Qasem Soleimani is dead, his life snuffed out by missiles
shot from American drones which targeted his convoy near Bagdad International
Airport. By all accounts this man, in many ways the second most important
figure in Iran, was the mastermind of numerous violent actions—we call them
“terrorist” acts—throughout the Middle East, and very likely was indirectly
(maybe directly) responsible for the deaths of dozens of Americans in the
region, at least if we can
believe our discredited intelligence agencies (it’s ironic that most of those
who rightly indict these agencies for their anti-constitutional attempts to
“take out” President Trump, now enthusiastically embrace the assessments of
those very same agencies when it comes to Iran).
And now the Iranians have reacted directly by firing
ground-to-ground missiles aimed at Iraqi army bases; from reports no Americans,
military or civilian, were killed or injured in these attacks. That may or may
not indicate a particular strategic calculation on the part of the Iranians.
Indeed, if this should be the only major response
to Soleimani’s death it may—underline “may”—indicate an implicit desire to
lower the level of high stakes hostilities…and a realization that the United
States under President Trump is unlike previous American administrations. After
all, Soleimani was arguably the most powerful and most significant military
leader in Iran; the Iranians, given his death, had to react. As our leaders
recognized, that was certain, and the attacks by the Iranians did not come as a
surprise.
But now that this is done, multiple questions arise.
Watching “Fox & Friends” this morning there appeared former
Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and newscaster Brian Kilmeade, all
a-twitter—almost in a frenzy—talking about “regime change” in Iran, about a
“future strategy” to “take out” the regime in Tehran, about a Middle East
strategy of total American involvement which takes hardly any account of the
fall of Soviet Russia or the sorry record of repeated American disaster in that
region of the world (e.g. Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Egypt, etc.).
President Trump ran for office on a platform of strategic
disengagement from many areas of the world, the draw-down of American troops,
including from the immense and complex quagmire of the Fertile Crescent.
The fall of Communism in late 1991 as a world threat radically
altered global politics. Winston Churchill once described Soviet Russia as
“a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma”; if that was the case
with Communist Russia, it certainly describes tenfold the situation in places
like Iraq or Syria.
Arguably, when we were
dependent on Persian Gulf oil and were facing Soviet expansionism—when we
feared the emergence of Soviet power as a hegemon in the area—a position of
massive involvement was at least intellectually debatable. It is, however, no
longer tenable and no longer in the interest of the United States or, a “Make
America Great Again” policy.
The major challenge that
President Trump confronts is, in fact, that many of the foreign policy advisers
he has surrounded himself with are persons—Neoconservatives—with views
diametrically opposite to the vision he enunciated during the 2016 campaign and
won him the presidency. Those individuals—echoing the sentiments of Gingrich and
Kilmeade—are positively giddy over the prospect of a shooting war with Iran.
Remember the late unlamented John McCain’s little ditty caught on a microphone:
“Bomb, bomb, bomb…bomb, bomb Iran” (set to popular rock tune “Barbara Ann”)?
Recall the threats and designs to assert “American suzerainty” over the entire
region? And the pink elephant in the room that almost no one talks about:
defending Israel’s right flank against Iranian-supported terror attacks, mostly
from Hezbollah in Lebanon? (Israel can take care of itself.)
But American interests in this case do not coincide with the
interests of either Israel or with the Neocons policy wonks who zealously
continue to push what they call “democratic regime change” (at the price of
thousands of dead Americans). Since 1991 that has been attempted too many times
with horrendous results. It is not in the interest of the United States.
No; we have made our point in Iraq. We need now to find a way to
withdraw our troops from that nation whose parliament just asked us to leave
(Iraq is, after all, a sovereign nation). Our invasion and toppling of Saddam
Hussein in 2003, while presented as necessary by the G. H. W. Bush
administration was a tragic mistake, based on faulty and contrived
intelligence. Yes, he was a cruel dictator, but he was a Sunni Muslim (who
favored Iraq’s large Christian population) and a staunch opponent of Iran. What
we “achieved” by that invasion was rule by a fanatical Shi’a majority,
favorable to Iran…just the reverse that those think-tank ensconced Neocon
“experts” and advisers promised us. And with dozens of body bags on their way
back to American shores.
Let us hope that America
will now finally come to its senses. Let us pray that President Trump will
honor his campaign promises. We do not seek regime change; we seek
to make America great.
We don’t have to prove how strong we are—under this president others know it.
Time to lower the volume, time to—through third parties, if
possible—once again go to the table, maybe not right away, but within the year.
Yes, Iran is a bad negotiating partner. But a first good step would be if we
were to announce that we were exiting Syria and Iraq, not with our tails tucked
in behind us, but because it does not serve our strategic interest. Not for
political reasons—as witness the hysterical (and bogus) response by
Democrats—but for national strategic reasons. In other words: to live up to the
slogan—“Make America Great
Again.”
*****
Pat Buchanan column which addresses some
of these issues.
Reprinted from My
Corner by Boyd Cathey.