1105 Killed for Israel: Bolton, Netanyahu & Dershowitz welcome killing of Soleimani; Sanders & Gabbard oppose it

Killed for Israel: Bolton, Netanyahu & Dershowitz welcome killing of
Soleimani; Sanders & Gabbard oppose it

Newsletter published on January 5, 2020

(1) Pentagon killed Soleimani and al-Muhandis in an airstrike inside
Baghdad International Airport
(2) Soleimani arrived on a normal flight from Lebanon; he did not travel
in secret
(3) Netanyahu backs Soleimani killing as US ‘self-defense’
(4) Report: Obama Administration Stopped Israel From Assassinating
Soleimani in 2015
(5) Arch-hawk Bolton celebrates slaying of Quds commander as ‘first step
to regime change in Tehran’
(6) Dershowitz: Trump had Legal Justification for eliminating Soleimani
(7) Extrajudicial execution of Soleimani violates international law' –
UN Rapporteur
(8) Israel is the main culprit in this crime. Trump is a secondary culprit
(9) Sanders condemns assassination, calls for exit from Middle East wars
(10) Tulsi Gabbard condemns Soleimani strike: Trump isn't acting like he
wants to end 'forever wars'
(11)  N. Haass, President of CFR, fears US being dragged into another
mideast war
(12) JStreet condemns the killing but makes no mention of Israel's role
(13) Economist says Soleimani killing "tantamount to an act of war"; US
will have to leave Iraq
(14) Philip Giraldi: US will be forced out of Iraq, Syria & other Arab
states

(1) Pentagon killed Soleimani and al-Muhandis in an airstrike inside
Baghdad International Airport
https://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Four-rockets-land-on-Baghdad-airport-report-612947

US assassinates Qasem Soleimani, Iran's Khamenei warns of 'harsh revenge'

"The American and Israeli enemy is responsible for killing the
mujahideen Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and Qasem Soleimani," said Iraqi PMF
spokesman Ahmed al-Assadi.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF, REUTERS, OMRI NAHMIAS

JANUARY 3, 2020 12:28

IRGC Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani and Iraqi militia commander
Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, along with at least 10 other people, were killed
in an attack by US forces in Baghdad on Friday morning Israel time,
according to reports confirmed by the Pentagon and the Iranian
Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC).

In a statement, the Pentagon said that the US killed Soleimani and
al-Muhandis in an airstrike inside Baghdad International Airport.

According to the Pentagon, Soleimani was actively developing plans to
attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the
region.

"General Soleimani and his Quds Force were responsible for the deaths of
hundreds of American and coalition service members and the wounding of
thousands more," the Pentagon claimed, noting that the Iranian leader
had orchestrated attacks on coalition bases in Iraq over the last
several months, "including the attack on December 27th, cculminating in
the death and wounding of additional American and Iraqi personnel.

"General Soleimani also approved the attacks on the US Embassy in
Baghdad that took place this week," the Pentagon added, clarifying that
the strike was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans. "The
United States will continue to take all necessary action to protect our
people and our interests wherever they are around the world," the
statement concluded.

The US embassy in Baghdad urged American citizens to leave Iraq
immediately. Dozens of foreign oil company employees with US citizenship
in Iraq headed to Basra Airport for evacuation, Reuters reported.

The Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces spokesperson claimed that Israel
was also behind the attack, though Israel has made no such statement. ...

(2) Soleimani arrived on a normal flight from Lebanon; he did not travel
in secret

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/01/us-will-come-to-regret-its-assassination-of-qassim-soleimani.html

January 03, 2020

U.S. Will Come To Regret Its Assassination of Qassim Soleimani

Today the U.S. declared war on Iran and Iraq.

War is what it will get.

Earlier today a U.S. drone or helicopter killed Major General Qassim
Soleimani, the famous commander of the Iranian Quds ('Jerusalem') force,
while he left the airport of Baghdad where he had just arrived. He had
planned to attend the funeral of the 31 Iraqi soldiers the U.S. had
killed on December 29 at the Syrian-Iraqi border near Al-Qaim.

The Quds force is the external arm of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary
Guards Corps. Soleiman was responsible for all relations between Iran
and political and militant movements outside of Iran. Hajji Qassim
advised the Lebanese Hisbullah during the 2006 war against Israel. His
support for Iraqi groups enabled them to kick the U.S. invaders out of
Iraq. He was the man responsible for, and successful in, defeating the
Islamic State in iraq and Syria. In 2015 Soleimani traveled to Moscow
and convinced Russia to intervene in Syria. His support for the Houthi
in Yemen enabled them to withstand the Saudi attackers.

Soleimani had arrived in Baghdad on a normal flight from Lebanon. He did
not travel in secret. He was picked up at the airport by Abu Mahdi
al-Muhandes, the deputy commander of the al-Hashd al-Shaabi, an official
Iraqi security force under the command of the Iraqi Prime Minister. The
two cars they traveled in were destroyed in the U.S. attack. Both men
and their drivers and guards died.

