After the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States became the world's number one superpower. Many countries were forced to suffer bullying from the United States but could only endure it. But after all, not all countries are willing to cooperate with the United States. Countries such as Iran, North Korea, and Cuba resolutely safeguard their rights and interests.
Naturally, the United States cannot let go of the last few disobedient thorns. The struggle between the two sides has never stopped in all aspects.
In the early morning of January 3, 2020, at the U.S. "ally" Iraq capital Baghdad Airport , several missiles falling from the sky hit the famous Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, and the Iraqi Shia armed forces. Abu Muhandis, deputy commander of the Popular Mobilization Forces, and others were killed simultaneously [1].
This atrocity has completely intensified the conflict between the United States and Iran, so that today it is already very difficult for the United States to ease relations with Iran.
Soleimani
Iran and Iraq have had a complicated relationship for thousands of years, but the Iraqi government supported by the United States has an ambiguous relationship with Iran
This assassination in 2020 shocked the world. After all, many people's impression of "assassination" still remains in World War II Kill Japanese Combined Fleet Commander Yamamoto.
The reason why Americans ignore the basic principles of international relations and carry out assassinations is also because of the new changes in the relationship between Iran, Iraq and the United States in 2020.
Historically, Iraq, which belongs to the Arab civilization, and Iran, the inheritor of the Persian Empire , have had a feud for thousands of years.
After World War II , both Iran and Iraq achieved independent statehood. In 1953, the CIA launched a coup in Iran and made Pahlavi the king of Iran again. Iran has thus become one of the three major allies of the United States in the Middle East, along with Israel and Saudi Arabia . The upper echelons of the country are highly pro-American.
After Saddam Hussein and others in Iraq overthrew the government of the Kingdom of Iraq in 1958, they did not show any anti-American tendencies at the political level.
Saddam
However, the Islamic Revolution broke out in Iran in early 1979, and the religious leader Khomeini became the actual supreme leader of Iran after returning from overseas. Iran has become the only Shia theocracy in the Middle East and is confronting the entire Western bloc.
Internal changes in Iran allowed Iraqi President Saddam to see an opportunity, so he took the initiative to provoke the Iran-Iraq war in 1980.
The United States was very dissatisfied with the changes in Iran, so it continued to support Iraq during the eight-year Iran-Iraq war.
Unexpectedly, after the Iran-Iraq War, Saddam actually invaded Kuwait and destroyed the existing pattern in the Middle East. So in 1991, the United States organized a multinational coalition to launch the Gulf War and completely crippled Iraq.
In this way After the end of the Cold War , both Iran and Iran have become enemies of the United States. However, the US leadership believed that the cost of invading Iran was too high, so it only imposed economic sanctions on the grounds of "nuclear issues".
Khomeini
In 2003, the Bush administration of the United States launched the Iraq War on trumped-up charges, and finally completely eliminated Saddam, the thorn in his side in the Middle East. After that, the United States supported anti-Saddam people to form the so-called coalition government in Iraq. For a while, Iran faced the crisis of its neighbors to the west becoming completely vassals of the United States.
However, the US invasion did not bring real happiness to the Iraqi people. Instead, it completely exploded the conflicts between religions and races that had been covered up during Saddam's era. So after 2003, on the one hand, anti-American armed forces were everywhere in Iraq, but on the other hand, the various factions could not form a coalition government at all and instead, civil war continued.
As a result, some knowledgeable people in Iraq gradually realized that Iraq without the United States is the Iraq of Iraqis .
Many Shia people have begun to actively contact Iran, and Iran is hoping to turn pro-American Iraq into an anti-American Iraq.
As a result, the Iraqi government is publicly pro-American, but many local powerful figures are very close to Iran.
Saddam
Soleimani has become an important target of the United States, Trump personally issued the killing order
The United States naturally does not want the pro-American government of Iraq that has been supported with great difficulty to change, but it cannot change the leadership of Iraq's Shiites. People are close to Iran.
In 2011, due to the severe economic crisis that prevailed in Middle Eastern countries at that time, the so-called " Arab Spring" broke out under the instigation of the United States.
Although the United States still has not shaken the rock-solid rule of the Iranian government, it has successfully triggered serious civil strife in Iran's important ally Syria , and caused a Syrian civil war that has not really ended to this day.
Faced with the precarious situation of the Bashar al-Assad government in Syria during this process, the Iranian government and Russia behind it naturally cannot stand idly by.
So before Russia intervened in Syria in the name of counter-terrorism, Iran had already sent a large number of paramilitary forces into Syria, among which Iran's " Quds Brigade " commanded by Soleimani played an important role.
Soleimani
Due to the relatively closed nature of Iran, more information about Soleimani was not disclosed until Soleimani was assassinated.
