Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has claimed responsibility for a missile attack on Al Asad airbase in Iraq, where U.S. troops are stationed, according to Iranian state TV.
Why it matters: It’s the first sign of direct retaliation against the U.S. for the killing of Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani, following three days of mourning. President Trump visited the airbase in December 2018 and said that the U.S. would keep a presence in Iraq in part to “watch over Iran.”
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps: “The brave soldiers of IRGC’s aerospace unit have launched a successful attack with tens of ballistic missiles on Al Assad military base in the name of martyr Gen. Qasem Soleimani. … We warn all allied countries of the U.S. that if attacks are launched from bases in their countries on Iran, they will be a target of military retaliation.”
White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham: “We are aware of the reports of attacks on US facilities in Iraq. The President has been briefed and is monitoring the situation closely and consulting with his national security team.”
CNN reports at least 10 rockets hit the airbase.
SPECIAL REPORT: “There are reports tonight that Iran has launched multiple missiles at Iraq’s Al Asad Air Base…This attack is believed to be in retaliation for the U.S. drone strike in Baghdad last week that killed Iran’s top general.” pic.twitter.com/8yAv5vCHgI
Iranian leaders attend funeral of Gen. Qassem Soleimani (screen capture)The Independent reports that Iran is considering “13 scenarios for revenge” against the US for the killing of top general Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike last week, local media reported the country’s top security official as saying in comments later disavowed by senior officials.
Ali Shamkhani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, said “the mission to avenge our slain brother will not be limited to a single operation,” according to the hardline Fars news agency.
“Up until now, 13 scenarios for revenge have been proposed,” he reportedly said. “Even if there is a consensus on the weakest scenario, executing it can turn into a historic nightmare for the Americans.”
Reuters adds that Shamkhani would not reveal any specific details of the plans, he said all US forces in the Middle East are being considered for strikes. “Those who crawl into shelters and close the doors hoping to escape our revenge are unaware that the Islamic Republic will open the door to hell.” BUT – the Supreme National Security Council later disavowed the comments saying Shamkhani never gave the interview. The SNSC secretariat said: “A local paper yesterday committed a criminal act and attributed an interview to the SNSC’s secretary which had not taken place. Legal action is underway to understand how and and why the interview was produced and published.” The SNSC’s claims have not been proven.
A new poll by HuffPost/YouGov shows a slight plurality of Americans approve of the airstrike that killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani (43%) versus those who disapprove (38%). Those views fall pretty much along partisan lines with stronger support among Republicans (84%) as opposed to 71% of Democrats who disapprove. More from the poll: • A clear majority (57%) believe the airstrike will lead to further military conflict between the U.S. and Iran • 43% of those polled feel Donald Trump did not think through the repercussions of his ordered attack compared to 35% who think he planned carefully • The public is evenly split – 40% vs 39% – on the decision to send 3,500 U.S. troops to the Middle East • 44% believe Trump should have informed Congress before launching the attack versus 34% who do not
Donald Trump (photo: Gage Skidmore/Flickr – CC License) In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s decision to assassinate a top Iranian general, the fallout across the Middle East and beyond continued on Sunday. ICMYI: • Iran on Friday vowed “severe revenge” in response to a U.S. airstrike that killed Tehran’s most powerful military commander, Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, and dramatically sharpened tensions across the Middle East. • US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the airstrike ordered to kill top Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani “saved American lives,” after Pompeo said on Twitter Friday morning that the decision to eliminate Soleimani was in response to “imminent threats to American lives.”
@NYTimes: “Officials presented the president with options. The Pentagon tacked on the choice of targeting Suleimani mainly to make other options seem reasonable. They didn’t think he would take it. When Mr. Trump chose the option, military officials, flabbergasted, were alarmed.”
• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called on the Trump administration to immediately brief lawmakers on the U.S. airstrike and what the White House plans to do next. The strike was carried out without an “authorization for use of military force” against Iran and without the consultation of Congress, the speaker said. Today, Trump tweeted his “official notification to Congress.” I kid you not.
These Media Posts will serve as notification to the United States Congress that should Iran strike any U.S. person or target, the United States will quickly & fully strike back, & perhaps in a disproportionate manner. Such legal notice is not required, but is given nevertheless!
