January 5, 2020

Jan 06, 2020

Today the fallout from the killing of General Qassem Soleimani continued, and Trump doubled down on the idea he can act unilaterally.

First, the fallout: In Iran, Soleimani’s funeral today drew hundreds of thousands of mourners stretching almost twenty miles in what some observers called an unprecedented show of unity in the country which had, until the killing, been divided by civil unrest. Iran announced it would no longer honor the 2015 nuclear deal from which Trump withdrew the United States in 2018 but which France, Germany, the United Kingdom, China, and Russia had continued to honor. It says it considers the killings an act of war.

In Iraq, the Iraqi parliament met in an emergency session and, with lawmakers chanting “Death to America,” voted to expel the 5,200 U.S. troops in the country, although the unanimous vote is somewhat misleading: groups traditionally supportive of US involvement in Iraq did not show up for the vote. The Iraqi government needs to approve this vote before it expels the troops, but the Iraqi government has wanted the U.S. presence to prevent the resurgence of ISIS, and today the U.S. announced it will stop fighting ISIS in order to protect our own bases in Iraq.

A story in the Washington Post lays the burden of Trump’s decision on pressure from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has wanted to target Soleimani for months. Pompeo has focused on Iran since Trump appointed him to direct the CIA in 2017. Since then, he has become friendly with Yossi Cohen, the director of Israel’s intelligence service, and both men worried about the power of Iran. Notably, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been the only foreign leader who had praised the attack. Pompeo, like Vice President Mike Pence, is an evangelical Christian who believes in the rapture after the Jews have been returned to the Holy Land.

I am concerned that these facts are not separable.

Retired General David Petraeus, who led the U.S. surge in Iraq, said: “There’s no question that the tensions have been dramatically increased as a result of this action…. This is clearly heading in a very bad direction. Make no mistake about it: There will be losses on all sides if this escalates further.”

It is important to remember that Trump cannot ever admit to a mistake. His personality type means he simply doubles down on whatever he has done, insisting that it is others that have done something wrong, not him.

True to form, although his argument for pulling our troops out of northern Syria was that he wanted to bring the troops home (in fact, they were simply reassigned), he told reporters on Air Force 1 today that the US would not leave Iraq. “We have a very extraordinarily expensive air base that’s there…. We’re not leaving unless they pay us back for it…. We will charge them sanctions like they’ve never seen before.”

Faced with pushback on the idea that he could bomb Iranian cultural sites (it’s a war crime), he said: “They’re allowed to kill our people. They’re allowed to torture and maim our people. They’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural site? It doesn’t work that way.” (In fact, this is inaccurate on so many counts I’m not going to tackle it all, but will point out at least that cultural heritage sites do not matter just to the people of the nation in which they are located. Cultural sites are valuable to all of us as scholars study them to understand our past and human society. Destroying a cultural site in Iran is no different than destroying Notre Dame cathedral, for example: I am neither French nor Iranian, but those sites are part of my heritage as a human being.)

Finally, faced with criticism of his launching of the attack without alerting the Gang of Eight (the leaders of both parties in both houses of Congress, as well as on the intelligence committees, who must be notified by law within 48 hours), he tweeted: “These Media Posts will serve as notification to the United States Congress that should Iran strike any U.S. person or target, the United States will quickly & fully strike back, & perhaps in a disproportionate manner. Such legal notice is not required, but is given nevertheless!”

Legal notice of an emergency strike to Congress is, of course, required within 48 hours, and Congress alone can declare war. Further, the notion that a tweet is an acceptable way to announce a war is nuts.

The official Twitter account for the House Foreign Affairs Committee answered: “This Media Post will serve as a reminder that war powers reside in the Congress under the United States Constitution. And that you should read the War Powers Act. And that you’re not a dictator.”

OK, fine. But OUR LEADERS ARE ARGUING ABOUT STARTING A WAR WITH IRAN OVER TWITTER. It is hard to imagine that this deteriorating state of our politics can continue much longer.

A couple of things about those defending the assassination of Soleimani: As I said last night, the pro-Trump propaganda forces are desperately trying to turn this event into a way to defend Trump against those they are now calling “pro-terrorist.” They are insisting that Soleimani was one of our top enemies, and it was high time we killed him. A Twitter user thought to check how often top Trump supporters tweeted about Soleimani before yesterday, and the results are illuminating: there was virtually no discussion of him by anyone now claiming he was one of our very top enemies. The contrast between their heated and quite uniform presentation of him after the attack as one of the world’s worst terrorists, and their dead silence before it, suggests a concerted propaganda effort. (The link is in the notes, and is worth checking out.) Donald Trump mentioned Soleimani exactly once, in 2015, in the context of complaining about a reporter asking him “gotcha” questions (he did not know who Soleimani was).

But here’s an important point. Both those in favor of the killing and opposed to it are fighting over what is going to happen thanks to the assassination. We. Do. Not. Know. The future is unwritten. All we can do is to make guesses, based on what experts tell us they have learned to expect through their knowledge of the region. Overwhelmingly, they say the attack has increased volatility and presents new dangers. I am not an expert on Iran, and have nothing original to contribute to this debate; I am simply gathering up for you what others have said.

What I do know cold, though, is the nature of the American presidency and political power. Trump upped the ante of authoritarianism today, announcing he can launch a war without notifying Congress and that he can commit war crimes with impunity.

——

Notes:

Fallout: https://www.npr.org/2020/01/05/793746580/iraqi-parliament-votes-to-expel-u-s-troops-from-country-in-wake-of-soleimani-str

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/05/world/middleeast/iran-general-soleimani-iraq.html

video of mourners: