hope this will be unlocked for the public. A war with Iran is likely to draw Pakistan in due to the Baloch populations in both Pakistan and Iran. If Pakistan allows the US to use Shamsi airfield in East Balochistan, Iran could retaliate by funding the Baloch who are fighting for independence from Pakistan. The US is also likely to strengthen an alliance with Jundallah Baloch fighters in West Balochistan (Sistan Balochistan province of Iran). The Shah helped put down a Baloch insurgency in the 70s in Pakistan, but Iran is no friend of Pakistan now. This could be, as TheseLongWars put it on twitter: "A compounding clusterfuck, indeed".

Thanks for the quick recap, PLEASE get this content transferred into text, possibly with footnotes and links to primary sources while we wait for the other shoe to drop.

Thank you for this great content, you've got a new subscriber.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-obama-doctrine/471525/ is this the piece Mark was referring to as Jeffrey Goldberg's uncharacteristically sane and reasonable article on foreign policy? I hope not, I only made it halfway before I got mad and closed the tab

Thanks for the free ep, it made me subscribe

JUST joined and so glad I did. SO MUCH information covered so concisely. Thank you

Has it been said that Guy sounds like Larry David?

grabbing my paper bag to breath into. thanks for all the hard work fellas.

In broad strokes, I agree this will be bad for him. But I don't think Trump was ever "elected to get us out of foreign wars." Those who perceived that were obviously not paying attention to his statements during the campaign. He has no solid foreign positions except looking tough and making liberals mad. If peace talks with Kim makes them mad, he does that. If assassinating an Iranian general does, he's game. What he has been consistent on is nativism and nationalism, and I think that's why he elected above all else, regardless of what else was projected onto him by hopeful libertarians and fascists.

Trump may very well think that, but I would bet that's a miscalculation. There's still a lot of residual distrust for war in the US after Iraq and Afghanistan, and in this case, no 9/11-like provocation, or convincing Gulf of Tonkin for that matter. In fact, the fascist portion of his own base is vehemently opposed to war with Iran, since they're nativist isolationists. It's hard to imagine this redounding to his benefit.

One more point on this, from the perspective of a favorite group of the show: the DC think-tanker or policy "advisor". Presumably there were some foreign policy big wigs who suggested this move too. As you guys discussed, it makes no practical sense: Soleimani spent his adult lifetime besting American plans in the region, and all this assassination did was potentially turn all the bad will in Iraq against Iran into dust, making him a martyr. But from that "expert's" perspective, isn't this good? If your entire career is based on your rehashed, half-researched analysis on Iran, and you only have this career because of the perpetual conflict against Iran, a move like this is perfect (in your head) because this guarantees they'll be no deescalation of the conflict in the near future. Of course, this is a ridiculous idea to have, but looking at it from that perspective, it seems to at least explain the thought process a bit more. To that group, a dumb move like this is smart, if only because it benefits you and your career.

very informative episode. very glad gary could provide context on the issue. his prediction is probably right (as he usually is). mark seems to be suffering from trump derangement syndrome in his dismissive caricature of trump's base. trump's base is very divided over this - he was elected to get the us out of foreign wars and he has largely done that until now. trump will likely pay the consequences for this escalation from the tucker carlson, rand paul, and the american conservative crowd. also, a big winner from the us remaining in the middle east is china. china is the only existential threat to america both militarily and economically. support from economic nationalist like bannon and navarro will also wane if us focus changes back to the middle east (probably at the behest of israel and ksa). trump cannot win re-election without the support of both of these factions.

Have you considered offering a transcription of these shows, even one machine generated? I'd appreciate it, as it's far faster to read a transcript than listen to the audio; it's also better for searching and note taking. A transcript can also be translated for non English speakers. Google has a Cloud Speech-To-Text service that could be used to generate transcripts. It's priced at about $1.50-$2 per hour of audio.

Is this episode open to the public or is it patrons only? I was going to share it if it's available to the public.

"....targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD. The USA wants no more threats!" Note: "Sites important to iran and *the iranian culture*". Trump threatened to not just attack military sites, but also iran's cultural heritage. Holy sites, who know, maybe the tomb of Cyrus the great?

Sounds like a classic Sigma Male

Just here to add to the consensus and say thank you so much for the special episode. I have been getting a lot of crap from ignorant friends and they keep saying "he killed Americans!"

Trump now threatening to attack 52 Iranian targets in Iran.

Thanks for the emergency episode on the topic. Only the 4th one so far (I think you released ones after the Paris attacks, the sukoi getting shot down in Syria, and after the turkey coup). Obviously it's difficult to make it so quickly with the time zone difference but thanks for the effort.

Thanks war nerds, the news of the assassination has been eating at me, I was really looking forward to your take