Stirring the Pot

The editors of the New York Times are wary about the situation WRT Iran following the Trump Administration’s assassination of the commander of the Quds Force:

Given the enormous risks to which President Trump and his hawkish secretaries of state and defense, Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Esper, have exposed the nation, they must promptly and convincingly explain their reasons for ordering so fateful an action. The explanation had better be good: Mr. Trump’s record of lies, lies and more lies; his impeachment on charges of misusing the power of his office; and his record of improvising foreign policy according to his immediate political calculations have undermined his credibility, at home and abroad. Congress and the American public need the facts.

Another fair question: Why didn’t the White House alert senior Democrats in Congress, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as is customary before a major military action?

I think I can answer that second question. This is a president for whom personal relationships are extremely important. If anything Democratic Congressional have gone out of their way to alienate President Trump. Besides he’s not obligated to notify them of anything.

The editors of the Washington Post explain the situation pretty well:

MAJ. GEN. Qasem Soleimani was an implacable enemy of the United States who was responsible for hundreds of American deaths, as well as countless atrocities in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and elsewhere. His death in a drone strike was being cheered Friday by U.S. allies and progressive forces across the region, from Israelis and Saudis to the pro-reform demonstrators of Beirut and Baghdad. That, however, doesn’t mean that President Trump’s decision to assassinate him was wise, or that it will ultimately benefit U.S. interests.

The consequences of the strike are unpredictable, but there is no denying the risk that the United States will be pulled more deeply into the Middle East and its conflicts. Having made clear that he wants to pull the nation out of those conflicts, and having said as recently as Tuesday that he wanted peace with Iran, Mr. Trump has committed an act of escalation and now is deploying more than 4,000 additional troops to Kuwait as a hedge against Iranian counterstrikes.

It’s certainly possible that the killing will have the effect of deterring further Iranian attacks on Americans, such as the rocket strike that killed a U.S. contractor at an Iraqi base last week, or the assault by Iranian-backed militias on the embassy in Baghdad on Tuesday. The loss of Soleimani might disorient and demoralize the militia forces he steered. The Trump administration is clearly hoping Tehran will absorb the blow and retreat, which is why Secretary of State Mike Pompeo kept talking Friday about “de-escalation.”

But Iran might choose to strike back, if not immediately then in coming days and weeks. Targets within Iranian reach include U.S. embassies and citizens across the Middle East; shipping in the Persian Gulf; Saudi oil fields; and Israeli cities, against which Soleimani aimed thousands of missiles. Have Mr. Trump and his aides thought through the possible Iranian responses and fully prepared for them? Does the administration have a clear goal? While Mr. Trump was still tweeting about negotiation, some of his aides appeared bent on regime change in Tehran.

While New York Times columnist Tom Friedman is rather obviously of mixed mind about the assassination:

The whole “protest” against the United States Embassy compound in Baghdad last week was almost certainly a Suleimani-staged operation to make it look as if Iraqis wanted America out when in fact it was the other way around. The protesters were paid pro-Iranian militiamen. No one in Baghdad was fooled by this.

In a way, it’s what got Suleimani killed. He so wanted to cover his failures in Iraq he decided to start provoking the Americans there by shelling their forces, hoping they would overreact, kill Iraqis and turn them against the United States. Trump, rather than taking the bait, killed Suleimani instead.

I have no idea whether this was wise or what will be the long-term implications. But here are two things I do know about the Middle East.

First, often in the Middle East the opposite of “bad” is not “good.” The opposite of bad often turns out to be “disorder.” Just because you take out a really bad actor like Suleimani doesn’t mean a good actor, or a good change in policy, comes in his wake. Suleimani is part of a system called the Islamic Revolution in Iran. That revolution has managed to use oil money and violence to stay in power since 1979 — and that is Iran’s tragedy, a tragedy that the death of one Iranian general will not change.

Today’s Iran is the heir to a great civilization and the home of an enormously talented people and significant culture. Wherever Iranians go in the world today, they thrive as scientists, doctors, artists, writers and filmmakers — except in the Islamic Republic of Iran, whose most famous exports are suicide bombing, cyberterrorism and proxy militia leaders. The very fact that Suleimani was probably the most famous Iranian in the region speaks to the utter emptiness of this regime, and how it has wasted the lives of two generations of Iranians by looking for dignity in all the wrong places and in all the wrong ways.

The other thing I know is that in the Middle East all important politics happens the morning after the morning after.

Yes, in the coming days there will be noisy protests in Iran, the burning of American flags and much crying for the “martyr.” The morning after the morning after? There will be a thousand quiet conversations inside Iran that won’t get reported. They will be about the travesty that is their own government and how it has squandered so much of Iran’s wealth and talent on an imperial project that has made Iran hated in the Middle East.

And yes, the morning after, America’s Sunni Arab allies will quietly celebrate Suleimani’s death, but we must never forget that it is the dysfunction of many of the Sunni Arab regimes — their lack of freedom, modern education and women’s empowerment — that made them so weak that Iran was able to take them over from the inside with its proxies.

I honestly don’t know what to make of it all. It is obvious that the United States has been engaged in a low-level conflict with Iran since 1979, with most of the shooting being done by the Iranians. The Iranian mullahs actually declared war against us then. In the regime’s creation myth the U. S. plays the role of villain.

We also know that we can’t depend on our own news media as disinterested reporters of the truth.

I have also acknowledged that I don’t really understand how President Trump’s mind works How much attention does he pay to his advisors? How much does he rely on what the Israelis are telling him or what his closest advisors are reporting to him about what the Israelis are telling them? Does he go by his gut? Does he act on impulse?

I think it’s clear that he’s stirring the pot. What comes out is anyone’s guess.

Update

The editors of the Wall Street Journal apparently approve of the assassination:

The U.S. President had shown great restraint—more than we thought he should—in not retaliating after Iran or its proxies shot down an American drone, attacked Saudi oil facilities, and attacked bases in Iraq with U.S. troops 10 times in the last two months.

Mr. Trump finally drew a line at the death of an American contractor and the storming of the Embassy. Perhaps he heard echoes of Barack Obama’s failure in Benghazi. Whatever Mr. Trump’s calculation, Mr. Khamenei now has to consider that even targets inside Iran are not safe.

The death of Soleimani should also reassure U.S. allies spooked by Barack Obama’s many capitulations and Mr. Trump’s partial withdrawal from Syria last year. This assumes Mr. Trump will be resolute if Iran escalates and doesn’t withdraw remaining U.S. forces from Iraq or Syria.

Iraq’s caretaker Prime Minister, Adel Abdul-Mahdi, condemned the Soleimani strike, but he hasn’t spoken for his countrymen since promising to resign in November amid popular unrest. Iranian-backed forces helped slaughter hundreds of Iraqi protesters, and many Iraqis took to the streets to celebrate Soleimani’s death. The Iraqi Parliament still may vote to push U.S. troops out of the country, but it would be a mistake. The U.S. goal in Iraq is to help ensure Iraqi independence from a revival of Islamic State and Iranian meddling.

The least credible criticism is coming from American Democrats, especially those who worked for the Obama Administration. Their policy was to appease Tehran with a nuclear deal that would supposedly induce its leaders to join the civilized world. Instead the deal’s cash windfall empowered Soleimani to export revolution.

Now they’re fretting that responding to Soleimani’s mayhem is too risky. Joe Biden said Thursday Soleimani “supported terror and sowed chaos,” but that doesn’t negate “the fact that this is a hugely escalatory move in an already dangerous region.” In other words, Soleimani was a deadly menace, but the U.S. should have done nothing about his depredations because Iran could hit back. That is appeasement, not leadership.