« Democrats are getting worried that Bernie might win the primaries | In 2020, the United Methodist Church will formally divorce over gay marriage »
January 4, 2020

Historic amnesia plagues Progressives about Iran's ongoing war against America

By Andrea Widburg

We know that Progressives were horrified that President Trump ordered a military strike against an Iranian general who masterminded some of Iran's most heinous attacks against American troops.  They think it's not cricket for America to kill its military enemies.

For that reason, a consistent theme from Progressives is that Trump has plunged us into war.  Even those who should know better keep saying that.

Ilhan Omar, whose fealty is disconnected from American interests, insisted that Trump is leading America into war to distract from his domestic troubles:

 

 

Bakari Sellers, a South Carolina Democrat, also saw Trump starting a war:

Andrea Mitchell, who's been on NBC since the Jurassic period, saw war, too:

Brett McGurk, an Obama-era diplomat, sees war in the offing as well:

And there's Tim Kaine, the vice president we so narrowly avoided having:

 

All of the above pronouncements ignore reality.  Since 1979, when Iranian revolutionaries stormed the American embassy in Tehran, Iran's constant refrain has been "Death to America."  Nor has this been an abstract chant.

Over the decades, through proxies in hot wars and endless terrorist attacks, Iranians have killed and wounded thousands of American troops and hundreds of thousands of civilians throughout the Middle East.  That's called war.

Thanks to craven politicians (except for Reagan, who at least briefly wiped out half the Iranian navy), it's been a very asymmetrical war, with Iran killing us while we keep saying, "No, it's okay.  We can take it."  But it's still been a war.

While one expects ignorance from partisans and hacks, the strangest example of "this means war" comes from Robin Wright, who wrote a New Yorker article that carefully details Iran's endless acts of war around the world, many under Soleimani's command and many aimed directly at America — and then still accuses Trump of doing something "tantamount to an act of war."

Early on, Wright shows a peculiar admiration for Soleimani:

Suleimani, a flamboyant former construction worker and bodybuilder with snowy white hair, a dapper beard, and arching salt-and-pepper eyebrows, gained notice during the eight-year war with Iraq, in the nineteen eighties. He rose through the Revolutionary Guard to become head of the Quds Force — an Iranian unit of commandos comparable to the U.S. seals, Delta Force, and Rangers combined — in 1998. He was the most feared and most admired military leader in the region. He famously rallied followers with flowery jihadi rhetoric about the glories of martyrdom. "The war front is mankind's lost paradise," Suleimani was quoted as saying, in 2009. "One type of paradise that is portrayed for mankind is streams, beautiful nymphs and greeneries. But there is another kind of paradise." The front, he said, was "the lost paradise of the human beings." Thousands of followers died under his leadership.

Still, Wright's not blind to the way Soleimani and his Quds Force sowed death and despair throughout the Middle East:

Over more than two decades, Suleimani, a Shiite, had more impact than the leaders of either Al Qaeda or isis, which are both Sunni movements, in shaping the face of the Middle East. To counter U.S. influence in Iraq between 2003 and 2011, he provided Iraqi militants with rockets, bombs, and explosively formed projectiles that could slice through the armor of an American M1 tank. "He has the blood of hundreds of Americans on his hands," Petraeus said. The United States designated the Quds Force as a supporter of terrorism, in 2007, and Suleimani was personally sanctioned for complicity in a plot to kill the Saudi Ambassador to the United States, in 2011. That same year, he spearheaded a campaign, now in its ninth year, to save President Bashar al-Assad's regime after civil war erupted in Syria. Suleimani also channelled arms and aid to Hezbollah in Lebanon, orchestrating its franchise operations in other Middle Eastern countries, and aided Houthi rebels in Yemen. He cultivated militia proxies in Pakistan and Afghanistan, thousands of whose members were deployed to fight in Syria.

It's obvious that Soleimani wasn't a lone wolf or an NGO.  He acted on Iran's behalf and made war against everyone, including America.  Iran has openly been engaged in a hot war with America since 1979.  Knowing this, staring at those facts and many more, how in the world can Wright then place on Trump's shoulders the burden of "starting a war"?

Was the U.S. attack an act of war? Douglas Silliman, who was the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq until last winter and is now the president of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, told me that the death of Suleimani was the equivalent of Iran killing the commander of U.S. military operations in the Middle East and South Asia. "If Iran had killed the commander of U.S. Central Command, what would we consider it to be?" he said. John Limbert, one of fifty-two Americans who were taken hostage in Iran in 1979, told me that he was happy Suleimani was gone, but quickly added, "This is not going to end well."

The relevant facts are that Soleimani, an official military leader in Iran who's been engaged in a hot war against the U.S. for decades, who orchestrated an attack on American soil (the Baghdad embassy), and who was illegally in Iraq, was granted his devout wish to become a dead jihadist.  Trump was right when he said, simply, "We took action last night to stop a war; we did not take action to start a war."

 

 

If you experience technical problems, please write to helpdesk@americanthinker.com