The U.S. created two martyrs who will now become the models and idols
for tens of millions of youth in the Middle East.

The Houthi in Yemen, Hizbullah in Lebanon, Islamic Jihad in Palestine,
the paramilitary forces in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere have all benefited
from Soleimani's advice and support. They will all take actions to
revenge him.

Moqtada al-Sadr, the unruly Shia cleric who commands millions of
followers in Iraq, has given orders to reactivate his military branch
'Jaish al-Imam al-Mahdi'. Between 2004 and 2008 the Mahdi forces fought
the U.S. occupation of Iraq. They will do so again.

The outright assassination of a commander of Soleimani's weight demands
an Iranian reaction of at least a similar size. All U.S. generals or
high politicians traveling in the Middle East or elsewhere will now have
to watch their back. There will be no safety for them anywhere.

No Iraqi politician will be able to argue for keeping U.S. forces in the
country. The Iraqi Prime Minister Abdel Mahdi has called for a
parliament emergency meeting to ask for the withdrawal of all U.S. troops:

"The targeted assassination of an Iraqi commander is a violation of the
agreement. It can trigger a war in Iraq and the region. It is a clear
violation of the conditions of the U.S. presence in Iraq. I call on the
parliament to take the necessary steps." The National Security Council
of Iran is meeting with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to "study the
options of response". There are many such options. The U.S. has forces
stationed in many countries around Iran.

 From now on none of them will be safe.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a statement calling for three days of
public mourning and then retaliation.

"His departure to God does not end his path or his mission," the
statement said, "but a forceful revenge awaits the criminals who have
his blood and the blood of the other martyrs last night on their hands."

Iran will tie its response to the political calender. U.S. President
Donald Trump will go into his reelection campaign with U.S. troops under
threat everywhere. We can expect incidents like the Beirut barracks
bombing to repeat themselves when he is most vulnerable.

Trump will learn that killing the enemy is the easy part of a war. The
difficulties come after that happened.

In 2018 Soleimani publicly responded to a tweet in which Trump had
threatened Iran:

"Mr. Trump, the gambler! […] You are well aware of our power and
capabilities in the region. You know how powerful we are in asymmetrical
warfare. Come, we are waiting for you. We are the real men on the scene,
as far as you are concerned. You know that a war would mean the loss of
all your capabilities. You may start the war, but we will be the ones to
determine its end." Since May 2019 the U.S. deployed at least 14,800
additional soldiers to the Middle East. Over the last three days
airborne elements and special forces followed. The U.S.has clearly
planned for an escalation.

Soleimani will be replaced by Brigadier General Ismail Ghani, a veteran
of the Iran-Iraq war who has for decades been active in the Quds Force
and has fought against ISIS in Syria. He is an officer of equal stature
and capability.

Iran's policies and support for foreign groups will intensify. The U.S.
has won nothing with its attack but will feel the consequences for
decades to come. From now on its position in the Middle East will be
severely constrained. Others will move in to take its place.

Posted by b on January 3, 2020 at 9:05 UTC

(3) Netanyahu backs Soleimani killing as US ‘self-defense’

https://www.rt.com/news/477377-netanyahu-backs-soleimanis-killing-us/

‘A just struggle’: Netanyahu backs Soleimani’s killing as US
‘self-defense,’ says Quds head planned more attacks

3 Jan, 2020 11:56 /

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called the US
assassination of a top Iranian commander a justified act of self-defense
and said Donald Trump should be credited for "acting swiftly, forcefully
and decisively."

The Israeli leader said his country "stands with the United States in
its just struggle for peace, security and self-defense," accusing
Soleimani of having staged and planned attacks against "American
citizens and many other innocent people."

(4) Report: Obama Administration Stopped Israel From Assassinating
Soleimani in 2015

https://www.newswars.com/report-obama-administration-stopped-israel-from-assassinating-soleimani-in-2015/

Report: Obama Administration Stopped Israel From Assassinating Soleimani
in 2015

According to a report from 2018, Israel was "on the verge" of
assassinating Soleimani in 2015, but Obama’s officials foiled the plan

By Infowars.com Saturday, January 04, 2020

So all the people killed or wounded in the last three years from
anything this guy did can thank Obama and Biden.

Via PJ Media:

When President Donald Trump gave the order to kill Iran’s Quds Force
leader Qasem Soleimani, he not only made an arguably proportionate
response to the invasion of the U.S. Embassy this week but he also
reversed a policy of the Obama administration.

According to a report from 2018, Israel was "on the verge" of
assassinating Soleimani in 2015, but Obama’s officials foiled the plan.
In fact, they reached out to Iran with news of Israel’s plans.

The Trump administration, on the other hand, gave Israel a green light
to assassinate Soleimani, according to a January 1, 2018 report from the
Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida.

