The story is here:
Two leading Israeli security analysts said over the weekend that the US assassination of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani on Thursday night marked a significant blow to the Islamic Republic.
The experts also downplayed the regime’s appetite for direct conflict with the United States and noted that the act could potentially destabilize Iraq, which will then become the major battlefield between Iran and the US.
In contradistinction to many others excitedly warning of a major war, these Israeli analysts know that Iran, however much it swaggers and now claims it will attack 6,236 (the number of Qur’anic verses) American targets, has no intention of directly engaging with the United States. It has been blustering, and the bluster will continue, but nothing will come of it, save for a handful of minor attacks — e.g., an insignificant cyber attack from Hezbollah proxies in Lebanon, or the missiles lamely lobbed Tuesday night at an American base in Iraq. Iran dare not do more.
Writing for Israeli news website Mako, veteran Middle East analyst Ehud Yaari noted, “The most important event of the last day following Soleimani’s assassination is what did not happen: Baghdad’s Shiites did not take to the streets to participate in a funeral procession.”
This demonstrates the crumbling of Iranian influence over Iraqi Shiites, who “have gone to Baghdad’s squares for weeks to protest the government and burn [Iranian Supreme Leader] Khamenei’s and Soleimani’s pictures.”
Much of the world media seems to think that Iraq’s entire Shi’a population was devastated by the killing of Soleimani. It isn’t true. Many Iraqi Shi’a, as Yaari notes, have been protesting against Iran’s influence in their country, even burning pictures of Khamenei and Soleimani. Some analysts claim that 50% of Iraq’s Shi’a are against Iranian interference in their country. The Shi’a in Iraq are also Arabs, and their ethnic identity undermines Shi’a unity. They are also nationalists, who readily fought their fellow Shi’a during the Iran-Iraq War.
Iran announced on Sunday it would abandon limitations on enriching uranium, taking a further step back from commitments to a 2015…
This decision had already been in the works for a long time; Iran has been exceeding the limits on enriching uranium since 2017. And it was clear by this past summer that they had no intention of observing any limits on enrichment. By linking the “abandonment” of such limits to the killing of Soleimani, Iran’s rulers are hoping to whip up alarm against Trump, and to preposterously blame him for a decision they had made long ago.
“It turns out that most Shiites in Iraq are unwilling to join Soleimani’s adulation as a fairy-tale hero and do not want to see Iraq become a battlefield between Iran and the United States,” Yaari posited.
This point needs to be repeatedly made: many Shi’a in Iraq were pleased when Soleimani was killed; they are Shi’a, but also Arabs, and Iraqi nationalists, who do not want their country dominated by the Persians of Iran and their proxies.
He [Yaari] also pointed out that “most Shiite militias deployed by Iran in Iraq have left the country in recent days for fear of further assassinations by the Americans.”
US President Donald Trump’s threat to strike 52 major Iranian targets if the Islamic Republic attacks “is likely to affect the Supreme Leader Khamenei’s system of considerations,” said Yaari. “He in no way wants war.”
“He would like to drag the United States into a skirmish in the form of attrition around the presence of 5,000 American troops in Iraq,” Yaari stated, “but he does not want to provoke Tomahawk missiles and the US Air Force. Iran has no answer to US capabilities.”
Israel, he asserted, is in fact far less worried about possible repercussions than the Saudis, who have just dispatched the brother of Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman to Washington for consultations.
The Saudis have always depended on the Americans to protect them. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, the Saudi government was quick to invite in the American Infidels to protect the country, despite the Islamic injunction against allowing Unbelievers anywhere in Arabia; the American pilots, claimed the Saudi king, as if this justified their presence, were his “blue-eyed slaves.” The Saudis recently became alarmed when the Americans did not retaliate for Iran’s attack on Saudi oil installations, and no doubt they now want even more of an American military presence in the KSA. That means more than the 3,000 American troops that are at present in Saudi Arabia, and possibly includes beefing up its missile defense systems and other technology, both to reassure and to protect the Saudis from whatever the Iranians, as a response to Soleimani’s killing, might do.
