Impending war with Iran?

[~mj~]

I want to know what the people here are thinking and feeling...I personally just feel sick...

[Takk]

It's not surprising. These sorts of things tend to happen when we go into election years. It's idiotic, and one of the biggest problems facing the world today (literally), but it's sort of par for the course, and Iran was always going to be our next war. It's truly sad, and I feel deeply for the troops (and their families) who will be sent to kill and die in yet another foriegn land. That being said, all of the people saying it's going to spark World War III are almost certainly wrong, just as they were wrong when we invaded Iraq.

Given the current political climate, World War III has very little chance of happening until China and the USA have their own clashes, not just clashes with eachother's allies. It's the Cold War effect. Mutually ensured destruction is the greatest deterrent to such a conflict, and nobody capable of causing it wants to risk it happening.

[dubiousbystander]

Yeah, I'm on the horrified side.

[Cyrus The Great]

I have had a number of friends among the Iranian expat community over the years, both in person and through the internet. I have long hated the Iranian Mullah's dictatorship, but the people of Iran are mostly good people. So, I am very angry that Trump has so stupidly inflamed tensions! After the disaster of the invasion of Iraq by Bush Jr., and all the ensuing blood and treasure that have been flushed down the toilet since, I would hate to see the much worse consequences that a war with Iran will undoubtedly cause.

[Perfect Warrior]

As a Canadian, and thus perhaps a tad removed, it occurs to me to ask: How would a successful impeachment and this getting hotter and messier mix?

If Trump is hoping on this being a distraction I think he's miscalculating. An impeached president who has picked a why-now war surely would go down harder than a merely impeached president. And funny-peculiar that he's going down for messing with how military help is given. So how is messing with military usage *while* that impeachment process is going on do him any favours?

[Takk]

If the impeachment goes through the senate, Trump will likely pull a Nixon and resign leaving Pence as president, who would probably pardon him (as Ford did Nixon), and then turn his attention to the war to try and make himself look like a good enough option on his own to appeal to voters.

if the impeachment doesn't go through the senate, Trump will play it fast and hard to make himself look like a war hero in an attempt to win the voters he lost during the impeachment process.

Either way, the president will be trying to win votes with every action he takes in this conflict, and that will undoubtedly lead to some gaudy speaches and lots of dead brown people.

[Perfect Warrior]

I wrote Canadians were a 'tad removed'. Now I'm feeling like I have my foot in my mouth, given that a third of the people who died when that plane was shot down were Canadian. (One even was a researcher from my University.)

[Andrew NDB]

I don't think anything will happen.