The Democrats’ anger at President Trump’s successful strike against Soleimani has led them to say, in effect, “Sure, he was a bad guy, but he wasn’t being a bad guy at the precise moment Trump ordered the hit that will start WWIII.” This is wrong at so many levels.

Thomas Friedman exemplifies the Leftist mindset, writing that Soleimani should have been spared because he was a liability to Iran:

One day they may name a street after President Trump in Tehran. Why? Because Trump just ordered the assassination of possibly the dumbest man in Iran and the most overrated strategist in the Middle East: Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani.

Think of the miscalculations this guy made. In 2015, the United States and the major European powers agreed to lift virtually all their sanctions on Iran, many dating back to 1979, in return for Iran halting its nuclear weapons program for a mere 15 years, but still maintaining the right to have a peaceful nuclear program. It was a great deal for Iran. Its economy grew by over 12 percent the next year. And what did Suleimani do with that windfall?

He and Iran’s supreme leader launched an aggressive regional imperial project that made Iran and its proxies the de facto controlling power in Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad and Sana. This freaked out U.S. allies in the Sunni Arab world and Israel — and they pressed the Trump administration to respond.

Friedman essentially argues that Soleimani should have been allowed to pile up American and Middle Eastern bodies because, while his tactics were good, his strategy was bad. Likewise, Wellington probably shouldn’t have shown up at Waterloo, because Napoleon was never going to prevail in his second attempt at world domination.

Derek Hunter caught Nancy Pelosi making the same calculation about Soleimani being bad, but not that bad. Speaking about those Democrats lamenting that it would have been better to let Soleimani run his course, Hunter wrote:

Nancy Pelosi seems to think so, saying the killing “risks provoking further dangerous escalation of violence.” That implies that to her and Democrats there is an acceptable level of killing Americans by foreign powers. “Fine, you can kill 50-75 Americans per year, but don’t go too far beyond that or we might issue a scathing statement and start a hashtag against you, depending on who the president is” is not a foreign policy strategy.

Secretary of State Pompeo sought to block this line of thinking when he appeared Friday night on the Sean Hannity show, saying Soleimani was not a spent force but was planning to escalate in spectacular fashion:

Soleimani, the terrorist, was engaged in active plotting. There was an attack that was imminent that could have killed dozens or hundreds of Americans. We found an opportunity and we delivered.

[snip]

He was traveling the region when he landed in Baghdad. The travels before that put him in places all around the region, which were aimed solely at building out what they were referring to as the big attack. They were aiming to take down significant amounts of Americans. It would’ve undoubtedly killed locals too. Iraqis, Lebanese, Syrians, perhaps, people all throughout the region. This was an attack that would have been to some scale.

The anti-Trump media could not let that narrative stand. Relying on leaks, Rukmini Callimachi, of the New York Times, tweeted that the Trump administration was exaggerating the risks Soleimani presented:

1. I’ve had a chance to check in with sources, including two US officials who had intelligence briefings after the strike on Suleimani. Here is what I’ve learned. According to them, the evidence suggesting there was to be an imminent attack on American targets is “razor thin”.

— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) January 4, 2020

The whole thread reveals, though, that “razor thin” is an opinion, not a fact. What Suleimani was doing – and what Callimachi dismisses as “business as usual” -- was working with proxies throughout the Middle East to kill Americans:

2. In fact the evidence pointing to that came as three discrete facts: a) A pattern of travel showing Suleimani was in Syria, Lebanon & Iraq to meet with Shia proxies known to have an offensive position to the US. (As one source said that’s just “business as usual” for Suleimani)

— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) January 4, 2020

Additionally, Suleimani’s upcoming plan was so big it needed approval from Tehran:

3. More intriguing was b) information indicating Suleimani sought the Supreme Leader’s approval for an operation. He was told to come to Tehran for consultation and further guidance, suggesting the operation was a big deal - but again this could be anything.

— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) January 4, 2020

Soleimani’s escalation in December also indicated that he had big plans to kill Americans:

4. And finally, a) and b) were read in the context of c) Iran’s increasingly bellicose position towards American interests in Iraq, including the attack that killed a U.S. contractor and the recent protest outside the American embassy.

— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) January 4, 2020

Still, Callimachi “sources” thought that these plans were not big enough to justify killing a legitimate military target engaged in a hot war against the U.S.:

5. But as one source put it a) b) c) is hardly evidence of an imminent attack on American interests that could kill hundreds, as the White House has since claimed. The official describes the reading of the intelligence as an illogical leap.

— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) January 4, 2020

With news of Soleimani escalation, Trump received a range of proposed reponses, with “kill this maniac” at the bottom of the list:

6. One official described the planning for the strike as chaotic. The official says that following the attack on an Iraqi base which killed an American contractor circa Dec. 27, Trump was presented a menu of options for how to retaliate. Killing Suleimani was the “far out option”

— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) January 4, 2020

In several more tweets in the same thread, Callimachi’s sources told her that Trump, who is not the war monger the Left insists he is, first tried a light response, which led to Soleimani’s attack on American soil (i.e., a U.S. embassy). Trump therefore decided it was time to remove Soleimani entirely. Military intelligence successfully located Soleimani and rapidly put together the plan that killed Soleimani and al-Muhandis.

Some might call the whole operation a success, but that’s not the Democrat way. In her remaining tweets in the same thread, Callimachi reports on all the bad things Iran might do to Americans – as if Iran has not already been doing bad things to Americans.

For the final word on Democrats’ preference for letting American troops die rather than stand up to Iran’s 42 years of warfare, Susan Rice waffled on about what Obama’s administration would have done if had received the same intelligence:

Had we been presented with such an opportunity what we would have done is weighed, very carefully and very deliberately, the risks versus the potential rewards. We would have assessed all of the ways in which this could have enhanced our security and degraded our security and I think that what – judging from what I know and what we're likely to see I think that the real reason to believe that in all likelihood that the benefits will be outweighed by the risks," she said. "And we also would have taken all sorts of time and effort to prepare to ensure that our personnel, diplomatic and military, in the region were protected against the likelihood of Iranian retaliation.

Aside from turning a military decision into a bureaucratic slow-mo spectacle, the above is a lie. In 2015, when Israel reported to the Obama administration that it had an opportunity to kill Soleimani, the administration skipped the bureaucratic dance Rice describes and tattled to Iran instead.

For Democrats, no threat is ever imminent enough. Notwithstanding their official anti-war stance, they’re always all right with more American troops dying, as long as they do so in small batches.