When Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei wept at 62-year-old Al Quds chief Qassem Soleimani’s funeral Jan. 6, his government demanded that rank-and-file Iranians take to the streets in solidarity. Ordinary citizens faced untold punishments by the Revolutionary Guard’s Basij militia unless they demonstrated on the day of Soleimani’s funeral. While it’s possible some Iranians mourned Soleimani’s death, the vast majority were forced to show solidarity with the mullah government at a time when ordinary Iranians take to the streets to protest one of the most repressive regimes on the planet. Only a month ago, the Basij militia with backing of the Revolutionary Guards, vaporized untold numbers of street protesters, incarcerating thousands more for expressing opposition to Khamenei’s 41-year-old rule. Yet Democrats and anti-Trump U.S. press had only one objective: Exploit Soleimani’s death to harm Trump.
Press reports and Democrat presidential candidates all denounced Trump, calling his actions taking out Soleimani reckless, endangering U.S. national security. When Iran launched 12 missiles Jan. 7 at Iraq’s Ain al-Assad military base housing U.S. troops in retaliation for Soleimani’s death, the Ayatollah deliberately avoided targets that could cause a loss of life but, more importantly, prompt 73-year-old President Donald Trump to retaliate. Yet the narrative in the press and Democrat circles was that Trump’s reckless targeted assassination of Soleimani harmed U.S. national security. When Iran shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet Jan. 8, then denied it, until admitting Jan. 12 it was an unintentional mistake, street protests broke out. While Iran claims “human error” or a “mistake, no one manning Iran’s surface-to-air missiles could mistake a commercial airliner or in incoming U.S. Cruise missile.
Street protests broke out today, returning to the same protests calling on the Ayatollah’s ouster that resulted in Iran massacring its own people only weeks ago. Trump’s January 2 decision to take out a high-value target like Soleimani with a drone strike was widely condemned by Democrats and the U.S. media. Judging by the Ayatollah standing down, Trump has Iran where he wants them. When he cancelled former President Barack Obama’s 2015 Iranian Nuke Deal May 8, 2018m, Demorcrats and the media screamed foul. Trump claimed handing Iran’s regime billions of dollars enabled them to go on a terror rampage, eventually targeting Saudi’s largest oil refinery. Democrats and the media don’t talk about Soleimani’s Yemen operation, supplying Houthi rebels missiles, drones and other war materiel to prosecute their eight-year-old war against Saudi Arabia
Shooting down Ukrainian Flight PS 752 Jan. 8 killing all 176 crew-and-passengers showed the Iranian people about the Ayatollah’s repressive regime. No one in Iran buys that it was a mistake, killing some 147 Iranians on the flight, mostly students with dual citizenship-Expats from Canada. Shooting down Flight 752 exposes the rampant incompetence of the mullah regime that robbed ordinary Iranians of their basic human rights to use the Internet, listen to music or dress as they wish. “Iranian protesters are likely very aware that the Iranian regime uses legitimate against the United States and Israel to deflect criticism,” said H.A. Hellyer, a senior associate fellow at the Roya United Services Institute, a London think tank. Hellyer points out that Iranian protesters have stopped burning or stomping on American and Israeli flags, something the government insists on.
Iranian protesters were especially irked over the government’s categorical denials over the shoot-down, then admission of their mistake. Khamenei decided on a throwaway missile Jan. 7 to satisfy his regime’s need for revenge following Soleimani’s death. But once Iranian citizens realized Khamenei ordered the shoot-down of a Ukrainian passenger jet, they realized the Trump was not their biggest problem “Out protests were about all the irresponsibility of the regime, not just the plane. The plane was the trigger of his protest,” 29-year-old Elhan told NBC News. Elhan expressed concerns about the Basij find out her identity. Whatever Iranians think about their government, it’s not for the U.S. media and Democrats to use the Jan. 2 drone strike to undermine Trump’s reelection chances. Having lived under the repressive mullah regime for 41 years, Iranians know what’s right.
U.S. media and Democrats can’t have it both ways: Using Soleimani’s death to rally their base, while, at the same time, accepting Iran’s brutal mullah regime. When Khamenei ordered the throwaway missile attack Jan. 8 in revenge for Soleimani’s death, it showed that he got Trump’s message: One more mistake could end the 41-yar-old mullah rule. Had Khamenei killed one U.S. soldier, Trump would have ordered the destruction of Iran’s oil refineries, throwing the battered Iranian economy into ruins. Trump’s Jan. 2 drone strike, killing Soleimani and Kataib Hezbollah chief Abu Mahid al-Muhandis, forced Ayatollah Khaemei to stand down. If Khaemeni goes too wild with his nuclear program, Trump reserves the right to respond, something that could trigger regime change in Tehran. Democrats and the U.S. press need to stop playing politics when in comes to U.S. national security.
