Andrea Widburg When President Trump ordered the military to strike Qassem Soleimani, a legitimate military target responsible for the deaths of hundreds of troops, Democrats were up in arms. How dare Trump bait the Iranians by striking someone so close to Ayatollah Khamenei? They were certain that Trump had just ignited World War III.
"Republicans were more confident that the strike would, at the very least, remove a dangerous character from the Iranians' forty-year-long war against America and, at the best, topple the regime. This last belief was based upon the fact that the Iranian regime is fragile now that Trump walked away from Obama’s terrible Iran Plan and reinstated sanctions. The economy is collapsing and people all over Iran are coming out in protest. After forty years of a repressive theocracy, the Persian people, a people accustomed to beauty and life, have had their fill of Islam's cruel puritanism.
"Michael Ledeen, an experienced foreign policy observer, thinks that the Republicans may have been correct because there are strange doings in Iran – all good if one wants to see that abysmal regime collapse: . . .
Soleimani, despite being truly evil, was also a very gifted general. This means that the vacuum his death creates forces Iran to retrench, rather than continuing its push into the greater Middle East. This retrenchment matters because the Iranian people, according to Banafsheh Zand and Harold Rhode, two Iran experts, are very sensitive to trends. If they see that the Mullahs are weak, they will push harder against the regime: . . .
Trump team’s Iran strategy – Pompeo lays out ‘confront and contain’ vs underwrite and appease
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"Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave new insight on Tuesday morning on what’s been sorely missing in the US-Iran confrontation: the US strategy.
“ 'We put Iran in a place it’s never been before,” Pompeo said.
The Obama administration chose to underwrite and appease. “We chose to confront and contain,” Pompeo said. What a contrast.
"Confront and contain. Seen in this light, the strike on Soleimani marks a new tactical step. Both the strike and the recent military deployments fit a much bigger, active U.S. strategy. That strategy is now using military forces to put the lid on Iran’s terror “Axis of Resistance” across the Middle East and to counter Iran’s escalations.
"The goal is to box in Iran. Striking Soleimani was a huge part of this move. Iran had trained between 75,000 and 145,000 Iraqi paramilitary forces for Soleimani to use at will. Removing Soleimani’s leadership sets back those plans.
"Pompeo’s remarks Tuesday further indicated the U.S. is willing to constrain Iran in other ways.
“ 'Iran will not get a nuclear weapon,” Pompeo pledged. …
"Pompeo also revealed that economic pressure is working. Iran has a bad budget shortfall and is struggling to figure out how to make it through 2020, according to Pompeo." . . .
Unhappy campers on the left want to put a stop to this and bring back an Obama foreign policy.
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