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The assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike ordered by President Donald Trump is likely to be viewed by historians as a catalyst comparable to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

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On June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was assassinated by Serbian conspirators seeking the secession of Slavs from his realm. Austria-Hungry responded by issuing an ultimatum to Serbia and, shortly thereafter, declaring war on the Slavic kingdom. An 1892 French alliance forged with Czarist Russia mandated mobilization in the event of military action by any members of the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. Consequently, the assassination of Franz Ferdinand set off a chain reaction that, in very short order, plunged Europe into the inhuman hell of the First World War. The assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike ordered by President Donald Trump on January 2, 2020, is likely to be viewed by historians, in hindsight, as a comparable catalyst – albeit one with even more catastrophic consequences.

Even an American assassination of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would not have triggered the kind of retaliation that everyone ought to expect from Iran and its proxies in the coming days.

General Soleimani (age sixty-two) was leader of Iran’s Qods Force, the elite expeditionary wing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). “Haj Qassem” was from a poor peasant family in the Kerman province of Iran. He spent his youth as a construction worker paying off his father’s debts. A decorated veteran of the Iran-Iraq War who – in his rare interviews – wistfully spoke of wanting to be martyred so that he could rejoin his friends and fallen comrades, Soleimani refused to wear body armor or even a bullet proof vest when commanding the Qods Force in its numerous battles against ISIL and other Sunni Islamist fighters in Iraq and Syria. Although renowned for his humility, in December of 2017, Soleimani refused to even open a letter from the chief of the CIA that was hand delivered to him. It was around then that Time magazine named Soleimani among the top 100 most influential figures in the world, describing him as the “James Bond” and “Erwin Rommel” of “Middle Eastern Shi’ites.”1 Foreign Policy named him as among the most influential “Global Thinkers” and “the most powerful general in the Middle East today.2

In the wake of his assassination, General Soleimani has been characterized as the second most powerful man in the Islamic Republic of Iran. However, the truth is that even an American assassination of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would not have triggered the kind of retaliation that everyone ought to expect from Iran and its proxies in the coming days. Unlike the Supreme Leader, General Soleimani was widely viewed as a national hero by Iranians across the political spectrum. Even those patriots most vehemently opposed to the Islamic ideology of Iran’s current regime harbored in their hearts a sneaking admiration for “Sardar Soleimani.” His martyrdom is likely to accomplish what could barely be conceived as the consequence of the death of any other Iranian leader: the solidarity of hitherto embattled and embittered religious and nationalist factions against foreign aggression.

The reaction outside of Iran is likely to be even more vehement. After the American toppling of Saddam Hussein and the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 opened a vacuum of power in the Middle East that was quickly filled by the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), it was Soleimani who led the Arab Shi’ite resistance against ISIL in Iraq and Syria. He played a key role in the unification of Iraqi Shi’ite militias into the umbrella organization Hashd al-Shaabi or the “Popular Mobilization Forces.” The group’s leader, Abu-Mahdi Al-Muhandis, was riding in the same vehicle with Soleimani near Baghdad airport when the two of them were killed by Trump’s drone strike. It was Hashd al-Shaabi who had organized the protests against the continued American occupation of Iraq outside the US Embassy in Baghdad on December 31, 2019, which President Trump has used as a casus belli for assassinating Soleimani and Muhandis.

When President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton emboldened the nascent Caliphate by destabilizing Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, Soleimani’s reach also deepened from Baghdad to Damascus. He has worked closely with the Lebanese Hezbollah, who admire him as ardently as the Arab fighters that he commanded in Iraq and Syria. Indeed, the first significant response to Soleimani’s assassination has been a declaration from the Hezbollah militia that it intends to retaliate by attacking all American bases in the region. Israel has gone into full war-preparedness in response to this threat. It is an open secret that the Israelis had more than one opportunity to assassinate Soleimani while he was operating in Syria, but were warned against doing so by US military and intelligence officials who fathomed the catastrophic escalation that would ensue from this act of war. For the same reasons, Trump’s order is already being widely criticized by geopolitical analysts and condemned by some members of the US congress.