The paper quoted a source in Jerusalem as saying that "there is an
American-Israeli agreement" that Soleimani is a "threat to the two
countries’ interests in the region."

According to Haaretz, Al-Jarida is generally assumed to be a platform
for the Israeli government to disseminate its message to other Middle
Eastern governments.

(5) Arch-hawk Bolton celebrates slaying of Quds commander as ‘first step
to regime change in Tehran’
https://www.rt.com/usa/477386-bolton-cheers-soleimani-death/

3 Jan, 2020 13:47

While there was no shortage of triumphant voices coming from Washington
DC on Friday after the targeted assassination of a senior Iranian
general, that of John Bolton seemed especially cheerful. The former
national security adviser in the Donald Trump administration took to
Twitter to congratulate "all involved in eliminating Qassem Soleimani,"
the commander of Iran's elite Quds Force.

John Bolton @AmbJohnBolton
Congratulations to all involved in eliminating Qassem Soleimani. Long in
the making, this was a decisive blow against Iran's malign Quds Force
activities worldwide.  Hope this is the first step to regime change in
Tehran.

The mustached cheerleader for any and all foreign interventions ever
conceived in the US, Bolton has a long record of advocating a war with
the Islamic Republic. He even wrote an opinion piece titled "To Stop
Iran's Bomb, Bomb Iran" at the peak of Barack Obama's negotiations with
Tehran on the now-scrapped nuclear deal.

Soleimani was killed in a US airstrike as his convoy was traveling
outside Baghdad International Airport early on Friday morning.
Washington claimed the assassination was an act of self-defense,
accusing the Iranian general of plotting attacks on American citizens.
Tehran said it was an act of international terrorism and pledged to
retaliate.

(6) Dershowitz: Trump had Legal Justification for eliminating Soleimani

https://www.infowars.com/dershowitz-trump-had-even-more-legal-justification-eliminating-soleimani-than-obama-had-with-osama-bin-laden/

Dershowitz: Trump Had Even More Legal Justification Eliminating
Soleimani than Obama Had with Osama Bin Laden

"[Soleimani] was a combatant."

Breitbart - JANUARY 4, 2020

Harvard Law School Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz said Thursday
evening that President Donald Trump had even more legal authority to
eliminate Qassem Soleimani than former President Barack Obama had to
take out Osama bin Laden in 2011.

Dershowitz, speaking with host Joel Pollak and guest host John Hayward
on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight, dismissed arguments that Trump
lacked constitutional authority to act against General Soleimani, the
commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force.

Presidents have lawful authority to direct the killing of enemy
combatants, explained Dershowitz.

"[Soleimani] was a combatant," explained Dershowitz. "There’s no doubt
that he fit the description of ‘combatant.’ He [was] a uniformed member
of an enemy military who was actively planning to kill Americans;
American soldiers and probably, as well, American civilians."

(7) Extrajudicial execution of Soleimani violates international law' –
UN Rapporteur

https://www.rt.com/news/477387-un-rapporteur-soleimani-airstrike/

Killing of Iran's Quds Force chief Soleimani by US 'MOST LIKELY violates
international law' – UN Rapporteur

3 Jan, 2020 13:48 Get short URL

UN's top expert on extrajudicial executions said that Washington's
decision to assassinate the commander of Iranian elite Quds Force Qassem
Soleimani cannot be justified under international law. Major General
Soleimani and the second-in-command of the Iran-backed Iraqi
paramilitary Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis,
were killed in a US airstrike at Baghdad's airport on Friday morning.

The "targeted killings" of both men "most likely violate international
law incl[uding] human rights law," UN's Special Rapporteur on
Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, Agnes Callamard wrote on
social media shortly after the attack.

Agnes Callamard @AgnesCallamard
The targeted killings of Qasem Soleimani and Abu mahdi al muhandi most
likely violate international law incl human rights law. Lawful
justifications for such killings are very narrowly defined and it is
hard to imagine how any of these can apply to these killings.

The human rights expert said that such an attack may have been justified
to protect against "an imminent threat to life" or in self-defense, but
this "test is unlikely to be met in these particular cases."

Lawful justifications for such killings are very narrowly defined and it
is hard to imagine how any of these can apply to these killings.

The Pentagon argued that the airstrikes were aimed at "deterring future
Iranian attack plans." Callamard, however, dismissed this reasoning as
being "very vague" and, therefore, unable to qualify as rationale to
carry out targeted killings under international law.

Overall, eight more people died along with Soleimani and al-Muhandis.
The UN rapporteur stressed that such "collateral" damage is also unlawful.

The airstrikes received praise among US President Donald Trump's allies
in the Republican Party, but were called reckless and escalatory by his
opponents in the Democratic Party.

French Secretary of State for European Affairs Amelie de Montchalin
urged for "stability" in the Middle East. "What is happening is what we
feared: tensions between the United States and Iran are increasing," she
told RTL radio.

