The overnight news of the remote assassination at Baghdad international airport by a US drone of the second most important political figure in Iran appears both astonishingly brazen and geo-politically very risky.
I do not have the expertise to analyse the differing ramifications of this extra-judicial murder ordered by the US President. My guess is he has stirred - very violently - a hornets' nest yet again, in the world's most unstable region.
I have pasted several articles below that helped me understand what is going on.
Firstly, LBC radio - based in London- uploaded several tweets made by Donald J Trump, when he was a mere very rich businessmen, at a time when Barack Obama was US President, speculating on the political motivations for an American President provoking a war with Iran during a Presidential election year, (which 2020 is).
Trump repeatedly accused Obama of starting a war with Iran to win the US election
3 January 2020, 08:46 | Updated: 3 January 2020, 08:50
Donald Trump's old tweets have come back to haunt him. Picture: PA / Twitter The President ordered an airstrike on Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in response to the attack on the US embassy in Baghdad.
In order to get elected, @BarackObama will start a war with Iran.— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 29, 2011
I always said @BarackObama will attack Iran, in some form, prior to the election.— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 16, 2012
Don't let Obama play the Iran card in order to start a war in order to get elected--be careful Republicans!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 22, 2012
I predict that President Obama will at some point attack Iran in order to save face!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 16, 2013
Here is an article from POLITICO middle east specialists:
The Pentagon on Thursday confirmed the
killing of Qassem Soleimani, the leader of Iran’s elite Quds Force, in Iraq.
By
Nahal Toosi, Daniel Lippman and Wesley Morgan
Politico,
1/3/20, 4:39 AM CET
U.S.
President Donald Trump | Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
WASHINGTON —
U.S. President Donald Trump’s killing of one of Iran’s top military commanders
means the elimination of a dangerous U.S. foe — but it also represents a risky
escalation in a volatile feud that could backfire on U.S. personnel and allies
in the Middle East and beyond.
The Pentagon
confirmed Thursday that Qassem Soleimani, who leads Iran’s elite Quds force,
was killed in what it termed a “defensive action.” Iraqi and other media said
Soleimani died in an airstrike at Baghdad’s international airport. Some media
accounts described the airstrike as coming from a U.S. drone, but the Pentagon
did not specify.
“At the
direction of the president, the U.S. military has taken decisive defensive
action to protect U.S. personnel abroad by killing Qasem Soleimani, the head of
the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force, a U.S.-designated Foreign
Terrorist Organization,” the Pentagon said.
“General
Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and
service members in Iraq and throughout the region,” it added, blaming him for
recent attacks on U.S. troops and the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. “This strike was
aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans.”
Iran’s
foreign minister, Javad Zarif, accused the U.S. of “international terrorism”
and said it “bears responsibility for all consequences of its rogue
adventurism.”
“There’s no
chance in hell Iran won’t respond,” — Afshon Ostovar
Even the
possibility that the U.S. had directly targeted Soleimani – especially on Iraqi
soil – sent shockwaves around the globe, spiking oil prices and leading to
instant assessments of the potential fallout. U.S. officials have long depicted
Soleimani as a paramilitary and terrorist mastermind, deemed responsible for
attacks on American troops in Iraq and against U.S. interests all over the
world.
“It is hard
to overstate the significance,” said retired Gen. David Petraeus, who oversaw
the “surge” of American troops in Iraq in the violent years after the 2003 U.S.
invasion. “But there will be responses in Iraq and likely Syria and the
region.”
Some current
and former U.S. officials, as well as veteran Iran observers, said the killing
was an escalatory move far beyond what they had ever expected.
“There’s no
chance in hell Iran won’t respond,” said Afshon Ostovar, an expert on Soleimani
and author of “Vanguard of the Imam” a book about Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps.
The strike
also reportedly killed Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who was
traveling in the same convoy as Soleimani. It astonished even some members of
the Trump administration who said killing the Iranian general had not been
seriously considered — at least not recently.
