Tag Archives: Qassem Soleimani assassination

Financial N-option will settle Trump’s oil war, by Pepe Escobar

If you want to take down the west, take down the derivatives market. At some number bigger than $1 quadrillion (one thousand trillions), it’s a sitting duck. From Pepe Escobar at thesaker.is:

On foreign soil, as a guest nation, US has assassinated a diplomatic envoy whose mission the US had requested

The bombshell facts were delivered by caretaker Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi, during an extraordinary, historic parliamentary session in Baghdad on Sunday.

Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani had flown into Baghdad on a normal carrier flight, carrying a diplomatic passport. He had been sent by Tehran to deliver, in person, a reply to a message from Riyadh on de-escalation across the Middle East. Those negotiations had been requested by the Trump administration.

So Baghdad was officially mediating between Tehran and Riyadh, at the behest of Trump. And Soleimani was a messenger. Adil Abdul-Mahdi was supposed to meet Soleimani at 8:30 am, Baghdad time, last Friday. But a few hours before the appointed time, Soleimani died as the object of a targeted assassination at Baghdad airport.

Let that sink in – for the annals of 21st century diplomacy. Once again: it does not matter whether the assassination order was issued by President Trump, the US Deep State or the usual suspects – or  when. After all, the Pentagon had Soleimani on its sights for a long time, but always refused to go for the final hit, fearing devastating consequences.

Now, the fact is that the United States government – on foreign soil, as a guest nation – has assassinated a diplomatic envoy who was on an official mission that had been requested by the United States government itself.

Baghdad will formally denounce this behavior to the United Nations. However, it would be idle to expect UN outrage about the US killing of a diplomatic envoy. International law was dead even before 2003’s Shock and Awe.

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A Terrorist Attack Against Eurasian Integration? by Federico Pieraccini

Sad to say, but Russia and China will have to stabilize the situation in the Middle East, if it is to be stabilized at all. From Federico Pieraccini at strategic-culture.org:

The murder of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad, in the early hours of January 3 by US forces, only highlights the extent to which US strategy in the Middle East has failed. It is likely to provoke reactions that do not benefit US interests in the region.

To understand the significance of this event, it is necessary to quickly reconstruct the developments in Iraq. The US has occupied Iraq for 17 years, following its invasion of the country in 2003. During this time, Baghdad and Tehran have re-established ties by sustaining an important dialogue on post-war reconstruction as well as by acknowledging the importance of the Shia population in Iraq.

Within two decades, Iraq and Iran have gone from declaring war with each other to cooperating on the so-called Shia Crescent, favoring cooperation and the commercial and military development of the quartet composed of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Such ties, following recent victories over international terrorism, have been further consolidated, leading to current and planned overland connections between this quartet.

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After Soleimani Killing Suddenly the U.S. is Alone, by Tom Luongo

Nobody is buying the US’s explanation for murdering Qassem Soleiman. From Tom Luongo at tomluongo.me:

dollar-tide-apes-trump

The silence is deafening. The lack of response from U.S. allies around the world to President Trump’s assassination of Major General Qassem Soleimani tells you things have fundamentally changed.

Normally when something like this happens the U.S. has all of its allies lined up and ready with statements at the ready. A gaggle of the usual suspects behind lecterns pledging support replete with the requisite hand-wringing and virtue signaling.

That didn’t happen this time. Only arm-twisting by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cajoled a few lukewarm responses from European allies stunned by Trump’s violations of International Law and escalation of hostilities.

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Iraqi PM reveals Soleimani was on peace mission when assassinated, exploding Trump’s lie of ‘imminent attacks’, by Max Blumenthal

Was Qassem Soleimani on a peace mission to Iraq to initiate steps towards an Iraq-brokered peace between Saudi Arabia and Iran with President Trump’s blessing? We may never know for certain, but the Iraqi Prime Minister’s story sounds more plausible than Mike Pompeo’s. If Soleimani was in Iraq to plan attacks against the US, why did he leave himself so unprotected? From Max Blumenthal at thegrayzone.com:

The Trump administration claimed Iranian general Qasem Soleimani was planning “imminent attacks” on US interests when it assassinated him. That lie was just destroyed, but not before countless corporate media outlets transmitted it to the public.

Desperate to justify the US drone assassination of Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo insisted that Washington had made an “intelligence-based assessment” that Soleimani was “actively planning in the region” to attack American interests before he was killed.

President Donald Trump justified his fateful decision to kill the Iranian general in even more explicit language, declaring that Soleimani was planning “imminent attacks” on US diplomatic facilities and personnel across the Middle East.

“We took action last night to stop a war,” Trump claimed. “We did not take action to start a war.”

Trump’s dubious rationale for an indisputably criminalassassination has been repeated widely across corporate media networks, and often without any skepticism or debate.

At a January 3 State Department briefing, where reporters finally got the chance to demand evidence for the claim of an “imminent” threat, one US official erupted in anger.

“Jesus, do we have to explain why we do these things?” he barked at the press.