The latter should be hardly surprised that their exclusive constitutional power to declare war has been undermined. This is exactly the kind of thing that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s April 8, 2019 designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organization was intended to facilitate. Under the 2001 Authorization of the Use of Military Force in the Global War on Terrorism passed by Congress after 9/11, the President of the United States is invested with the authority to strike “terrorists” anywhere at any time. Never mind that fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers were Saudis acting with the backing of elites within the regime of Saudi Arabia, America’s closest Muslim ally – and Iran’s greatest regional adversary. Never mind that, in the wake of 9/11, General Soleimani was among the Iranian officials who clandestinely volunteered to collaborate with the United States in military operations against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Never mind that Iran rescinded that good will offer only after America intended to colonize Iraq, a region that served as the capital district of Iran for over a thousand years during three successive Persian Empires. Baghdad or Bogh-Dâd is an ancient Persian name, meaning “Given by God” or “God’s Justice.” Even after the advent of Islam, most of “Iraq” was part of Shi’ite Iran until around 1750.

Trump’s order is already being widely criticized by geopolitical analysts and condemned by some members of the US congress.

An Iranian flag is likely to be flying over that originally Persian city again in the very near future. The fact that the protesters at the US Embassy in Baghdad were able to make their way through numerous checkpoints and into the heart of the supposedly secure “green zone” established by American colonizers attests to the depth and breadth of Iranian influence within Iraq’s government. Hashd al-Shaabi, the militia coalition who organized the protests, consists of Iraqi Shi’ites so devout that during the Iran-Iraq war they defected to Iran’s side and fought for the Islamic Republic against Saddam Hussein. The majority of the Shi’ite dominated Iraqi government that was democratically elected after the US overthrow of Saddam in 2003 consists of Iraqi politicians who spent the 1980s and 1990s living under political asylum in Iran and forging close working relationships with Iran’s theocratic elite. Much of this Iranian theocratic elite, in turn, was born or raised in Shi’ite holy cities such as Najaf and Karbala that are situated in the artificial nation-state of “Iraq.”

Just a week before the assassination of Soleimani and Muhandis, the December 27 issue of Newsweek ran a dramatic cover story titled “If Iran Falls, ISIS May Rise Again.”3 The article rightly identifies Iran as the leading force resisting the rise of the would-be Sunni fundamentalist Caliphate. What Newsweek does not dare to admit is that ISIS – or DAESH as I prefer to call it (out of respect for the ancient Egyptian goddess) – was effectively created, armed, and funded by the United States and its chief regional ally, Saudi Arabia. This Frankenstein’s monster of the American military-industrial complex not only carried out a genocide of ethnic and religious minorities in Iraq and Syria, DAESH also attempted to erase the Pre-Islamic Iranian artistic and architectural heritage by smashing, drilling, and dynamiting “pagan” monuments in Nineveh, Mosul, and Palmyra – cities that had been part of the Achaemenid, Parthian, and Sassanian Empires of Iran. Far from the grotesque caricature promulgated in American media, the Shi’ite militias effectively led by Soleimani and Muhandis in Iraq were not simply fanatical sectarian groups. Hashd al-Shaabi included Arab Christians and even Yezidi Kurds, and General Soleimani repeatedly rescued the Kurds of northern Iraq (who are ethnically Iranian) from genocidal DAESH oppression, regardless of whether they were Sunnis, Shi’ites, or even “Satanist” Yezidis.

The Newsweek article is on point when it concludes that an American-led attempt to effect regime change by toppling the Islamic Republic would not only cripple the main force of resistance to DAESH, allowing the Caliphate to rise again, but that it would also open the way for DAESH operations inside of an increasingly balkanized Iran. Sunni minorities in the Khuzestan (or as these Arabs call it “Al-Ahwaz”), Kurdistan, and Baluchistan regions on Iran’s Western and Southeastern borders would attempt secession from “Persia” and turn their territories into havens for Sunni terrorists.

This will prove, in both blood and treasure, to be the most costly war that Americans have ever waged in the short history of the United States.