Iranian officials have blasted the airstrikes as an "act of
international terrorism," and promised to retaliate.

(8) Israel is the main culprit in this crime. Trump is a secondary culprit

From: "Ken Freeland" <diogenesquest@gmail.com>
Subject: [shamireaders] War Again on the Front Burner

War Again on the Front Burner

Paul Craig Roberts

January 3, 2020

https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2020/01/03/war-again-on-the-front-burner/

The nonsensical statement below from the Pentagon announcing that the US
government has committed an act of war against Iran should frighten
everyone:

"At the direction of the president, the US military has taken decisive
defensive action to protect US personnel abroad by killing Qasem
Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force,
a US-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization."

"This strike was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans."

"The United States will continue to take all necessary action to protect
our people and our interests wherever they are around the world."

Murdering a high-ranking official of a government is an act of war. It
is impossible for an act of war to protect US personnel abroad.

It is impossible for an act of war against Iran to deter future Iranian
attack plans. Where there was no Iranian attack plan, there now is in
response to the murder of Soleimani.

Committing an act of war does not "protect our people and our
interests." It jeopardizes them.

How is it possible for the Pentagon to issue such a nonsensical
laughable justification for murdering a top official of another country?

Where was Trump’s mind? Just as he is emerging from the impeachment
hoax, why did he commit an impeachable act? Trump attacked another
country without Congressional authorization. He thumbed his nose at
Congress and the law. It is the duty of the President to enforce the
laws of the United States, not break them. The Democrats now have a real
impeachable offense to hang around Trump’s neck.

But they will not make us of it. Trump struck down Soleimani, because
that is what Netanyahu wanted. The main leaders of the impeachment hoax
are Jews, and they are not going to line up against Israel. Adam Schiff,
for example, the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee who is
leading the impeachment, gave his approval to Soleimani’s murder when he
tweeted that Suleimani "was responsible for unthinkable violence and
world is better off without him."

Israel is the main culprit in this crime. Trump is a secondary culprit.
Soleimani himself bears responsibility. He should have known that he was
a target and not exposed himself so carelessly. The Russian government
also bears responsibility. Russia, China and Iran should long ago have
formed a highly visible alliance. Such an alliance would have prevented
the crazy and irresponsible act that Israel manuevered Trump into
committing. But Putin doesn’t want war, and apparently historians have
convinced Putin that alliances are the cause of war. Thus Putin avoids
alliances, taking his que instead from American libertarians who say
that free trade is the basis of peace. Strength is the guarantor of
peace, and strength rests in a powerful alliance against US/Israeli
aggression.

Iran’s response was predictable and unfortunate. Iran declared it will
take revenge, and most likely will. Iran’s revenge will give Israel the
war it wants between the US and Iran.

Iran would have done better to take its revenge and deny responsibility.

Idiot American politicians, one of whom could end up as President, are
furthering the cause of war by working up American patriotism with
claims, false of course, that Iran is a "terrorist state" determined to
harm America, that Iran is responsible for thousands of deaths,
including hundreds of Americans, and so forth.

We have heard all of this before. It is the US that is the terrorist
state, having destroyed in whole or part seven Muslim countries in the
21st century, producing millions of deaths, injuries, and dispossessed
and displaced peoples. I knew it was going to get worse when the Russian
government permitted Israel to continue attacking Syrian targets after
Russia had rescued Syria from Washington’s proxy army.

As long as Israel runs US foreign policy in Israel’s interest, and as
long as "non-compliant" countries are content for Washington to knock
them off one by one, war will continue to be our future.

(9) Sanders condemns assassination, calls for exit from Middle East wars

https://fortune.com/2020/01/03/democrats-iran-biden-Sanders/

Bernie Sanders Stands Out in Anti-War Messaging After Death of Soleimani

By Nicole Goodkind

January 3, 2020

[...] Part of President Donald Trump's appeal to voters in 2016 were
promises to bring American troops (currently fighting an 18-year war in
the Middle East) back home and his framing of opponent Hillary Clinton
as a war hawk. "You’re going to end up in World War Three over Syria if
we listen to Hillary Clinton," he said during a 2016 press conference.

Those promises, now fraying, are still appealing to voters, and Sanders
could potentially appeal to a class of American who feels betrayed by
the president. [...]

Sanders, who unlike Biden did not vote for the use of military force in
Iraq in 2002, tweeted, made videos, and spoke out repeatedly against any
war in the Middle East.

"Trump's dangerous escalation brings us closer to another disastrous war
in the Middle East that could cost countless lives and trillions more
dollars," said Sanders before touting his long anti-war history. "Trump
promised to end endless wars, but this action puts us on the path to
another one."

