How important was Suleimani?
We all knew the name of Osama Bin Laden. He was really a household word in the US, because of 9/11.
But it appears that in terms of geopolitical influence and scope, Suleimani was much bigger, and his takeout might – accent on the “might” – be far more important.
I don’t know, but consider this:
7 some of his aura or reputation was probably overblown, but he really was indispensable to Iran, he was not on a mission, he WAS the mission, the architect of Iran's expansionist regional policy, the indispensable upholder of the Islamic Revolution, keeping it alive for Khamenei
— Kim Ghattas (@KimGhattas) January 3, 2020
9 There is anger too of course, among his supporters, allies, proxy militias, who were devoted to him and lionized him and will be lost without him. There is no replacement that I know of or can see. They will be mulling their next step for a bit. First, huge displays of mourning
— Kim Ghattas (@KimGhattas) January 3, 2020
The spokesman for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard broke down in tears, as he announced Suleimani’s death on Iranian state TV.
See https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/01/video-iranian-revolutionary-guards-spokesman-breaks-down-in-tears-over-killing-of-soleimani/
The problem with guys like bin Laden and Suleimani is that a while ago you could dismiss them as nuisance but now they can leverage the Western technology to create a significant impact. Recall the use of drones to attack the Saudi oil facilities. The other thing that amazes me is the “regional ambition” part. If a country with economic wealth and military strength like Japan started throwing its weight around one can understand but where does Iran get the idea that they have the economic clout to be able to do this? Which is why they had to rely on this sort of thing. https://www.politico.com/interactives/2017/obama-hezbollah-drug-trafficking-investigation/
The other thing I find incomprehensible is the prefix “elite” with almost every military unit in that area. Recall the “elite Republican Guards” and now we have “elite Quds Force”.
The Union would have won the Civil War even without Grant, tho probably taking longer. The Allies in WW II would win without Ike, or McArthur, or Patton.
He was an important Iranian general, the single most important terror general, as well as a long-lived symbol, but it’s the regime that is the problem. He would be dying in the next couple of decades anyway; now he’s a martyr.
But his own terror genius, including making deals and organizing cooperation, means the next level down will be fighting internally as well as externally, as various #2s all try to become the new #1. Succession problems are always much worse in non-democracies, and non-meritocracies. Most US elites don’t think about or talk about this much.
I wish he had surrendered and stopped fighting, but it’s better that he’s dead rather than successful at killing any more others.
Gary H:
Re that “elite” — I found a 2003 piece talking about the use of that word with regard to Iraq’s Republican Guard that has this:
“News stories have long referred to these Iraqi units as the ‘elite Republican Guards.’ The honorific stems from the months leading up to the first Gulf War, in 1990-91, when long-ignored specialists on the Iraqi army—mainly from the CIA and the U.S. Army War College—brought out their charts and forecasts of how ferociously these top-of-the-line divisions would fight.”
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2003/04/saddam-s-hugely-overrated-republican-guard.html
We call the Quds Force/Republican Guard/Venezuelan Marines/what have you “elite” the same way we call the first-string football team of Hopelessly Nerdy Engineering U the “varsity”.
Comic relief to relieve pressure: (too good to miss)
Vovan and Lexus, recently called Waters’s office and, with the help of a female colleague, pretended to be teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg, TIME‘s “Person of the Year” for 2019, and her father, claiming to have a taped confession from Trump admitting to the exact charges in House Democrats’ articles of impeachment
“We are outraged the president would assassinate a foreign official, possibly setting off another war without Congressional authorization and has zero plan to deal with the consequences,” Ms. Omar tweeted in a response to Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican. “But of course you know that.”
[snip]
“Real question is, will those with congressional authority step in and stop him? I know I will,” she tweeted.
[snip]
“We cannot stay silent as this lawless president recklessly moves us closer to yet another unnecessary war that puts innocent lives at risk at home & across the globe,” she tweeted. “Congress alone has the authority to declare war, & we must reclaim our responsibility & say no to war with Iran.”
-=-=-=-=-
So they follow the old royalty rules, kill citizens all you want but you dont touch leaders and if captured ransome them back? Guess so
-=-=-=-=-
Scott Johnson, Powerline: “Trump Explains”
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/01/trump-explains.php
Go there for the video of the President this afternoon saying his piece.
where does Iran get the idea that they have the economic clout to be able to do this? [Gary H]
Persians gotta Persian?
Direct link to video of the man of the moment being blown up
https://conservativeus.com/caught-on-video-u-s-drone-strike-moment-iranian-general-qassim-suleimani-was-killed/
The CCTV video taken close to the airport was obtained by the Daily Mail from Iraqi TV station AhadTV and shows a large explosion as one of the two vehicles was destroyed by precision airstrike.
the footage doesnt act like cctv…
Prominent democrats criticizing Trump’s actions only reveal that it is they who are unfit for their office. But they are simply representative of the fools who have voted for them.
Gary: …where does Iran get the idea that they have the economic clout to be able to do this?
During the 70s the Shah acquire F-14 Tomcat fighters from US. At that time this was top of the line fighter aircraft. Apparently the Shah wanted the planes to defend Iran against USSR as if they really had a chance if USSR invaded them. Audacious behaviour in that country seems to be commonplace.