Avi Melamed, the President & CEO of Inside the Middle East: Intelligence Perspectives, noted the significance of Soleimani’s execution, calling it “a shock wave that ripples through the Middle East” and “significantly disrupts Iran’s goal of regional superiority. … The Iranian regime will neither quickly nor easily recover from or overcome the loss of Soleimani.
Leaders do matter for good or ill; they are not fungible; Qassem Soleimani was one of those who in the Middle East mattered very much. He was famous throughout the Middle East for his ability to project Iranian power, and for his exploits as a terrorist. It was he who began Iran’s program of sending weapons and money to the Houthis, making their rebellion against the recognized government in Yemen possible. It was Soleimani who forged ties with, and in some cases even created, the Shi’a militias in Iraq that, backed by Iran, took over much of southern Iraq. It was Soleimani who helped build up Hezbollah’s armory with 140,000 missiles in Lebanon, and was in the process of aiding that terrorist group to manufacture its own precision-guided missiles. It was Soleimani who continued to supply Hezbollah fighters with weapons, training, and money (until the latest sanctions on Iran required those sums to be drastically cut back). Soleimani was the one who organized Iranian military assistance to Bashar Al-Assad during the Syrian civil war, and in recent months had been building Iranian bases in Syria from which to attack Israel. He was constantly on the move, for he wanted to know personally all those leaders, political and military – who were proxies of Iran, in Hezbollah, in the Iraqi militias, in the Syrian civil war. He had acquired a mystique about him; he was a rock star among terrorists, while his replacement is practically unknown.
Moreover, Melamed stated, the execution “seriously undermines the assumptions and great sense of self-confidence the Iranian regime has held that it is immune to direct harm.”
Previously, he said, Iran had acted with impunity because it assumed “the West recoils from a military confrontation with Iran” and President Trump would not risk war during an election year. But now, “Iran has sustained two fierce blows by the US in just a few days.”
Iranian leaders now know that Trump doesn’t care about this being an election year; he was determined to prevent what he described as an “imminent” attack on Americans — diplomats soldiers, civilians – that had to be dealt with at once. And in any case, this display of resolve is far more likely to help than to hurt the President’s re-election chances. The Iranians now know, too, that the rules of the game have changed. Where they once assumed that leaders of countries were off-limits to assassination, the killing of Soleimani, the second most powerful man in Iran after Ayatollah Khamenei, shows that assumption to have been false.
In addition, this damage to Iranian prestige “severely damages its deterrence image … while there are ongoing protests in Lebanon and Iraq. Protests which, to a large extent, are aimed at getting Iran out of those two countries.”
Where is that Iranian “deterrence”? It didn’t work. The mighty Americans were not deterred when they killed Soleimani. And the bluster from Tehran keeps coming – it’s only words, all words. Meanwhile, in both Lebanon and Iraq, the protests against Iranian influence that began well before Soleimani’s killing, are continuing, even more implacably than before. There are many Arabs unhappy with Iran’s influence in their countries. In Lebanon, the crowds of Lebanese – including many Shi’a – have been protesting on the streets against Iran’s proxy Hezbollah as a state within the state, an organization that supports the corrupt elite who have been running Lebanon for years; though former Prime Minister Hariri was in the end replaced by an academic and self-styled technocrat, Hassan Diab, Diab had the support of Hezbollah, which made him suspect in the eyes of the protesters, who will not be satisfied until an entirely new government is selected, and Iranian influence, via Hezbollah, much reduced. This is not only the aim of Sunni Muslims, but of many Shi‘a in Lebanon as well. In Iraq it is much the same story. Iraqis, including many Shi‘a, have been in the streets demanding an end to corruption, and calling for Iran-backed militias to be reined in by a government less submissive to Iran.
Some argue that the assassination of Soleimani will increase tensions in the Middle East,” Melamed observed. “This outlook confuses cause and effect: Tensions in the Middle East have intensified over the past decade because of the violent Iranian aggression which Soleimani spearheaded. … Killing Soleimani is not the cause of the escalation — but the result.”
