The Electronic Intifada 3 January 2020
An Iranian man carries a portrait of Qasem Soleimani, in Tehran on 3 January, the day after the Iranian general was assassinated in an American air attack on Baghdad airport.
SIPAIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has praised the US attacks on Iraq that killed senior Iranian general Qasem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the leader of Iraqi militias that were instrumental in the defeat of ISIS – so-called Islamic State.
President Donald Trump “is worthy of full appreciation for acting with determination, strongly and swiftly,” Netanyahu said Friday.
Other senior Israeli politicians, including supposed opposition leaders, lauded the American attack. Among them, Amir Peretz, head of the ostensibly center-left Labor-Gesher party, said Soleimani “deserved to die” and thanked Trump.
Peretz’s hatred of Iran is perhaps understandable. He was defense minister during Israel’s 2006 invasion of Lebanon, in which that country’s resistance – supported by Iran – dealt Israel a humiliating defeat.
Yossi Melman, a veteran analyst of Israeli intelligence, called the US escalation “good news for Israel” because it draws the United States even further into Israel’s attacks on Iran and its interests.
In an initial response, Iran’s foreign minister Javad Zarif lauded Soleimani as the head of “the most effective force” in fighting ISIS and al-Qaida, and termed his killing an act of “international terrorism.”
There is, no doubt, great satisfaction in Israel and among its most fanatical supporters at a move that ratchets the situation towards even more catastrophic violence.Unhinged jingoism
The assassination of Soleimani followed American attacks last Sunday that killed more than two dozen members of Kataib Hizballah, an Iraqi militia that helped defeat ISIS.
That prompted protests that breached the perimeter of the heavily fortified US embassy in Baghdad.
The US claims the group carried out a rocket attack on a northern Iraqi military base days earlier that killed an American contractor.
Senator Ted Cruz praised Trump’s killing of Soleimani as “long overdue justice for our Israeli allies” – whatever that means.
Trump – who ran for office railing against the Iraq war – is now resorting to the same sorts of lies and exaggerations all his predecessors have used to manipulate the public into supporting their military adventures: There will no doubt be much more of this unhinged jingoism.Democrats tacitly support Trump
Support for Trump from the far right is to be expected, but sadly so is tacit support from so-called progressives like Senator Elizabeth Warren and centrists like former Vice President Joe Biden, both Democrats running for president.
Their mealy mouthed criticism of the president’s killings starts from the premise that Soleimani is a Bad Man – the villain du jour who deserves to be liquidated.But they are only worried about the timing, process and possible consequences.
They never question the premise that the United States has the right to send troops, aircraft carriers and drones to impose its will on every corner of the world, to bomb and kill and install handpicked puppet leaders in any country that fails to toe Washington’s line.
In other words, they too are committed imperialists, just liberals.
Senator Bernie Sanders warned that Trump’s “dangerous escalation brings us closer to another disastrous war in the Middle East that could cost countless lives and trillions more dollars.” But he stopped short of condemning the killing of Soleimani itself.Iran encircled
The reality – clear to those whose view is not obscured by devotion to US power or to sectarian hatred – is that Iran has for decades been pushing back against US encirclement and efforts at regime change.
That began after the 1979 Islamic Revolution which overthrew the Shah, a loyal American puppet and ally of Israel.
In 1980, the West, especially the United States, supported Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran. That launched an eight-year war that is estimated to have cost hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Iranian lives.
American, British, French and German companies supplied Iraq with arms, including the ability to manufacture chemical weapons. (After that war, Saddam had pretensions of becoming a regional power in his own right – notably his criminal invasion of Kuwait in 1990. No longer serving its purposes, the US turned on Iraq, waging decades of lethal sanctions and war.)
Following the 9/11 attacks in 2001, the US invaded Iran’s eastern neighbor Afghanistan. Two years later, the George W. Bush administration invaded and occupied Iraq, immediately to Iran’s west.
This came amid euphoria from the neoconservatives at the heart of the Bush administration that Damascus and Tehran would be the next targets.
This all followed the script set out by the Project for the New American Century, a think tank pushing for regime change across the region as a way of securing American and Israeli domination.
Nuke Iran
Allied with American imperialists, Israel and its supporters have been the prime backers of escalation if not outright war with Iran.
Israel, and specifically Netanyahu, took the lead in working to end the 2015 deal which saw Iran voluntarily place its nuclear energy program under strict limits in exchange for a lifting of economic sanctions.
Israel has relentlessly pushed for the punishing economic war waged by Trump aimed at inflicting suffering on ordinary people and bringing Iran to collapse.
As scholar Greg Shupak observes, “US and Israeli planners despise Iran principally because it is an independent regional power.”
“It has a strong military and a foreign policy that includes providing material support for armed Palestinian resistance to Israel and for Hizballah’s defense of Lebanon from US-Israeli aggressions, including the joint invasion in 1982 and the US-backed Israeli assault in 2006,” Shupak adds.
