{"id":200712,"date":"2020-01-12T08:38:20","date_gmt":"2020-01-12T08:38:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=200712"},"modified":"2020-01-16T08:10:55","modified_gmt":"2020-01-16T08:10:55","slug":"did-pompeo-dupe-trump-into-the-soleimani-hit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=200712","title":{"rendered":"Did Pompeo Dupe Trump Into the Soleimani Hit??"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mike Whitney \u2013 The Unz Review Jan 10, 2020<\/h1>\n

\"\"<\/a>Donald Trump is under the illusion that the fracas with Iran is over. He thinks that Iran\u2019s pinprick missile strikes on US bases in Iraq have assuaged Tehran\u2019s thirst for revenge. But he\u2019s wrong. The missile strikes were merely the first salvo in an epic cage match between Iran\u2019s Axis of Resistance and its 70 year-long nemesis, the United States. As Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader said on Wednesday, the missile attacks were not sufficient payback for the assassination of Iran\u2019s most decorated military hero, Qassem Soleimani. They were just \u201ca slap\u201d, just Round One in what will surely be a long and bloody campaign aimed at driving the US out of the Middle East.<\/span><\/p>\n

I wonder if Trump has any idea of what he\u2019s done? It\u2019s one thing to hector, threaten, coerce and sanction a rival nation, especially a nation that sits on an ocean of oil in a strategically-located area like the Middle East. But it\u2019s another thing to assassinate the country\u2019s highest-ranking and most revered military commander, an Iranian Rommel, whose tireless devotion to service spans a 40 year-long period. That\u2019s not something that can be shrugged off or swept under the rug. That\u2019s an act of war that requires a muscular response from the state. No country can allow its military leaders to be killed with impunity. Iran will have to fight back, and they will fight back. The question is \u201chow\u201d?<\/span><\/p>\n

Iran will likely intensify the strategy that Soleimani perfected; hybrid, 4th Generation unconventional warfare conducted via Iran\u2019s proxies in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan and Lebanon. They will forgo using their bulging arsenal of long-range ballistic missiles and, instead, implement an asymmetrical strategy aimed at roiling markets, blocking shipping lanes, demolishing petrochemical plants and wasting oil tankers. The objective will be to wreak havoc across the region making the US presence less and less tenable while invoking plausible deniability as to the perpetrator. It will be a war that is largely conducted in the shadows. The Middle East is a target-rich environment for those who have the proxies, the weapons and the inclination to create mayhem. This is a war that Iran is prepared to fight and this is a war that Iran can win.<\/span><\/p>\n

Iran also has more extreme options as illustrated in this excerpt from an article at DW:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe IRGC can threaten shipping lanes in the Gulf, Gulf of Oman and the Caspian Sea through the application of a wide variety of assets it has at its disposal, including submarines, smart torpedoes, smart mine capability, and land-based, long-range anti-ship missiles strategically based on the mainland, islands, and ships\u201d\u2026Such attacks could put a halt to the world\u2019s oil transport network, at least for a time. One-fifth of global oil production is shipped through the strait between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula. If the Strait of Hormuz were to become unsafe for ship passage, it would not only affect the United States but also a large number of countries around the world. The US would be under great pressure to end any war with Iran as quickly as possible\u2026.\u201d (\u201cIran-US conflict: Tehran\u2019s asymmetrical approach<\/strong><\/span>\u201d<\/a>, dw.com)<\/span><\/p>\n

Did Trump mull-over any of these grim scenarios before he ordered the assassination of Soleimani? Was he told that both Obama and G.W. Bush opted not to kill Soleimani because they knew the backlash would be too great? Did Trump even know that Soleimani helped the US defeat ISIS and al Qaida in Iraq and Syria?<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

How much did Trump actually know about Soleimani or was he intentionally kept in the dark by his fanatical neocon advisors like Mike Pompeo? That doesn\u2019t excuse Trump or make him any less culpable for his decision, but it does suggest that his sources of information might be tainted by conflicting political agendas. A recent article in the New York Times titled \u201cPompeo Upended Middle East by Pushing Trump to Kill Iranian General\u201d appears to support this theory. Here\u2019s an excerpt:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLast week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was the loudest voice in the administration pushing President Trump to kill Iran\u2019s most important general\u2026.The strike against the Iranian general has affirmed Mr. Pompeo\u2019s position as the second-most powerful official in the Trump administration\u2026\u2026 as the man at the center of the argument to launch the drone strike that killed Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani \u2014 and who pushed Mr. Trump to withdraw from the landmark Iran nuclear deal in 2018 \u2014 he is in the unusual role of shaping national security policy\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Pompeo, 56, could become known as the man who helped lead the United States into another conflict in the Middle East \u2014 breaking one of Mr. Trump\u2019s key campaign promises just as the president faces re-election..<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Pompeo said he and other American officials \u201cevaluated the relevant risks\u201d that the strike against General Suleimani might bring. He cited \u201ccontinuing efforts on behalf of this terrorist to build out a network of campaign activities that were going to lead potentially to the death of many more Americans.\u201d\u2026(\u201cPompeo Upended Middle East by Pushing Trump to Kill Iranian General<\/strong><\/span>\u201d<\/a>, New York Times)<\/span><\/p>\n

