By Aram Mirzaei for the Saker blog
It has been two years since the murders of Martyrs Soleimani and Al-Muhandis at Baghdad airport. A lot has happened since then, but nothing has changed in the region. Still the same US occupation of Syria, and regular Israeli airstrikes on Syria. Still the same threats of “pre-emptive” attacks on Iran, still talks of US sanctioning this and that person in Iran. Still there’s a war of terror going on against the Yemeni people.
For the second anniversary of the assassinations, many authors have praised and remembered the martyred General’s achievements in life, but it is also important to remember his achievements in death.
The cowardly killings of Martyrs Soleimani and Al-Muhandis and its aftermath at the Ain-al Assad military base marked a massive signal in terms of how Washington viewed the Islamic Republic. Previous US administrations, while just as arrogant and self-worshipping as any other US administrations, wouldn’t have dared to kill these men no matter what the Zionist regime wanted. It was just too much of a risk for them to make such a stupid move. The Trump administration however, believed that the Islamic Republic wouldn’t, or didn’t have the strength to respond to such a heinous act of terror. This is also why Trump wanted to assure himself that such was the case when he posted those bizarre tweets where he threatened to destroy cultural heritage sites in Iran.
Well as everybody knows by now, when Iran responded and practically destroyed the Ain al-Assad base, he didn’t follow up on his threats.
Instead he doubled down on his “maximum pressure” campaign, in the hopes of forcing Iran back to the negotiations table to negotiate a new deal, one which includes the Islamic Republic’s missile arsenal. This takes us to where we are today. A new administration is in charge of the White House, and nobody could seriously say that they are surprised that the policy of maximum pressure towards the Islamic Republic has remained, with new audacious demands and accusations towards Tehran.
Ayatollah Khamenei once said “America is America, this or that person or party doesn’t matter. Any president assuming power over there will not do us any good, they’ll only find other ways to antagonize us.”
Washington and its vassals are currently trying to push Tehran in Vienna, to accept a new JCPOA deal. As Tehran has shown that it won’t negotiate anything more than the original JCPOA deal and won’t accept anything less than full sanctions removal, Washington and Tel Aviv have threatened to use “other options”. These “other options” threats are getting old, they’ve repeated these same threats over the past two decades and yet they’ve done nothing.
Washington is afraid, and everybody knows this. Our side knows this, the Russians know this, the Chinese know this, but most importantly, Washington’s allies know this. Even the average person who doesn’t follow world events too much is becoming aware of this.
In West Asia, the Resistance Axis poses a serious threat to Anglo-Zionist hegemony yet they do not dare to attack the Islamic Republic, the main pillar of the Resistance Axis. Both Washington and Tel Aviv have continuously threatened Tehran with airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear sites, yet none of them have ever followed through with their empty threats. The fact that Washington seeks to include the Iranian missile arsenal into a new JCPOA deal, together with their empty threats, shows that their side is worried and fearful of the Islamic Republic’s growing might. And frankly, why shouldn’t they be?
The Resistance Axis hasn’t been weakened by the deaths of Martyrs Soleimani and Al-Muhandis as some western “think tank” analysts believed or rather had hoped for, just as the Resistance Axis wasn’t weakened by the wars in Iraq and Syria. Aside from direct military aggression, every possible conspiracy imaginable have been directed towards the Resistance front. Most people don’t know that the Islamic Revolution in Iran, contrary to what many people believe to be Shiite-inspired, actually drew inspiration from many different Islamic thinkers from different sects over the past 1400 years. Such a pan-Islamic ideology posed a great threat to the US and Israeli plans for the region. So, the Anglo-Zionist side had to do something to create sedition and division among Muslims by using Takfiri extremists to present the Islamic Revolution as a Shiite revolution and create a sectarian war mainly between Arabs and Iranians.
Despite their best attempts to destroy and weaken the Resistance front, the Zionist regime is ever more threatened by Hezbollah’s power, the US hegemony in the region is in decline, as evidenced by their shameful withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the Gulf client states are having more trouble containing the revolutionary Yemeni forces than ever. Today, the Resistance front enjoys widespread support among both Muslims and Christians in West Asia as we saw how people from all sects and movements came out to condemn and commemorate the slain Martyrs. Even the Taliban held a commemoration in General Soleimani’s honour.
Where the Arab nationalists had previously failed, the Islamic Republic succeeded in transcending not only ethnic, but also sectarian and ideological differences and grievances in the region and the Islamic world. Through a pragmatic approach, it has managed to secure its own survival and build a powerful alliance across the region that now truly threatens the Zionist regime.
Of course, the fight is far from over, the Zionists and their American tools still maintain a large presence in the region and I don’t expect them to admit defeat anytime soon either. In fact, they’re already hatching new plots against the Resistance front. One example is the continuation of the so called “normalization’ deals with Israel from the Trump administration’s era, which Biden’s administration is currently pushing hard for.
Recently, a high-ranking official at the Israeli ministry of foreign affairs was quoted as saying that “Israel is working behind the scenes towards normalization of diplomatic relations with Indonesia and Saudi Arabia”. US media outlet Axios first reported that the administration of US President Joe Biden “is trying to build on the Trump-era Abraham Accords, and in this case, looking beyond the Middle East to the largest of the countries that don’t recognize Israel.”
