Donald Trump has gone where Barack Obama and George W. Bush shied away from in ordering the strike that killed General Qassem Soleimani, who for years has been the notorious mastermind behind Iran’s terrorist onslaught across the Middle East and beyond. Mr Obama and Mr Bush both concluded that assassinating the commander of Tehran’s deadly Quds Force could lead to all-out war between the US and Iran. But given the dangerous pace at which Iran has been escalating its malevolent activities in Iraq and against Israel in recent weeks, Mr Trump had good reason to order his removal from the scene.
The siege of the US embassy in Baghdad by Iraqi Shia militia forces trained, armed and orchestrated by General Soleimani’s Quds Force put the lives of US diplomats and officials at grave risk. It threatened a replay of the siege of the US embassy in Tehran 40 years ago that crippled Jimmy Carter’s presidency. The Baghdad siege was preceded by an attack by Iranian-backed Kataeb Hezbollah militia forces on a military base in Kirkuk that killed a US contractor and sparked a spiral of violence, including US airstrikes against Iranian-backed militia bases in Iraq and Syria.
General Soleimani’s thumbprints were, as they have been for years, all over the outrageous attempts to impose Iranian control over Iraq, just as they have been over every attack by Shia militia and other terrorist forces across the region. With good reason General David Petraeus, the former US commander in Iraq and Afghanistan and CIA director, described him as “a truly evil figure”.
Read the editorial in The Australian.