Later, Sanders added, "We must do more than just stop war with Iran. We
must firmly commit to ending U.S. military presence in the Middle East
in an orderly manner. We must end our involvement in the Saudi-led
intervention in Yemen. We must bring our troops home from Afghanistan."

Gabbard and Yang echoed Sanders’ anti-war sentiments. [...]

(10) Tulsi Gabbard condemns Soleimani strike: Trump isn't acting like he
wants to end 'forever wars'
https://www.foxnews.com/media/qassem-soleimani-Tulsi-gabbard-trump-iran

Jan 3, 2020

Tulsi Gabbard rips Soleimani strike: Trump isn't acting like he wants to
end 'forever wars'

By Julia Musto | Fox News

Gabbard slams Soleimani airstrike, says Trump has violated Constitution
by declaring act of war against Iran

2020 Democrat candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard says on 'Fox &amp; Friends'
that President Trump has 'seriously escalated' the Iran crisis by
killing their top general.

The death of top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani may mark the beginning
of a war that Congress never agreed to and disproves President Trump's
promises to end "forever wars," 2020 presidential candidate Rep. Tulsi
Gabbard, D-Hawaii, said Friday.

Appearing on "Fox & Friends," Gabbard argued that the airstrike violated
the Constitution because there was no declaration of war from Congress.

"It further escalates this tit-for-tat that's going on and on and on.
[It] will elicit a very serious response from Iran and [push] us deeper
and deeper into this quagmire," she said. "And it really begs the
question: for what?" [...]

(11)  N. Haass, President of CFR, fears US being dragged into another
mideast war

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/suleiman-killing-american-strategic-incoherence-by-richard-n-haass-2020-01

The Suleimani Assassination and US Strategic Incoherence Jan 4, 2020

Richard N. Haass

Following its targeted killing of Iran's second most powerful leader,
the US could well find itself with no alternative but to devote more
military resources to the Middle East, a path that could lead to
additional Iranian provocations. And that shift would occur at a time of
growing challenges to US interests elsewhere in the world.

NEW YORK – The United States emerged from the Cold War some three
decades ago possessing a historically unprecedented degree of absolute
and relative power. What is baffling, and what will surely leave future
historians scratching their heads, is why a series of US presidents
decided to devote so much of this power to the Middle East and, indeed,
squander so much of America’s might on the region.

This pattern can be traced back to George W. Bush’s war of choice
against Iraq in 2003. The US did not need to go to war there at that
moment; other options for containing Saddam Hussein were available and
to a large extent already in place. But in the aftermath of the
September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Bush decided that he must act,
whether to prevent Saddam’s development and use of weapons of mass
destruction, to signal that America was no helpless giant, to trigger a
region-wide democratic transformation, or some combination of the above.

His successor, Barack Obama, entered office determined to reduce
American involvement in the region. Obama removed US troops from Iraq
and, although he initially increased the number of US troops in
Afghanistan, set a timetable for their withdrawal.

The big strategic idea of his administration was "rebalancing": US
foreign policy should de-emphasize the Middle East and focus more on
Asia, the principal theater in which the world’s trajectory in the new
century would be decided.

But Obama had trouble seeing this strategy through. He never completely
withdrew US forces from Afghanistan, reintroduced them into Iraq, and
undertook an ill-conceived military campaign against Libya’s leader that
resulted in a failed state. Obama also voiced support for regime change
in Syria, although in that case his reluctance to involve the US further
in the Middle East won out.

When Donald Trump succeeded Obama close to three years ago, he was
determined not to repeat the perceived mistakes of his predecessor.
"America First" signaled a renewed emphasis on domestic priorities;
economic sanctions and tariffs, rather than military force, became the
preferred national security tool. The boom in domestic oil and natural
gas production had made the US self-sufficient in terms of energy,
thereby reducing the direct importance of the Middle East. To the extent
foreign policy remained a US priority, it was to manage renewed
great-power rivalry, above all the challenges posed by China in Asia and
Russia in Europe. Indeed, China and Russia were singled out for
criticism in the 2017 National Security Strategy for wanting "to shape a
world antithetical to US values and interests."

In the Middle East, Trump went out of his way to shrink the US footprint
and commitment. He looked the other way when Iran attacked oil tankers,
US drones, and Saudi oil refineries, and turned his back on the Kurds in
Syria, although they had been America’s partner in defeating ISIS there.
"Let someone else fight over this long-bloodstained sand," was what
Trump had to say this past October. The principal exception to this
avoidance of military action was the US strike in late December 2019 on
sites associated with Kataib Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militia accused
of launching an attack days before that killed an American contractor
and injured several service members.

It is against this backdrop that Trump ordered the targeted killing of
General Qassem Suleimani, by most accounts the second most powerful man
in Iran. What prompted him to do so remains unclear. The administration
claims it had intelligence that Suleimani was planning new attacks on US
diplomats and soldiers. But the decision to act also could have been
motivated by images of the US embassy in Baghdad under attack from
Iran-supported militia – images that recalled the siege and subsequent
hostage-taking at the US embassy in Tehran in November 1979 or of the
2012 attack on the US consulate in Benghazi that Republicans used to
criticize then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Another contributing
factor might have been a tweet attributed to Iran’s Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Khamenei that taunted Trump by saying, "You can’t do anything."