U.S.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo repeatedly singled out Soleimani for criticism
as part of the Trump team’s broader anti-Iran “maximum pressure” campaign |
Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images
“I can’t
believe it,” one U.S. official said. “The immediate concern for me is: What’s
the next step from Iran? Is this the beginning of a regional conflagration?”
A former U.S.
official who dealt with the Middle East said the strike was especially notable
because it targeted the leader of a state apparatus, as opposed to a non-state
actor.
“We need to
be prepared that we’re now at war,” he said.
A Middle
Eastern official said that a retaliation by Iran – known for its own
assassinations abroad – could occur anywhere.
“It could be
targets in Africa, it could be in Latin America, it could be in the Gulf, it
could be anything,” the official said. “I don’t think they’re going to take the
assassination of one of their key guys and just turn the other cheek.”
Soleimani had
been leading the Quds Force, a unit of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
that is behind much of Iran’s military actions outside its borders. He was a
hugely popular figure in Iran, and a frequent rhetorical target of President
Donald Trump and his aides.
Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo, for instance, repeatedly singled out Soleimani for criticism
as part of the Trump team’s broader anti-Iran “maximum pressure” campaign. Part
of that campaign included designating the IRGC as a foreign terrorist
organization.
The killing
of Soleimani was a shocking development, even considering how tense U.S.-Iran
relations have grown under Trump.
Trump’s
“maximum pressure” campaign has intensified in recent months, as the U.S. has
clashed with Iran and its proxies. Just days ago, an American contractor died
in Iraq after an attack by an Iraqi militia allied with Iran. The U.S.
responded by bombing sites held by the group, killing some two dozen
militiamen.
Within days,
protesters believed to be linked to the Iran-backed militia breached parts of
the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad. The Iraqi government, meanwhile,
condemned the U.S. airstrikes, noting that the militia had ties to its own
security forces.
In comments
Thursday that may have foreshadowed the strike, Esper warned that the U.S.
reserved the right to strike preemptively in Iraq or the region. “If we get
word of attacks, we will take preemptive action as well to protect American
forces, protect American lives,” the defense secretary told reporters at the
Pentagon. “The game has changed.”
But the
killing of Soleimani was a shocking development, even considering how tense
U.S.-Iran relations have grown under Trump. The president has heaped economic
sanctions on Iran’s Islamist regime and at times threatened Tehran with
military action.
Trump also
pulled the United States out of the internationally negotiated nuclear deal
with Iran, saying it was too narrow and should have curbed Iran’s non-nuclear
aggressions in the region as well as its nuclear program.
The two
countries nearly came to a direct military clash earlier this year after Iran
was blamed in a string of attacks on international oil tankers. The U.S. and
Iran even downed each other’s drones, but Trump backed down at the last minute
from staging a military strike directly on Iran.
Though he has
sent thousands more troops to the region, Trump has said repeatedly that he
doesn’t want to engage in a new war in the Middle East. But the possibility
that Iran will feel compelled to respond with escalatory actions of its own
could embroil the president in a politically risky confrontation in the middle
of an election year.
The commander
of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's Quds Force, General Qassem Soleimani |
STR/AFP via Getty Images
Democrats
reacted cautiously to Soleimani’s killing, but immediately raised questions
about its legality, even as Republicans hailed it as an unalloyed triumph.
“Soleimani
was an enemy of the United States. That’s not a question,” tweeted Senator
Chris Murphy (Democrat-Connecticut). "The question is this – as reports
suggest, did America just assassinate, without any congressional authorization,
the second most powerful person in Iran, knowingly setting off a potential
massive regional war?”
The death of
Soleimani is also likely to have deep implications in Iraq and other countries
in the region, where Iran has powerful political allies and proxy forces.
The most immediate
shock waves are likely to be felt in Iraq, which for years has been a
battleground for influence between Washington and Tehran. One of Iran’s
longstanding foreign policy goals has been to push U.S. troops out of Iraq,
where they’ve maintained a presence since the 2003 invasion that toppled
dictator Saddam Hussein.