• The United States is sending nearly 3,000 more Army troops to the Mideast as reinforcements in the volatile aftermath of the killing of an Iranian general in a strike ordered by President Donald Trump. • In his first public address since the airstrike, Trump said the U.S. is “ready and prepared to take whatever action is necessary” if Iran threatens American lives. “We took action last night to stop a war. We did not take action to start a war.” But it looks like the guy who wanted to pull U.S. military out of the middle east may have begun sometime far bigger than he dreamed. • On Saturday, the Trump administration warned members of Congress that Iran is expected to retaliate against the US “within weeks” for the strike that killed Qasem Soleimani even as they failed to convince some that the operation was merited due to an imminent threat against American lives. • As hostilities escalate, Trump has ramped up the pressure on Iran – threatening to hit 52 sites ‘very hard and very fast.’ He also boasted about the U.S. military’s ample resources.
….hundreds of Iranian protesters. He was already attacking our Embassy, and preparing for additional hits in other locations. Iran has been nothing but problems for many years. Let this serve as a WARNING that if Iran strikes any Americans, or American assets, we have…..
The United States just spent Two Trillion Dollars on Military Equipment. We are the biggest and by far the BEST in the World! If Iran attacks an American Base, or any American, we will be sending some of that brand new beautiful equipment their way…and without hesitation!
• Iran’s government said Sunday that it was abandoning its “final limitations in the nuclear deal,” the international agreement intended to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons. The decision leaves no restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program, the statement said, including on uranium enrichment, production, research and expansion. • Lawmakers in Iraq heeded the demands of angry citizens and voted on Sunday to expel United States troops from the country, as hundreds of thousands of mourners poured into the streets of Iran to pay their respects to the slain leader of the elite Quds Force, Maj. General Qassim Suleimani. • The eulogist at the funeral procession of prominent Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani in Iran put an 80-million-dollar prize on US President Donald Trump’s head on live state TV. “We are 80 million Iranians, if each one of us puts aside one American dollar, we will have 80 million American dollars, and we will reward anyone who brings us [Trump]’s head with that amount,” he said, addressing a large crowd in Iran’s north-eastern city of Mashhad. • Having done his tweeting, Trump arrived at his golf course in West Palm Beach today.
Qasem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds military Force, was killed Thursday night in an airstrike in Baghdad. The U.S. Defense Department said late Thursday that the “decisive defensive action to protect U.S. personnel” was ordered by President Trump.
“This strike was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans,” the Defense Department said. Mr. Trump tweeted a photo of an American flag late Thursday.
The missile attack comes hours after Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the U.S. military will be ready if Iran and its allies plan new attacks, like the one this week at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. The U.S. Defense Department blamed Soleimani and the Quds Force for the embassy attack, as well as the attack on December 27 that killed an American defense contractor.
The Pentagon issued this statement:
At the direction of the President, the U.S. military has taken decisive defensive action to protect U.S. personnel abroad by killing Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force, a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization.
General Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region. General Soleimani and his Quds Force were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more.
He had orchestrated attacks on coalition bases in Iraq over the last several months – including the attack on December 27th – culminating in the death and wounding of additional American and Iraqi personnel. General Soleimani also approved the attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad that took place this week.
Trump took to Twitter to share a pixelated image of the American flag:
NBC News reports that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is calling on the Trump administration to immediately brief lawmakers on the U.S. airstrike that killed a top Iranian commander in Iraq and what the White House plans to do next. “Tonight’s airstrike risks provoking further dangerous escalation of violence. America — and the world — cannot afford to have tensions escalate to the point of no return,” Pelosi said in a statement late Thursday. Pelosi added that the strike was carried out without an “authorization for use of military force” against Iran and without the consultation of Congress. Past tweets from Trump immediately went viral recalling the Donald’s claims that President Obama would begin a war with Iran in order to secure his re-election. All of this comes, of course, amid Trump being impeached over his dealing with the president of Ukraine regarding a phony investigation about his presumed political opponent in the upcoming 2020 presidential election.
In order to get elected, @BarackObama will start a war with Iran.
Rouhani noted that Western banking restrictions are unlikely to affect Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, saying the 80-year-old leader of the Islamic Revolution isn’t getting rich off of Western bank accounts. Imposing sanctions on Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif doesn’t equate with Trump’s stated willingness to negotiate without preconditions, Rouhani added.
“You sanction the foreign minister simultaneously with a request for talks” he would lead, Rouhani said. “The White House is afflicted by mental retardation and does not know what to do.”
The sanctions, issued less than a week after Iran shot down a U.S. drone, will block transactions involving any property or other assets Iran’s leaders hold in the USA, the White House said.
