No one outside of Iran and its proxy Shi’ite terror wings has had anything good to say about Suleimani — even China, Russia, EU hard lefties, and leaders of the Sunni Muslim world have been noticeably silent, or in the case of many Sunnis, have openly celebrated his removal from this world.
Even U.S. Democratic leaders have managed, perhaps reluctantly, to admit that Iran’s General over the Quds Force (the primary delivery vehicle of Iran’s foreign terrorism support and activity around the world) was a bad man, before they moved quickly on to skewer the President for taking unilateral action and leading America into World War III. Cory Booker acknowledged that he had American blood on his hands. Christ Murphy described him as an enemy of the U.S. who deserved to die. Elizabeth Warren labeled Suleimani a “murderer” before walking that back under pressure from “woke” lefties. Joe Biden was muted in his timid assessment: “No American will mourn Qassem Suleimani’s passing.” Even Adam Schiff weighed in with a tweet: “Suleimani was responsible for unthinkable violence and the world is better off without him.” While the Democratic leadership made clear they did not mourn his death, they pilloried Trump for his unilateral decision to end Suleimani’s life and career. 2020 Democratic presidential candidates have monochromatically declared in unison that they would never have given approval for this mission had they been in charge.
Republican leaders, on the other hand, have been uniformly aglow in response to the news, and generally supportive of the President’s bold decision. Secretary Pompeo spoke of “Suleimani the terrorist” and the need to end his activities; Lindsey Graham labeled him a “terrorist thug” who needed to be taken out; former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley remarked, “This man had evil in his veins.” Tom Cotton concluded that the Quds Commander “…got what he richly deserved.” Even Mitt Romney, no fan of the President, labeled Suleimani a “depraved terrorist.” Conservative commentators were equally unrestrained in their assessment. According to Ollie North, Suleimani was a “purveyor of terrorism.” And Sean Hannity was not to be outdone: Suleimani was “…one of the most ruthless, evil war criminals on earth. Evil personified; an evil monster.”
On the other hand, the response of Iran’s mullahs, military and media, as well as of other Shi’ite leaders in the region, has been to lionize Suleimani as a matchless, almost divine military figure. Iran’s Defense Minister, Gen. Amir Hatami, noted that America’s “criminal attack” had transformed “…the hero of the struggle against terrorism into a martyr.” The IRGC spokesman referred to Suleimani as “the proud commander of the armies of Islam.” When news of the operation reached Iran, announcement was made in a mosque in the midst of an imam’s sermon in Tehran, at which point numerous men began weeping. The imam declared, “A dear and great man has won martyrdom.” In a paroxysm of hyperbole, he went on to paint the brutal general as “an agent of unity” between Shi’ites and Sunnis, between Muslims and Christians, and between Muslims and Jews. (Many in the crowd looked up rather quizzically at these obvious falsehoods). On Iranian TV (IRINN), the official government statement declared, “He hastened to meet with his Creator, grateful for years of jihad that were full of pride and honor.” Another reporter affirmed that Suleimani had attained martyrdom, and was a “great and divine man.” But the most picturesque assessment of Suleimani and contemporaneous insult of Trump and his administration came from Hassan Nasrallah, head of the terrorist organization Hezbollah: “Qassem Suleimani’s shoe [in Arab culture, the shoe in such a context is an item of derision and ignominy] is worth the heads of Trump and all the American leaders.”
While this difference in assessment comes as no surprise, it highlights the irreconcilable hostility between Muslim and Western worldviews. Suleimani serves as the focal point for assessing the values of Shi’ite Islam over against Western principles. For the Shi’ite Muslim world, Suleimani’s life and work represent the highest achievements to which a Muslim could aspire. For over thirty years he engaged in what Islam’s prophet Muhammad called the work most prized by Allah: jihad. This Muhammad clearly defined as fighting the enemies of Allah so as to killed and be killed in his service. The Qur’an lays out with clarity the contract that Allah makes with his followers:
•”Indeed, Allah has purchased from the believers their lives and their properties; [in exchange] for that they will have Paradise. They fight in the cause of Allah , so they kill and are killed. [It is] a true promise [binding] upon Him in the Torah and the Gospel and the Qur’an. And who is truer to his covenant than Allah ? So rejoice in your transaction which you have contracted. And it is that which is the great attainment.” (9:111)
[As an aside, this passage in the Qur’an makes a libelous claim against the Bible, asserting that this same “jihadi contract” is found in the Torah (Pentateuch) and Gospel (i.e., New Testament). Can one imagine Jesus saying, “Do you want to get to heaven? Then kill and be killed for the sake of My Father, and you will inherit virgins, wealth and pleasures beyond your dreams….”]
For the mullahs and their minions, Suleimani was Allah’s warrior par excellence, having maimed or killed multiple thousands of infidels as well as hypocrites (false Muslims, including all those Sunnis who oppose the Shi’ite world, especially the nation of Iran). His death is a great blow to the ongoing jihad operations of Iran’s theocracy, but it is also an opportunity to laud his martyrdom as a means to further indoctrinate impressionable Muslim youth with the vision that their own deaths in furthering the murder and mayhem of the Islamic Republic will result in their own immediate transport to the highest heaven where they can plunge for all eternity into the fullness of sensual pleasures they never even imagined possible on earth.
For them as for Suleimani, Hellfire missiles from America are heaven-sent, according to the imams. A moment of immolation for an eternity of bliss.
Why? Because for Allah there is nothing more important than the subjugation or destruction of all his enemies. Islam must cover the earth so that Allah’s supremacy will never again be challenged. Democracy, freedom of religion, equality of the sexes, free expression, eradication of slavery, and all other practices that oppose Shari’a are to be eliminated from the face of the earth. Those who serve Allah unabashedly in this bloody cause will earn his highest rewards. Hence, Suleimani is pictured by Shi’ite clergy as being feted in highest heaven by Allah. His place of honor rivals that of Muhammad, ‘Ali, Husain and the other celebrated Imams of Shi’ite Islam.
Western civilization rests on the recognition of “unalienable” human rights granted by the Creator who made humankind in “His image and likeness”, thereby endowing every person with inextinguishable dignity and honor recognized in rights and freedoms to be acknowledged by all. These of course include the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, as well as what we find in the Bill of Rights of the U. S. Constitution or in the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Not surprisingly, the Muslim-majority nations of the world have rejected the UDHR as incompatible with Shari’a, and some forty-two years after that Universal Declaration came up with their own statement, known as the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam, which begins with high-sounding rhetoric but ends by saying that any implied human rights and freedoms which conflict with Shari’a are null and void.
The blood, sweat and tears of many American and Allied soldiers have been shed in defense of human rights. Freedom from slavery to totalitarian regimes, freedom to worship according to one’s conscience, the right to voice one’s own convictions openly, recognition of equality of the races and the sexes, these are all fundamental rights for which Western societies have gone to the mat. Qassem Suleimani proved himself an enemy to these principles as he conducted Islam’s jihad against the non-Muslim world, principally the West.
Hence, the unbridgeable gulf between Western and Islamic thought, and between Western and Shi’ite assessments of Qassem Suleimani. What lesson must we learn from this ideological chasm? The answer is: There is no way to reconcile the principles of Western civilization with the jihadi dogmas of Islam. If we are to find an accommodation between Islam and the West, it will only happen either as the West surrenders its allegiance to universal human rights (may that never happen) or as Islam disavows any present and future commitment to jihad and its derivative practices (which will never happen as the teachings of jihad are woven into the very design of the Qur’an, which according to Islam can never be changed).
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