Public Comment

Abandoning his campaign promise to end US military adventures, President Trump launched a drone strike killing Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Major General Qasem Soleimani. Acting on impulse much like his predecessors Bush and Cheney, the self-proclaimed “Iraqi liberators”, President Trump started a new conflict which will have dire consequences putting American, Iraqi and Iranian lives at considerable risk and plunging the Middle East into more chaos. This latest conflict comes on the heels of the expose by the Washington Post accusing senior U.S. officials of deliberately misleading the American people, making sunny pronouncements they knew to be untrue. It is unlikely that Trump officials have taken a truth serum offering a more accurate assessment of Trump’s latest blunder. 

We have a long dark history of orchestrating regime changes and stealing other countries resources which bears repeating. In 1953 the CIA/MI6 orchestrated a coup to overthrow the democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in favor of strengthening the monarchical rule of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and handing over Iran’s oil to Britain who rebranded Iran’s oil company, British Petroleum (BP). 

The US then provided weapons to both sides in the Iraq invasion of Iran. Saddam was armed and provided chemical by weapons, by the US. Reagan then secretly and illegally, sold arms to the Iranians, and used Saudi Arabia to transfer those funds to arm the Contra death squads in Central America (also covert, illegal and an impeachment offence). Removing Saddam Hussein and the Sunni Revolutionary Guard had unintended consequences. It united Iraqi and Iranian religious communities which ushered a Shia revival in to challenge Saudi Arabia Sunny majority and threatened Israeli’s hegemony in the region. The killing of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani is the latest example of the capricious way in which the former reality T-V star has chosen to flex his awesome lethal powers. 

This establishes an extremely dangerous precedent. Surely, drone technology will soon be available to other nations to target generals and possibly world leaders.  

Killing Suleimani will cause seething anger among both Iranians and Iraqis who will likely demand the ouster of all Americans from their country. If this happens it will be major defeat for the US and possibly negatively impact Trump reelection prospects.