Thursday, January 9, 2020

Why Kill Gen Soleimani Now?


It is reported that the American Empire has had numerous opportunities to kill Gen Soleimani over the years, but did not do so until a few days ago.  Why?  Federico Pieraccini has an answer to that question. 

Firstly, it is to forestall the development of friendly relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia:

 . . . it was difficult for Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi to reveal the weekslong backstory behind the terrorist attack.

I was supposed to meet him [Soleimani] later in the morning when he was killed. He came to deliver a message from Iran in response to the message we had delivered to the Iranians from the Saudis.

 . . .

What clearly emerges is that the success of the operation against Soleimani had nothing to do with the intelligence gathering of the U.S. or Israel. It was known to all and sundry that Soleimani was heading to Baghdad in a diplomatic capacity that acknowledged Iraq’s efforts to mediate a solution to the regional crisis with Saudi Arabia.

It would seem that the Saudis, Iranians and Iraqis were well on the way towards averting a regional conflict involving Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Riyadh’s reaction to the American strike evinced no public joy or celebration. Qatar, while not seeing eye to eye with Riyadh on many issues, also immediately expressed solidarity with Tehran, hosting a meeting at a senior government level with Mohammad Zarif Jarif, the Iranian foreign minister. Even Turkey and Egypt, when commenting on the asassination, employed moderating language.

 . . .


But that itself plays into the larger geopolitical picture.  The Holy American Republic under Pres Trump’s faction of the Deep State is trying desperately to avoid the collapse of the unipolar world order that it has sat atop since the fall of the Soviet Union, and it is using all means at its disposal to do this - military, economic, religious (more on this last one later, we hope):

When the words of the Iraqi prime minister are linked back to the geopolitical and energy agreements in the region, then the worrying picture starts to emerge of a desperate U.S. lashing out at a world turning its back on a unipolar world order in favor of the emerging multipolar about which I have long written.

The US, now considering itself a net energy exporter as a result of the shale-oil revolution (on which the jury is still out), no longer needs to import oil from the Middle East. However, this does not mean that oil can now be traded in any other currency other than the U.S. dollar.

The petrodollar is what ensures that the U.S. dollar retains its status as the global reserve currency, granting the U.S. a monopolistic position from which it derives enormous benefits from playing the role of regional hegemon.

This privileged position of holding the global reserve currency also ensures that the U.S. can easily fund its war machine by virtue of the fact that much of the world is obliged to buy its treasury bonds that it is simply able to conjure out of thin air. To threaten this comfortable arrangement is to threaten Washington’s global power.

Even so, the geopolitical and economic trend is inexorably towards a multipolar world order, with China increasingly playing a leading role, especially in the Middle East and South America.

 . . .

Washington would like to prevent any Eurasian integration by unleashing chaos and destruction in the region, and killing Soleimani served this purpose.  The U.S. cannot contemplate the idea of the dollar losing its status as the global reserve currency. Trump is engaging in a desperate gamble that could have disastrous consequences.

 . . .

To try and keep everyone in line, Washington is left to resort to terrorism, lies and unspecified threats of visiting destruction on friends and enemies alike.

Trump has evidently been convinced by someone that the U.S. can do without the Middle East, that it can do without allies in the region, and that nobody would ever dare to sell oil in any other currency than the U.S. dollar.

Soleimani’s death is the result of a convergence of U.S. and Israeli interests. With no other way of halting Eurasian integration, Washington can only throw the region into chaos by targeting countries like Iran, Iraq and Syria that are central to the Eurasian project. While Israel has never had the ability or audacity to carry out such an assassination itself, the importance of the Israel Lobby to Trump’s electoral success would have influenced his decision, all the more so in an election year .

Trump believed his drone attack could solve all his problems by frightening his opponents, winning the support of his voters (by equating Soleimani’s assassination to Osama bin Laden’s), and sending a warning to Arab countries of the dangers of deepening their ties with China.

The assassination of Soleimani is the U.S. lashing out at its steady loss of influence in the region. The Iraqi attempt to mediate a lasting peace between Iran and Saudi Arabia has been scuppered by the U.S. and Israel’s determination to prevent peace in the region and instead increase chaos and instability.

Washington has not achieved its hegemonic status through a preference for diplomacy and calm dialogue, and Trump has no intention of departing from this approach.

--Ibid.

The killing of Gen Soleimani was not about justice, safety, or any such thing.  It was about a ruthless empire keeping the peoples of the world in the deathgrip of its eagle talons.  The self-anointed ‘chosen nation’ could do no other.

The American Supremacists who style themselves conservatives - whether the Evangelical type at American Family Radio, the Family Research Council, etc., or those more given to overt worship of the idol of Americanism like Rush Limbaugh - and are staunchly standing behind Pres Trump’s actions vis-à-vis Gen Soleimani and Iran are harming their credibility and setting themselves up for a fall.

***

The many dishonesties of Pres Trump’s speech delivered the morning after Iran’s missile attacks are laid bare by Mr Daniel Larison here:


Anyone who thinks Pres Trump is an honorable man would seem to be mistaken.  Here is a little more about how he has behaved lately with regard to Iraq, as told by the Iraqi Prime Minister himself:

The Iraqi prime minister, Adil Abdul-Mahdi, has revealed details of his interactions with Trump in the weeks leading up to Soleimani’s assassination in a speech to the Iraqi parliament. He tried to explain several times on live television how Washington had been browbeating him and other Iraqi members of parliament to toe the American line, even threatening to engage in false-flag sniper shootings of both protesters and security personnel in order to inflame the situation, recalling similar modi operandi seen in Cairo in 2009, Libya in 2011, and Maidan in 2014. The purpose of such cynicism was to throw Iraq into chaos.

 . . .

Abdul-Mehdi spoke angrily about how the Americans had ruined the country and now refused to complete infrastructure and electricity grid projects unless they were promised 50% of oil revenues, which Abdul-Mehdi refused.

The complete (translated) words of Abdul-Mahdi’s speech to parliament:

This is why I visited China and signed an important agreement with them to undertake the construction instead. Upon my return, Trump called me to ask me to reject this agreement. When I refused, he threatened to unleash huge demonstrations against me that would end my premiership.

Huge demonstrations against me duly materialized and Trump called again to threaten that if I did not comply with his demands, then he would have Marine snipers on tall buildings target protesters and security personnel alike in order to pressure me.

I refused again and handed in my resignation. To this day the Americans insist on us rescinding our deal with the Chinese.

After this, when our Minister of Defense publicly stated that a third party was targeting both protestors and security personnel alike (just as Trump had threatened he would do), I received a new call from Trump threatening to kill both me and the Minister of Defense if we kept on talking about this “third party”.

--Pieraccini, from same story as above

Folks need to keep those words in mind next time Pres Trump or someone from his administration declare their unyielding dedication to the sanctity of human life (and with the March for Life coming up soon in Washington City, such hypocritical words will likely be flowing in abundance).

--

Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

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