The wreckage of Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani’s vehicle was still cooling on a Baghdad access road Friday when the recriminations against President Donald Trump’s assassination of Iran’s powerful Quds Force leader began.
Foremost among them: The U. S. has triggered Iran to stage attacks on America’s troops, embassies, friends and infrastructure in the Middle East and around the world. As if Iran wasn’t already.
The critique is based on the serious miscalculation that the U. S. had little to gain by taking out Soleimani and that the consequences would be worse than what he and the regime were already doing. The reality is the opposite, and the public should welcome the fact that their leaders are taking bolder action to protect them from Iranian mayhem.
Whether most Americans knew it or not, Soleimani was already waging a shadow war with the West and its regional partners. At his direction, Iran built and supplied highly sophisticated explosive devices to militias targeting U. S. troops in Iraq, killing at least 500 American service members, wounding many more, and making up nearly 20 percent of combat deaths in the country in the early years of the war. When the Pentagon noted after his death that Soleimani “was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq” it was easy to believe. He’d already done it.
Whatever danger Soleimani’s death might bring, danger was already present in lethal doses, and not just for Americans. Soleimani intervened to salvage the Syrian civil warfor President Bashar al-Assad, organizing more than 100, 000 fighters to prop up the crumbling, corrupt regime and planning the infamous campaign to retake the city of Aleppo from Syrian rebels in 2016. That seige redefined carnagein the modern era, while the civil war overall sent thousands of refugees fleeing to Europe.
The wreckage of Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani’s vehicle was
still
cooling on a Baghdad access road Friday when the recriminations against President Donald Trump’s assassination of Iran’s powerful
Quds
Force leader began.
Foremost among them: The U. S. has triggered Iran to stage attacks on America’s troops, embassies, friends and infrastructure in the Middle East and around the world.
As
if Iran wasn’t already.
The critique
is based
on the serious miscalculation that the U. S. had
little
to gain by taking out Soleimani and that the consequences would be worse than what he and the regime were
already
doing. The reality is the opposite, and the public should welcome the fact that their leaders are taking bolder action to protect them from Iranian mayhem.
Whether most Americans knew it or not, Soleimani was
already
waging a shadow war with the West and its regional partners. At his direction, Iran built and supplied
highly
sophisticated explosive devices to militias targeting U. S. troops in Iraq, killing at least 500 American service members, wounding
many
more, and making up
nearly
20 percent of combat deaths in the country in the early years of the war. When the Pentagon noted after his death that Soleimani “was
actively
developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq” it was easy to believe. He’d
already
done it.
Whatever
danger
Soleimani’s death might bring,
danger
was
already
present in lethal doses, and not
just
for Americans. Soleimani intervened to salvage the Syrian civil
warfor
President Bashar al-Assad, organizing more than 100, 000 fighters to prop up the crumbling, corrupt regime and planning the infamous campaign to retake the city of Aleppo from Syrian rebels in 2016. That
seige
redefined
carnagein
the modern era, while the civil war
overall
sent
thousands of refugees fleeing to Europe.