The hatred is so extreme that Sheldon Adelson, the pro-Israel billionaire and top funder to Trump and the Republican Party, has previously called on the United States to nuke Iran.
Israel’s determination to weaken Iran – and if possible bring about regime change – has been the motivation for years of Israeli attacks. These include dozens of bombing attacks in Syria and Iraq and the murder of Iranian scientists.
But as Shupak notes, the main Israeli strategy has been to push for Iran to be “subjected to enough socioeconomic asphyxiation that its government will be overthrown or it will be subjected to even greater outside control than it was under the nuclear deal” – a deal Iran abided by until the US withdrew from it in 2018.
This is in sharp contrast to Israel, which is widely acknowledged to possess a nuclear arsenal, but which unlike Iran, adamantly refuses to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty or to agree to any international supervision.
It’s important to keep things in perspective: Iran’s military budget is a relatively modest $13 billion.
Saudi Arabia – its implacably hostile US-backed neighbor – spends five times as much. The United States just passed a bipartisan military budget of $738 billion – or 55 times what Iran spends.
Perverted logic
Still, relatively puny Iran has managed some significant achievements.
Lebanon’s Hizballah, supported by Iran, dealt Israel – and by extension the United States – a major strategic defeat when Israel invaded Lebanon in 2006.
More recently, it was Iran’s support, specifically under the guidance of General Soleimani, that rolled back ISIS across Syria and Iraq, stopping the group from taking Baghdad.
The growth and spread of groups like ISIS and al-Qaida – a direct consequence of American wars and interventions – has been a catastrophe for millions of people across the region.But these groups never really bothered the United States and Israel, who just see them as more tools in their effort to impose their will.
That is why the United States sent at least a billion dollars of arms into the hands of such groups to fuel the war in Syria.
That is why Israel armed and funded groups linked with al-Qaida in Syria as well.
In 2014, then vice president, Biden apologized for accidentally revealing an unpalatable truth: It was the US’ closest allies in the region – Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates – who also sent “hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of tons of weapons” to groups including Jabhat al-Nusra and al-Qaida and “extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world.”
Biden suggested that this support was crucial to spawning ISIS, an offshoot of al-Qaida and its allies.
In 2016, Israeli defense minister Moshe Yaalon made clear Israel’s agenda: “In Syria, if the choice is between Iran and the Islamic State, I choose the Islamic State.”
And that is no doubt why Yaalon welcomed an apology from ISIS after it attacked Israeli forces in Syria’s occupied Golan Heights in 2016.
This Israeli logic can be applied to the region at large, especially Israel’s increasingly cozy relationship with Saudi Arabia, which is founded on joint enmity towards Iran.
Columbia University professor Joseph Massad has suggested that recent US-backed moves to reach formal “non-aggression pacts” between Israel and certain Gulf States may be a preparatory step for a wider war against Iran as well as against Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and the Palestinians.
Understanding this perverted logic is essential to seeing why the US and Israel appear so determined to pursue conflict with Iran no matter the human cost.
Ali Abunimah is executive director of The Electronic Intifada and author of One Country and The Battle for Justice in Palestine.
Comments
deflection
Permalink Peter Purich replied on
This "perverted logic" gave Trump (ignore my impeachment and "support the troops"), the Pentagon (ignore Prof. Abunimah's excellent analysis and keep reading The Intercept), and Israel (ignore MY impeachment and Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!) the desperately needed deflection. The other actor is Russia: no war in Europe; cannot be baited (leaving the Ukraine US's quagmire); extinguished Syria (pissing on the US's rug). Before, it was Russia! Russia! Russia! But all I hear out of the US now is Iran! Iran! Iran! So quiet that as if Kushner (or Freeland!) never existed. And speaking about Europe: NATO or Persian crude (or both?!), that's the question. Sadly, Prof. Massad is right.
Wage peace with Iran
Permalink Ed Felien replied on
Trump has initiated a provocative act meant to draw a response from Iran that would plunge us into war. Trump wants to get Impeachment off the front page, and he believes the country will rally behind him once Iran retaliates with a horrific act. He will be a wartime president protecting America from foreign devils. deliberately driving his car through a bus stop in North Minneapolis trying to kill African Americans
His action is similar to Dylann Roof in Charleston, Patrick Crusius in El Paso, and James Fields deliberately driving his car through a bus stop in North Minneapolis trying to kill African Americans. Their actions were provocative. They were meant to draw a response, so White Nationalists could murder African Americans with impunity.
Trump hopes the Iranians will retaliate, so he can retaliate with overwhelming force and declare himself a hero.
