Author: Viktor Mikhin

Column: Politics

According to reports from the IRNA, Iran’s official news agency, masked gunmen ambushed and killed Basij commander Abdolhossein Mojaddami, who led a volunteer militia wing of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in the city of Darkhovin in the southwestern province of Khuzestan. The news agency highlighted the fact that the murdered commander was a militia ally of Qassem Soleimani, who was also recently killed in a United States drone strike in Baghdad. Abdolhossein Mojaddami was shot in front of his home by two gunmen riding a motorcycle, armed with an assault rifle and a hunting rifle.

What is striking is how surprisingly fast this news was reported by World Israel News, citing the Associated Press on the very same day the murder took place, imbedding the news with a variety of astonishingly provocative comments. In one example, Don Spilman writes: “This is great, maybe there are those who are becoming emboldened by Trump’s actions and realize the vile damned accursed evil muzslime leaders are not untouchable! Let’s start picking them off wherever we find them! It’s time and past time for muzslime to start running and hiding everywhere!

This is the true face of those who claim to be champions of democracy and human rights, who have been using the same bloody executioner’s techniques for decades to murder, slaughter, annihilate and incinerate, using chemical and biological weapons, which is what they did in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as in Vietnam and Iraq. But this is hardly surprising today, when assassination politics has become Washington’s trump card.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has yet to deny allegations that the killing of Iranian establishment official major general Soleimani by the Americans was intended to avert a “direct threat” to America. However, it now looks likely that he is trying to reformulate the operation, which he says is part of a new broader strategy, “that also applies to China and Russia.” Pompeo made this rather alarming statement in a speech at Stanford University’s Hoover Institute. The Secretary of State has avoided mentioning a “direct threat”, an allegation which President Trump has already denied, and has said that Soleimani was assassinated as part of a bigger strategy the administration now has to achieve its main goal of “real deterrence”. He also said all the other countries need to understand that the United States not only has the capacity to make any nation pay and annihilate their leaders, it is also “willing to do so,” noting that the killing showed how powerful America is, by acting from a great position of strength.

The claim that Soleimani was a “terrorist”, preparing an “imminent attack” which could have cost hundreds of innocent American citizens their lives, turned out to be a blatant lie, far from the truth. It has been reported that US President Donald J. Trump disclosed the details of the Iranian official’s killing at a private GOP fundraising dinner evening for Republican Party donors. According to reports from the Washington Post and CNN citing an audio recording made during the dinner as their source, the killing was apparently motivated by Soleimani’s rhethoric, which the American President did not like. Trump’s story of how he himself watched the operation take place remotely has been met with an uproar: Trump was told how many minutes and seconds the Iranian major general had left to live. After Trump heard the “necessary result” had been achieved, he even apparently did something Hillary Clinton had also done, and shouted out, “wahey!”

It has even been noted in Germany, a close ally of the United States, that the drone attack does not fit the criteria for saving American lives whatsoever, and therefore constitutes a violation of the United Nation’s International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

What has this led to? During Soleimani’s funeral, an announcement was broadcast on Iran’s state-owned Channel One TV station that there would be a massive bounty of 80 million USD awarded on behalf of Iran’s population of 80 million people to anyone who avenges the major general’s death.

It does not take a genius to understand perfectly well that the Middle East has entered a dangerous new phase of turmoil and chaos following these recent events (the shady malicious killing of Soleimani, Iran’s retaliatory attack on US military bases in Iraq, the Ukrainian airliner shot down in an error provoked by the US). Targeted killing in politics could lead to a significant increase in global terrorist activity. The United States believes “the war on terror” gives it a license to kill any foreign political or military leader, and by following this belief it has opened a kind of Pandora’s Box. The world is developing at a fast pace, and it will become easier for terrorists and America’s enemies to get their hands on the technology being used today to deliver a highly accurate targeted attack, of whom there are many, and when that day comes, the terrorist attacks happening in the Middle East today could be relocated to American or European territory. It is unlikely that the strength, energy, cunning and experience the United States has will be enough to successfully counter it. Just remember the events of 9/11, which not only left Americans shook, forcing them to question how safe they are and the security in the United State itself, it shocked many people from different continents all around the world.

The actions taken by the United States in Iran have had a serious detrimental effect on global stability, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The situation in the Middle East has become a crisis since the United States voluntarily walked away from the Iran nuclear deal. “The Americans decided to apply their own rules – and have abandoned the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action for the Iranian nuclear program (JCPOA). Not only have they stopped fulfilling their obligations, but they also have forbidden everyone else from trading with Iran. At the same time, they are demanding that Iran abides by the document, which President Donald Trump has dubbed ‘the worst deal ever negotiated’,” complained FM Lavrov. In these circumstances, Moscow considers a meeting on the Iran nuclear deal will need to be organized in the near future between the leaders of the countries which have entered into the JCPOA, and the Russian Foreign Minister has stressed that the signatory states should “have a candid conversation.” These are exactly the kinds of measures that could save the entire world from slipping into a third world war.

Viktor Mikhin, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”

https://journal-neo.org/2020/02/03/the-middle-east-united-states-constantly-fanning-the-flames-of-war/