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 Qassem Suleimani.
In 2015, the US 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 programme for a mere 15 years but still maintaining the right to have a peaceful nuclear programme.
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 Sanaa.
As Iranian-American scholar Ray Takeyh pointed out in a wise essay in Politico, in recent years, "Suleimani began expanding Iran's imperial frontiers. For the first time in its history, Iran became a true regional power, stretching its influence from the banks of the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. Suleimani understood that Persians would not be willing to die in distant battlefields for the sake of Arabs, so he focused on recruiting Arabs and Afghans as an auxiliary force. He often boasted that he could create a militia in little time and deploy it against Iran's various enemies."
Suleimani is part of a system called the Islamic Revolution in Iran.
They will be about the travesty that is their own government and how it has squandered so much of Iran's wealth and talent on an imperial project that has made Iran hated in the Middle East.
Yes, the morning after, America's Sunni Arab allies will quietly celebrate Suleimani's death, but we must never forget that it is the dysfunction of many of the Sunni Arab regimes - their lack of freedom, modern education and women's empowerment - that made them so weak that Iran was able to take them over from the inside with its proxies.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/us/tehran-s-overrated-military-strategist-made-many-political-miscalculations-1.4131089
In 2015, the US 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 programme for a mere 15 years but still maintaining the right to have a peaceful nuclear programme.
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 Sanaa.
As Iranian-American scholar Ray Takeyh pointed out in a wise essay in Politico, in recent years, "Suleimani began expanding Iran's imperial frontiers. For the first time in its history, Iran became a true regional power, stretching its influence from the banks of the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. Suleimani understood that Persians would not be willing to die in distant battlefields for the sake of Arabs, so he focused on recruiting Arabs and Afghans as an auxiliary force. He often boasted that he could create a militia in little time and deploy it against Iran's various enemies."
Suleimani is part of a system called the Islamic Revolution in Iran.
They will be about the travesty that is their own government and how it has squandered so much of Iran's wealth and talent on an imperial project that has made Iran hated in the Middle East.
Yes, the morning after, America's Sunni Arab allies will quietly celebrate Suleimani's death, but we must never forget that it is the dysfunction of many of the Sunni Arab regimes - their lack of freedom, modern education and women's empowerment - that made them so weak that Iran was able to take them over from the inside with its proxies.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/us/tehran-s-overrated-military-strategist-made-many-political-miscalculations-1.4131089
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