Battle of Collaterals

Revelations about how the Pentagon handled the assassination of Iranian Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani should cause major concern among governments in this region and further afield. US generals prepared a list of several options for White House occupant Donald Trump to consider and believed he would reject the Soleimani operation because it was the most extreme and dangerous option. The generals all too clearly did not realise that Trump, known to be an impetuous reality television star who looks only to short-term public relations benefits for himself, would relish that option. Since US generals cannot be relied on to propose “safe” options in times of extreme tension to loose cannon Trump, they cannot be trusted any more than he. This makes the US all the more dangerous a player on the world stage than previously thought.

During re-election campaign rallies, Trump has bragged about his elimination of an Iranian “terrorist” who is accused of slaying hundreds of US soldiers by fostering and arming Shia militias which resisted the US occupation of Iraq. No one mentions, of course, that slain US troops were in Iraq or lately in Syria where they should not have been in the first place.

Trump’s killing of Daesh-leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, which he trumpeted for several weeks, had already been forgotten by his “base” which has no real interest in international affairs. Furthermore, while Soleimani often visited Baghdad or Damascus, Baghdadi was a shadowy figure who appeared only twice, the first time in June 2014 in the pulpit of the Mosul Nouri mosque and the second to proclaim a war of attrition in April 2019 in a video after Daesh had lost all the territory seized over the previous five years.

After nearly a week of trying to come up with a pretext, Trump’s minions claimed Soleimani had to be stopped from mounting “imminent” attacks that would have killed many US citizens. Congressmen and women briefed on the strike on Soleimani said they were not told more than this. Finally, Trump announced that Soleimani had to be eliminated because he was plotting to bomb four US embassies without giving locations or details. This is nonsense. Soleimani was an extremely cautious operator who never would have mounted such a provocative operation as it would have elicited a massive US counter-attack against the Iranian homeland.

Soleimani has been trumpeted in the West as Iran’s second most powerful figure after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This, too, is nonsense. Soleimani headed one branch of Iran’s armed forces, not overall force commander, and operated within a chain-of-command and under Khamenei’s orders. As a successful planner and executor of operations outside Iran, Soleimani was made into a domestic celebrity by the regime at a time it was under challenge from protesters calling for an end to corruption and demanding public services and jobs. Since he had no role in Iran’s internal troubles, he was not blamed for regime failings.

In Soleimani’s absence, the Iranians managed to launch 16 ballistic missiles which struck Iraqi bases hosting US troops in Irbil and Anbar province without causing deaths or injuries among Iraqi, US or Western troops. This was quite a feat as damage at al-Asad base in Anbar was considerable. The lack of casualties from the strikes was forgotten as soon as the Ukrainian commercial flight with 176 people on board crashed near Tehran’s airport after being struck by an Iranian missile. To compound this terrible tragedy, it took Tehran three days to admit guilt and to apologise. The clerics do not like to admit mistakes and accept accountability.

While millions of Iranians took to the streets to protest the death of “martyr” Soleimani, thousands demonstrated against the government’s lies about the downing of the plane. Protesters demanded the resignation of senior leaders, including Khamenei. This marks a return to protests following November’s mass action against the rise in fuel prices and economic hardship, which was put down brutally by Iran’s internal security agencies. Some 200 were killed and thousands detained. A leader of Iran’s opposition Green Movement, Mehdi Karroubi insisted that Khamenei stand down as commander of Iran’s armed forces.

Tehran has expressed readiness to pay reparations to the families of the victims of the crash in accordance with a settlement between Iran and Ukraine, as the owner and operator of the aircraft.

While Trump has tweeted support to Iranians protesting the downing of the Ukrainian passenger plane and failure of leaders to own up, the US is not innocent of doing the same thing. In 1988, a US warship, the USS Vincennes, shot down an Iranian Airbus with 290 people on board as it flew over the Gulf en route from Bandar Abbas to Dubai. The Vincennes was in Iranian territorial waters pursuing an Iranian helicopter and patrol boats when the incident took place. Contrary to US crew accounts, the aircraft was climbing and its radio transmitter was signalling on a civilian frequency. Nevertheless, Vincennes officers believed it was a fighter jet equipped with missiles. Other warships in the area did not make this mistake.

Once Iran had launched missiles at US military targets in Iraq, Tehran should have halted all commercial flights as Iran expected US retaliation. However, several flights had taken off before the Ukrainian plane. This should have warned the officer who fired the missile that commercial air traffic had continued as usual.

In the case of the Vincennes, the US also argued that commercial fights should not have been flying over the Gulf during a time of extreme tension. However, the Iranian Airbus was flying along a normal commercial flight path and had identified itself as a civilian airliner. Even if the plane had been a fighter jet, it should not have been shot down because it was in Iranian airspace.

Then President Ronald Reagan regretted the loss of life and his Vice President George H.W. Bush refused to apologise. Reagan defended the ship’s captain, Will Rogers III, and a Defence Department investigation backed his decision. He was later awarded the Legion of Merit for service in the Gulf. In 1989, Iran lodged a case with the International Court of Justice against the US for bringing down the plane, refusing to pay compensation and interfering in aviation in the Gulf region. After years of wrangling, the US agreed to pay Iran $61.8 million (Dhs227m) in compensation to the families of the victims.