The more militantly anti-Persian elements within these minorities have long been the favorites of Neocon advocates for regime change in Iran, such as former US National Security Advisor John Bolton. Despite Bolton’s dismissal, they played a significant role in fomenting the violent riots that rocked Iran in mid to late November of 2019. These insurgents hijacked protests by up to 200,000 Iranians against an increase in fuel prices (or a cut in state subsidies for gasoline), which measure was meant to save the Iranian economy in the face of Trump’s crippling sanctions. By the time the regime put out the fires, 731 banks and 140 government buildings had been destroyed by arsonists. Of the 1,500 protesters killed, many were fired on by suspiciously clad agent provocateurs or hidden snipers. The Islamist-Marxist People’s Mojahedin of Iran, for whom John Bolton was a lobbyist, admitted to its role in the riots, but armed Sunni insurgents undoubtedly also played a significant role. Government officials intercepted numerous caches of armaments being smuggled into the country in order to bring about a “Syrianization” of Iran. But Iran is not another Syria, let alone another Iraq.

“Iraq” and “Syria” are, like most of the countries in the Islamic World, totally artificial states engineered by European colonialists. Iran is a cohesive 3,000 year old nation that has dominated the Middle East and Central Asia during the course of four Persian Empires, with the first of them being founded around 500 BC by the Achaemenids and the latest of them rising in 1500 AD under the Safavids. The last of these empires, Safavid Iran, fused Iranian national identity with Shi’ite spirituality in a way that cemented Iran’s role within the region as the bastion of resistance against the Caliphate concept of Sunni Muslims – a role that Iran began to play in earnest when, in the twelfth century, the Order of Assassins fought the Caliphate while simultaneously defending their territories – including those in present-day “Iraq” and “Syria” against the Western Crusaders.

The Islamic Republic of Iran would be far more resilient in the face of an armed regime-change effort than Bashar al-Assad of Syria. Assad himself is nothing more than a client of Iran. The so-called Iranian “opposition” consists of a variety of factions afflicted with rabid infighting, lacking in legitimacy, organization, competence, and vision. Most of them are outright traitors. Those who are advocates of the balkanization of Iran are on the payroll of the CIA, the MOSSAD, or the Saudis, all of whom want to carve a neutered rump state of “Persia” out of the mutilated corpse of any Iranian nation that is capable of resisting Neoliberalism, Zionism, and Wahabism.

The Iranian drone strikes that incapacitated half of Saudi oil production on September 14, 2019, for which Iran’s Shi’ite proxy in Yemen was willing to take responsibility, is just a hint of what Iran could unleash throughout the Islamic World if it were to face an existential threat. No man embodied and epitomized the transnational and extra-territorial reach of Iran throughout the Shi’ite regions of the Islamic World more than General Qassem Soleimani. By assassinating Haj Qassem, Trump has declared war, not only on Iran, but also on Shi’ite Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. As in the case of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, this act of war is likely to catalyze an international conflict that will eventually become global in its scope of destruction. It is that crucible or fiery forge that allows the euphemistically veiled “Global War on Terrorism” to reveal its true form as the Third World War. This will prove, in both blood and treasure, to be the most costly war that Americans have ever waged in the short history of the United States. It may even prove to be for the United States what the invasion of Afghanistan was for the Soviet Union – a harbinger of doom, terminal decline, and disintegration. I wager that on the other side of this war, the proud Persian people will still be standing in defiant defense of their 3,000 year old civilization.

References

1Kenneth M. Pollack, “Major General Qasem Soleimani,” Time.

2Stanley McChrystal, “Iran’s Deadly Puppet Master,” Foreign Policy. Winter 2019.

3Tom O’Connor, “If Iran Falls, ISIS May Rise Again,” Newsweek. December 10, 2019.

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Dr. Jason Reza Jorjani

Jason Reza Jorjani, PhD, received his BA and MA at New York University, and completed his doctorate in Philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Dr. Jorjani has taught courses on Science, Technology, and Society (STS), the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, and the history of Iran as a full-time faculty member at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Earlier he taught Comparative Religion, Ethics, Political Theory, and the History of Philosophy at the State University of New York. He is a professional member of the Society for Scientific Exploration (SSE). He is the author of Novel Folklore, Lovers of Sophia, World State of Emergency, Iranian Leviathan, and Prometheus and Atlas, which won the 2016 Book Award from the Parapsychological Association, and Iranian Leviathan. His website is jasonrezajorjani.com.

