iran

Was Iran’s retaliation legal?

Following President Donald Trump’s decision to order a drone strike and kill Iran’s General Qassem Soleimani, there was considerable debate on whether or not the action was legal. But what about Iran’s response? Sovereignty A complicating factor is location. When the United States killed Soleimani in Baghdad, the Iraqi government denounced it as a violation […]

What is the threat level to US Embassies and diplomatic personnel abroad?

Considering the current status of events in the Middle East I believe that the threat level to U.S. Embassies to be moderate to low. Embassies are fairly hard targets these days, considering the steps which have been taken to increase their security since the last major attack on a U.S. Diplomatic establishment. The last such […]

Did the Iranians shoot down the Ukranian passenger plane?

The missile strike conducted by the Iranians on the United States’ bases in Iraq as retaliation against the United States for the drone airstrike on January 3 that killed Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani, Commander of the Quds Force, may have claimed unintended victims: Pentagon and intelligence officials increasingly believe that the airliner that took […]

Iran embassy takeover forty years ago helped shape today’s SOCOM

Over 40-years ago, Iranian militants seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran, and took 98 hostages. The majority of them would be held for 444 days until they would be freed just before Ronald Reagan became President.  The events that unfolded during the crisis would put in motion the creation of the United States Special […]

Will the U.S. still be forced to leave Iraq?… Not anytime soon

After the Iranian missile attack on the joint U.S./Iraqi bases, many are wondering what happens next. And then, will the U.S. still be forced to leave Iraq, after Iraqi lawmakers passed a non-binding resolution to kick out American troops from the country?  First of all, some of what will transpire will have to do with […]

Perhaps next time: Why was the Iranian response so feeble?

Is this it? Is this all you can conjure, Iran? That’s what everyone must have thought this morning. The Iranian response to the killing of Major General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the secretive Quds Force and arguably one of the most powerful men in Iran and the Middle East, was feeble, to say the […]

Appeasement doesn’t work: We’ve been at war with Iran for 40 years

“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.” ― Winston S. Churchill As about 30 rockets crashed down on joint U.S.-Iraqi bases last week where an American contractor was killed and several U.S. and Iraqi troops were wounded, Americans were still ignorant that this is what happens when you […]

Too little, too late: Iran finally responds with a mass missile strike against US bases

After days of waiting, Iran has finally responded to the killing of its top covert operations general with a mass ballistic missile attack against U.S. bases in Iraq and Jordan. On Tuesday night, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard’s Corps (IRGC), an elite branch of the Iranian military, unleashed dozens of missiles targeting three U.S. bases in […]

How Iran tries to keep its F-14 Tomcats flying

Before the Iranian Revolution, which began in 1978, Iran was a steadfast U.S. ally. Consequently, the Iranian military arsenal was packed with American-made weapons. Iranian infantry carried M-16s; Iranian tankers drove M-60 Pattons; Iranian pilots flew F-4 Phantoms and F-14 Tomcats — a superb airframe, that was immortalized by the movie Top Gun. Since the […]

America goes to war with Iran… what would it look like? 

Well, in an earlier piece, I tried to tell you that open war with Iran is a really, really remote possibility. Now we’ll flip-flop it a bit (that’s the beauty of the internet) and assume that war between the United States and Iran isn’t only possible, but we will attempt to outline how it might […]

Netanyahu seeks immunity from prosecution

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly revealed that he is seeking parliamentary immunity relating to three ongoing corruption cases. In November 2019, Netanyahu was indicted on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust over allegations of offering government favors, worth the equivalent of hundreds of millions of dollars, in exchange for positive coverage from […]