Trump takes
massive gamble with killing of Iranian commander
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 1/3/20, 4:39 AM CET Updated 1/3/20,
7:45 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.
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.”
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