Regarding what comes next, he asserted, “Iraq will be the main arena” with possible “internal clashes between Iranian-backed militias and Iraqi forces who want to or have been commanded to end — or significantly reduce — Iran’s influence on Iraq” and a possible “drastic Iranian move.”
Soleimani was the No. 1 sower of tensions in the Middle East. Iranian aggression in Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon was in large part the result of the Iranian proxies and presence that Qassem Soleimani put in place. Without him, Iran will have difficulty to continue to make the kind of trouble that came naturally to Soleimani, the world’s most powerful terrorist – far more powerful and dangerous, with the Iranian state behind him, than either Osama bin Laden or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Far from increasing tension, his killing will lead to a decrease in Iranian mischief-making.
This could include “a missile attack on Israel from western Iraq” or “direct Iranian military intervention in Iraq.”
An attack on Israel by Iran is one thing; Iranian military intervention in Iraq quite another. Trump has already said that attacks not just on Americans and American interests, but on “American allies,” too, would be met with full force (those 52 targets he alluded to). That surely includes Israel. Then, too, Israel is the strongest military power in the Middle East, and even without Trump’s threat of reprisals for attacks on America’s allies, the Iranians would not dare to attack Israel directly for fear of what Israel, all by itself, might do in retaliation. Israel has already shown itself unafraid to attack dozens of Iranian bases in Syria and Iraq, killing Iranians in these attacks; it shows no signs of being afraid to take on Iran directly, should it deem that necessary.
As far as America is concerned, Iraq is not an American ally (as we once had hoped it would be), and thus an attack by Iran in Iraq, through proxies or directly, would not trigger a response by the United States. In fact, such an Iranian attack on Sunnis in Iraq, whether direct or through Shi’a militias, should be welcomed in Washington. This could lead to an Iraqi civil war. The Sunni Arabs, though greatly outnumbered, could count on support from fellow Sunnis in Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., Egypt, and Jordan, determined not to let their coreligionists be defeated by the Shi’a, who are regarded as “the worst sort of Infidels.” Saudi Arabia and the UAE could offer limitless financial aid and weaponry from their own bursting armories; Sunni soldiers from Egypt and Jordan could be sent to help their fellow Sunnis in Iraq, and to help bleed the Iranians sent to fight alongside Iraqi Shi’a. The result would be a long drawn-out civil war in Iraq, with men, money, and materiel arriving from outside for both the Sunnis and the Shi’a. It should be well worth watching from afar by Infidels who do not have a dog in this fight. Our dog, let’s remember, is the fight.
ConanKong says
Al Quds is the equivalent of the Nazi SS. Anyone who is mourning Soleimani is essentially mourning Himmler. Shows who the real Nazis are.
mortimer says
The name ‘Al Quds’ is intentionally anti-Semitic.
With all the hatred directed against Israel by the mullahs, I am amazed that any Jews are left in Iran. As of 2018, only 8,500 Jews still live in Iran and they constitute 0.01% of Iranian population, a number confirmed by Sergio DellaPergola, a leading Jewish demographer.
Terry Gain says
Iran is no better than Nazi Germany.
Infidel says
Neither are a lot of Muslim countries – Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen
gravenimage says
All the above is true.
mortimer says
Winston Churchill said that Hitler could have been stopped in the 1930s before he had the weapons needed to begin his world conquest, but most politicians and journalists expressed the fear that he would be provoked and naively thought a world war with Hitler could be prevented. Everyone at the time feared ‘starting a war’, when it was clear to anyone who had read Hitler’s book and speeches that Hitler had already decided upon a world war.
Similarly, the naive globalist elites of today are unread, know-nothing, spontaneous ‘EXPERTS’ on Islam, too LAZY and PRESUMPTUOUS to read the Sira, hadiths, Koran and the canonical commentaries on them.