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Twin Ruler
Twin Ruler
4 years ago

What the Nazis did to the Jews, the US Military is doing to the Muslims of the Middle East. Still, Americans tend to rationalize to themselves that it is all on behalf of The State of Israel (which they associate with Jews). In this way, they can tell themselves that what they are doing is the opposite of The Holocaust. For it is all supposedly on behalf of the Jews. See how cunning Americans are?

The US Military may not exactly have Gas Chambers. Still, they are endeavoring to exterminate off as many Muslims as possible.

clyde ward
clyde ward
4 years ago

After the USSR fell, everyone wondered “what next?” I guess this is it!
America is the last empire left from the world wars (2 hot, one cold) and we’re headed in the same direction.
The “self determination of all peoples” has become a reality but I don’t think our political elites really understand that “freedom” actually means that they lose control: “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”
The trend is a world that has become ever more chaotic and dangerous since Hiroshima and the collapse of the Eurasian Empires than it ever was in 1914 and that trend will continue, I think, even with separatists movements within the U.S.
Trump will back the Democrats in Richmond VA against the 2nd Amendment Sanctuary counties, for example, but that will start a greater political upheaval, when today’s warmongering conservatives realize they’ve been cucked and Congress and the courts are useless. There are other nascent separatists movements.
Imagine, Trump ending as a “mayor of Kabul” sort by 2024 with our enemies supporting proxies here as we have elsewhere?
Is that possible?

Asclepius
4 years ago

Michael,

I agree. While I admire Jason’s writings about the history of Persia, he has been grossly misinformed (MOS?) about Trump and his intentions RE Iran. Trump wants to free the Iranian people from the radical Shiite authoritarians.

Evidence is mounting that Qassem Soleimani was turned over to the white hats in US military intelligence by his rivals in Tehran.

According to confidential sources inside Iran, on the night of January 6th, 56 high-ranking IRGC officers, including the late Qods Force commander General Soleimani’s right-hand man in Iraq, were arrested. A further 34 IRGC officers were detained on the 8th. And then today, Afghanistan outed Soleimani’s IRGC replacement as a rogue fraud.

If you recall from November 2017, the exact same thing happened in Saudi Arabia. The CIA deep state spies in these countries are being systematically arrested and removed from power.

We should be encouraging our friends in Iran to pursue their freedom, not terrorize them with predictions of war based on the ill intent of neocons who are obviously no longer in power in the US government. Indeed, a new sheriff is in town and Iran has a bright future if they only take the opportunity to create it with their God given free will (hint, hint). Remember Jason, the future is what we make of it.

Charles
Charles
4 years ago
Reply to  Asclepius

This sounds like some Qanon idiocy. “Confidential sources” huh?

Michael Kuehl
Michael Kuehl
4 years ago

What an insane, absurd, and execrable article. The apotheosis of an evil monster, a terrorist mass murderer who’s killed hundreds of Americans and thousands of Iranian protesters who despise this medieval Islamic totalitarian regime. Trump isn’t going to invade and occupy Iran, unlike George W. Bush and Iraq and Afghanistan, nor is he going to invade Iran to overthrow the regime as did Obama and Hillary with Libya. World War III! What a joke!

Twin Ruler
Twin Ruler
4 years ago

I almost suspect that Trump is a Puppet of precisely the Clinton Crime Family. They make way to much out of the fact that Trump is of German ancestry. He is Hilary Clinton’s German boy; trying to hard to play the role of the Hollywood Nazi. His gaffes reveal that. Mrs. Clinton, in all likelihood manipulating him into campaigning against her. Putin, perhaps suspecting what I almost suspect, decided to sabotage her scheme. That is why he messed up the Election, getting Trump in Office instead of Hillary, as planned. Caught Hillary by surprise.

I would even go so far as to say that I suspect that now, Trump is trying desperately to get impeached. This, of course, would be damage control for the Clinton family, and the rest of The Democrats. Still, the whole GOP will be tarred by the same brush as Hillary’s German boy, Trump. The Republican Party will never recover!!!

David Schmitt
4 years ago
Reply to  Twin Ruler

Possibly. Interesting. Compromised, or all according to plan, or yet still some other explanation? I do not know any longer. I am getting weary—which is part of the design, no? I am still trying to figure out the JFK assassination. Quick! Is there a ten-horn dictator in the House? Yes, I meant “ten.”