These “normalization” deals serve several purposes. One purpose is to restore the damaged Israeli image in the world. More and more people are recognizing “Israel” for what it is- an apartheid state engaged in terrorism and oppression against not only Palestinians, but the entire region, and dare I say, the world. Another purpose is to isolate the Resistance front by formally and officially announcing these deals as “big steps towards peace”, leaving anyone who refuses to “normalize” relations with Israel being labelled as terrorists or “radical Islamists” in the eyes of the “international community”. A third purpose is for Washington and Tel Aviv to unite all its vassals against the Resistance front. When the UAE and Bahrain shamefully announced their respective deals with the Zionist regime, they also “officially” joined the “unofficial alliance” against Iran and its allies. This wasn’t news for the observer who already has some insight into West Asian geopolitics and knows about the long history of hostility between the Persian Gulf states and Iran, but in terms of symbolism, it shows that for whatever reason, be it as a sign of strength or a reaction against the strengthening of China-Russia-Iran ties, the enemy’s vassals are ready to fully reveal themselves openly now.
In their dream of besieging Iran, Washington moved away from invading and occupying neighbouring countries, seeing as how they failed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and after having seen how sanctions failed to break the Resistance front. Instead, Washington is trying to politically besiege the Islamic Republic in a new way. Just like before, this too shall fail. Since Washington doesn’t give a damn about the people of the Islamic world, they cannot comprehend that their treacherous vassal regimes are highly unpopular among the Muslim population.
No matter how much the Western media attempts to hide and suppress the public outrage and protests going on in countries like Bahrain and Sudan, the reality is that most of these treacherous vassal regimes in the region are completely dependent on US support for survival. Normalizing relations with the apartheid state, will only hasten their inevitable downfall because of the simple fact that if they join Israel and the US in an eventual war with the Resistance front, they will quite simply be destroyed. Seeing as how the Saudis and the other Gulf vassals cannot contain the Houthi forces in Yemen, despite massive support from the West, Takfiri terrorist forces and mercenaries on the ground and the air superiority that they enjoy, it is not a far stretch to imagine virtually all of Saudi Arabia ending up in flames if Riyadh decides to wage war on the Islamic Republic.
Washington has not achieved anything in the region through the killings of Martyrs Soleimani and Al-Muhandis and nothing has changed. By committing this grave mistake, the US has made their shameful exit from the entire region an inevitable fact. They thought they could isolate and besiege the Islamic Republic, but fate has a way of being ironic. Instead of besieging Iran, the Iranians besieged them in the region.
I finish this piece with a quote from the Islamic Revolution: “From the blood of the martyrs, victory will grow”
I would disagree that this was a cowardly killing. I say that it is nothing less than an assassination. A deliberate act of war.
I love your analysis, keep it up and I agree with Jose Garcia that killing Suleiman is an assassination and considered an act of war and that is what Iran did , attacked the American base in Iraq .
Now it is the time for the Iraqi government to insist on the Americans to leave their country once for all or else .
Iran , Russia need to help the Syrian against Turkey and the American and push them to leave the country .
One thing that has changed since the 2 Resistance leaders departed 2 years ago and about which there is no doubt. Today US west Europe Australia countries of this ilk are the hell of lockdown, disintegration and onward a a path of ruin. This is a divine requital for their crime.
I’m sorry, but you’re wrong pal. it will only be when they experience everything they did to others. Only then will you be able to sit with them and talk like a man to a man. They do not believe in God, they believe in their ego. Only when he is broken, when they find modesty, will you be able to talk about God’s providence filled. Sooner that comes, more souls will be saved.
How those filthy US politicians can sleep at night tells me they’re worse than animals who only kill for survival. The vast majority will sleep easy no doubt, aware that they’ve negotiated a nice little earner, a campaign contribution from the Defence, Financial , Pharma, Oil Sectors or AMAZON.
As they tuck their children or grandkids up in bed they’ll say, we had to drone that wedding ’cause some bad people were in attendance, we think. Yes, so we collateral damaged some folks including 17 children and 3/4 of the bride & grooms relatives, however, listen son, in 3 or 4 generations those folks will be thankful for their freedoms.
Terrific piece. The US/UK have not recovered from the 1979 Islamic revolution. Iran has two things the US covets: 1) the world’s fourth largest oil reserves and largest natural gas reserves, 2) geo-strategic position in the Middle East—between Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Indian subcontinent and Central Asia and abuts the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic “choke point” through which circa 25% of the world’s energy transits. In a prescient piece published several years ago, Dan Glazebrook pointed out- “The reason for this obsession with destroying Iran – shared by all factions of the Western ruling class, despite their differences over means – is obvious: Iran’s very existence as an independent state threatens imperial control of the region – which in turns underpins both US military power and the global role of the dollar.” (See: Trump’s delusional Iran oil gambit is decades too late by Dan Glazebrook RT July 9, 2018; Link: http://www.rt.com/op-ed/432418-iran-trump-china-tariffs). Biden/Pentagon have no intention of ending sanctions or bellicose threats against Iran. They view the Iran-Russia-China axis as an obstacle to US global hegemony. Clearly, the American empire fears the growing influence of Iran in the ME, with Iran becoming a major power broker in the region. This needs to considered within the context of the accelerating rot/decline of late-stage American capitalism which has progressed to the point where its very survival requires constant debt monetization (aka money printing) to prop up Wall St., over-priced real estate, the Pentagon and war. It is difficult to see this ending well.