Many Iraqis
are sick of Iranian influence in their country. Recent widespread
demonstrations have featured chants against Tehran and the Shiite clerics who
largely run its religion-infused regime.
But Iraq also
wants to avoid becoming ground zero for a U.S.-Iran war, while keeping up
friendly relations with Iran to help its own economy.
“It is only
fair for Iraq to strive to achieve this balance but given the ‘beef’ between
Iran and the U.S. it’s a lost effort,” a former Iraqi diplomat told POLITICO.
The “Trump administration is on a zero-sum mission vis a vis Iran, and expects
Iraq to pick one side only.”
While
Soleimani’s death is no doubt a major loss for the Iranian regime, it is unlikely
the ruling clerics and their military aides were entirely unprepared for it.
Trump’s hard
line toward Iran has earned applause from other Middle Eastern countries,
notably Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which consider Iran
an implacable enemy bent on manipulating the region in its favor.
Still, Saudi
and UAE diplomats in recent months have tried to cool tensions with Iran. And
while they’re likely to shed few tears for Soleimani, they may worry about the
blowback Iran and its allies are capable of creating in their own countries.
The Pentagon
had considered striking Soleimani before, during the height of U.S. involvement
in Iraq, when the Quds Force was supplying bombs and other weapons to Iraqi
Shiite militia groups that the military estimated killed over 600 U.S. troops.
In 2006, according to an Army study of the Iraq War that was eventually
declassified, the U.S. military headquarters in Iraq “prepared a plan to kill
or capture Qods Force commander Qassem Soleimani, who had made his way into
Iraq for at least the second time” that year, the next time he visited the
country.
But U.S. commanders “ultimately refrained from taking action against
Soleimani, allowing the Iranian general to enter and exit Iraq unhindered,”
says the study. It does not explain why the military did not act on the
proposal or whether it was considered at higher levels, such as at the
military’s Central Command or the Pentagon.
U.S.
commandos in Iraq did detain some of Soleimani’s Quds Force associates during
raids later in 2006 and 2007, though, after the Bush administration granted
expanded authorities for the elite troops to go after Iranian targets in the
country.
Those
captures proved controversial with the Iraqi government, which often granted
Quds Force members diplomatic immunity and insisted on their release.
While
Soleimani’s death is no doubt a major loss for the Iranian regime, it is
unlikely the ruling clerics and their military aides were entirely unprepared
for it.
Ostovar, the
Soleimani and IRGC expert, said in all likelihood Iran will name a successor
soon because its systematic approach to their rule is “really strong.”
“He was
really just sort of the forward or outside face of the Islamic Republic,”
Ostovar said. “He was the face of their strategy, but their strategy goes
beyond him.”
And here are two articles from publications in the middle east, one in Middle East Eye from a more Arab/ Persian perspective, the other from Israel's leading liberal daily newspaper published in English, Ha'aretz. This includes a link to an article speculating that Iranian-backed 'sleeper' terror cells in the west could now be activated in revenge...
Iraqis express joy and fear at news
In Iraq, Azhar
al-Rubaie is speaking to Iraqis who are both happy to hear of Soleimani’s death
and wary of its consequences.
For Mohammed
al-Alwan, a 24-year-old from Basra, Soleimani’s assassination is “not only a
victory for Iraqis, but also for the international community”.
“I was so
happy when I heard that the world's biggest criminal had been
killed, as he killed many Iraqis once he intervened Iraq’s affairs and sent his
militias to the country,” Alwan says.
Alwan says he
feels the same way about Soleimani’s death as he did when he heard Osama bin
Laden and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had been killed. But, he warns, Soleimani’s
death will not end Iranian influence in Iraq.
“We also have
to get rid of his hands in Iraq. If we do not, they will grow and replace him
with a new figure to continue Soleimani’s objectives in the country,” he says.
