The Good Guys?
In a news cycle that might be correctly placed into the “theater of the absurd” category comes a brand new entry. Iran, it seems, has recently become one of the “good guys”. You read that right: Iran, according to our leftist, liberal and Democrat and “progressive” leaders, together with their media acolytes, is becoming something of a cause célèbre! Due to their undying hatred of President Trump (coupled with a marginally camouflaged disdain for any and all things patriotic) the shameless Democrats have become strange bedfellows with… THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN.
Although such a turn of events might have seemed impossible 3 short years ago, it appears to have come to pass. The drone killing of Iranian Qassem Soleimani has become another pretext with which to attack Mr. Trump. In fact, attacking Mr. Trump seems to be the ONLY rationale for this bizarre controversy. Why so? If we look just as far back as 2015, we see that Democrats and the American press had absolutely no problem with a similar program of foreign drone executions directed by none other than Barack Hussein Obama. And, like the current campaign, Obama’s was carried out WITHOUT the expressed consent of Congress. During Obama’s raids hundreds to thousands of terrorists were exterminated. There was nary a “peep” from Congress or the media. As reported by the Washington Times in April 2015: “The U.S. military has been conducting strikes in Iraq for 10 months, and began striking directly at targets in Syria last September as part of Mr. Obama’s announced campaign to degrade the capabilities of the Islamic State. By mid-April 2015, the U.S. had carried out 1,458 strikes in Iraq and 1,343 in Syria.”
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this puts the lie to the current claims of indignation, and the motivation behind such claims is easy to see. But, of the many arrows flung at Mr. Trump on a daily basis, this one has to be one of the most absurd.
First of all, Qassem Soleimani, was a terrorist. Of this, there is absolutely no doubt. Iran, itself, has described Soleimani as commander of the Quds Force. The term “Quds” is Arabic for Jerusalem, and, in context, the term is often used as synonymous with “Holy Force”. What is this “Holy Force”? Wikipedia describes it as a division of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). What sort of division? Again Wikipedia describes it as the division that specializes in “extra national and unconventional warfare.” That is to say, terrorism. And how many American has he killed? No one knows the exact number, but the Washington Post (no great friend of the President) reported that a weapon that is a Quds Force speciality (explosively formed penetrators, or “EFPs”), “killed at least 196 U.S. troops and wounded nearly 900 between 2005 and 2011.” The Atlantic reported that Soleimani was “a terrorist kingpin; he destroyed the lives of countless people across an entire region for more than a decade; he had Syrian, Iraqi, Yemeni, Lebanese, and American blood on his hands.” And THIS terrorist murderer is who we are supposed to be conflicted about killing? I don’t think so.
Then there’s the matter of ongoing threat. Talking heads have debated with feigned earnestness whether there was or was not “imminent threat”. All of this subterfuge not withstanding, it should go without saying, however, that, OF COURSE THERE’S AN IMMINENT THREAT. There’s been an imminent threat since November 4, 1979 when Iran took 52 American embassy workers hostage. There’s been an “imminent threat”, in fact, since the deposition of Shah Reza Pahlavi. There’s been an “imminent threat” since “Death To America” became Iran’s national slogan. And, although it seems to have been quickly forgotten by the media, it is very important to recall that Iranian militias in Iraq stormed the American Embassy in Baghdad just a few weeks BEFORE Soleimani was taken out. On January 1st and 2nd, Iranian militias scaled the Embassy compound walls. Only American troops using tear gas prevented it from becoming another Benghazi. Sounds pretty “imminent” to me.
And then there’s the the elephant in the room that no Democrat or media analyst wants to touch with a ten foot pole: nuclear Iran. It’s a dirty secret that every intelligence agency in the world knows: Iran is hell bent on developing and constructing atomic bombs. The Obama “head in the sand” JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) did absolutely nothing to change this chilling fact. Obama’s JCPOA gave Iran 1.8 BILLION dollars in cold hard cash and also freed up 100 to 150 BILLION dollars in frozen assets (Source: Suzanne Maloney, Brookings Institute, September 17, 2015). After pocketing the loot, Iran soon proceeded to break the agreement by testing a ballistic missile weeks later in the fall of 2015 (Source: Peter Kenyon, February 3, 2017, www.npr.org). (By the way, Brookings, a liberal “think tank”, also noted that the “real beneficiaries” of the JCPOA, were The Iran Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah, two terrorist organizations). Under Mr. Trump the JCPOA is now defunct, but even if the JCPOA had been continued, estimates of Iran’s “build out time” to a functional nuclear weapon range from 18 months to a few years (Source: Lara Seligman, July 1, 2019, foriegnpolicy.com). With the threat of a nuclear armed terrorist state looming on the horizon, is a policy of appeasement the strategy we should be pursuing?
And, since when have Trump’s critics become so concerned about Iranian sovereignty? Not only is Iran the world’s preeminent exemplar of state sponsored terrorism, it has also been a ruthless killer of its OWN people. Reuters recently reported: “About 1,500 people were killed during less than two weeks of unrest that started on Nov. 15. The toll, provided to Reuters by three Iranian interior ministry officials, included at least 17 teenagers and about 400 women as well as some members of the security forces and police.” (Source: Reuter’s: Michael Georgy, Cassell Bryan-Low and Jason Szep). The interested reader can access the full article through the following link:
https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN1YR0QR
According to Reuters, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, instructed his staff: “DO WHAT EVER IT TAKES” to end the protests. It appears that that’s just what they did. And, this is the regime that we’re supposed to be conflicted about? I don’t think so.
Oh My God unbelievable barbaric These are uncivilized people.