Given Suleimani’s standing, Iran is unlikely to back down. It has many
options at its disposal, including a wide range of military, economic,
and diplomatic targets in many countries in the region. It can operate
directly or through proxies; it can use armed force or cyberattacks.

The US could well find itself with no alternative but to devote more
military resources to the Middle East and to use them in response to
what Iran does, a path that could lead to additional Iranian provocations.

And that shift would occur at a time of growing concern about North
Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, Russian military threats to
Europe, the weakening of arms-control arrangements meant to curb
US-Russian nuclear competition, and the arrival of a new era of
technological, economic, military and diplomatic competition with China.

The premise of my commentary in December was that the US was
increasingly distancing itself from the Middle East, owing to domestic
frustration with what wars there have wrought, reduced energy dependence
on the region, and a desire to focus its resources elsewhere in the
world and at home. It could well be that I got it wrong – or that Trump
has, by embarking on a course of action without first thinking through
the strategic consequences.

(12) JStreet condemns the killing but makes no mention of Israel's role

https://jstreet.org/press-releases/on-brink-of-disaster-congress-must-act-to-prevent-trump-from-launching-disastrous-war-with-iran/

On Brink Of Disaster, Congress Must Act To Prevent Trump From Launching
Disastrous War With Iran

January 3, 2020

J Street is deeply alarmed by the Trump administration’s targeted
assassination of Iran’s General Qassem Soleimani. This highly dangerous
step, taken without congressional authorization, could trigger a
disastrous escalation costing the lives of thousands and lead our
country into a devastating new war of choice in the Middle East.

Soleimani was a malicious actor responsible for deadly attacks on US
service personnel and the Iranian regime’s targets throughout the
region, including many civilians. At the same time, the assassination of
such a senior figure is an extremely reckless step taken by an
out-of-control administration that has repeatedly signaled its contempt
for diplomacy and its interest in provoking an armed conflict with the
Iranian regime. Carrying out a strike that is likely to be viewed as an
act of war, without explicit congressional debate or authorization,
shows flagrant contempt for the Constitution.

Since the president’s disastrous decision to unilaterally violate the
JCPOA nuclear agreement and implement a so-called "maximum pressure"
campaign, Iran has only become more dangerous and aggressive, hardliners
have been strengthened at the expense of moderates and the region has
been further destabilized. The president and his saber-rattling advisers
bear tremendous responsibility for the current crisis — they are leading
us eagerly towards an abyss that will endanger American servicepeople,
our allies in Israel and the Middle East and millions of Iranian
civilians caught in the crossfire.

Congress must now take immediate, decisive action to prevent a new war
which the American people do not want. They must pass legislation making
explicitly clear that the president does not have authorization to go to
war with Iran, and that any such war would represent a clear violation
of the constitution. They must force every member of Congress to take a
vote that will make publicly clear whether they stand against war or
stand with this president.

(13) Economist says Soleimani killing "tantamount to an act of war"; US
will have to leave Iraq

https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2020/01/03/iran-vows-vengeance-after-america-kills-qassem-suleimani

A big escalation

Iran vows vengeance after America kills Qassem Suleimani

The strike on Iran’s most prominent commander will have profound
consequences for the region

Middle East and Africa Jan 3rd 2020 | WASHINGTON, DC

PERHAPS HE CAME to believe his own myth, the aura of invincibility he
worked so hard to cultivate. Early on January 3rd General Qassem
Suleimani, Iran’s most storied and feared commander, stepped off a plane
from Syria or Lebanon at Baghdad’s international airport. He climbed
into a waiting convoy alongside the leader of an allied militia—a
seeming lapse in security, the two men travelling together, that
suggests the general felt safe in Iraq. Minutes later he was dead, his
vehicle blasted into scrap by an American drone flying overhead.

Few believed the news as it trickled out on social media and satellite
television. Within hours, though, both sides had confirmed the rumours.
The supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, praised General
Suleimani as a martyr and vowed "severe revenge". President Donald Trump
was uncharacteristically restrained: he simply tweeted an image of an
American flag. He left the formal announcement to the Pentagon, which
called this a "defensive action".

It was a dizzying escalation to cap off a dizzying week. On December
27th dozens of rockets hit an Iraqi military base near Kirkuk, killing
an American contractor. America responded by bombing five bases used by
Kataib Hizbullah, an Iranian-backed Shia paramilitary group. At least 25
of its men were killed. The group soon tried to storm the American
embassy in Baghdad, besieging it for almost a full day.