— Firas W. Alsarray - فراس السراي
(@firasalsarrai) January 3, 2020
Another
Basra-based Iraqi, Haider Laith, says: “I have two moods, I am happy and sad at
the same time.”
“Firstly, I
am happy that we are taking our first steps towards curbing Iranian influence
in Iraq. Secondly, I am sad that Iran will respond to the US in Iraq, and use
it as a war and conflict zone again,” the 22-year-old says.
Laith, like
hundreds of thousands of other Iraqis, has for months been in the streets protesting
against the government, corruption and Iranian influence. Several hundreds of
protesters have been killed in a crackdown by Iran-backed militias and
Iraqi security forces.
“Iran also
will try to take revenge upon the protesters, who were happy after receiving
the news on this historic day.”
'Terrified of
what is to come'
54 minutes
ago
Jenan Moussa,
a prominent journalist in the region, is among many to take to social media
today and express her concern for what is to come.
It's one of
these days again in the Middle East.
You wake up.
You read the news.
And you are terrified of what is to come.#Soleimani
You wake up.
You read the news.
And you are terrified of what is to come.#Soleimani
— Jenan Moussa (@jenanmoussa) January 3, 2020
Syrian
journalist Danny Makki took to Twitter to outline just how important a
figure Soleimani is for Iran.
Qassem Suleimani
was more than just a General or a military leader, he was Iran's ultimate
symbol of power, strength & influence in the Middle East, rushing between
Lebanon, Iraq and Syria, his assassination is not just an escalation, its
effectively a declaration of war.
— Danny Makki (@Dannymakkisyria) January 3, 2020
US Secretary
of State Mike Pompeo, meanwhile, shared a widely circulated video purportedly
showing Iraqis celebrating the Iranian's death - a reminder that he was as
reviled as admired across the region.
Iraqis — Iraqis
— dancing in the street for freedom; thankful that General Soleimani is no
more. pic.twitter.com/huFcae3ap4
— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) January 3, 2020
And Donald
Trump? Well the man who ordered the strike has been noticeably silent, except
for a low-resolution image of the US flag he shared on Twitter soon after the
assassination.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2020
Sadr
reactivates Mahdi Army
1 hour ago
Moqtada al-Sadr,
the cleric-turned-politician who fought US troops in the tumultuous years
following the Iraq war, has announced he is reforming his Mahdi Army militia.
Taking to
Twitter, Sadr ordered "fighters, particularly those from the Mahdi
Army, to be ready" following the assassination, and eulogised Soleimani.
The Mahdi Army disbanded in 2008 following years of bloody conflict with
US troops.
— مقتدى السيد محمد الصدر (@Mu_AlSadr) December 30, 2019
These days
Sadr stands at the head of the Iraqi parliament's largest bloc, and with
his votes combined with the Hashd al-Shaabi militia's political bloc we could
see a law being passed ordering US forces' expulsion from the country.
Iran and
allies vow revenge
1 hour ago
Iranian
Supreme Leader Ali Khameini, who was close to Soleimani, has
vowed "severe revenge" awaits the general's killers.
"Severe
revenge awaits the criminals whose dirty hands were tainted with his blood
and the blood of all the martyrs of last night's incident," he said,
announcing three days of mourning.
"The
martyr, Soleimani, was an international resistance figure, and all those who
loved him are calling for revenge for his blood."
Javad Zarif,
Iran's foreign minister, called the assassination an "act of international
terrorism".
"The US'
act of international terrorism, targeting & assassinating General
Soleimani-THE most effective force fighting Daesh [Islamic State], Al Nusrah,
Al Qaeda et al-is extremely dangerous & a foolish escalation," Zarif said.
Hezbollah
leader Hassan Nasrallah said: "Meting out the appropriate punishment to
these criminal assassins... will be the responsibility and task of all
resistance fighters worldwide."
