“Recent history is absolutely clear: 100% of all Islamic terrorist incidents in the US since they began in the 1990s were perpetrated or inspired by Sunni jihadists, not Iran or its Shiite allies and proxies in the region.”
1/7/20, “The Donald’s Assassination of General Soleimani-As Stupid As It Gets,” David Stockman, UNZ Review
“In this day and age of urban and irregular warfare and drone-based annihilation delivered by remote joy-stick, generals tend to kill more civilians than combatants. The dead civilian victims in their millions of U.S. generals reaching back to the 1960s surely attest to that.
Then again, even the outright belligerents Soleimani did battle with over the decades were not exactly alms-bearing devotees of Mother Theresa, either. In sequential order, they were the lethally armed combatants mustered by Saddam Hussein, George W. Bush, the Sunni jihadists of ISIS and the Israeli and Saudi air forces, which at this very moment are raining high tech bombs and missiles on Iranian allies and proxies in Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.
The aggression in the Persian Gulf region during the last three decades has originated in the Washington DC nest of neocon vipers and among Bibi Netanyahu’s proxies, collaborators and assigns who rule the roost in the Imperial City and among both political parties. And the motivating force has all along been the malicious quest for regime change—first in Iraq and then in Syria and Iran.
So in taking out
Soleimani, the usually befuddled and increasingly belligerent occupant
of the Oval Office was not striking a blow against “terrorism”. He was
just dramatically escalating Washington’s long-standing regime-change aggression in the region,
thereby risking an outbreak of even greater violence and possibly a
catastrophic conflagration in the Persian Gulf where one-fifth of the
world’s oil traverses daily.
And most certainly, the Donald has now crushed his own oft-repeated intent to withdraw American forces from the middle east and get out of the regime change business—the very platform upon which he campaigned in 2016. There are now upwards of 50,000 US military personnel in the immediate Persian Gulf region and tens of thousands of more contractors, proxies and mercenaries. After Friday’s reckless maneuver, that number can now only go up—and possibly dramatically.
In joy-sticking Soleimani while lounging in his plush digs at Mar-a-Lago, the Donald was also not avenging the innocent casualties of Iranian aggression—Americans or otherwise. He was just jamming another regime-change stick in the hornets nest of anti-Americanism in the region that Washington’s bloody interventions have spawned over the decades, and which will now intensify by orders of magnitude.
“Iranian
mourners gather around a vehicle carrying the coffin of slain top
general Qassem Soleimani during a funeral procession in his hometown
Kerman.” Photo: AFP
The larger point here is that Imperial Washington and its mainstream media megaphones have so egregiously and relentlessly vilified Iran and falsified the middle east narrative that the Iranian side of the story has been completely lost—literally airbrushed right off the pages of contemporary history in Stalineseque fashion.
Not that the benighted, mullah-controlled Iranian regime is comprised of anything which resembles white hats. One of the great misfortunes of the last four decades is that the long-suffering people of Iran have not been able to throw-off the cultural and religious shackles imposed by this theocratic regime or escape the economic backwardness and incompetence of what is essentially rule by authoritarian clerics.
But that’s exactly the crime of Washington’s neocon-inspired hostility and threats to the Iranian regime. It merely rekindles Iranian nationalism and causes the public to rally to the support of the regime, as is so evident at the current moment.
Worse still, the underlying patriotic foundation of this pro-regime sentiment is completely lost on Imperial Washington
owing to its false narrative about post-1979 history. Yet the fact is,
in the eyes of the Iranian people the Quds forces and Soleimani have
plausible claims to having been valiant defenders of the nation.
But, now, the Donald has single-handedly given even neocon stupidity a run for the money."
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[Image HTS leader via syriahr.com.…More on HTS chief Al-Jolani]
The Pentagon teamed up with the mostly [US created and financed so-called] Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces that now [illegally] administer up to a third of the country, in some parts, alongside Syrian troops. [No link provided to substantiate claim of “alongside Syrian troops.” US in Syria has stated it will treat as hostile any opposition that approaches the boundaries of the one third of Syrian land that it now “administers.”] 
The [Salafist terrorist] group’s [HTS] leader,…Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, continues to elude his foes and offered an unprecedented interview published last week by the Belgium-based International Crisis Group think tank.”… 
12/23/2016, Peter Ford, UK Ambassador to Syria 2003-2006, “said there was now a Christmas tree in the [Aleppo] city’s central square, [for the first time in 5 years] which there would not have been “if the other side [terrorists] had won”.”
Image: June 3, 2019, Trump and the Queen during dinner at Buckingham Palace, getty 
Image: 1996, Fidel Castro at luncheon in his honor in Board Room of Wall St. Journal 
And most certainly, the Donald has now crushed his own oft-repeated intent to withdraw American forces from the middle east and get out of the regime change business—the very platform upon which he campaigned in 2016. There are now upwards of 50,000 US military personnel in the immediate Persian Gulf region and tens of thousands of more contractors, proxies and mercenaries. After Friday’s reckless maneuver, that number can now only go up—and possibly dramatically. 
“Iranian
mourners gather around a vehicle carrying the coffin of slain top
general Qassem Soleimani during a funeral procession in his hometown
Kerman.” Photo: AFP 
