Ordering a strike at the Baghdad airport killing Iran‘s 62-year-old Al-Quds chief Quassem Soleimani, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandas, head of Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Forces [PMF], and five others, 73-year-old President Donald Trump upped the ante, expecting Iran to retaliate for their deaths. On Dec. 31, 2019, Iranian-backed Kataib Hezbollah attacked the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, no doubt backed by Soleimani’s Al-Quds Force. Soleimani was a thorn in the U.S. side, involved in last year’s bombing of Saudi’s largest oil refinery, including Limpet-mine attacks on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman. Soleimani was responsible for eight years sabotaging the Saudi, U.S. and Turkish proxy war against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Together with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Lebanon’s Hezbollah Chief Hassan Nasrallah, they defeated the eight-year proxy war to change regimes in Damascus.
Soleimani and al-Muhandas’s dealths will no doubt spark retaliation by Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, now faced with some tough choices. Khamenei must choose how-and-when to retaliate, now that Trump’s shown a propensity to retaliate for the Dec. 28, 2019 Katab Hezbollah attack on a U.S.-backed Iraqi military base killing an American contractor. Trump’s latest move clearly puts the late al-Muhandas death in perspective, since his Kataib Hezbollah rocket attacks killed an American contractor. While the media focuses on Solemani, al-Muhandas has even greater implications for how Iranian proxies in Iraq, Iraq and Syria respond Khamenei finds himself caught between a rock-and-hard-place because any retaliatory strike could result in a devastating attack on his mullah regime. If Iran directly attacks any U.S. or allied target, it could spell the end of the Ayatollah’s regime. U.S. officials now consider their next move against Iran’s proxies.
Pentagon officials stated that Soleimani and al-Mubandas were plotting new attacks against the U.S. and its allies. Whatever military reinforcements Trump ordered in Baghdad’s Green Zone to protect the U.S. embassy, he’s going to need a lot more when militants in Iran, Iraq and Syria wake up to the news that Soleimani and al-Muhandas were vaporized by a U.S. attack. At the same time, Ayatollah Khemenei knows what happened to Al Qaeda’s Osama bin Laden and more recently ISIS’s Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. With Trump using a preemptive foreign policy, it sends a loud message to the Ayatollah that more proxy activities will result in further erosion of Iran’s military rule. Soleimani and al-Muhandas deaths present problems to Khamenei, knowing that any significant retaliation could result in toppling his mullah regime. Iran’s in no place militarily or economically to take on the United States, without risking toppling the revolutionary mullah regime.
Only weeks ago, popular street uprisings around Iran showed the level of frustration with the Ayatollahs’ 41-year-old rule. Khamenei ordered Soleimani to use the Basij militia to round up protesters for mass executions and incarcerations. Iran currently lacks the political stability to take on the U.S,, especially in any military action. Retaliation carries real risks to the Ayatollah’s survival, with some Iranians welcoming the news about Soleimani’s death. Coordinating with the Basij militia, Soleimani was responsible to untold numbers of deaths of Iranian demonstrators against the mullah regime. Countless numbers of Iranians would like nothing more that to see the mullah regime removed. No one in Iran forgets that the U.S. is home to Iran’s largest ex-pat community, working to liberate Iran from tyrannical mullah rule. Trump’s actions, while viewed by some as reckless, send a loud message to the Ayatollah that more provocative actions against the U.S. or its allies might result in an end to the Ayatollah’s 41-year-old rule.
Getting Soleimani and al-Muhandas lets Iran’s state-sponsored terrorist regime know that the White House has lost patience with Iran’s malign activities in the Mideast and North Africa. Supplying Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels rockets, guided missiles and drones to attack Saudi Arabia, Iran refused to stop using it proxies to sponsor guerrilla war around the Middle East. Iran routinely supplied Hezbollah and Hamas with rockets and other arms to attack Israel, the U.S.-‘s closes Mideast ally. Trump has served notice that he won’t tolerate more Iranian attacks on the U.S. and its allies. After attacks on oil tankers and Saudi’s largest oil refinery last summer, Trump kept his powder dry waiting till the right moment. After shooting down an American drone June 20, 2019, Trump told Iran he reserved the right to respond to Iran’s criminal activity at a time of his choice. Targeting Soleimani and al-Muhandas should tell Ayatollah that he could be next.
Trump’s preemptive action, far from creating more Mideast chaos, should help contain growing Iranian aggression in the Mideast and North Africa. Killing Soleimani and al-Muhandas lets the Iranian regime know that anyone in the Iranian regime is fair game. All the hand-wringing about possible Iranian retaliation, Trump’s actions should do the exact opposite: Stop Iran’s ongoing terrorist activities, including attacks on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf and Saudi’s largest oil refinery. Trump has warned Iran that there would be consequences for state-sponsored terrorism. If Soleimani and al-Musandas’ deaths mean anything to the Ayatollah, it’s that he could be next. Any direct retaliations, or even, at this point, proxy retaliations, could result in Trump toppling Iran’s mullah regime. With current popular uprisings, the Ayatollah knows he’s hanging by a thread.