Meanwhile a
Syrian foreign ministry spokesperson said the killing was "a serious
escalation of the situation" in the Middle East and likened the US'
methods to those "of criminal gangs".
Qassem
Soleimani killed in US strike
1 hour ago
Good morning
and welcome to Middle East Eye's liveblog tracking all the reactions and latest
updates following the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, the powerful leader of
Iran's Quds force.
Soleimani and Abu
Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy leader of Iraq's Iran-backed Hashd al-Shaabi
militia grouping, were hit by a missile strike on Baghdad airport overnight.
The
assassinations are likely to have a profound effect on the region, where
Soleimani has helped spread Iranian influence with bloody results.
Here's our
news wrap of the latest events:
The Four Critical Questions After the Assassination of Iran's Soleimani
Haaretz
- Israel News Friday, January 03, 2020.
It’s
impossible to exaggerate the repercussions of this event, and even Trump’s most
steadfast supporters should be regretting the absence of a seasoned
national-security staff around him
Anshel
Pfeffer
The United
States just took out the most important symbol of Iranian power and its most
effective operational tool in the region. It’s impossible to exaggerate the
influence wielded by Qassem Soleimani in the 22 years he commanded the Iranian
Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force.
There was the
power he had over governments and fighting forces across the region and his
ability to shape events – from his physical presence on the front lines, which
over the years took on an almost mythic quality, to his quiet diplomacy,
coupled always with intimidation and bribery behind the scenes. His loss to the
Iranian Islamic revolutionary regime, especially to Supreme Leader Ali
Khamenei, is a crushing blow, and on an operational and intelligence-gathering
level, a major coup for the Trump administration.
For many
countries across the Middle East, especially in Syria and Iraq, where Soleimani was directly responsible
for spreading so much death and destruction, as well as for Iranian dissidents,
it will be a moment for grim satisfaction, even jubilation. Iran will have no choice but to retaliate with massive force
and try to extract painful retribution from the United States and its allies in
the region.
This is the
most fateful action by the Trump administration in
the Middle East in the past three years – the blatant assassination of
effectively the second-most powerful man in his country and over the past two
decades the most powerful in the region.
It’s
impossible to exaggerate the repercussions of this event, and even Donald
Trump’s most steadfast supporters should be regretting the absence of a
seasoned national-security staff around him, capable of challenging his
decisions and assumptions. For the past 22 years, Soleimani was a constant if
bitter foe; without him, matters become a lot less predictable.
There are now
two critical questions to ask of Iran and two of the United States.
abandon its
caution?
Ever since it
was forced to accept a humiliating stalemate at the end of its bloody war with Iraq in the ‘80s, the Iranian
leadership has refrained from meeting its adversaries head on, instead
developing asymmetrical warfare and proxy management to an art. The
million-plus deaths in the Iran-Iraq War and the recognition that Iran lacked
the firepower and resources to fight another direct war were the constant
factors in Soleimani’s grand strategy. Now both his absence from the leadership
discussions and the enormous anger at his assassination may affect Iran’s
innate caution.
There are a
range of targets for Iran to strike back at. U.S. forces in the region, Western
oil tankers in the Gulf, America’s main allies – the Saudis and Israel. And
does Iran now strike, as usual, using proxies like the Yemeni Houthis and Hezbollah? Or does avenging Soleimani necessitate
his own Quds force spearheading the counterattack?
Whatever the
course of action, Iran will need to be able to contain the escalation to ensure
it can prevent a spillover into its own territory, at it has largely achieved
since the end of the Iran-Iraq War. But the man in charge of that strategy is
no longer there.
How will
Soleimani’s loss affect Iranian power?
It’s no
coincidence that Soleimani held on as Quds force commander for 22 years and was
mentioned even as a possible heir to the supreme leader (though that was almost
certainly an exaggeration). No one could hold in his hand all the loose strands
of the shifting regional power play and manipulate them like puppet strings as
he did.
