I don't think they necessarily passed. I think they didn't have the wide open opportunity. In addition, please keep in mind that Obama made a deal with Suleimani to help against the Sunni extremists that were spreading across the Middle East. Unfortunately, Suleimani also helped orchestrate the terrorist attack against Benghazi, which is why Obama and Hillary tried so hard to cover that up. So the Middle East is fraught with shifting alliances to try to achieve objectives. I get that, which is why Obama probably made a deal with the devil and then passed on opportunities to take him out. Hell, the US used to be allied with Osama Bin Ladin against Russia. So you can't fault Presidents for doing what they thought was right at the time.
Similarly, Trump did what he thought was right in taking out Suleimani, because he was behind the attack against our embassy in Iraq and he was responsible for the deaths of over 600 American soldiers and he was coordinating the Shiite terrorists against US forces. The targeting of Suleimani not only was legal on all of those grounds alone, but it was necessary when as a country you decide you want to play by Middle Eastern rules. Those rules are called "Hama Rules", which Friedman of the NYT once famously wrote about, which is to say, that if you are going to mess around in the Middle East, you need to be prepared for Total War, because the only thing those people understand is superior strength. Trump demonstrated that.
Now, having said that, I have said repeatedly on these threads, I want the US out of the Middle East. The sooner the better. As long as we are in the Middle East, we have no choice but to play by Hama Rules. I would much prefer that we just get the hell out so we don't have to play at all when we have no strategic objective or any benefit we are trying to achieve over there. We should not be doing any nation building, when we need our treasure to rebuild our own country.
So I believe Trump did the right thing in targeting Suleimani, because it knocked Iran back down, even though we all know these things are temporary. But it established a strong message that no state can sponsor attacks against the US and remain unbloodied, because the US will go after the state sponsor, not just the proxies. Iran will think twice before they do things to us again, because they now know for a fact Trump doesn't have red lines. He will simply retaliate and it will be far worse for Iran than for us. |