Who the Eff is Kim Ghattas, you may reasonably ask, as I did, and why does Neo cite her? Why, she is Lebanese-born, Lebanese-educated, a Hillary Clintonista who resides in DC.
Hopefully she is not a US citizen.
So of course Ghattas has no clue as to what’s going on in Iran, either before or after Suleimani’s ascent to paradise with its 42 or 47 or 52 virgins (I’ve lost count of the promised #). I wonder if prostatic hyperplasia disappears in the process of martyrdom of Muslim males. If not, that might impede their paradisical pleasures.
Cicero:
Is there something she’s saying with which you disagree?
It all seems pretty straightforward and rather obvious to me. He was a big guy. Very very very big. We’re not sure what Iran will do next, if anything. But his supporters (and he certainly has some) will have some sort of mourning display.
Big enough to waste an international incident to blow his arse up…
Persia vs. Babaylon with a Saudi kingdom that is older than the USA bumping into each other with their will of Allah stuff going on, this shit goes back into our Old Testament days with our, Jews and Christians, Israel mixed up in the middle of it and all this inter tribal war predates Christianity and the Muslim faith and I am ever so confused. There is no easy answer here and that the Lord we have Trump as our, funny hair president, right now, he is kind of smart enough and he has enough backbone and old age experience to draw and actual line in the sand.
That’s all I have to say about that.
OldTexan – what with the OT, NT, and Israel mixed in, this is a good place for this link.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/23775
There are 17 important actions on the Rabbi’s list, and that was last April.
But we are supposed to believe that Trump is an anti-Semite because, um, because, something.
Some links pulled out of the comments at CTH
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/01/03/president-trump-delivers-a-statement-on-iran-video-and-transcript/
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/01/dem-senator-chris-murphy-who-lashed-out-at-trump-following-suleimanis-death-is-frequent-speaker-at-niac-council-the-iranian-regimes-us-lobby-house/
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/01/sorry-barack-us-arrests-hadi-al-ameri-the-badr-corps-chief-and-terror-leader-who-met-with-obama-in-the-white-house/
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/01/revealed-former-al-quds-leader-soleimani-planned-and-financed-terrorist-attack-on-us-benghazi-consulate-resulting-in-4-dead-americans/
As the fabulous US military continues to fight, and win, against terrorists in Iraq, I’d say the fighting and winning is more important than just getting the General. Still, there is no other Iraqi action that could have been taken by Trump which is more important than this kill of an Iranian terror General.
The coming non-peace status will be less advantageous for Iran and for terrorists because of Trump’s successful strike.
(Strange, double, deleted)
Ten years ago, Richard Fernandez urged us to look for the “Kido Butai,” the analog to the ten fast carriers of the Imperial Japanese Navy during the Second World War. They, not some space on the surface of the planet, represented the threat. He argued in the current context the nexus of the threat comes from ideology, rogue regimes, and energy supply.
How would we apply the same reasoning to one of the rogue regimes (Iran) today? What makes them relevant? #1 energy supply…thank you frackers of North Dakota and a Texas! #2 Diplomatic cover from Russia and China. #3 Anti-American apologists in globalist institutions. #4 The continued flow of funds through the global banking systems. #5 the network of proxies in the region. The last actions have been major strikes at the proxies and their handlers.
We can detect the shape of a comprehensive strategy in the administration policy for each of these areas (fracking, trying to separate China from its collaborators, devaluing globalist institutions, financial sanctions, counterforce and encouraging local allies). The mullahs got trouble in River City.
An aside, Oblio:
quoting from the “Battle of the “Phillipines” wiki —
“Another submarine, USS Cavalla, was able to maneuver to an attack position on the 25,675-ton carrier Shokaku by about noon. The submarine fired a spread of six torpedoes, three of which struck Shokaku on her starboard side. Badly damaged, the carrier came to a halt. One torpedo had hit the forward aviation fuel tanks near the main hangar, and aircraft that had just landed and were being refueled exploded into flames. Ammunition and exploding bombs added to the conflagration, as did burning fuel spewing from shattered fuel pipes. With her bows subsiding into the sea and fires out of control, the captain gave orders to abandon ship. Within minutes, there was a catastrophic explosion of aviation fuel vapor which had built up between decks, which blew the ship apart. The carrier rolled over and sank about 140 miles (230 km) north of the island of Yap. 887 crew and 376 men of the 601st Naval Air Group, 1,263 men in all, were killed. There were 570 survivors, including the carrier’s commanding officer, Captain Hiroshi Matsubara. Destroyer Urakaze attacked the submarine, but Cavalla escaped with relatively minor damage despite near misses from depth charges.”
USS Cavalla (now a museum piece in Galveston, Tx) was commanded by Lt Cmd. Herman Kossler, my next-door neighbor (by then Rear Adm.), 1960-66. A genuine mensch, that one.
“…but consider this:”
Here’s Petraeus:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/01/petraeus-on-soleimani.php
(H/T: Powerline blog)
Key graf:
“…[I]t is impossible to overstate the significance of this action. This is much more substantial than the killing of Osama bin Laden. It’s even more substantial than the killing of Baghdadi.”
He wasn’t talking to you, AK.