What is needed is to steal a page from the Republican Playbook. During the Iran Crisis under Carter, Reagan sent James Baker, his designated Secretary of State to Iran to get them to agree not to release the hostages until Reagan's Inauguration. They had such a cozy relationship they bought arms from Iran for the Contras in Nicaragua. The Democratic Party should send Tulsi Gabbard to Iran to make a deal with them. No retaliation until after the election. A massive retaliation plays into Trump's hand. With the election of a Democratic President, the U S will immediately reinstate the Nuclear Peace Treaty with Iran and eliminate sanctions.
Something must be done to stop this madman from dragging us into senseless slaughter
Assassination of Soleimani
Permalink Charlie Browne replied on
Another example of the projection of American power into the world, privately justified by the Monroe doctrine; which has been tacitly employed to excuse interference in the affairs any country on the planet not amenable to US policy, though originally applied to Central + Southern America
It’s as old as the USA!
Regards
Terrorist attack
Permalink Guy replied on
"The US claims the group carried out a rocket attack on a northern Iraqi military base days earlier that killed an American contractor."
We still don't have a shred of evidence that the Iraqi Hezbollah was involved in the rocket attack .All we have is the US of Israel saying so .For anyone that has been following the Douma non chemical attack in Syria ,we should know how the lies are perpetuated by the MSM fed by CIA etc.to justify themselves for whatever they want you to believe . There MO should be obvious by now.
weak-kneed liberals
Permalink Eric replied on
As usual, Canada is playing toady to U.S. aggression:
"Canada’s statement was an exercise in hypocrisy,
condemning Iran but voicing nary a peep about U.S. actions."
https://www.ceasefire.ca/are-w...
And the supposedly social democratic NDP has nothing to say.
Excellent! As always!
Permalink Kerry McNamara replied on
Thank you Ali! It's all so overt, so obvious, and so entrenched. THANK YOU!
Trump wants War
Permalink anthony hall replied on
G.W.Bush,in 2009 was regarded by the Citizens of Mid-West USA as a Homicidal Maniac, bent on setting the Middle East on fire; Killing thousands of Young Americans in his Army. Trump is acting exactly the same. He wants another War for Oil.
Trump threatens Iran with War Crimes
Permalink SteveH replied on
Trump is now threatening to attack cultural sites in Iran. This is a War Crime, or at least it was when ISIS destroyed cultural sites in Syria and Iraq. Or are the rules different when the USA are the perpetrators
The contradictions are too
Permalink Sass replied on
The contradictions are too numerous to list. But the way the so called”liberals” have adopted the neocon positions, esp in regards to Israel and and Russia, is pretty extreme. This is where the slogan “ progressive except for Palestine “ comes from.
Did US/israel rally all Iranians around the Red Flag?
Permalink HR replied on
Two desperate lunatic criminals are driven by their messianic thuggery. Trump & Netanyahu are hanging to power by a thread! Assassination of a high ranking official on foreign soil has become the expected norm of rouge states. The US drunk on illusionary power is entwined with its nuclear base in Israel. Criminal mafias in both countries are destined to go down in flames together! History tells us brutality & arrogance will eventually take them down to the abyss! Trumpyahu just consolidated the Iranian nation around their Red Flag not to mention what how many nations around the world feel disgust & spite about these flagrant bloody actions! These drunk killers will eventually fall on their own stained swords. Trumpyahu is Neto the madman fiddling while Rome burns.
Did us/israel rally all Iranians around the Red Flag?
Permalink Haifa replied on
Trumpyahu will fall on their own blood stained swords.
The Murder of Qasem Soleimani
Permalink Zionism Is Not Judaism replied on
From something right out of Niccolo Machiavelli the brutal murder of Qasem Soleimani and others this past week, among other things, is a wholesale blow against both international law and diplomatic relations.
In one fell swoop the perpetrators of this despicable crime must be brought to justice. They have set back peaceful dialogue between nations and peoples a century or more. In the process they have made the world a more dangerous and less safe place.
That Mr Soleimani, an accredited diplomat, was lured to his death on a mission of peace by his murderers makes their crime even more reprehensible.
It is long overdue that the Mass Murder Crime and Terror Syndicate operating out of Washington, DC and Langley, VA not only leave the Levant in its entirety but cease its operations in its entirely. For the sake of Life on Earth and humanity let us hope it will be soon.
If there is any lasting positive legacy that results from Mr. Soleimani's untimely death it should be that.
America
Permalink Frank Dallas replied on
As usual, the greatest threat to world peace is the USA.
Viability & the Almighty Buck.
Permalink Mira replied on
Wolf Street by Wolf Richter - The Great American Shale Oil & Gas Bust: Fracking Gushes Bankruptcies, Defaulted Debt & Worthless Shares.
This is an interesting article .. it engenders wonderment at the viability of all things & how the establishment is chasing the unattainable dreams of wealth security & permanency in lifestyle achievement.
"Hey ma, look at me, I made it I made it"