Public information shows that Soleimani was born in the village of Labol in Kerman Province, Iran, in March 1957. He attended religious schools since he was a child and gradually leaned toward Khomeini's leadership [2].
After the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Soleimani was responsible for Khomeini's security. During the Iran-Iraq war, Soleimani joined the Revolutionary Guards and performed many meritorious service on the battlefield.
In 2000, Soleimani officially became the commander of the "Quds Force". In 2003, he supported anti-American militia operations in Iraq and was hated by the Americans. Although the "Quds Brigade" is called a brigade-level combat unit, many people believe that it is more similar to an intelligence organization like the CIA.
Some information believes that although Soleimani's official rank is not high, he has a transcendent status in Iran and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards . There are even rumors that he is a popular candidate for the next president of Iran.
Soleimani
The intervention of Russia and Iran failed the United States' attempt to bring down the Syrian government, so that the then US President Obama had to consider easing relations with Iran as a political achievement of his term.
Therefore, in 2015, the United States took the initiative to contact Iran. The Iranian government naturally hopes that both parties can reach an agreement that is beneficial to itself.
However, this move by the Obama administration has aroused strong dissatisfaction in the United States, especially Trump's Republican Party which believes that Obama is too weak.
After Trump came to power in 2017, on the one hand, he abolished all the actions of the Obama administration to improve relations with Iran, and on the other hand, he listed the Iranian Republican Guard of the Republic of Iran, especially the "Quds Force", as a terrorist organization.
This naturally caused a strong backlash from Iran, and the two sides have been fighting openly and secretly.
Obama
On December 29, 2019, US Secretary of State Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Esper flew to Mar-A-Lago to report intelligence on Iran’s attacks to Trump, who was on vacation.
Finally, on January 2, 2020, senior U.S. officials unanimously determined that Iran would launch an attack on U.S. military targets in the Middle East in the near future, so Trump ordered the use of targeted killings to teach Iran a lesson.
It is reported that Soleimani, as an important official of Iran's intelligence department, has realized that the United States may kill him. But Soleimani and other Iranian military officers still believe that even if the United States takes action, it must take into account its international influence.
Therefore, Soleimani completely relaxed his vigilance when he went to the Iraqi capital Baghdad to meet with Muhandis, the deputy commander of the Iraqi Shiite armed "Popular Mobilization".
After all, Iraq is a sovereign country and theoretically an ally of the United States. But Soleimani's misjudgment cost him and his important allies their lives.
Soleimani
used new equipment for the assassination, and there are moles everywhere in Iran and Iraq
Late at night on January 2, 2020, Soleimani, who had just completed talks with the leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon, took a "Tatar" The "Wing" civil airliner took off from the Syrian capital and landed at Baghdad Airport in the early morning of the 3rd. Afterwards, Soleimani and Muhandis who greeted him got into a limousine respectively.
But at this time, about 9,000 meters above Bada Airport, two American MQ-9 "Reaper" drones were ready.
The drone operator used his advanced optoelectronic equipment to clearly see the activities of airport personnel. When he determined that Soleimani had boarded the vehicle, he immediately asked for instructions to open fire.
After the cars the two people were riding in were started respectively, the US military drone launched the new anti-tank missile at them.
Soleimani
Because previous air strikes by the United States on its enemy targets often caused serious collateral damage, in order to take into account the international impact, then US President Obama ordered the US military to develop a new type of conventional weapon. So based on the AGM-114 "Hellfire" anti-tank missile, the AGM-114-R9X missile was born. The
AGM-114-R9 missile replaces the charge warhead originally used for armor-piercing or blasting with six ejection-type sword-like blades to reduce additional damage caused by fixed-point clearing.
When the missile is about to hit the target, the blade will pop up and rotate at a high speed of more than 1,000 revolutions per second.
According to eyewitnesses, the first missile hit Muhandis' car first, and the roof of the car was cut open, and the heads of all the people in the car were completely missing.
The driver of Soleimani's car discovered the danger and immediately increased the accelerator to avoid the second missile, but failed to escape the attack of the third missile. The missile that fell from the sky also tore the crew of the vehicle into pieces, so that later forensic investigators could only identify Soleimani through the red gemstone ring he wore on his stump.
was attacked
The assassination carried out by the United States not only caused an uproar in Iran, but also caused shock to the Iraqi government and the public. Soon, the Iraqi police blocked Baghdad Airport and began to investigate the people on site.
In the end, both Iraq and Iran determined that the two stewardesses on the plane Soleimani was on were American informants, and the two ground staff and the two police officers in charge of security at the Baghdad Airport were all American informants.
It can be said that due to the alliance between the United States and Iraq, it is not surprising that many important departments of the country are penetrated by US intelligence agencies.
But Soleimani and others had almost no precautions against this in advance, so that they had no time to react even though their heads were missing.
