Both Bush and Obama Passed On Opportunities to Kill Suleimani

I imagine Obama passed because, of course, he was too busy colluding with them and sending them billions of dollars in ransom.

Bush passed on killing him, I imagine, because he got us stuck in a can't-move-forward, can't-get-out quagmire in Iraq and could not risk alienating public opinion further by appearing to widen the war. (Although, of course, this would have merely been a silly perception; Iran was already our primary opponent in the War in Iraq.)

Trump did what neither of these presidents had the nerve, or desire (in Obama's case), to do.

Thursday night wasn’t the first time a U.S. President has had IRGC Gen. Qasem Soleimani in their crosshairs. Both President George W. Bush and President Obama passed up chances to kill him.

...

The first came in 2007. Gen. Stanley McChrystal was serving as the head of the Joint Special Operations Command at the time. During an interview last year, he said, “At the time, Iranian-made roadside bombs built and deployed at his command were claiming the lives of U.S. troops across Iraq.” Bush and his military commanders would not authorize the action. McChrystal said they wanted “to avoid a firefight, and the contentious politics that would follow.”

The next occasion was about a year later. This story was revealed in 2015 by a former U.S. official. Badran explains the scenario. "During the operation to assassinate Hezbollah’s senior military commander, Imad Mughniyeh, in Damascus in 2008, Soleimani was present with Mughniyeh."

As for Obama's chance: Well, he never said no to killing Soleimani.

Instead, what he did -- according to a Kuwaiti newspaper -- was inform Teheran of a coming Israeli strike on Soleimani, deliberately spoiling the Israelis' shot.

I'd like a collusion investigation into that. I realize the president's foreign policy cannot be a criminal offense (something NeverTrumpers and Democrats (but I repeat myself) have lately forgotten), but it's important to know if a past president has been deliberately alerting the keystone of the global antiUS terrorist movement that our allies are planning to kill a terrorist leader.

That's something we should know, right?

By the way:

We got another one.

posted by Ace at 05:56 PM

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