Iran
January 16, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
The late Qasem Soleimani was not just Iran’s leading military figure. He was also a central player in Iranian politics. Indeed, there were persistent rumors that he might stage a military coup. Such a coup, rumor had it, would have been designed to save the hard line Iranian regime, which has increasingly been under fire for rampant corruption and incompetence. The idea would have been to bring down the civilian
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January 15, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
In the immediate aftermath of Iran’s missile attacks on U.S. bases — in response to the killing of Gen. Soleimani — there was speculation that Iran, feeling compelled to do something but not wanting to risk an attack by the U.S., had conducted the attack in a way designed not to kill or injure any Americans. U.S. officials expressed this view. They noted that, in fact, no Americans were killed
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January 15, 2020 — Scott Johnson
The Democrats can’t wait to realign American policy on Iran consistent with the inclinations of the mullahcracy. It is a bloody disgrace. Lee Smith performs a great service reminding us of the essential elements of Obama’s policy in the Tablet column “Obama passed the buck.” I had forgotten some of the details. I strongly recommend Lee’s refresher course. The cash and other financial resources made available to Iran in part
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January 13, 2020 — John Hinderaker
More fallout from Iran’s shooting down of the Ukrainian airliner: a news anchor on Iran’s state television has resigned, apologizing to the people of Iran for “lying to you on TV for 13 years.” Iran State TV's anchor resigns saying, "It was very hard for me to believe the killing of my countrymen. I apologize for lying to you on TV for 13 years."#IranProtests2020 https://t.co/XnTv72KDkZ — Farnaz Fassihi (@farnazfassihi) January
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January 13, 2020 — John Hinderaker
For many years, people have commented on the seemingly-incongruous alliance between radical Muslims and Communists. In fact, however, there is no mystery: both are hostile to the values of advanced Western civilization and yearn for tyrannies that are not, in practice, particularly different from one another. Thus, while millions of Iranians are celebrating the demise of terrorist leader Qasem Soleimani, we shouldn’t be surprised that Venezuela’s Maduro regime is officially
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January 12, 2020 — Scott Johnson
Rep. Brian Mast is a double amputee courtesy of the munitions disseminated by Qassem Soleimani in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. Rep. Mast himself sustained his injuries in Afghanistan. Beyond the 600-plus Americans whose deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq by such munitions can be attributed to Soleimani are the many more who have been grievously wounded and disfigured. Rep. Mast is representative of them in his person and spoke up on
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January 11, 2020 — John Hinderaker
Iran has been roiled by protests and demonstrations following its government’s admission that its troops shot down a Ukrainian airliner. A few hours ago, President Trump produced two tweets in Farsi, supporting the Iranian people. (Parenthetically, I assume that Trump doesn’t know Farsi, so that apparently answers the question whether anyone besides the president gets involved in his tweets.) Here they are, with English translations: به مردم شجاع و رنج
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January 10, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Yesterday, the House passed a resolution designed to prevent President Trump from taking additional military action against Iran without specific congressional authorization. The resolution calls on the president “to terminate the use of United States Armed Forces to engage in hostilities in or against Iran” unless Congress declares war or enacts “specific statutory authorization” for the use of armed forces. Three Republicans and an independent voted for the resolution. Eight
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January 10, 2020 — Scott Johnson
Leading Democrats speak in unison over President Trump’s decision to order the termination of Iranian terrorist mastermind Qassem Soleimani after he reported for work in Baghdad last week (Washington Free Beacon supercuts video below). TDS runs deep, but (to borrow the Dems’ preferred locution on this issue) they seem to object in principle. They seem to believe what they are saying. God help us when they return to power with
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January 9, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
As Scott discusses below, U.S. officials say they have “high confidence” that an Iranian antiaircraft missile brought down that Ukrainian passenger jet near Tehran. So reports the Washington Post. The missile strike killed all 176 people aboard the plane. None was an American. More than 60 were Canadians. 82 were Iranians. The U.S. believes that the aircraft was hit by a SA-15 surface-to-air missile, a Russian-made system. This occurred about
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January 9, 2020 — Scott Johnson
Taking into account the Iranian regime’s obvious lying about the cause of the downing of the Ukrainian jetliner leaving Tehran this past Tuesday combined with the regime’s subsequent refusal to turn over the aircraft’s black boxes, and a reasonable person — say, the American Spectator’s Scott McKay — would infer that the regime shot it down one way or another. Now comes word that “U.S. officials said Thursday it was
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January 8, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
During his address to the nation this morning about the situation with Iran, President Trump said the ballistic missiles that targeted two U.S. air bases in Iraq were paid for using “funds made available by the last administration.” This assertion enraged Democrats and their media allies such as the Washington Post. Is their outrage justified? I see two issues here. The first is whether President Trump should be calling out
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January 8, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Joe Biden has been wrong about nearly every major foreign policy decision for as long as anyone can remember. He was even wrong about the biggest no-brainer ever. Biden counseled President Obama against taking out Osama bin Laden when the opportunity to do so arose. (He now falsely denies this.) Biden doesn’t want to be wrong again, so he’s waffling on the decision to take out the terrorist general Qasem
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January 8, 2020 — John Hinderaker
Iran tossed a few missiles at U.S. bases in Iraq yesterday, ostensibly in retaliation for the killing of Qassem Soleimani. The regime gave warning of the strikes, which injured no one and did little property damage, likely on purpose. Iran promptly announced that it was done retaliating. In other words, please don’t hit us again! It is revealing that the regime thought it necessary to lie about its counterstrikes. FARS
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January 8, 2020 — Scott Johnson
President Trump just concluded his formal statement on last night’s attack by Iran on the two bases in Iraq. He opened his statement with the vow that Iran will never acquire nuclear weapons on his watch and observed: “Iran appears to be standing down, which is a good thing for all parties concerned and a very good thing for the world.” He reported that no American or Iraqi lives were
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January 8, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
As Scott noted in a post below, Iran retaliated yesterday for the killing of Gen. Soleimani by firing 15 ballistic missiles at two Iraqi bases housing U.S. forces. It appears that there were no American casualties. However, there were plenty of Soleimani-related casualties in Iran. The Washington Post reports that 56 people died, and more than two hundred were injured, due to a stampede at a funeral procession for the
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January 8, 2020 — Scott Johnson
Iran retaliated against the United States last night for the termination of Qassem Soleimani with extreme prejudice. From inside Iran it fired some 15 ballistic missiles at two Iraqi bases housing U.S. forces — one in Erbil in northern Iraq and the large Al Asad base in western Iraq. One missile hit the base in Erbil (apparently four missed); ten hit the Al Asad base. No U.S. or Iraqi casualties
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