President Trump tweeted Friday morning that the United States military was “cocked and loaded” for a strike against Iran on Thursday night, but that he reversed himself 10 minutes to ‘go time’ after a general informed him 150 people would probably die in the attack.
I believe the two phrases Glorious Leader was mangling were “locked and loaded” and “guns were cocked.”
The president said in a series of tweets just after 9 a.m. that he was prepared to retaliate against three sites in Iran for that country’s shooting down an American drone, but that he was “in no hurry.” He indicated that the death of 150 Iranians would not be “proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone.”
It was unclear why Mr. Trump would have been getting information about possible casualties so late in the process of launching military action. Such information is typically discussed early in the deliberations between a president and national security officials.
Trump also indicated that new sanctions have been imposed on Iran, but didn’t go into detail.
Folks on both sides of the political spectrum criticized Trump for the strike and reversal.
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming) told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt: “The failure to respond to this kind of direct provocation that we’ve seen now from the Iranians, in particular over the last several weeks, could in fact be a very serious mistake.”
And in the Twitterverse:
Who feels comfortable with an erratic Trump as commander-in-chief at this moment? https://t.co/f7HOmQQXRw
There’s absolutely nothing about this aborted Iran strike that looks good on the world stage tonight. Nothing. Nothing strategic. Nothing geopolitically advantageous. Nothing reflecting well on US political leaders. Nothing reassuring to allies. Only a projection of incompetence.
“Hundreds of casualties” would only have been the beginning. Where would Iran strike? What next? This was/is so reckless and dangerous. https://t.co/91kx9jJegl
— Michelangelo Signorile (@MSignorile) June 21, 2019
Trump didn’t realize UNTIL TEN MINUTES BEFOREHAND that a planned airstrike would kill over a hundred people and would therefore be grossly disproportionate to the loss of a UAV?
To say this is amateur hour would defame amateurs.
Donald Trump appeared to be surprised his administration announced a global campaign calling for the decriminalization of homosexuality around the world.
On Tuesday, the Trump administration announced the new initiative that would address the 71 countries, primarily in the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean, where homosexuality is illegal.
U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, who is the most prominent openly gay man in the Trump administration, has been announced to lead the charge to repeal anti-homosexuality laws.
But Trump seemed unaware of the campaign when asked about it on Wednesday during a gaggle with reporters in the Oval Office.
According to The Washington Examiner, a reporter broached the subject about Trump’s “push to decriminalize homosexuality around the world,” asking, “Are you doing that and why?”
“I don’t know which report you’re talking about,” replied Trump. “We have many reports.”
Vice President Mike Pence, who has a long history of anti-LGBTQ positions and policies, confirmed with The Washington Blade that he is aware of, and supports, the new initiative.
The new policy will highlight the dismal human rights record of Iran. The Jerusalem Post recently reported the public execution by hanging of a gay man in the Middle Eastern country.
Earlier this month, Pence specifically called Iran out during a speech in Warsaw, Poland.
“The authoritarian regime in Tehran represses the freedom of speech and assembly, it persecutes religious minorities, brutalizes women, executes gay people, and openly advocates the destruction of the State of Israel,” said Pence.
“The Ayatollah Khamenei himself has said, ‘It is the mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to erase Israel from the map.’”
Some have speculated that the ‘human rights violations’ focus is an attempt to bring more European countries onboard in Donald Trump’s push to undermine the current regime in Iran.
It’s unclear how the Trump administration will broach the subject with some Middle Eastern countries who are close allies of the U.S.
For instance, Trump has shown much deference to Saudi Arabia, where being gay is punishable by death.
LGBTQ advocates and activists were surprised (to say the least) today by the news that the Trump administration plans to launch a global campaign aimed at ending the criminalization of homosexuality in countries where it’s still illegal to be gay.
NBC News was first to report the effort, to be led by U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, which was apparently sparked by reports of a 31-year-old man being executed via hanging in Iran on allegations of same-sex activity.
Iran has long been seen as a high-priority opponent for the Trump administration.
Grennell, who is openly gay, will reportedly host a ‘strategy dinner’ tonight in Berlin with the U.S. embassy flying in LGBTQ activists from several European countries.
The focus of the campaign will be concentrated in Africa, the Middle East and the Caribbean.
An official involved in planning the event tonight told NBC News, “It is concerning that, in the 21st century, some 70 countries continue to have laws that criminalize LGBTI status or conduct.”