Then came the strike that killed General Suleimani and seven others,
including Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the founder of Kataib Hizbullah and the
head of an umbrella group of pro-Iranian militias. The long conflict
between America and Iran has mostly been fought through proxies, spies
and sanctions. This was tantamount to an act of war—a rare overt strike
with profound consequences for the region.

General Suleimani led the Quds Force, a branch of the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) that operates outside Iran. He was
Iran’s main interlocutor with Hizbullah, the Lebanese Shia militia and
political party. In 2006, when it fought a month-long war against
Israel, General Suleimani was in Lebanon to help oversee the campaign.
He later lent his support to Bashar al-Assad, the embattled Syrian
dictator, and to the Houthis, a Yemeni militia fighting a brutal war
against a Saudi-led coalition. Supporters saw him as the face of the
so-called "resistance" against America and Israel. To his detractors he
was more akin to a viceroy, an emblem of Iran’s deep and destructive
influence across the region. In Baghdad’s Tahrir Square, where Iraqis
have spent months protesting against Iran’s meddling in their country
(among other things), news of General Suleimani’s death was met with cheers.

Americans knew him as the man who tormented their troops during the
occupation of Iraq. General Suleimani trained Shia militias and supplied
them with "explosively formed penetrators", roadside bombs capable of
punching through the armour on American vehicles. They killed hundreds
of soldiers (one in every six American combat fatalities in Iraq were
attributable to Iran, says the Pentagon). Yet George W. Bush would not
allow cross-border raids to strike at the IRGC, and officers detained in
Iraq were released. Israel had opportunities to kill the general but
passed them up because of American pressure. Mr Trump, as is his wont,
broke with this long precedent.

The question now is how General Suleimani’s successors will respond.
Many American analysts fret that Mr Trump is blundering into a war. But
Iran will not seek an open confrontation it would surely lose: its
antiquated military is no match for America’s. Instead it will rely on
the asymmetric tactics that General Suleimani perfected. It could hit
vulnerable infrastructure in Gulf states, or fire rockets at Israel. It
could strike at American diplomats and military personnel in Iraq and
elsewhere. (The State Department has urged Americans to leave Iraq.)

Indeed, Iran and its proxies have done all those things over the past
year. Until now Mr Trump has been hesitant to respond (while often
offering to meet with Iran’s leaders). He ordered air strikes after Iran
shot down an American drone in June, but recalled the planes when he
decided the response was disproportionate. A September missile attack on
two oil fields in Saudi Arabia, which America blamed on Iran, went
unanswered. In typically chaotic fashion, he has now zagged from
inaction to major escalation.

That raises the risks of an uncontrolled cycle of tit-for-tat
retaliation. The regime in Tehran cares about self-preservation. But of
late it has also seemed confident, even cocky. The attack on Saudi
Aramco, itself an unprecedented strike on world oil supplies, followed
months of Iran harassing tankers and warships in the Persian Gulf. If
the IRGC hits back hard, it is impossible to predict what Mr Trump might do.

In the short term the Iranian regime may bide its time and use the
killing to whip up nationalist fervour at home. General Suleimani was a
popular figure in an otherwise unloved regime. Only Mr Khamenei appeared
on more of Tehran’s billboards. The feeling of admiration was not
universal: General Suleimani was part of a security apparatus that
ruthlessly crushes dissent. "It’s good to see there really are some
checks and balances," says an academic in Tehran. Still, a state
funeral, and the mourning that follows, offers a distraction from the
crumbling economy that prompted a week of nationwide protests in November.

America will have to rethink its own regional position. It may be
impossible to keep American troops in Iraq, where they train the Iraqi
army and keep tabs on the jihadists of Islamic State (IS). The Iraqi
government might order the Americans out, long a goal of pro-Iranian
lawmakers. Even if it does not, the Pentagon may decide it is too hard
to protect American troops in a hostile land. Withdrawing from Iraq may
also end America’s rump deployment in Syria, which relies on Iraq for
logistics. With American troops gone IS would find more space to
regroup. American diplomats and spies face the threat of kidnapping or
assassination, both of which the IRGC has done in the past. Corporations
may have similar concerns about staff working on Iraqi oil fields and
elsewhere.

General Suleimani was a singular commander, in both his skill and his
standing. He seemed to be everywhere, popping up on battlefields all
across the Middle East. Some saw him as a future leader of Iran—the real
power behind the clerics. His death is a blow to the ambitious regional
policy he oversaw, far more significant than the raids that killed Osama
bin Laden or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leaders of al-Qaeda and IS. By
the time of their deaths, those men were mere figureheads at the helm of
diminished organisations. General Suleimani was cut down in his prime,
at a time when Iran still wields great power across the region.

Less clear is whether the strike will advance America’s stated goal of
creating a less belligerent, more restrained Iran. Though it now seems a
distant memory, the current tensions began with Mr Trump’s decision in
2018 to withdraw from an agreement that lifted some sanctions on Iran in
exchange for curbs on its nuclear programme. Any hope of renegotiating
that deal—of finding a diplomatic solution to a steadily worsening
conflict—probably died with General Suleimani.

