Blog No. 245. Killing Soleimani: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The killing of Major General Qassem Soleimani, produced an avalanche of media coverage–reporting, opinion and mixtures of the two. Yet how deep an impression it has all made on the public is unclear. It is also unclear what Trump’s action portends for the future of relations with Iran and the relationship between the Trump administration and Congress in the conduct of foreign affairs. It did expose yet again Trump’s manifestly unsteady hand in matters of foreign policy and national security and his difficulty in framing a credible and coherent message. While much remains uncertain, it is possible to make at least a tentative assessment of the good, the bad and the ugly aspects of the event.

In terms of what was good, Soleimani’s killing has been viewed, even by virtually all of Trump’s critics, as having been well deserved. There is little doubt as to his responsibility for past and recent actions killing and wounding Americans. Soleimani’s military and diplomatic skills were a major asset for Iran as it campaigned to sow unrest and to dominate its neighbors throughout the region. His death not only deprived Iran of that asset, but may also have, as the administration claims, have forestalled imminent attacks on American facilities and personnel. Just how “imminent” such attacks were, however, is a matter of continuing debate and that question is unlikely to have a definitive answer any time soon.

Apart from preventing or delaying any particular attacks that Soleimani may have been planning, it is possible that Trump’s action provided a more general deterrent to Iranian attacks on Americans. Whether that is in fact the case remains very much to be seen. Perhaps, however, it was a hopeful sign that Iran’s initial response was limited to firing a few missiles that resulted in no casualties and relatively limited physical damage to facilities. It is unclear whether Iran had hoped for a somewhat more destructive result, but it did not attempt as wide an assault as it might have.

There may also be some modest good news in Trump’s apparent intention to avoid further escalation, at least for now. His remarks on January 8 were hardly conciliatory–even before saying “Good Morning” and beginning to address the Soleimani event, he proclaimed that “As long as I am President of the United States, Iran will never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.” Turning to matters more directly at hand, he launched into a verbal attack on Iran and Soleimani with glancing jabs at the Obama administration. Characteristically, his comments were filled with self-congratulation and sprinkled with inaccuracies and exaggerations. Yet despite Trump’s earlier threats of attacks on multiple targets in Iran (including cultural sites), he expressed no intention of launching any further military actions in response to the Iranian missile attack. He did announce the imposition of further sanctions against Iran, but it is not clear how much they will add to the existing regime of sanctions already designed to apply “maximum pressure.

Trump also expressed an interest in negotiation:

[The United Kingdom, Germany, France, Russia, and China] must now break away from the remnants of the Iran deal -– or JCPOA –- and we must all work together toward making a deal with Iran that makes the world a safer and more peaceful place. We must also make a deal that allows Iran to thrive and prosper, and take advantage of its enormous untapped potential. Iran can be a great country.

It is unclear, however, whether Trump has any strategy on how to get such negotiations started except by besieging Iran with sanctions, a course that has shown little promise. Apart from the intransigence of Iran, Trump’s penchant for erratic and unilateral actions has seriously impaired his credibility and any capacity to lead or persuade the other parties to the JCPOA to revisit the agreement they all agreed to and still support.

Apart from the lack of any coherent strategy, there is also the risk that having escaped disaster, Trump will feel emboldened to embark on still more reckless adventures. He would do well to heed the advice of Peggy Noonan, writing in the Wall Street Journal:

Administrations that get lucky in one drama tend to get cocky and begin new dramas. How would this administration look if it were feeling cocky? The way it looks every day. What would be good to see now is modesty—the modesty of serious people who know they got lucky.

Breath should not be held awaiting the arrival of modesty in the Trump White House.

*    *    *

There are several consequences of the Soleimani attack that can fairly be described as bad. Prominent among them is the severe damage to our relationship with Iraq, leading to the request by Iraq that American forces be withdrawn from that country. The administration thus far has, in effect, pretended that it didn’t hear the request or doesn’t think Iraq really meant it. It is possible that discussions with the Iraqi government will result in some modification of the request, but if Iraq holds firm, America will have no choice but to withdraw, and our departure will damage the interests of both countries by seriously increasing Iraq’s vulnerability to ISIS. If U.S. troops are required to leave. Trump has threatened sanctions and the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that the administration is considering suspension of military and other aid to Iraq. Such actions would simply compound our mistake. Trump should understand that we do not give aid to Iraq out of some desire to be nice to that country, but because a strong Iraq is very much in our own interest. While the caliphate of ISIS has disappeared as a geographic entity, it retains thousands of supporters with the capacity to seriously undermine Iraqi stability and ultimately to threaten the United States.

Another significant negative of the Soleimani killing is the acceleration of the Iranian nuclear program. Despite our withdrawal from the JCPOA and the re-imposition of sanctions, Iran had continued to observe the restrictions on it under that agreement. On January 5, however, Iran announced that it will no longer abide by the restrictions. How far and how fast it intends to proceed remains to be seen, but the rejection of the agreement’s restraints is obviously a dangerous step. As David Sanger and William Broad pointed out in the New York Times, one of Trump’s major objections to the JCPOA was that its restrictions expired after 15 years, and Trump has now managed to advance that expiration by 10 years.