Twin Ruler
Twin Ruler
4 years ago
Reply to  David Schmitt

One thing is certain. Trump is actually trying to get impeached. He has been doing so, ever since he got elected!

a kullervo
a kullervo
4 years ago

Am I the only one contemplating the possibility of all this being the action of a rogue element at some intermediate/high level inside the Pentagon/U.S. Army apparatus?
If true, this would have left the Trump Administration with no other course of action than:
1. Immediate damage control through the diplomatic channels;
2. thorough seek and destroy of the rogue element(s);
3. public acknowledgement of U.S.A.’s responsibilities.

Failing to procede in this manner would have conveyed the dangerous message that the official chain of command was no longer to be trusted.

There are too many interests at stake, and the ones behind the “resistance” against Mr. Trump are not the least of those.

David Schmitt
4 years ago

It appears as though the designs of Progress for a New American [If it’s real] Century lives on.

This old man, he played ten,
He played knick-knack once again;
With a knick-knack paddywhack,
Give a dog a bone,
This old man came rolling home.

Twin Ruler
Twin Ruler
4 years ago

This assassination could be the biggest mistake America made, ever!

Joseph Stanick
Joseph Stanick
4 years ago

There will definitely be a significant retaliation but I think you are over stating it by comparing this to Archduke Ferdinand and the beginning of World War I. But only time will answer that question. I think this is a perfect example of Worldview Warfare.

Klaus Leimann
Klaus Leimann
4 years ago

Who would agree, that if Trump goes full on ‘Bush’ on Iran, we should go full on ‘Bernie Sanders’ or ‘Andrew Young’ on him? If only to take a position.

Especially since he’s delivered nothing on all his campaign promises.

K R Bolton
4 years ago
Reply to  Klaus Leimann

Trump has shown he has no redeeming features from the viewpoint of the Right. He has reneged not only on his slogan of “America First” but also on containing China, which was always an unlikely proposition given that state’s long-time closeness to international capital. How genuine can his opposition to jihadism be when he orders the elimination of the most eminent and heroic military leader the region has in fighting Wahhabism?

clyde ward
clyde ward
4 years ago
Reply to  Klaus Leimann

I’d say, that it depends upon how Trump’s war goes.
The geography of Iran won’t allow an armored roll over. I think it will spew on and on, both sides destroying oil facilities and blaming the other.
‘Victory” will depend upon propaganda in that regard, as went on during the Iran Iraq War.
Outside support will make a big difference and Trump will discover who his “allies” really are-which hasn’t been encouraging,so far.
It’s too bad that neither Democrats nor Republicans offer a real choice, only an apparent one, but you’re probably right that would it be Sanders if his health holds. Other than that, I can’t imagine.
I voted Trump because he seemed least likely to do what he is doing.
I rarely contribute to campaigns but i contributed to Tulsi Gabbard.
She hasn’t got a chance, but there is nothing else to do.
I guess the real choice in 2016 was between a crook and a thug.
Oh well, we knew the current state of affairs couldn’t last forever and it’s usually catastrophe that changes things.

Tyler Durden
Tyler Durden
4 years ago

It cannot be understated what an erratic escalation this assassination was. The US essentially decapitated the leadership of an entire branch of the Iranian military. Not only is it a provocation, it’s a blatant act of war from which even many European partners are distancing themselves.

Still though, I think the goal is re-fracturing Iraq after the political gains which have been made recently by the shia groups in the Iraqi sphere. Whatever America’s intent however, there will be a great deal of overt military force used against targets of the American-Saudi-Israeli axis throughout the region which many state actors will view as justifiable retaliation. I think Trump’s actions will further isolate America from the growing world order of the BRICS nations.

Let’s just hope the inevitable “grassroots” protests that are soon to pop up in Iran are quelled as sufficiently as the last ones.

Klaus Leimann
Klaus Leimann
4 years ago

Dear Mr Jorjani,
Thank you for your insightful article. But I was wondering, do you think a Clinton Presidency would have differed from the Trumpian one and in what way? Furthermore as someone who is neither keen on migration from Venezuela nor on destabilization of the Middle East, would it make sense to support a democratic candidate, and if so which one ?

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