Interesting stuff going on in the Middle East.  As the old year closed, Iranians in Iraq besieged the U.S. embassy.  President Trump tweeted that Iran would be held "fully responsible" for any lives lost at U.S. facilities abroad.  Iranian top dog Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gleefully taunted: "You can't do a damn thing!"

Khamenei got the year and the president wrong.  This wasn't 1979 and Jimmy Carter, or 2015 and Barack Obama.  After a couple days, Trump airmailed his response: a seeing-eye missile that took out Quds Force commander General Qassem Soleimani along with other generals and some colonels.

Oops.

Now Khamenei's really mad.  He vows "harsh retaliation," as if Iraqi lives already lost to Quds don't count and shouldn't matter.  Ali seems to be taking it personally, ignoring Don Corleone's advice about not hating your enemies lest it affect your judgment.

Iran's arrogant leadership has been spoiling for a smack-down for 40 years or thereabouts.  Khamenei can force several hundred thousand young Iranians to die for their country, but it's doubtful many of these are raring to chase down their allotted 72 hotties.  Perhaps another 100K in the 35–40 age bracket can be forced into uniform, but men those ages don't really lust after virgins anymore.  Enthusiasm to die tends to wane when you have a family.

Not that America or Trump actually wants a war.  We have the advantage, proven by Barama, that our guy can sit in the Oval Office and fight Iran all by his lonesome, shooting down tanks and jets and Revolutionary Guards, etc.  At least, that's what everybody believes, and perceptions often morph into reality in tense times.  Most likely, Trump would fight that war on the golf course whilst Ali sweated it out in his gold-plated ayatollah bunker.

All seriousness aside, nobody wants war, but neither does anybody but Nancy Pelosi want to just stand there and take it when the ayatollah throws camel patties at us.  He should at least switch to cow patties as more familiar to us.  I mean, what good's a taunt in Farsi in Washington, D.C.?

Update from Thomas Lifson:

While CNN is spending hours covering "mourners" in Baghdad demonstrating over the raid that killed Soleimani, less attention is being paid to the crowds celebrating his death, such as this celebration in Syria:

Massive crowds in #Idlib northern Syria are celebrating the death of Qasem Suleimani by American forces last night.

Much of them recognize Suleimani’s Iranian-backed militias caused much of their displacement, and killed many of their citizens.pic.twitter.com/ew7Jmvb9vA

— Michael Coudrey 🇺🇸 (@MichaelCoudrey) January 3, 2020

Twitter video screen grab.