Trump helped save Iran from Iran

UPDATE: I wrote this before tonight's "attack" on USA bases, in which no one was hurt but the cows were scared. Iran now says it will not attack if the USA does not retaliate. In short, it is a half-hearted effort meant to save face. Whatever. Now to sit down and talk. This post explains why negotiations can begin.

THE ORIGINAL POST: Let me get this out of the way first. Breitbart News reported, "Iran TV: Mass Stampede at Qasem Soleimani Funeral Causes 35 Deaths." Gee, I wonder why people think Iranians are a backward people.

The alternate headline is Iran reacts to Trump killing General قاسم سلیمانی  (no one can spell his name in English).

Instead of mourning the death of General قاسم سلیمانی, Iranians should rejoice. He is the Hue Jackson of military leaders.

Jackson went 1-31 as head coach of the Cleveland Browns. Being the Browns, they did not fire him until he won a couple of games the next season.

General قاسم سلیمانی was so bad that even Tommy Friedman at the New York Times noticed.

On Sunday, he wrote, "Trump just ordered the assassination of possibly the dumbest man in Iran and the most overrated strategist in the Middle East: Maj Gen Qassem Suleimani.

"Think of the miscalculations this guy made. In 2015, the US and the major European powers agreed to lift virtually all their sanctions on Iran, many dating back to 1979, in return for Iran halting its nuclear weapons program for a mere 15 years but still maintaining the right to have a peaceful nuclear program. It was a great deal for Iran. Its economy grew by over 12% the next year. And what did Suleimani do with that windfall?

"He and Iran’s supreme leader launched an aggressive regional imperial project that made Iran and its proxies the de facto controlling power in Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad and Sanaa. This freaked out US allies in the Sunni Arab world and Israel, and they prevailed on the Trump administration to respond by tearing up the nuclear deal and imposing oil sanctions on Iran that have now shrunk the Iranian economy by almost 10% and sent unemployment to more that 16%."

Sanaa is the capital of Yemen, where Saudi-led forces demolished General قاسم سلیمانی 's forces in a proxy war.

He ran a porous operation as well. Friedman wrote, "Israeli intelligence had so penetrated Suleimani’s Quds Force and its proxies that Suleimani would land a plane with precision munitions in Syria at 5 pm and the Israeli air force would blow it up by 5.30 pm. Suleimani’s men were like fish in a barrel. If Iran had a free press and a real parliament, he would have been fired for colossal mismanagement."

At least one Obama official thinks Trump's strategy worked.

And James Holmes of the National Interest wrote, "The coming weeks and months may see irregular warfare prosecuted with newfound vigor through such familiar unconventional warmaking methods. It’s doubtful Tehran would launch into conventional operations, stepping onto ground it knows America dominates. To launch full-scale military reprisals would justify full-scale U.S. military reprisals that, in all likelihood, would outstrip Iran’s in firepower and ferocity."

General قاسم سلیمانی 's departure from Earth is President Donald John Trump's gift to the mullahs in Iran. Without General قاسم سلیمانی recklessly starting fights and unleashing terrorists, the mullahs can concentrate on making love, not war. They need to. President Trump killed their economy and the peasants (OK, the middle class) are up in arms. Do not be fooled by the funeral procession. Dictatorships are deft at PR.

But maybe Iran's theocrats are as dumb as Democrats. The president gifted the Democrats by giving them an opportunity to look bipartisan and patriotic. Republicans largely stood by Obama after Navy SEALs made Osama bin Laden room temperature.

But as Conrad Black pointed out, Democrats blew it.

He wrote, "The Democratic presidential candidates agree that Soleimani was a nasty man, but all the principal active candidates — Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, and Elizabeth Warren — have embraced the Obama Administration’s nuclear deal with Iran, in which Iran undertook not to develop a full nuclear-tipped long-range missile capability for 10 years. Under this agreement the United States released approximately $150 billion of frozen Iranian assets, which substantially have been squandered in underwriting the terrorist acts and infiltrations supervised by the late Soleimani — especially by the Iranian-sponsored terrorist organizations Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and the Houthi in Yemen.

"Apart from being unverifiable, and giving a tremendous stimulus to Iran’s terrorist and other destabilizing activities around the Middle East, the treaty (also ratified by France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Russia and China), only dealt with fissile material, not rocket development or the perfection of a warhead. So Iran’s nuclear military research has continued apace, as it escalated its terrorist activities: a terrible and indefensible agreement the Democrats are now robotically defending."

Over the weekend, I wrote, "The media never gets President Donald John Trump right. As a retired newspaperman who does get President Trump right, let me offer the key to getting our beloved president right.

"Believe him."

Given his track record, he gets it right while the experts get it wrong.

After killing General قاسم سلیمانی , the president told reporters, "We took action last night to stop a war. We did not take action to start a war."

There will be, if Iran's mullahs seize this opportunity to work on domestic problems.

But Breitbart News reported, "Islamic Revolution Guard Corps commander Hossein Salami said Tuesday that Iran is seeking revenge against the U.S. that 'will be hard, firm, regrettable, decisive and complete.'

"The major general was speaking at the funeral of Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani, semi-official domestic news agency IRNA reports.

"Salami praised the general and Iran’s promised response, saying 'today all humanity admires and praises him as a model of resistance and support for the oppressed. They want to throw the sun off, make a mistake by throwing rocks, and this is the tradition of the criminals of the universe who do not understand and cannot fight the sun.'"

We soon will find out if the mullahs are suicidal.