The globalist elites of today are afraid of PROVOKING Islam into a fight, when in fact, Islam was BORN ORNERY and BORN ‘PROVOKED’ against the dirty KUFAAR whom Muslims are required by their religion to hate ‘for the sake of Allah’.
Allah hates the dirty kufaar and wants Muslims to hate them too (doctrine: Al Walaa wal Baraa).
The chant of ‘Death to America’ predates the take-down of Soleimani by about 40 years. The hatred of the dirty kufaar was born with the Koran. Unless Western governments help to debunk the Koran with government-funded propaganda, then Islam will continue to produce jihadists.
Iran is under the control of a cabal of conspirators who control all information and thought.
Iran will only become a real democracy when there are a few dozen more funerals at the top.
gravenimage says
I don’t believe that Iran is apt to become a real democracy while it is Muslim-majority. That does not, of course, mean that it can’t be rendered less dangerous to the rest of the world.
Hugo says
Will France and Belgium and other Western democracies be able to remain democratic once they have 51% Muslim populations by the 2050s?
David says
Hugo, you don’t need 51% to get into power! For some reason, minorities seem to gain the upper hand.
FYI says
It looks as if he is “praying” to allah in that photo{didn’t do much good but then allah is “the BEST of deceivers” k3:54}..or else he is wondering to himself
“How can allah have TWO RIGHT HANDS?”
allah the Arab god of islam:the god with ONE shin and TWO RIGHT HANDS{sahih muslim 1827}
mortimer says
This man thought he could attack the military forces of the strongest country in the world and its embassy and get off scot-free.
No reasonable person would expect to escape the US military.
Kepha says
How can Allah have two right hands? Maybe he’s actually a Hindu or Mahayana Buddhist deity? After all, when I was a kid, most of my peers couldn’t tell the difference between Muslims and Hindus.
David says
Kepha: Tough luck on Hindus getting mistaken for muslims.What an insult.
gravenimage says
There are still people who confuse Hindus and Muslims. They are not paying much attention.
mortimer says
Compliments to Hugh Fitzgerald for an informative, well-sourced article.
The mullahocracy has not changed its tune of taking over the Muslim world, but Hugh Fitzgerald points out that the other Shi’ites in the region are not buying into that. No sale.
The mullahs will have to put their Islamic Empire of Iran on hold.
Westman says
Imagine that! The Mullahs are military incompetents, unable to actually function as warriors themselves; completely reliant on thugs who rise within the military to dominant positions. Muhammad would be dismayed at such effeminate weakness. Given the right conditions, this could be the source of an eventual overthrow of the Mullahs. The Iranian citizens are unlikely to accept losing another 500,000 men in fruitless wars.
Iran’s shooting down the Ukraine airliner does not contribute to its competence nor dors the missiles that missed the US bases. Clearly, Iranian-Islamic engineering is deficient and unable to deter any major power. It is certainly inadequate for a successful attack on Israel without nuclear warheads – a very good reason to never allow Iran to possess them. The Ayatollah’s “new clothes” are obviously, razor-thin.
Westman says
Well, it’s now official with every nation but Iran, that its incompetent military shot down the Ukraine airliner – which was obvious several days ago, with videos showing an explosion a direct fall to the ground. Islam breeds incompetency and even the Mullahs don’t realize the level of incompetence in their military.
Jayme says
What i don’t get is actors defending him some even calling him a good guy.
gravenimage says
Many Muslims do indeed love Jihadists, and many leftists in the West just hate Trump so much that they are going to criticize him for anything, and laud even the most appalling figures whom he rightly considers the enemies of America and the West.
Wellington says
Fine and informative article by Hugh Fitzgerald. Won’t read anything like this in the MSM.
Instructive that Iran after the pusillanimous nuclear deal that Obama unconstitutionally engaged in by way of passing it off as a purely executive prerogative (it should have been a treaty submitted to the Senate where a two thirds majority would have been required—and no way it would have come even close to two thirds, not even half) felt emboldened and continued its terrorist activities with no intention of restraining its nuclear ambitions. Democrats right now (e.g., the forever mendacious Susan Rice and the forever clueless Joe Biden) are going on and on about how wonderful the Obama nuclear deal with Iran was and how this deal “contained” Iran when it did anything but. Now, Trump really has thwarted Iran big time, for which he will get no credit from the MSM and Democratic Party (pretty much the same thing anymore).
