|
Killing Soleimani Was The Right Move, And Shows Precisely Why It's Time To Leave Iraq
[The Federalist] President Donald Trump’s order to kill Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad was the right call. At the same time, that he had to make this call, how he had to make it, and the mortal danger to American assets it presents, illustrate exactly why U.S. forces should not spend a day longer in Iraq than necessary to end our long-dwindling interests.Iran needed to learn a hard, swift lesson. For four decades, it has ratcheted global temperatures up and down with a close eye on America’s reaction. Kidnapping, terror, extortion, sabotage, and blockades have all been used since the Islamic Republic’s inception in 1979. On Thursday, the U.S. president made Iran understand what should have always been understood: Orchestrating an attack on a U.S. embassy is a line no country shall cross. For more than 30 years, from 1988 until Jan. 3, 2020, Soleimani had been the Michael Jordan of Iranian black-ops, leading his elite al-Quds fighting force to wage and plot unconventional warfare from neighboring countries to Washington, D.C., killing at least 500 U.S. servicemen along his merry way. He seemingly moved about the Middle East with impunity, even making time for a jaunt to Moscow shortly after President Barack Obama granted him run of the region with the ill-fated Iran Deal. The ticket to his final destination took him from Lebanon, where he coordinated his pet Hizbollah, to Baghdad International Airport, where, roughly 15 miles from the U.S. embassy he’d ordered besieged that week, his trip came to an abrupt end. Some say as illustrious career as his ought to end with a gold watch or silver plate; instead, it ended a smear on the road. His dead friends, including the leader of the Shia militia whose killing of an American contractor had launched this whole fracas, had driven out to meet his plane. No doubt they felt safer from U.S. retaliation close to their Iranian overlord. In the meantime, Soleimani’s family will have to take heart he was with those friends‐ that, and the low priority Islam places on an open casket. Oh, SNAP! When the Romans ruled the world, it was called Pax Romana ‐ Roman Peace ‐ and it held. Two thousand years ago, when St. Paul was ordered scourged, he asked a Roman centurion, "Is it lawful for you to scourge a man who is a Roman and uncondemned?" The soldiers "immediately let go of him; and the commander also was afraid when he found out that he was a Roman, and because he had put him in chains." Posted by: Besoeker 2020-01-06 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=560319 |