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Rabobank: “World War 3? The US Has Crossed A Red Line… But It’s Not The One They Think”, by Michael Every

Was Qassem’s Soleimani’s assassination a demonstration of the US’s asymmetric warfare capabilities? From Michael Every at Rabobank via zerohedge.com:

World War Three!” is trending on social media the day I return to work after two weeks off deliberately not reading any news for once: ironic given my reputation for being bearish about geopolitics. Markets, of course, have failed to react much: Middle-East bourses closed down 2-4% on Sunday, which is not exactly end of the world stuff; WTI futures are up around 3%, again not a real panic; while US 10-year yields were down from 1.94% intraday Thursday to 1.79% as of the Friday close – but the weak US ISM survey (47.2 headline; 46.8 new orders; 45.1 employment) could be to blame for that alone.

You know what? For once the markets are arguably right, albeit for all the wrong reasons. Markets think nothing that happens in the Middle East matters because central banks will have their backs regardless. That is patent nonsense, even if Ben Bernanke is muttering about not ruling out negative rates and further purchases of “private securities” during the next down-turn. If Iran launched a devastating missile attack on Saudi and UAE oil facilities, and means it this time; or on Tel Aviv and the nuclear reactor at Dimona; if it unleashed a wave of global terrorist attacks and assassinations from sleeper agents – none of those things are made better by a lower cost of borrowing. They aren’t even helped by (not) helicopter money, as Bernanke alludes to. Central banks can and would be funding a lot more defence spending immediately on a helicopter money basis in those scenarios, but much of the world economy would take a hit regardless – most so if the oil complex is hit. Sorry Central banks, but in those kind of scenarios–as Ayatollah Khamenei tweeted to US President Trump right before he then killed Iranian Revolutionary Guards Council head Qassem Suleimani–“You can’t do anything.” So in the case of the PBOC, keep lowering the reserve requirement ratio further to no real effect; or in the case of the FOMC, kidding yourself rates are on hold even as you do more and more NOT QE to keep the ship afloat for now.

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Why I Don’t Trust Trump on Iran, by Ron Paul

Ron Paul has been in politics long enough to know you don’t trust any politician on anything, but not trusting Trump and his merry band of neocons on Iran seems especially merited. From Paul at ronpaulinstitute.org:

President Trump and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told us the US had to assassinate Maj. Gen. Qassim Soleimani last week because he was planning “Imminent attacks” on US citizens. I don’t believe them.

Why not? Because Trump and the neocons – like Pompeo – have been lying about Iran for the past three years in an effort to whip up enough support for a US attack. From the phony justification to get out of the Iran nuclear deal, to blaming Yemen on Iran, to blaming Iran for an attack on Saudi oil facilities, the US Administration has fed us a steady stream of lies for three years because they are obsessed with Iran.

And before Trump’s obsession with attacking Iran, the past four US Administrations lied ceaselessly to bring about wars on Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Serbia, Somalia, and the list goes on.

At some point, when we’ve been lied to constantly and consistently for decades about a “threat” that we must “take out” with a military attack, there comes a time where we must assume they are lying until they provide rock solid, irrefutable proof. Thus far they have provided nothing. So I don’t believe them.

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Who Started It?: A (Reverse) Timeline of US/Iran Retaliations, by Danny Sjursen

The American government and media have a nasty habit of ignoring all history prior to any supposed “outrage” committed by any nation against the US. Iran has been sinned against by the US far more than it has sinned. From Danny Sjursen at antiwar.com:

We, as Americans, are now living in different realities. The almost completely partisan response to Donald Trump’s decision to assassinate one of Iran’s top leaders proves that once and for all. To listen to Mitch McConnell versus Nancy Pelosi – and just about all their underlings – argue about the execution, is to almost believe each are talking about a different event! It’s surreal. Trump hit Iran, he says, because Iran hit us. Trump calls Soleimani a “terrorist” mastermind; Iran calls the assassination an “act of terrorism.” Are both right? Who knows…but…who started this whole mess?!?

Truth is, few politicians or commentators on the mainstream left or right bother to ask who started the now open-shooting-conflict between Iran and America. Don’t get me wrong, both sides starkly disagree on whether Trump’s assassination of Major General Qasem Soleimani was strategic, (it wasn’t) or whether the president ought to have sought congressional approval (he should have). Still, both Democrats and Republicans almost unanimously believe that – whether war is the answer or not – Iran is ultimately in the wrong, the villain of the whole sordid tale.

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Donald Trump’s Iran Policy Comes Down to One Word: Chaos, by Doug Bandow

President Trump is adding still more chaos to a region of the world where chaos is already a way of life. From Doug Bandow at nationalinterest.org:

President Trump’s policy toward Iran continues to bear ill fruit. When he entered the Oval Office, Tehran’s nuclear program was limited by a tight inspections and safeguard system. The Islamic regime faced internal tensions as the young, especially, hoped for greater economic opportunities in the West. With Iran’s nuclear ambitions tamed, the U.S. and allied states could follow up with a challenge to Tehran to moderate its regional behavior in return for additional, appropriate concessions. Now all of that is gone.

Iraqi leaders overwhelmingly criticized the U.S. raid, which Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi called an “assassination.” The Daily Beast quoted an Iraqi official as saying: “Some will celebrate, some will mourn, some will seek revenge.” However, U.S.-Iraqi relations were in “real jeopardy.”

Abdul-Mahdi said “the two martyrs were huge symbols of the victory” over ISIS. He denounced the “aggression against Iraq” and “massive breach of sovereignty” which violated the conditions governing the American military’s presence in Iraq. He worried about “a dangerous escalation that will light the fuse of a destructive war in Iraq, the region, and the world.”

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