This simply isn\u2019t true. Soleimani did not organize any \u201ccampaign activities\u201d to kill American soldiers. That\u2019s baloney. He was in Baghdad working on a peace agreement with his Saudi counterpart when he was incinerated by a missile launched from an American drone. Pompeo has produced no hard evidence to back this spurious claim.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nor is there any proof that there was an \u201cimminent threat\u201d. That\u2019s another one of Pompeo\u2019s howlers. The only threat that materialized was the threat that an Iranian General on a peace mission would be senselessly obliterated by a bloodthirsty cabal in Washington. Here\u2019s more from the Times:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026no major attack against the sprawling and heavily-fortified diplomatic compound in Baghdad\u2019s Green Zone is \u201cimminent,\u201d even though Mr. Pompeo has asserted that repeatedly, said the official, who discussed administration deliberations only on the condition of anonymity. Some Pentagon officials had said earlier that there was no intelligence revealing any unusual threats.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Mr. Pompeo did not repeat his assertions that the United States had intelligence about an \u201cimminent\u201d attack and instead pointed to recent violent episodes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re looking for imminence, you need look no further than the days that led up to the strike that was taken against Suleimani,\u201d Mr. Pompeo said, apparently referring to the rocket attack by an Iranian-backed militia that killed an American interpreter, Nawres Hamid, in Iraq on Dec. 27.\u201d (New York Times)<\/span><\/p>\n

So rather than admit that he was lying, the cagey Pompeo simply diverts attention to the American contractor who was killed last week. That\u2019s called bait-and-switch, a tactic that\u2019s typically used by hucksters and charlatans. The fact is, there was no indication that an attack was imminent. None. Soleimani posed no threat to US troops or US assets at all. He was killed for nothing or, rather, he was killed because Trump and Pompeo wanted him dead. That\u2019s the bottom line. Here\u2019s more from the same article:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPompeo\u2026 is a chief architect of the rising tensions between the United States and Iran. As Mr. Trump\u2019s first C.I.A. director, he created a special center to deal with Iran\u2026Days after becoming secretary of state in 2018, Mr. Pompeo pushed Mr. Trump to withdraw from the nuclear agreement and reimpose strict sanctions on Iran. He has nurtured closer partnerships with Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, enemies of Iran that sometimes have agendas that run counter to American interests\u2026.<\/span><\/p>\n

In April, he advised Mr. Trump to designate as a foreign terrorist organization the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, an arm of the Iranian military that includes General Suleimani\u2019s elite Quds Force. It was the first time the United States had applied that label to a part of another government.<\/span><\/p>\n

And after the Dec. 31 breach of the American Embassy in Baghdad, Mr. Pompeo pushed harder for the strike against Mr. Suleimani, which Defense Department officials had presented to Mr. Trump as an extreme and not particularly palatable option only days earlier\u2026.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last year, on a trip to Israel, Mr. Pompeo invoked the Bible in saying Mr. Trump was a modern-day Queen Esther sent by God to save the Jews from Iran.\u201d (New York Times)<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s summarize:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Pompeo was the biggest and most outspoken supporter of assassination.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. It was Pompeo \u201cwho pushed Mr. Trump to withdraw from the landmark Iran nuclear deal.\u201d\u2026<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. It was also Pompeo who convinced Trump that the benefits of killing Solemani outweighed the risks<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. It was also Pompeo who justified the assassination by stating that there was a \u201cimminent threat\u201d against US assets, a claim for which there is no evidence.<\/span><\/li>\n
  5. It was also Pompeo who persuaded Trump to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist organization.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n
  6. Pompeo is the \u201cchief architect\u201d of the administration\u2019s failed Iran policy which includes the ongoing economic strangulation and the abandoning of Washington\u2019s obligations under the terms of the nuclear agreement.<\/span><\/li>\n
  7. And, it will also be Pompeo who\u2013 like his ideological twin, George W Bush\u2013will be \u201cknown as the man who helped lead the United States into another conflict in the Middle East.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Again, none of this justifies Trump\u2019s monstrous decision to kill Soleimani, but it does show how Pompeo\u2019s ingratiating \u201capple-polishing\u201d behavior has helped him to advance his own political agenda, an agenda that appears to be far more tilted in Tel Aviv\u2019s favor than Washington\u2019s. How does that fit with Trump\u2019s \u201cAmerica First\u201d doctrine?<\/span><\/p>\n

    It doesn\u2019t fit at all, in fact, it strongly suggests that Pompeo\u2019s loyalties lie elsewhere. Why else would he put the US on a path to a military confrontation with Iran, a confrontation that will undoubtedly have catastrophic implications for the United States? How does that benefit America?<\/span><\/p>\n

    And what would the outcome of such a hellish, region-wide conflagration be? Here\u2019s how \u201cGrand Chessboard\u201d geostrategist Zbigniew Brzezinski summed it up more than a decade ago:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \u201cAn attack on Iran would be an act of political folly, setting in motion a progressive upheaval in world affairs. With the U.S. increasingly the object of widespread hostility, the era of American preponderance could even come to a premature end. Although the United States is clearly dominant in the world at the moment, it has neither the power nor the domestic inclination to impose and then to sustain its will in the face of protracted and costly resistance.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

    This is the nightmare scenario, the end of America brought to you by the two biggest dunderheads to ever to serve in public office: Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Is there any way to stop this train-wreck?<\/span><\/p>\n

    Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    We have to agree with Mike Whitney when he writes that the recent exchanges between the U.S. and Iran are only the start of a much bigger conflict <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-200712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Iran"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/121"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=200712"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":200716,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200712\/revisions\/200716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=200712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=200712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=200712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}