RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/iranian-analytics/

For all the current furor over the death of Qasem Soleimani, it is Iran, not the U.S. and the Trump administration, that is in a dilemma. Given the death and destruction wrought by Soleimani, and his agendas to come, he will not be missed.

Tehran has misjudged the U.S. administration’s doctrine of strategic realism rather than vice versa. The theocracy apparently calculated that prior U.S. patience and restraint in the face of its aggression was proof of an unwillingness or inability to respond. More likely, the administration was earlier prepping for a possible more dramatic, deadly, and politically justifiable response when and if Iran soon overreached.

To retain domestic and foreign credibility, Iran would now like to escalate in hopes of creating some sort of U.S. quagmire comparable to Afghanistan, or, more germanely, to a long Serbian-like bombing campaign mess, or the ennui that eventually overtook the endless no-fly zones over Iraq, or the creepy misadventure in Libya, or even something like an enervating 1979-80 hostage situation. The history of the strategies of our Middle East opponents has always been to lure us into situations that have no strategic endgame, do not play to U.S. strengths in firepower, are costly without a time limit, and create Vietnam War–like tensions at home.

But those wished-for landscapes are not what Iran has got itself into. Trump, after showing patience and restraint to prior Iranian escalations, can respond to Iranian tit-for-tat without getting near Iran, without commitments to any formal campaign, and without seeming to be a provocateur itching for war, but in theory doing a lot more damage to an already damaged Iranian economy either through drones, missiles, and bombing, or even more sanctions and boycotts to come. If Iran turns to terrorism and cyber-attacks, it would likely only lose more political support and risk airborne responses to its infrastructure at home.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15300/germany-middle-eastern-criminal-clans

“For decades, police turned a blind eye to extended criminal families, in part to avoid being accused of racial discrimination. This has made the present-day challenge all the more difficult as clan structures have solidified, parallel societies have formed, and the enemy has grown.” — Deutsche Welle, February 3, 2019.

“There are now half a million people across Germany who belong to a clan…. Clans behave in their German surroundings as if they were tribes in the desert. Everything outside the clan is enemy territory and available for plunder”. — Ralph Ghadban, a Lebanese-German political scientist and a leading expert on clans in Germany; The German Times, October 2019.

“It is known that the Osmanen Germania gang has received financial assistance from Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development (AKP) party. The gang has essentially functioned as [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan’s armed wing in Germany.” — Sebastian Fiedler, head of the Association of German Criminal Investigators.

The clans see the state as, “an object of ridicule, a target for exploitation” — Falko Liecke, Neukölln’s deputy district mayor and district councilor for youth and health. The German Times, October 2019.

In a recently aired documentary by German broadcaster ARD, about Germany’s Middle Eastern criminal family gangs — or clans, as they are called in Germany — the head of Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Agency (BKA) Holger Münch, said “In about one-third of proceedings, suspects also included immigrants — and that means that we need to keep a very close eye on this phenomenon”.

Münch seems to have been referring to the fact that migrants who arrived in Germany from Syria, Iraq and other countries during the migrant crisis in 2015-16 are now starting to compete with Germany’s long-established criminal family gangs whose original founders arrived in Germany from Lebanon in the late 1970s during Lebanon’s civil war.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/justice-arrives-for-soleimani-11578085286?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

“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.”

For a generation, Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani bestrode the Middle East spreading terror and death. President Trump’s decision to order the general’s death via drone attack in Baghdad Thursday night is a great boon for the region. It is also belated justice for the hundreds of Americans whom Soleimani had a hand in killing.

One reason the U.S. could track and kill Soleimani near Baghdad International Airport was the impunity he had cultivated. The general often appeared in public, especially in Syria and Iraq, as he sought to build Shiite militias and spread Iranian influence. He was killed with Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes, an Iraqi-Iranian militia leader who had met Soleimani at the airport and was outside the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad this week during an assault that Soleimani had approved.

Soleimani arrived in Baghdad with “plans to attack American diplomats and service members,” the Pentagon said in a statement. Mr. Trump’s critics are demanding to see the evidence of such plans. But why does it matter? Soleimani has killed enough Americans over the years to justify the strike as a defensive act to deter other attacks and send a message that killing Americans won’t be tolerated.

https://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2020/01/03/after_soleimani_confronting_irans_dangerous_regime_211888.html

News reports say Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the powerful commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, was killed Thursday in a rocket attack near Baghdad Airport. U.S. officials have been tight-lipped about the operation, but the speed and precision of the strike clearly point to American forces.

It is hard to overstate the importance of the news, mainly because Soleimani was so important to Iran’s regional power. He reported directly to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. As head of the Quds Force, Soleimani led proxy militias in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, and he worked hand-in-glove with Hezbollah in Lebanon and with Islamist forces in Gaza. Soleimani was far more than a field general. He was a major architect of Tehran’s arc of influence, which stretches from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean. He met directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss the actions of their countries’ forces in Syria. He was behind a foiled plot to kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador in a restaurant in Washington, D.C. When Iran-backed militias attacked the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, their graffiti proclaimed Soleimani as their leader.

Iran will not let his death go unanswered. His loss is simply too important. But their retaliation, if it is large and provocative enough, could force yet another strike from Washington, raising the grim possibility of tit-for-tat escalation with unpredictable consequences and no sure end.

Neither Tehran nor Washington wants a full-scale war, but both sides have been ratcheting up the pressure since U.S. President Donald Trump led America out of the multilateral agreement on Iran’s nuclear program and began to impose harsh economic sanctions. Those sanctions have done more than cripple the Iranian economy. They have endangered the regime itself, sparking widespread demonstrations even in areas that were once loyal to the Mullahs.