I can certainly understand Alessan’s, and Israel’s, point of view with regard to Suleimani. Makes total sense. However, he was only an adversary of the United States because the US has so many troops in the region – if we weren’t there, he would’t care about us. (And we even fought on the same side against ISIS.) This is how he differed from bin Laden.
So now we know there was no “imminent” threat by any normal definition of the word. Normally, the US would work to thwart an action while in the planning stage, by sending in special forces or Jack Ryan CIA-types, to disrupt those plans. Taking out the general who gave the orders does little to stop the plan. And if it is absolutely essential to eliminate a top ranking member of the opposition – make it look like an accident and give the government plausible deniability.
Generals do die on the battlefield, occasionally. But when you drop a drone missile on one when he’s shaking hands at the airport – that’s an assassination.
So this action was rash, impulsive, was done for domestic political ends, did little to prevent further terrorist attacks, brought us to the brink of war and disrupted military and diplomatic relations all through the region. Other than that: flawless.
I’d be interested to learn more about that operation in Syria.
Point is I’m confident you can’t kick a rock in the Middle East without finding ten Qasem Soleimanis. He was a very bad, evil general, planning all sorts of nefarious things. On your side that’s called a freedom fighter.
There’s very little that isn’t wrong about this unprovoked military attack on Iran and violation of Iraqi sovereignty.
Where does this confidence come from? I doubt there’s a lot of equivalents to Soleimani let alone 10 under every rock. Lots of bad guys but no where near the reach and power this guy had.
OK sure, I’ll grant that in terms or power and reach it’s more like one or two instead of ten. I’m going to need more from the US administration to believe this assassination was morally justified (unquestionably right in Alessan’s words).
As far as I can tell he died because he got on Pompeo’s shit list, plus the political mess in the US.
Yeah it’s doubtful if Soleimani’s successor, Gen. Esmail Ghaani, will be able to fill the shoes of his predecessor. Certainly when it comes to keeping the different Iraqi factions together, he’s unlikely to be quite as effective. (The man doesn’t even speak Arabic, and has apparently spent very little time building connections in Iraq.)
So, it seems to me that that the man who stands to benefit the most is Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi. His organisation - ISIS, remember them? - has already praised the American drone strike as an “act of God.” I’m sure Mr. Trump is very flattered indeed.
I can’t argue that he wasn’t a legitimate military target. EVERYONE in a military chain-of-command is a target for adversaries - cf CIA plots to assassinate Castro. Visibly taking out Soleimani in Iraq, not Iran, sure looks like an act of war, and Iraq is justified to oust US forces there. What happens next? Iranians have spent thousands of years plotting strategies. Expect something nasty, in time. Unless Tramp escalates soon.
Re: “smartness” vs “rightness” here, I’ll go with “desperate” on Tramp’s part, an obvious wag-the-dog distraction from his upcoming trial, likely with worse moves ahead. Either Tramp directs an attack allowing imposition of martial law, or a coup prevents that.
The real acts of war started when Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal and surrounded himself with people who are on record as advocating regime change.
If someone has an ongoing feud with his neighbor and then stands outside said neighbor’s house and says that he’s going to force his neighbor to move out even if he has to drag his neighbor out of his house himself, I would expect that guy to prepare for battle.
Been a mite wobbly. What I recall, it started as he planned the protests in Baghdad, but that had already happened, so thats a bit dicey when it comes to “imminent threat”. *Then *they just went with “imminent threat” but couldn’t talk about it. Then it was a plan to bomb an embassy, and just lately its three or four embassies. Sen. Lee, however, said there was no mention of any such thing during the, ah, “briefing” he was given.
Ya know what? I’m not even that sold on the “wag the dog” thing any more, this man-child is so pugnaciously impulsive, he might have picked the “war” option because it gave him a chubbie.
I’m sure he thought he was helping when he later said:
In reality, this comment and the context it was made in certainly support the argument that this was not at all about an imminent attack on the US or it’s allies, but was instead a targeted political assassination meant to wreak havoc within Iran and to further de-stabilize the current regime.
Which certainly confirms everyone’s worst suspicions about this, including that Donald Trump has been lying to the American people about it, with support from others who are also lying. If there is a history of the United States being told in the future, I hope that this is the worst administration that ever held power; I don’t like to contemplate a worse one.