Above Photo: From Ahtribune.com
Prior to his assassination in a US Drone strike in Baghdad last Friday, Qasem Soleimani would perhaps not have been the most well-known of figures amongst Western onlookers, despite the crucial role he played in Middle Eastern geopolitics.
As commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp’s (IRCG) elite Quds Force branch, General Soleimani was instrumental in destroying the Caliphate that Islamic State (IS) had established in Iraq and Syria; with Iraq having been destabilized following the 2003 US-Anglo invasion, and Syria suffering a similar fate as a result of the 2011 Western-backed regime change project, which saw the CIA arming and training Salafist death squads that would ultimately act as a precursor to Daesh.
Despite Qasem Soleimani’s key role in combating terrorism in the region, one that was requested by both the Iraqi and Syrian governments and no doubt prevented the extension of IS’ influence to Tehran and indeed the rest of the world, the Western reaction to the Iranian General’s death, unfortunately, went exactly as one would expect.
US President Donald Trump immediately lambasted the slain military commander as a ‘terrorist’, with the compliant Western media also seeking to portray Soleimani as ‘tyrant’ responsible for ‘killing his own people’ during anti-government protests in Iran; US Vice-President Mike Pence also made the outlandish claim that Soleimani was instrumental in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, despite the fact that the Shia doctrine of the Islamic Republic of Iran is the antithesis of Al-Qaeda’s Wahhabi ideology.
Despite the fact that Soleimani may not have been familiar to many Western commentators prior to his death in Baghdad International Airport last Friday, the rhetoric emanating from the neocon influenced media following his assassination, and its likely consequences very much should be.
Prior to the 2003 US-Anglo led invasion of one-time White House ally Iraq, the Western media was awash with similar claims that Baghdad allegedly possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and that the government of Saddam Hussein had also provided material assistance to the 9/11 hijackers.
Despite no solid evidence ever being produced to back up such claims, the invasion of Iraq went ahead as planned, resulting in more than half a million deaths, the modern-day refugee crisis, and the rise of Islamic State in what was a previously secular nation.
Likewise in Syria, following an alleged chemical attack in the southern city of Douma in April 2018, the Western media immediately attributed the blame to the government of Bashar al-Assad, despite there being little to no evidence of Damascus’ involvement, and pushed for military intervention; something which would come to fruition a week later, when the US, British and French warplanes launched airstrikes on Syrian government targets – a highly provocative action and one that could have easily led to an armed confrontation between NATO and key Syrian ally, Russia.
With these cases in mind, and a US-led war with Iran now looking more likely than ever following this morning’s retaliatory Iranian missile strikes on US airbases in Iraq, it is now of the utmost importance that Western onlookers finally realize what the consequences can be of blindly following regime-change propaganda – consequences that have the potential to be very serious in any conflict with Iran.