Good to know as well that Arab Shiites in Iraq (and elsewhere like Lebanon) are in no way enamored of Iranian Shiites. One can not only expect the traditional Sunni/Shiite hatred to continue forever but there are fissures even among Shiites with one another (and among Sunnis too of course). Islam breeds so much hate that it is not enough just to go after non-Muslims. Other Muslims not deemed properly Muslim are fair game too so screwed up and venomous is the Islamic faith.
Finally, America at present still has to work with Saudi Arabia much as we did with the USSR against Nazi Germany in WWII, but Americans should forever be aware that Saudi Arabia is no true ally of the US. Quite the opposite in fact. Indeed, be wary of all Muslims, rather like having to be wary of all Nazis and all Communists. Islam, Nazism and Marxism are all totalitarian ideologies and all three are inveterate enemies of liberty. This should always be kept foremost in mind.
Infidel says
Wellington
That’s the point. One would think that all Muslims could unite as one entity and be a force for good. If they did, they have a ton of cash, since the bulk of oil rich countries are Muslim ones (excepting the US, Russia and Venezuela), they have a population of 1.5-1.8 billion, and they have a huge empire – from Gambia to Pakistan, as well as Kazakhstan to Pakistan, and then some – Bangladesh, Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia. All the ingredients they’d need for success.
Except that there’s nothing that unites them. If the religion is common, they have to go down to sect. If the sect is common, they have to go down to ethnicity, or language, or some other attribute. So Arab Shi’as can’t get along w/ Arab Sunnis, but they can’t get along w/ Farsi Shi’a either. Not only can Sunni Kurds not get along w/ Shi’a Arabs, but they can’t get along w/ Sunni Arabs or Sunni Turks either. Then move over to Afghanistan, and while the Shi’a Hazara are oppressed by all their Sunni neighbors, all the Sunni groups there are at each other’s throats – Tajik vs Pashtun vs Uzbek vs Turkmen. Right next door in Pakistan, Pashtuns, Sindis and Balochis resent the majority Panjabis, who rule the roost. In the stans, there are rifts in Kyrgyzstan b/w Kyrgyz and Uzbeks
As far as Saudi Arabia goes, I just fear a bureaucratic inertia leaving US-Saudi relations as it is, just like the fall of the Soviet Union just had Russia replace the USSR as the major adversary of the US, even under Boris Yeltsin, who was no Vlad Putin. Not only do the Saudis have all those debt bonds and trade their oil in the dollar, they also fund about every think-tank in DC – both liberal and conservative. As a result, no one on K-Street want to bite the hand that feeds them. Also, they buy hundreds of billions $ in weaponry, feeding the military-industrial complex, and they also have major cash invested in Wall Street. (If Iran were smart and played the game that way, there would be no anti-Iranians in either congress nor K-Street).
I’d just root for them all to destroy each other. Only problem – not only does it take too long, but they insist in involving infidels in their wars to get their one-upsmanship on each other, be it the Saudis getting the US, or Iran and Syria the Russians.
Wellington says
Thanks for your reply, Infidel. What a heart-warming sentiment you mentioned in your last paragraph, something about “them” all destroying each other. Ah, if only.
An Islam-free world would still have lots of problems but it would nevertheless be a much better world since nothing quite drags down mankind as Islam does. I can only hope the smarter Muslims realize what a burden to the human race Islam truly is and, though dangerous, leave Mo’s creed in the dust. As for the dead-enders, well, they’re better off dead.
Infidel says
Wellington
Hugh deserves credit for that fine, Machiavellian sentiment ?
