Qasem Soleimania Was a Legitimate US Military Target for Extermination
Qasem Soleimani was an Iranian major general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and, from 1998 until his death, commander of its Quds Force, a division primarily responsible for extraterritorial military and clandestine operations. The US Department of Defense confirmed it killed Soleimani. There are some Americans who think that it was immoral that President Trump ordered his assassination.
By Mary Beth
Let’s have some straight talk on #Soleimani, shall we?
1. Suleimani took command of the Quds Force over 20 years ago and his job was to reshape the Middle East in Iran’s favor: thru military force, by assassinating rivals and arming allies.
2. His twenty year focus was directing a network of militant groups that killed hundreds of U.S in #Iraq and others.
3. I know of only ONE American who has ever met him, John Maguire. He described him as soft-spoken yet the most powerful man in the Middle East. Thoughtful, strategic, smart, charismatic – 100% dedicated.
4. He personally ran Iran’s war in Syria and brought in thousands of Quds Force when Assad’s army began to fail.
5. Suleimani and Nasrallah of Hezbollah Lebanon are old friends and cooperate globally where Hezbollah has performed terrorist acts at Iran’s behest.
6. His power came from his impeccable revolutionary credentials and his close relationship with Khamenei, The Supreme Leader, who has referred to Suleimani as “a living martyr of the revolution.” [he is now a ‘deceased martyr’]. Suleimani is a hard-line supporter of Iran’s authoritarian system but is rich and has built the IRGC into an economic powerhouse.
7. He hated Israel and Jews and was well known to its intelligence services as a superbly effective operative; in some ways, he was both hated and admired.
8. Suleimani orchestrated terrorist attacks in places as far-flung as Thailand, New Delhi, Argentina, Lagos, and Nairobi— at least fifty attempts in the past 20 years. The most notorious was in 2011 against #SA Ambass AdelalJubeir when Iran hired a drug cartel to blow him up at in D.C. Suleimani’s agent turned out to be a #DEA informant
9. Suleimani was pragmatic. He worked indirectly with Ryan Crocker of State Dept in helping the U.S target the Taliban and in selecting Shia officials for the new Iraqi Gov’t.
10. That cooperation was short-lived, however. In 2004, the Quds Force began flooding Iraq with “explosively formed projectiles “ that accounted for nearly twenty per cent of U.S Iraq combat deaths. Roadside E.F.P.s were made by skilled technicians in Iran and were supplied by Qods Force. They also resulted in tens of thousands of maimed U.S and Iraqi soldiers.
11. In recent years, the IRGC has posted social media videos of Soleimani directing attacks in Mosul and against Iraqi Kurd forces. He traveled widely and had unprecedented autonomy in carrying out his military-terrorist mandate.
12. Those who refer to his death as “political assassination” of a “foreign official” are either grossly ill-informed or willfully blind. In my experience, his involvement in targeting U.S military personnel alone made him a legitimate target of at least TWO U.S Presidents.
Although Donald Trump is the first to have succeeded, on at least two occasions of which I am aware, previous operations in other administrations were canceled due to intel or other complicating factors.
11. Given the prominence of Soleimani in all of Iran’s extra-territorial operations, both military and civilians have considered the implications of directing operations against him on multiple occasions, including 2nd and 3rd order impacts/retaliation from various adversaries.
12. I hope this is useful. There is an excellent profile of Soleimani from Dexter Filkins @NewYorker from 2013 that gave a good feel for Soleimani, using excellent sources.
Let's turn things around and look at it from the Persian perspective. The US has been interfering with Persia since 1953 by constantly working to install puppet governments. We can start with the CIA overthrow of the Democratically elected leader Mohammad Mosaddegh whom they overthrew on behalf of British oil companies
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mosaddegh
Many Iranians regard Mosaddegh as the leading champion of secular democracy and resistance to foreign domination in Iran's modern history. Following an initial, failed coup attempt by the CIA/MI6-backed General Fazlollah Zahedi, Mosaddegh resigned four days later on 19 August 1953, with Zahedi succeeding him as prime minister.[7]
While the coup is at times referred to in the West as Operation Ajax[8] after its CIA cryptonym, in Iran it is referred to as the 28 Mordad 1332 Coup d'état, after its date on the Iranian calendar.[9] Mosaddegh was imprisoned for three years, then put under house arrest until his death and was buried in his own home so as to prevent a political furor.[10][11][12] In 2013, the U.S. government formally acknowledged the U.S. role in the coup, as a part of its foreign policy initiatives.[13]
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What Mary Beth will not tell you is that Solemeini was effectively fighting ISIS and Al Qaeda in Syria and Iraq. What Mary Beth conveniently forget to tell you that ISIS and Al Qaeda are actually supported by Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the US, contrary to their propaganda in which they pretend to fight ISIS and Al Qaeda. Also, Mary Beth conveniently forgot to tell you that QUDS forces were allied with the US government in the past in Iraq.
Persians have known for decades that the US has been double-crossing and triple-crossing them and causing problems inside their country. What's different now is that Iraqis have now experienced this double-crossing first hand with a setup to lure Solemeini on a pretense peace mission with Iraq and Saudi Arabia at the request of Trump, only to see the US whack Solemeini and Iraqi government officials in a mob-style hit. Having seen this, Iraqis are furious and want the US out, which has led to Trump demanding they pay billions of dollars for unwanted military bases the US built and will leave behind.
Since both political parties in the US have taken turns in provoking wars with Persian, the Persians likely now see every single Republican and Democratic figure as legitimate targets. I'm sure their list includes Lindsey Graham, John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, Nancy Pelosi, Charles Schumer, Mitchell McConnell, Ted Cruz, as well as any US diplomat and high ranking military officer. They may even have people like Sheldon Adelson on their target list as well. People in the US think all these politicians fight each other and are “enemies”, but from the Persian perspective all they see is one big gang of modern day pillaging Vikings.
Mary Beth won't tell you this either, but Benjamin Netanyahu is now running away from this and blaming Trump. Trump screwed the pooch on this one when he decided to believe the government's own propaganda.