We know from various Congressional folks that briefers of Congress have failed to produce any evidence of “imminent” plans to kill Americans Soleimani was involved with that would have made this a legal killing rather than an illegal assassination. The public statements by administration figures have cited such things as the 1979 hostage crisis, the already dead contractor, and, oh, the need to “reestablish deterrence” after Trump did not follow through on previous threats he made. None of this looks remotely like “imminent plans,” not to mention that the Iraqi PM Abdul-Mahdi has reported that Soleimani was on the way to see him with a reply to a Saudi peace proposal. What a threatening imminent plan!
As it is, despite the apparent lack of “imminent plans” to kill Americans, much of the supporting rhetoric for this assassination coming out of Trump supporters (with bragging about it having reportedly been put up on Trump’s reelection funding website) involves charges that Soleimani was “the world’s Number One terrorist” and was personally responsible for killing 603 Americans in Iraq. Even as many commentators have noted the lack of any “imminent plans,” pretty much all American ones have prefaced these questions with assertions that Soleimani was unquestionable “evil” and “bad” and a generally no good guy who deserved to be offed, if not right at this time and in this way. He was the central mastermind and boss of a massive international terror network that obeyed his orders and key to Iran’s reputed position as “the Number One state supporter of terrorism,” with Soleimani the key to all of that.
Of course, in Iran it turns out that Soleimani was highly respected, even as many oppose the hawkish policies he was part of. He was viewed as crucial to the victory over ISIS/ISIL/Daesh in Iraq, much feared by Iranians. Shia take martyrdom seriously, and he is viewed as a martyr. It appears that even Trump took notice of the massive outpouring of mourning and praise for Soleimani there up to the point of people dying in a stampede in a mourning crowd in his hometown. But, hey, obviously these people simply do not understand that he was The World’s Number One Terrorist! Heck, I saw one commenter on Marginal Revolution claiming Soleimani was responsible killing “hundreds of thousands.” Yes, this sort of claim is floating around out there.
A basic problem here is that while indeed Soleimani commanded the IGRC al Quds force that supported and supplied various Shia militias in several Middle Eastern nations, these all were (and are) ultimately independent. Soleimani may have advised them, but he was never in a position to order any of them to do anything. Al Quds itself has never carried out any of the various attacks outside of Iran that Soleimani is supposedly personally responsible for.
Let us consider the specific case that gets pushed most emphatically, the 603 Americans dead in Iraq, without doubt a hot button item here in the US. First of all, even if Soleimani really was personally responsible for their deaths, there is the technical matter that their deaths cannot be labeled “terrorism.” That is about killing non-combatant civilians, not military personnel involved in combat. I do not support the killing of those American soldiers, most of whom were done in by IEDs, which also horribly injured many more. But indeed this awful stuff happened. But in fact this was all done by Iraqi -based Shia militias. Yes, they were supported by Soleimani, but while some have charged al Quds suppplied the IEDs, this turns out not to be the case. These were apparently made in Iraq by these local militias. Soleimani’s al Quds are not totally innocent in all this, reportedly providing some training and some inputs. But the IEDs were made by the militias themselves and planted by them.
It is also the case that when the militias and Americans were working together against ISIS/IISIL/Daesh, none of this happened, and indeed that was still the case up until this most recent set of events, with the death setting off all this an American civilian contractor caught on a base where several Iraqis were killed by a rocket from the Kat’b Hezbollah Iraqi group. Of course with Trump having Soleimani assassinated, this cooperation has ceased, with the US military no longer either fighting ISIS/ISIL/Daesh nor training the Iraqi military. Indeed, the Iraqi parliament has demanded that US troops leave entirely, although Trump threatened Iraq with economic sanctions if that is followed through on.
As it is, the US datinrg back to the Obama administration has been supplying Saudi Arabia with both arms and intelligence that has been used to kill thousands of Yemeni civilians. Frankly, US leaders look more like terrorists than Soleimani.
I shall close by noting the major changes in opinion in both Iran and Iraq regarding the US as a result of this assassination. In Iran as many have noted there were major demonstrations against the regime going on, protesting bad economic conditions, even as those substantially were the result of the illegal US economic sanctions imposed after the US withdrew from the JCPOA nuclear deal, to which Iran was adhering. Now those demonstrations have stopped and been replaced by the mass demonstrations against the US over Soleimani’s assassination. And we also have Iran further withdrawing from that deal and moving to more highly enrich uranium.
In Iraq, there had been major anti-Iran demonstrations going on, with these supported to some degree by the highest religious authority in the nation, Ayatollah Ali Sistani. However, when Soleimani’s body was being transferred to Iran, Sistani’s son accompanied his body. It really is hard to see anything that justifies this assassination.
I guess I should note for the record that I am not a fan of the Iranian regime, much less the IGRC and its former and new commander. It is theocratic and repressive, with many political prisoners and a record of killing protestors. However, frankly, it is not clearly all that much worse than quite a few of its neighboring regimes. While Supreme Jurisprudent Khamenei was not popularly elected, its president, Rouhani, was, who obeyed popular opinion in negotiating the JCPOA that led to the relaxation of economic sanctions, with his power reduced when Trump withdrew from the agreement. Its rival Saudi Arabia has no democracy at all, and is also a religiously reactionary and repressive regime that uses bone saws on opponents and is slaughtering civilians in a neighboring nation.
Barkley Rosser
I think this quote is apropos in this situation: “It was worse than wrong. It was a mistake.”