(14) Philip Giraldi: US will be forced out of Iraq, Syria & other Arab
states

http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2020/january/03/the-soleimani-assassination-the-long-awaited-beginning-of-the-end-of-america-s-imperial-ambitions/

The Soleimani Assassination: The Long-Awaited Beginning of The End of
America’s Imperial Ambitions

written by philip giraldi friday january 3, 2020

The United States is now at war with Iran in a conflict that could
easily have been avoided and it will not end well. There will be no
declaration of war coming from either side, but the assassination of
Iranian Quds Force Commander General Qassem Soleimani and the head of
Kata’ib Hezbollah Abu Mehdi Muhandis by virtue of a Reaper drone strike
in Baghdad will shift the long-simmering conflict between the two
nations into high gear. Iran cannot let the killing of a senior military
officer go unanswered even though it cannot directly confront the United
States militarily. But there will be reprisals and Tehran’s suspected
use of proxies to stage limited strikes will now be replaced by more
damaging actions that can be directly attributed to the Iranian
government. As Iran has significant resources locally, one can expect
that the entire Persian Gulf region will be destabilized.

And there is also the terrorism card, which will come into play. Iran
has an extensive diaspora throughout much of the Middle East and, as it
has been threatened by Washington for many years, it has had a long time
to prepare for a war to be fought largely in the shadows. No American
diplomat, soldier or even tourists in the region should consider him or
herself to be safe, quite the contrary. It will be an "open season" on
Americans. The US has already ordered a partial evacuation of the
Baghdad Embassy and has advised all American citizens to leave the
country immediately.

Donald Trump rode to victory in 2016 on a promise to end the useless
wars in the Middle East, but he has now demonstrated very clearly that
he is a liar. Instead of seeking detente, one of his first actions was
to end the JCPOA nuclear agreement and re-introduce sanctions against
Iran. In a sense, Iran has from the beginning been the exception to
Trump’s no-new-war pledge, a position that might reasonably be directly
attributed to his incestuous relationship with the American Jewish
community and in particular derived from his pandering to the expressed
needs of Israel’s belligerent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Trump bears full responsibility for what comes next. The
neoconservatives and Israelis are predictably cheering the result, with
Mark Dubowitz of the pro-Israel Foundation for Defense of Democracies
enthusing that it is "bigger than bin Laden…a massive blow to the
[Iranian] regime." Dubowitz, whose credentials as an "Iran expert" are
dubious at best, is at least somewhat right in this case. Qassem
Suleimani is, to be sure, charismatic and also very popular in Iran. He
is Iran’s most powerful military figure in the entire region, being the
principal contact for proxies and allies in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. But
what Dubowitz does not understand is that no one in a military hierarchy
is irreplaceable. Suleimani’s aides and high officials in the
intelligence ministry are certainly more than capable of picking up his
mantle and continuing his policies.

In reality, the series of foolish attacks initiated by the United States
over the past week will only hasten the departure of much of the US
military from the region. The Pentagon and White House have been
insisting that Iran was behind an alleged Kata’ib Hezbollah attack on a
US installation that then triggered a strike by Washington on claimed
militia targets in Syria and also inside Iraq. Even though the US
military presence is as a guest of the Iraqi government, Washington went
ahead with its attack even after the Iraqi Prime Minister Adil
Abdul-Mahdi said "no."

To justify its actions, Mark Esper, Secretary of Defense, went so far as
to insist that "Iran is at war with the whole world," a clear
demonstration of just how ignorant the White House team actually is. The
US government characteristically has not provided any evidence
demonstrating either Iranian or Kata’ib involvement in recent
developments, but after the counter-strike killed 26 Iraqi soldiers, the
mass demonstrations against the Embassy in Baghdad became inevitable.
The demonstrations were also attributed to Iran by Washington even
though the people in the street were undoubtedly Iraqis.

Now that the US has also killed Suleimani and Muhandis in a drone strike
at Baghdad Airport, clearly accomplished without the approval of the
Iraqi government, it is inevitable that the prime minister will ask
American forces to leave. That will in turn make the situation for the
remaining US troops in neighboring Syria untenable. And it will also
force other Arab states in the region to rethink their hosting of US
soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen due to the law of unanticipated
consequences as it is now clear that Washington has foolishly begun a
war that serves no one’s interests.

The blood of the Americans, Iranians and Iraqis who will die in the next
few weeks is clearly on Donald Trump’s hands as this war was never
inevitable and served no US national interest. It will surely turn out
to be a debacle, as well as devastating for all parties involved. And it
might well, on top of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya, be thegiraldi
The Soleimani. Let us hope so!

Reprinted with permission from the American Herald Tribune.


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