Trump's 'Deal' With Iran ... Soleimani Dead
. . . Contrasting Trump's decisive action in Iran with Obama's Middle East malfeasance.
by Mark Alexander: Our military forces carried out another remarkable precision strike in Baghdad, Iraq, on Thursday. Killed in that strike were Gen. Qasem Soleimani, leader of Iran’s elite terrorist Corps-Quds forces, and Soleimani’s Iraqi counterpart, paramilitary commander Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes. For decades, Iran has been the wealthiest and most significant state sponsor of Islamic extremists in the Middle East — and Soleimani has directed that terror in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Lebanon, and Syria.
Boldly, Soleimani traveled to Iraq to oversee the Iran-backed Shiite militia assault on our embassy there, thinking that his forces could overtake it much as his boss, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had done with our Tehran embassy in 1979. Recall then, 52 American diplomats and citizens were taken hostage and held for 444 days — and released immediately after Ronald Reagan took his oath of office on January 20, 1981. Fortunately, Jimmy Carter was no longer president then, but Soleimani was operating as if Barack Obama was still president now — a fatal flaw in his plan.
Apparently Soleimani thought he was more bomb-proof than Islamic State terrorist leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who we sent to hell last October.
President Donald Trump responded swiftly and decisively to the embassy attack, sending in rapid-force Marine units and Army air reinforcements to repel the militants. He then ordered the death of those who planned it. To suggest this was a “shot across the bow” of Iran’s regime would be grossly understated. This was not a feckless “line in the sand” threat like Obama issued in Syria.
As OIF veteran and frequent Trump critic David French noted, “This was no Benghazi. … There was no American defeat. The embassy still stands.” That was a reference to Obama’s failure to defend our embassy officials in Libya and the subsequent political coverup ahead of his 2012 election.
As I have noted for years, our operations in the Middle East since the 9/11 attack have been quietly but primarily focused on preventing Iranian-backed terrorists from detonating a fissile weapon in an East Coast urban center.
For context, after George W. Bush launched Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, many U.S. military casualties were the direct result of Iranian-backed militias. The Bush administration made slow but steady progress to contain the Islamic threat in the region, but when Obama entered the diplomatic debate in 2009, all the blood and treasure expended in Iraq became nothing more than political fodder for his regime’s policy of appeasement.
Recall that in 2012, Obama centered his reelection on his “success” in the Middle East, declaring that al-Qa'ida was “on the run” and using that false claim to initiate a politically expedient withdrawal from Iraq. Predictably, a Middle East meltdown followed, which led to the most catastrophic humanitarian crisis in recent history as millions of Syrian refugees fled into the desert.
How did Obama respond to that crisis?
In a feat of Middle East policy malfeasance unmatched in generations, Obama, Hillary Clinton, and her understudy, John Kerry, empowered Iran’s nuclear capacity with a “Nuke Deal” that advanced the threat of an “Islamic Bomb” detonation in the U.S. And they followed that up by lifting sanctions against Iran and flying in $400 million in cash that, arguably, bolstered its terrorist operations.
Fortunately President Trump put an end to that insanity, restoring sanctions against Iran, supporting pro-democracy movements in the region, and, in the last 24 hours, responding to Iranian aggression with force. The message this sent to pro-democracy leaders in Iran can’t be understated.
Of course, much saber-rattling followed, with Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif laughably calling the strike an “act of international terrorism” and insisting that Tehran would “exhaust all its political, legal and international capacities … to hold the terrorist and criminal regime of the United States responsible regarding this obvious crime.”
Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi played along, issuing a politically necessary statement condemning the attack as a violation of the terms agreement for maintaining U.S. troops in Iraq. But Abdul-Mahdi clearly understand the Iranian threat to his country and the necessity to abate that threat.
Most assuredly, an escalation of Iranian aggression will follow, but that was inevitable.
Deeply mired in their Trump impeachment mess, the current crop of Democrat Party leaders criticized our military operation as reckless and unconstitutional. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) protested, “Did America just assassinate, without any congressional authorization, the second most powerful person in Iran?” Yes, he declared Soleimani was “assassinated.” As for constitutionality, David French laid those Demo claims to rest in a series of social-media posts.
And a final note: Recall that in October of last year, President Trump was subjected to a barrage of criticism from armchair media experts for his agreement with Turkey regarding the Kurdish lines on the Turks’ southern border in Syria. Amid all the criticism, we noted in “The REAL U.S./Turkey Strategic Endgame — Iran” that “formulating foreign policy and military strategy is akin to a complex multi-dimensional chess match — except the objectives are rarely black and white, and the targets are constantly moving.” We noted further, “Turkey provides the U.S. with strategic airbase access, which will be essential in any regional operations, most notably those against Iran. … In other words, there exists a more pressing but unmentioned objective: containing or eliminating the Iranian nuclear threat.”