The initiative will not be a broad, LGBTQ civil rights campaign but a tightly focused message on criminalization.
It’s not apparent that the new initiative represents a change of heart towards the gay community by the Trump administration.
Grenell has been a longtime critic of Iran, and while the Trump White House has managed to implement increased penalties against Iran, European allies have been slow to join in. Some see shifting the conversation on Iran to issues of human rights violations as a way to encourage Europe to come to the table.
The ambassador penned an op-ed for German news outlet Bild last month, calling news of the hanging a “wake-up call for anyone who supports basic human rights.”
“This is not the first time the Iranian regime has put a gay man to death with the usual outrageous claims of prostitution, kidnapping, or even pedophilia,” wrote Grenell. “And it sadly won’t be the last time they do it either. Barbaric public executions are all too common in a country where consensual homosexual relationships are criminalized and punishable by flogging and death.”
It’s notable that a global message denouncing the criminalization of homosexuality will also put the White House on a collision course with several close allies of the United States. Countries like Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and Oman all have a history of targeting the LGBTQ community.
Saudi Arabia, which Donald Trump has shown great deference, currently has laws that make being gay punishable by death.
According to LGBTQ rights website Equaldex, there are currently 73 countries – primarily in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia – where homosexuality is illegal.
Since taking office, Donald Trump and his administration have attacked the LGBTQ community numerous times from attempting to discharge HIV+ soldiers and ban transgender military service members, to supporting laws that would allow legal discrimination against LGBTQ people, to fighting trans rights to use the bathroom that aligns with their gender identity.
The Human Rights Campaign keeps an up-to-date list of the many ways Trump has worked to undermine LGBTQ rights here.
Advocacy group GLAAD expressed its skepticism at the seemingly sudden change of heart towards LGBTQ people by the Trump administration tweeting, “We’d believe that the Trump administration will work to protect LGBTQ people around the world if they had not attacked LGBTQ people in the U.S. over 90 times since taking office.”
We’d believe that the Trump administration will work to protect LGBTQ people around the world if they had not attacked LGBTQ people in the U.S. over 90 times since taking office: https://t.co/3xlb2GI4zQhttps://t.co/moNa7mG8TJ
And the Human Rights Campaign tweeted several examples of the kinds of attacks on the LGBTQ community by the Trump/Pence administration.
1/ The Trump-Pence administration has consistently worked to undermine the fundamental equality of LGBTQ people and our families from day one. https://t.co/fKD7FTOqgM
2/ This White House has turned a blind eye to a campaign of violence and murder targeting LGBTQ people in Chechnya that has stretched on for two years. #EyesOnChechnyahttps://t.co/ETrUcnGNIk
Donald Trump pushed back against recent assessments by his own intelligence have come to conclusions regarding Iran and North Korea that don’t align with what he wants to hear.
A new American intelligence assessment of global threats has concluded that North Korea is unlikely to give up its nuclear stockpiles and that Iran is not, for now, taking steps necessary to make a bomb, directly contradicting the rationale of two of President Trump’s foreign policy initiatives.
Those conclusions are part of an annual “Worldwide Threat Assessment” released on Tuesday that also stressed the growing cyberthreat from Russia and China, which it said were now “more aligned than at any point since the mid-1950s.”
Trump’s answer was to attack the U.S. Intelligence community today using language like “passive” and “naive,” and then closing with, “Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!”
Note the wrong use of ‘There economy’ in his tweet as he says others should go back to school.
The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran. They are wrong! When I became President Iran was making trouble all over the Middle East, and beyond. Since ending the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal, they are MUCH different, but….
….a source of potential danger and conflict. They are testing Rockets (last week) and more, and are coming very close to the edge. There economy is now crashing, which is the only thing holding them back. Be careful of Iran. Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!
Let’s check in with the Twitterverse, shall we? Starting with former CIA Director John Brennan:
Your refusal to accept the unanimous assessment of U.S. Intelligence on Iran, No. Korea, ISIS, Russia, & so much more shows the extent of your intellectual bankruptcy. All Americans, especially members of Congress, need to understand the danger you pose to our national security. https://t.co/9iV3BTKiEv
After US intelligence chiefs disagreed w/ @realDonaldTrump on national security issues, he tweeted today perhaps they “should go back to school.” In 2015, he said: “I know more about ISIS than the generals. Believe me.” He’s also said: “I know more about technology than anybody.”
From Axios: 