David says
Thank God, and Allah, for Islamic sectarian division. “United we stand, divided we fall” Luckily, they will never get their act together. Hope for the world! We just need to get rid of the shattered pieces. That is the hard part. The problem is, who can we deal with? None can be trusted.
Terry Gain says
It needs to be repeated ad nauseum (and I’m just the guy to do it) that Soleimani was in Iraq carrying out terrorist operations despite 2 UN travel bans restricting him to Iran (because of his terrorist activities on other countries)
The termination of Soleimani’s terrorism was totally justified and long overdue. The people speaking out against this are opposed to doing what is necessary to achieve peace.
Westman says
“The people speaking out against this are opposed to..” anything that impinges upon their hedonistic life and requires a price to maintain their freedom. “Don’t rock the boat”, ignore the leaks. “Let the rabid dog sleep”, until he wakes up and bites while you are asleep.
American and European liberals have been free of direct war for so long they think it can be avoided by diplomacy and Marxism, and, while leveraged upon cheap energy and cheap food, so ignorant of past history, physical toil, and starvation that they believe they have evolved into a new species. The last time I checked, upscale supermarkets were still selling toilet paper. What they treasure can end in 15 minutes, and will, if not defended.
James Lincoln says
Terry Gain,
I wasn’t aware of the two UN travel bans restricting Soleimani to Iran.
Thanks for the info.
Terry Gain says
James
You haven’t heard because the Media is biased and Republicans are hopeless at talking points.
gravenimage says
Thanks for that information, Terry. I had nothing about that until now.
David says
So, Demonrats are supporters of Soleimani. No surprise there then. This sorts the wheat from the chaff. Has Omar made any commnets condemning Trump?
Kesselman says
As usual, all sound comments on this site so adding to this are just summing up the issue at hand. President Trump did the right thing, of course. Direct blows to big mouth Islamofascists are always an eyeopener. They have fear and respect a strong hand. In that way, the mullahcracy is no different from the German proto-Nazism.
Infidel says
Not just that, the Arabs of Khuzestan in South West Iran are also Shi’a, who feel oppressed by the Farsi Shi’a. They have comrades across the border in Basra, Kufa, Najaf and Karbala, who have 2 things in common w/ them – sect and ethnicity. The only Arab Shi’a who are totally pro-Iran would be the Gulf Shi’a oppressed by their Sunni rulers. But the day those Sunni rulers weaken and Iran’s not needed, they too would break from Teheran just like the Iraqi Shi’a.
Already, Iran’s people – the bulk of them Shi’a – resent Teheran using the bulk of their cash to finance foreign adventurers like Hizbullah, the Houthis and other Jihadist groups. When will it strike the Supreme Leader that the Arab Shi’a are ingrates, and spending all his cash on them has just earned him their resentment? That’s what the US is finding out w/ Iraq already, which is fueling demands to withdraw from there. It would be funny if Teheran was hit w/ the same message as DC
Demsci says
Infidel, good informative comment from you, about the divisions among Muslims, even Shia’s, thanks!
I do think the sanctions on Iran are working. In that Iran now in effect is (seen to) exploit Iraq and Lebanon. And seen to create “states within states” There which defy Transparency and accountability and facilitate corruption and in effect is costing the Iraqi and Lebanese state a lot of money and is keeping or making the population poor(er). In other words; through Iranian exploitation the sanctions on Iran are also detrimental for most Iraqi’’s and Lebanese.
Who now belatedly find that being “sectarian’, that is “more loyal to co-religionists than to one’s nation/ thus compatriots” is foolish.
The foreign co-religionists only COST the average person. But it is with the compatriots the average person has to cooperate in order to keep law and order, accountability, have good security, health care, education, everything a state must provide. The co-religionists help zilch with that and indeed blockade much of that and are bad for the economy.
And a few months ago the Lebanese economy sort of crashed. And interestingly that caused big inflation in Syria, which is very dependent on Lebanese banks and support. Alll because of Iran. And the Syrians and Russians know that at least the Westerners and rich Arabs and maybe even China will not invest in Syria for reconstruction because of too much Iranian military activity and influence there.