The Soleimani attack also had the inevitable effect of turning public opinion against the United States in both Iraq and Iran. In Iran there had recently been large-scale protests against Iranian influence. That spirit, however, quickly disappeared after the violation of Iraqi sovereignty by conducting an attack on its soil for which it had no advance notice, let alone a request for its consent. Similarly in Iran, recent large-scale protests against the Iranian government were supplanted by protests against the United States. These were in turn eclipsed by renewed protests against the government over its unintentional downing of a Ukrainian airliner and the initial attempts to cover-up its responsibility. It seems repugnant to say that the United States benefitted from that tragic event, but in effect it did, at least temporarily, from the ill will it generated against the Iranian government in Iran and around the world. Nevertheless, the anti-American sentiment generated by our attack on a beloved Iranian leader will remain. Public opinion in Iran and Iraq may not be decisive, but it would be a mistake to dismiss its importance entirely.

A further negative is the enhancement of Russia’s position in the region. As summarized in an analysis for the Brookings Institution:

Russia is left with the enviable position of capitalizing on the turbulent behavior of the United States in the Middle East, regardless of whether the United States and Iran go to war. Ultimately, U.S. actions will strengthen Russian leadership: first, by removing American competition, and second, by turning regional and global sentiment against the United States.

In America, Soleimani’s killing added an unfortunate chapter to Trump’s practice of disregarding Congressional authority and responsibility. The erosion of Congressional authority over presidential war-making did not begin with Trump, but he has brought it to a new level. The Soleimani attack was launched without any approval from Congress and without notifying even the “Gang of Eight” (made up the House and Senate leaders from each party and the chairs and ranking members  of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees). It may be debated whether the targeted killing of a government official of Soleimani’s stature was itself an act of war, but there is little doubt that, at the least, it brought us to the brink of an all-out war with Iran.

Trump’s action in ordering the Soleimani killing provoked a backlash on Capitol Hill, producing legislation to limit Trump’s authority to take further military action against Iran. Sadly, however, such measures appear to be exercises in futility. The House has passed a non-binding resolution limiting the ability of the president to take further military action against Iran. The resolution was approved largely along partisan lines, but drew the support of one notable Republican. Matt Gaetz who has been one of Trump’s staunchest defenders on impeachment, put it bluntly: “If the members of our armed services have the courage to go and fight and die in these wars, as Congress, we ought to have the courage to vote for them or against them.”

In the Senate, Democrat Tim Kaine drafted a similar resolution, and on Tuesday he announced that he had gained the support of four Republicans to provide a 51-49 majority. (The four Republicans are Susan Collins, Todd Young, Mike Lee and Ron Paul). Unlike the resolution passed by the House. Kaine’s bill would have a binding effect when it is passed by the House. There is, however, little hope of gathering sufficient strength to override the inevitable veto from Trump.

*    *    *

A distinctly ugly aspect of the Soleimani killing and its aftermath has been the cacophony of confused and conflicting justifications offered by Trump and his cohorts. The responses to Democratic criticism from Trump, the White House and some Republicans on Capitol Hill, were even uglier: they accused Democrats of supporting Iran, a claim as despicable as it was specious.

There is no need to burden readers with a detailed chronology of the shifting justifications proffered by Trump and his administration. (An incomplete list is here.) Suffice it to say that they began by emphasizing that an attack from Soleimani was “imminent” but failed to produce supporting evidence either in public or in a closed briefing on Capitol Hill. Republican Mike Lee described the briefing as the “worst” he had received on a military issue in his nine years in the Senate. Trump then attempted to step into the breach by publicly asserting facts that had not been disclosed at the closed briefing. On Thursday at a White House event he claimed that “They were looking to blow up our embassy.” Then on Friday on Fox News he upped the ante by asserting “I can reveal I believe it probably would’ve been four embassies.”

On Sunday, however, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on Face the Nation that he had not been shown any specific evidence that Iran was planning to blow up four embassies. Then on Monday, CNN reported that the State Department had not reported to any embassies specific threats focused on them. According to CNN, “One senior State Department official described being “blindsided” when the administration justified the deadly Reaper drone strike on Soleimani by saying Iran’s “shadow commander” was behind an imminent threat to blow up US embassies.” Finding himself cornered by the evidence, or lack thereof, Trump tweeted on Monday that “it really doesn’t matter” whether attacks were imminent.

The imminence of an attack does matter under both domestic and international law, but that is a subject for another blog. For now, the point is that the serial collapse of Trump’s messages left his credibility in shreds. It also lent support to the unavoidable suspicion that Trump’s action had been heavily influenced by political considerations. While that issue has not received a great deal of coverage, the Wall Street Journal reported :

Mr. Trump, after the strike, told associates he was under pressure to deal with Gen. Soleimani from GOP senators he views as important supporters in his coming impeachment trial in the Senate, associates said.

Trump was obviously upset by the skepticism that enveloped his messaging and he reacted in a characteristic manner by mounting vicious attacks on his critics. On Monday he re-tweeted a photo-shopped image of Senator Chuck Schumer and Speaker Pelosi in Muslim garb under the message “The corrupted Dems trying their best to come to the Ayatollah’s rescue”:

Trump followed that up with his own tweet “The Democrats and the Fake News are trying to make terrorist Soleimani into a wonderful guy, only because I did what should have been done for 20 years.”

After the bogus photo of Schumer and Pelosi photo drew immediate criticism, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham refused to back down:

I think the president is making clear that the Democrats have been parroting Iranian talking points and almost taking the side of terrorists and those who were out to kill the Americans. I think the president was making the point that the Democrats seem to hate him so much that they’re willing to be on the side of countries and leadership of countries who want to kill Americans.

Trump’s tweets and Grisham’s comments were not only nonsense but vile nonsense; they are, however, only the latest example of the crude political discourse our president has brought us.