They had a handshake agreement, which was why Solemiani wasn’t under protection. The Solemiani killed Americans stuff cracks me up. He was a military advisor for the Shia militia’s who were attacked by US forces during a unsanctioned war in 2003………….uh derp derp. There have been many other generals that have committed “death of american” crimes that the Trump Admin seems to love.
As my father used to say “homosexuals make great commie fighters”(homosexuals like Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin agree lol). The zionists so badly want this war in the Trump administration, but Trump doesn’t have the guts to just invade like Iraq.
it appears i had a comment on this same post removed from Naked Capitalism…
i asked “was his assassination due to the impeachment proceedings, and should the Democrats in Congress be held responsible for the deaths on Ukrainian flight 752?”
sure, that’s off the wall, but i still think it addresses a legitimate question…i don’t think one can separate the personal situation a megalomaniac president like Trump finds himself in from his behavior….i was a news junky back during the Iraq war era, & what i remember most about the runup was that the big story in all the news mags the week before the war started was that Neil Bush, George’s son, had lost millions of depositor’s money playing poker in the back offices of Silverado Savings and Loan in Denver, and that you then could’t find a word about that story anywhere the next week cause George & Saddam had all the coverage….so i have always felt that Bush might have pushed that war forward to take the media heat off his kid…
No surprise, when I preempt their article on healthcare with commentary; my comments disappear. Get used to it when you can say more than they can.
well, here you go, Trump actually admitting to what i’ve been banned for suggesting…via Jonathan Chait:
Report: Trump Cited Impeachment Pressure to Kill Soleimani – Deep inside a long, detailed Wall Street Journal report about President Trump’s foreign policy advisers is an explosive nugget: “Mr. Trump, after the strike, told associates he was under pressure to deal with Gen. Soleimani from GOP senators he views as important supporters in his coming impeachment trial in the Senate, associates said.” This is a slightly stronger iteration of a fact the New York Times reported three days ago, to wit, “pointed out to one person who spoke to him on the phone last week that he had been pressured to take a harder line on Iran by some Republican senators whose support he needs now more than ever amid an impeachment battle.”This would not mean Trump ordered the strike entirely, or even primarily, in order to placate Senate Republicans. But it does constitute an admission that domestic political considerations influenced his decision. That would, of course, constitute a grave dereliction of duty. Trump is so cynical he wouldn’t even recognize that making foreign policy decisions influenced by impeachment is the kind of thing he shouldn’t say out loud. Of course, using his foreign policy authority for domestic political gain is the offense Trump is being impeached for. It would be characteristically Trumpian to compound the offense as part of his efforts to avoid accountability for it. What kind of pressure could Trump have in mind? It seems highly doubtful that he is worried 20 Republican senators would vote to remove him from office. He could be concerned that one or two of them would defect, denying him the chance to present impeachment as totally partisan (as he did following the House vote.) More plausibly, Trump might be worried a handful of Republicans would join Democrats to allow testimony from witnesses, like John Bolton, Trump has managed to block.
rjs:
Have you read our masthead? Angry Bear: “Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.” So you fit here. Don’t take it to heart what happened at NC. I have written long comments on healthcare only to have it ignored by not having it appear (sometimes I go to moderation). You are relevant at AB.
@JDM, January 10, 2020 12:32 pm
This is a very deep observation. Thank you. BTW the original quote is attributed to Talleyrand and is more biting:
Rephrasing Kissinger: ” Assassination is not a policy; it is an alibi for the absence of one”.
Everyone keeps dancing around it: Iraqi PM Abdul-Mahdi has reported that Soleimani was on the way to see him with a reply to a Saudi peace proposal. Who profits from Peace? Who does not?
Ten Bears:
Welcome to Angry Bear. First time commenters always go to moderation to weed out spam, spammers, and advertising.
g’da, Homeless on the High Desert
The killing of Soleimani, while a tragic even with far reaching consequences, is just an illustration of the general rule: MIC does not profit from peace. And MIC dominates any national security state, into which the USA was transformed by the technological revolution on computers and communications, as well as the events of 9/11.
The USA government can be viewed as just a public relations center for MIC. That’s why Trump/Pompeo/Esper/Pence gang position themselves as rabid neocons, which means MIC lobbyists in order to hold their respective positions. There is no way out of this situation. This is a classic Catch 22 trap.
The fact that a couple of them are also “Rapture” obsessed religious bigots means that the principle of separation of church and state does no matter when MIC interests are involved.
The health of MIC requires maintaining an inflated defense budget at all costs. Which, in turn, drives foreign wars and the drive to capture other nations’ resources to compensate for MIC appetite. The drive which is of course closely allied with Wall Street interests (disaster capitalism.)
In such conditions fake “imminent threat” assassinations necessarily start happening. Although the personality of Pompeo and the fact that he is a big friend of the current head of Mossad probably played some role.
It’s really funny that Trump (probably with the help of his “reference group,” which includes Adelson and Kushner), managed to appoint as the top US diplomat a person who was trained as a mechanic engineer and specialized as a tank repair mechanic. And who was a long-time military contractor. So it is quite natural that he represents interests of MIC.
IMHO under Trump/Pompeo/Esper trio some kind of additional skirmishes with Iran are a real possibility: they are necessary to maintain the current inflated level of defense spending.
State of the US infrastructure, the actual level of unemployment (U6 is ~7% which some neolibs call full employment ;-), and the level of poverty of the bottom 33% of the USA population be damned. Essentially the bottom 33% is the third world country within the USA.
(https://www.huffpost.com/entry/income-inequality-crisis_n_4221012 )
Likbez:
You are making a guns or butter argument with politics involved. The cheque for this will be arriving at the end of Trump’s tenure in the White House.