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Mark Alexander Writes for The Patriot Post.
Tags: Trump's 'Deal' With Iran, Soleimani DeadMark Alexander, The Patriot Post To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Boldly, Soleimani traveled to Iraq to oversee the Iran-backed Shiite militia assault on our embassy there, thinking that his forces could overtake it much as his boss, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had done with our Tehran embassy in 1979. Recall then, 52 American diplomats and citizens were taken hostage and held for 444 days — and released immediately after Ronald Reagan took his oath of office on January 20, 1981. Fortunately, Jimmy Carter was no longer president then, but Soleimani was operating as if Barack Obama was still president now — a fatal flaw in his plan.
Apparently Soleimani thought he was more bomb-proof than Islamic State terrorist leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who we sent to hell last October.
President Donald Trump responded swiftly and decisively to the embassy attack, sending in rapid-force Marine units and Army air reinforcements to repel the militants. He then ordered the death of those who planned it. To suggest this was a “shot across the bow” of Iran’s regime would be grossly understated. This was not a feckless “line in the sand” threat like Obama issued in Syria.
As OIF veteran and frequent Trump critic David French noted, “This was no Benghazi. … There was no American defeat. The embassy still stands.” That was a reference to Obama’s failure to defend our embassy officials in Libya and the subsequent political coverup ahead of his 2012 election.
As I have noted for years, our operations in the Middle East since the 9/11 attack have been quietly but primarily focused on preventing Iranian-backed terrorists from detonating a fissile weapon in an East Coast urban center.
For context, after George W. Bush launched Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, many U.S. military casualties were the direct result of Iranian-backed militias. The Bush administration made slow but steady progress to contain the Islamic threat in the region, but when Obama entered the diplomatic debate in 2009, all the blood and treasure expended in Iraq became nothing more than political fodder for his regime’s policy of appeasement.
Recall that in 2012, Obama centered his reelection on his “success” in the Middle East, declaring that al-Qa'ida was “on the run” and using that false claim to initiate a politically expedient withdrawal from Iraq. Predictably, a Middle East meltdown followed, which led to the most catastrophic humanitarian crisis in recent history as millions of Syrian refugees fled into the desert.
How did Obama respond to that crisis?
In a feat of Middle East policy malfeasance unmatched in generations, Obama, Hillary Clinton, and her understudy, John Kerry, empowered Iran’s nuclear capacity with a “Nuke Deal” that advanced the threat of an “Islamic Bomb” detonation in the U.S. And they followed that up by lifting sanctions against Iran and flying in $400 million in cash that, arguably, bolstered its terrorist operations.
Fortunately President Trump put an end to that insanity, restoring sanctions against Iran, supporting pro-democracy movements in the region, and, in the last 24 hours, responding to Iranian aggression with force. The message this sent to pro-democracy leaders in Iran can’t be understated.
Of course, much saber-rattling followed, with Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif laughably calling the strike an “act of international terrorism” and insisting that Tehran would “exhaust all its political, legal and international capacities … to hold the terrorist and criminal regime of the United States responsible regarding this obvious crime.”
Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi played along, issuing a politically necessary statement condemning the attack as a violation of the terms agreement for maintaining U.S. troops in Iraq. But Abdul-Mahdi clearly understand the Iranian threat to his country and the necessity to abate that threat.
Most assuredly, an escalation of Iranian aggression will follow, but that was inevitable.
Deeply mired in their Trump impeachment mess, the current crop of Democrat Party leaders criticized our military operation as reckless and unconstitutional. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) protested, “Did America just assassinate, without any congressional authorization, the second most powerful person in Iran?” Yes, he declared Soleimani was “assassinated.” As for constitutionality, David French laid those Demo claims to rest in a series of social-media posts.
And a final note: Recall that in October of last year, President Trump was subjected to a barrage of criticism from armchair media experts for his agreement with Turkey regarding the Kurdish lines on the Turks’ southern border in Syria. Amid all the criticism, we noted in “The REAL U.S./Turkey Strategic Endgame — Iran” that “formulating foreign policy and military strategy is akin to a complex multi-dimensional chess match — except the objectives are rarely black and white, and the targets are constantly moving.” We noted further, “Turkey provides the U.S. with strategic airbase access, which will be essential in any regional operations, most notably those against Iran. … In other words, there exists a more pressing but unmentioned objective: containing or eliminating the Iranian nuclear threat.”
-------------------
Mark Alexander Writes for The Patriot Post.
Tags: Trump's 'Deal' With Iran, Soleimani DeadMark Alexander, The Patriot Post To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
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