Soleimani
The amazing thing is that although Iran has been at odds with the United States and Israel for a long time, the situation of being penetrated by US intelligence agencies in the country is not optimistic. After Iran announced the resumption of its nuclear program, the Israeli media revealed that half a ton of blueprints related to Iran's nuclear facilities had been stolen from relevant Iranian departments.
After that, Western media repeatedly broke the news that important scientists on Iran's nuclear program were assassinated by agents of the United States and Israel.
Although this kind of assassination is despicable, we also have to worry about Iran's national governance capabilities.
After all, when my country launched the ", two bombs and one satellite, ", although it was strongly opposed by the two major powers of the time, the United States and the Soviet Union, in the end not a single scientist died from assassination or intentional sabotage by enemy agents.
It is no wonder that the US and Israeli media have repeatedly ridiculed Iran and expressed doubts about its ability to truly build nuclear weapons .
The United States and Israel
Iran threatened to retaliate but was unable to do so, and the United States was unable to maintain its hegemony.
After the assassination, domestic reactions in the United States were mixed. Most people in Trump’s Republican Party expressed support. However, the Democratic Party is basically very critical. Many people accuse Trump of being irresponsible to the country in his hasty decision.
The U.S. State Department immediately hoped that all Americans in Iraq would leave Iraq. For a time, many regions across the United States raised their security alert levels.
With the news of Soleimani's assassination, an unprecedented scale of anti-American demonstrations broke out in Iran. The then Supreme Leader of Iran, Khamenei, spoke highly of Soleimani, saying "Soleimani's death was a martyrdom and sacrifice for his country", and personally participated in his state funeral [3].
Khamenei immediately appointed Ismail Qaani as Soleimani's successor, and Qaani threatened to spread American corpses across the Middle East. The Iranian government severely condemned the United States for engaging in "international terrorism" and declared that it would carry out severe retaliation against the United States.
Khamenei
But what makes it even more difficult for the Iranian people to accept is that after Iran used missiles to retaliate against U.S. facilities in the Middle East, the United States launched cruise missiles to attack Iran unscrupulously.
On the 8th, the Iranian air defense department made a mistake while busy and shot down a Canadian civilian airliner taking off from Tehran Airport, killing 156 people.
Not only did this not cause any losses to the United States, it actually caused strong dissatisfaction among the Iranian people against the government.
This also exposes the true situation that although Iran is willing to confront the United States, its own strength is simply not enough to hurt the United States.
Iran
Although U.S.-Iran relations have always been difficult to ease during the Trump era, due to the decline in U.S. influence in the Middle East: Iran's top leaders also realized the limitations of their own capabilities, and the two sides did not really evolve into a direct military conflict similar to the Gulf War. confrontation.
Later, as the economies of both countries suffered heavy losses, the relationship between the two sides did not deteriorate further after Biden came to power.
Today, most Americans have completely forgotten the despicable act of assassinating Soleimani. However, on January 6 this year, after the second anniversary of Soleimani's death, the Iranian people held a huge demonstration and even besieged the U.S. agency. Embassy of the Netherlands in Iran.
However, since the attention of public opinion is no longer in the Middle East, the US government will naturally not ignore this behavior that does not hurt itself at all.
Soleimani
But what the United States never expected was that with the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict this year, international energy prices would rise.
As the United States' European allies are unable to make up for the oil and gas gap caused by sanctions on Russia, Western countries led by the United States have experienced comprehensive inflation caused by rising oil prices.
The Biden administration has also racked its brains for this, but its efforts to persuade Saudi Arabia and other traditional Middle East allies to increase daily oil production have failed.
The United States, which was sick and desperate for treatment, actually took the initiative to contact Iran and another anti-American country Venezuela , hoping to induce the two countries to increase oil production by lifting economic sanctions.
Biden
But the United States seems to have forgotten that its conflict with Iran is not just a simple confrontation of ideology , but a blood debt.
Iran is even more aware that it was able to withstand the strong pressure from the United States after 1991 only because of the support of Russia behind it. Therefore, the Biden administration's plan to use Iranian oil to deal with the energy crisis caused by it is completely wishful thinking.
It can be said that the United States' assassination of Soleimani temporarily removed a thorn in its side, but it brought the US-Iran relationship to a complete dead end.
From the perspective of the national interests of the United States alone, this is a foolish act that outweighs the gains and losses.
Reference
[1] An attack on Baghdad Airport killed 8 people and a senior general of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards was killed. Sina． 2020-01-03
[2] Revealing the secrets of the Middle East’s “Spy King” Soleimani--Guangdong Channel--People’s Daily Online. People's Daily Online. 2020-07-22
[3] Soleimani’s memorial ceremony: Khamenei burst into tears and vowed to “severely punish criminals” | Soleimani | Iran. China News Network. 2020-07-20