Soleimani
played the key role in destabilizing Iraq after the American invasion. He
transformed Hezbollah from a medium-sized militia into an army-sized force and
the main power broker in Lebanon. And then came his greatest achievement, at
the cost of hundreds of thousands of deaths: Without him Bashar Assad would not
have remained president of Syria in his Damascus palace – even if
Soleimani had his share of failures as well.
He had
trusted, able and experienced lieutenants, but none have his range of contacts
across the Middle East and beyond, and more crucially, none inspire anything
near the respect and fear that just the mention of “Haji Qassem” had in cabinet
rooms and command centers in half a dozen countries.
His loss will
have an effect within the Tehran power structure as well. Soleimani’s power was
such that despite the setbacks in Syria in the last three years, when Israel
stymied many of Soleimani’s plans to establish long-term military bases there,
and as both the faction around President Hassan Rohani and protesters on Iran’s
streets called for investing resources at home instead of exporting the Islamic
revolution abroad, Khamenei continued to support Soleimani.
Without
Soleimani to lead the campaign, Iran could now, for once, drastically misjudge
its response and lead to an all-out war. But if the fallout is contained, there
is the hope that without Soleimani, Iran could start curbing its regional
aspirations.
What was
Trump trying to achieve?
After a year
of what seemed like dithering on the Iranian front, Trump appealed for a
high-level meeting with Rohani and was rebuffed. He failed to respond to
attacks on shipping in the Gulf, to the shooting down of an American drone and
to missiles launched at Saudi oil installations.
And most
crucially perhaps, after a year when Trump almost gave Iran the most glittering
prize in the shape of a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, he has suddenly pivoted 180 degrees to a
full-on confrontation, with airstrikes on Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, the
immediate deployment of combat troops and now the assassination of Soleimani.
Ostensibly,
the reason for the airstrikes was the death of an American citizen in an attack
by Iranian-backed militias in northern Iraq, and the killing of Soleimani was
part of a wider move to prevent further attacks on American personnel and
bases. And yet, killing a figure like Soleimani is a strategic move. Did Trump
have a broader objective or was the temptation to exploit an opportunity to
take out such a prominent figure, someone even Trump would have been acquainted
with from his very short daily intelligence briefings, simply too great?
The United
States has had similar opportunities to strike Soleimani in the past. But the
potential backlash was judged as too great. Besides, at various points over the
past two decades, the United States had indirectly cooperated with him in the
hope that this could stabilize Iraq and help fight Al-Qaida and the Islamic State.
Whether Trump
gave the order this time on an impulse, as part of a wider campaign against
Iran, and who knows, in the hopes that it could boost his prospects entering
the election year, will have a major effect on what comes next.
Does anyone
in the administration have a plan?
Four months
ago, Trump still had a team of dedicated Iran hawks in the National Security
Council. But John Bolton is gone, an implacable enemy, and Trump has publicly
repudiated Bolton’s visions of regime change in Iran. That may well be a good
thing, but with the hollowing out of the NSC and the upper echelons of the
State Department, there’s barely a skeleton of a professional staff of advisers
around Trump, but instead a group of sycophantic hangers on. He still has the
largest, most professional and best-equipped armed forces and intelligence
community in the world, but no one really in charge of strategic thinking.
Trump could
be blundering into a ferocious war with Iran without a plan. And even
if he doesn’t go to war, extricating the United States from this escalation
could inflict damage both on America’s interests and on its allies. The U.S. is
a thousand times more powerful, but Iran, since the revolution of 1979, has
proved itself more than capable of exploiting every moment of hesitation, every
misjudgment and every temporary vacuum provided by U.S. administrations.
And these are
uncharted waters whose direction no one can predict. A venal and vainglorious
president in the White House and an Iranian
leadership that has just lost its wisest member – both fighting for
survival at home – are now facing off while standing on the brink.
Anshel
Pfeffer
 |
***
www.haaretz.com
|
PS Check this expert reporter’s Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/RashaAlAqeedi
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