I think Iraqi’s and Lebanese belatedly realize that USA is much richer and better friend than Iran, for their own welfare.
Infidel says
Well, even if they realize it, they won’t genuinely befriend the US, thanks to that Quranic injunction: ‘Take not Christian or Jew for your friends, for they’re only friends w/ each other’
Also, there is that famous Arab cliche: ‘Me against my brother; me and my brother against my cousin; me, brother and cousin all against the enemy.
The family entities are the various sects/ethnicities of islam, whereas the enemy is the West and infidel East (India, Burma, China, Sri Lanka, Thailand, et al)
David says
Islam has declared that Infidels are the enemy, so therefore Islam is the enemy of Infidels. The Koran declares that everyone hates Islam. Well it certainly got that right.
Demsci says
I see, and yes, I suppose so. I understand why you, infidel, want the US out of the Middle East, away from those ingrates, those hostile populations, now that US is a net oil and gas EXPORTER.
One can dream that the same Islamic anti-infidel (not you) attitude holds true about Russia and China, once the US withdraws substantially.
How tremendously hypocritical these Iranian, Iraqi, Lebanese muslims are. They keep emphasizing that Russia and China are their friends and even try to befriend the Europeaans. But as Muslims they hate these infidels too and would fight them if they did not need them.
If the American satan were no more around, they would eventually shout “Death to Russia, death to China”. All the more reason to let these 2 burn their fingers over there.
Infidel says
Demsci
Unlike the US, which believes in the freedom of those America haters to protest and shout ‘Death to America’, neither the Russians nor the Chinese believe that. Once Muslim mobs in the streets start doing that and mutilating Russian and Chinese flags, be sure that both those countries will happily retaliate w/ the most lethal weaponry they can get their hands on – short of nukes
David says
It is Shia incompetence! We must welcome this sectarian hatred. It disrupts and hopefully thwarts the aims of Islam.
gravenimage says
Soleimani’s Death a Body Blow to the Islamic Republic
……………..
Fine article, Mr. Fitzgerald.
Nelson. M says
This Guy was caught at the right time. HERE IS WHAT HIS MASTER PLAN WAS. SURROUND ISRAEL WITH HIS PROXI-ENEMIES, ON THE NORTH WITH HEZBOLAH. HAMAS AND HIS ISLAMIC JIHADISTS ON THE SOUTH, AND THE VACCUM OF SIRYA CIVIL WAR AND USE THE SHIA MILITIA INSIDE SIRYA AND USING OTHER SHIA MILITIA IN IRAQ TO DESTABILISE AMERICA WITHIN THESE AREAS AND DRIVE THEM OUT OF THE REGION, he was currently providing ballistic missiles to these groups to finalise his plan, AFTER THAT WIPE ISRAEL OUT OF THE FACE OF THE PLANET.
that was his master plan and he was caught HANDS IN THE SAC. and these hands were chopped.
fred says
Soleimani by all accounts and even implied in this article was the ‘Einstein of Terrorism’ in the middle east!! An irreplaceable thinker and instigator of atrocities all for the advancement of his ‘faith-based’ convictions. While many out there are breathing a sigh of relief i am not so gullible as to think there aren’t thousands of other committed and determined Jihadists scrambling to take his place and reek havoc there and around the world, with even more fury and barbarism. Strident religious conviction and certainty is a toxic poison – we have seen that since the dawn of humankind – and makes even good people do evil things. Unless and until the the world of Islam can experience a significant reformation and de-fanging where its followers can safely ignore most of the retrograde contents of its so-called ‘Holy Book’ – as most modern Christians have – then we will always be confronted with its brutal, violent, and dangerous insanity. So who’s our next Soleimani to be dealt with? Take your pick out of many hundreds of thousands of crazed and enthusiastic Islamic sycophants. Sorry that my pessimism is so transparent on this topic… but knowing how rigid, unchangeable, and aggressive Islam is how could any knowledgeable person not be, and I’m sure Robert Spencer must hold that disposition as well.