Narges Bajoghli/NY Times:
Suleimani’s Death Changes Nothing for Iran
He was an important figure. But the Islamic Republic won’t lose influence in the region.
Given the intense political infighting inside Iran following the heavy-handed crackdown of the state on protesters in November, the assassination of General Suleimani is a convenient opportunity to unify the country. The Islamic Republic knows how to create consensus in the face of an external enemy: It did so during the Iran-Iraq war, in the fight against the Islamic State and against American sanctions.
In this way, General Suleimani’s influence will survive him; in fact, it may have suddenly grown significantly. The United States just killed a very popular figure within powerful armed circles across the region. And he was not the only leader with strategic and battle experience who wished to see the United States leave the region. This was a highly symbolic assassination. The problem for the United States is that symbolism has the power to move people to action.
Rep. Elissa Slotkin/twitter:
As a former Shia militia analyst who served multiple tours in Iraq and worked at the White House under both Presidents Bush and Obama, and later at the Pentagon, I participated in countless conversations on how to respond to Qassem Soleimani’s violent campaigns across the region.
If you worked on the Middle East over the past 20 years, you dealt with the growing organization and sophistication of Soleimani’s covert and overt military activities, which have contributed to significant destabilization across the region.
I watched friends and colleagues get hurt or killed by Iranian rockets, mortars and explosive devices that were provided to Iraqi proxies and used against U.S. forces under Soleimani’s guidance.
We watched as his power increased and he brought strength and capability to groups in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen, and to smaller cells around the Middle East and the world, with devastating consequences.
What always kept both Democratic and Republican presidents from targeting Soleimani himself was the simple question:
Was the strike worth the likely retaliation, and the potential to pull us into protracted conflict?
Kim Ghattas/Atlantic:
Qassem Soleimani Haunted the Arab World
In much of the Middle East, and even in Iran, the military commander was feared, and his death has been greeted with elation.
Was he indispensable? No one ever is and some of his aura was probably overblown, but he will certainly be hard to replace. So there is anger too among his supporters, allies, and proxy militias, who were devoted to him, lionized him, and will now be lost without him, at least for a while. Though his deputy has been appointed to take his place, there is no one for the moment with his gravitas to step in.
(There was also outrage—on what grounds can the U.S. assassinate anyone, regardless of who Soleimani was? Then again, Iran and Soleimani did the same thing, in Latin America—remember Buenos Aires 1994?—and the Middle East. That doesn’t make the approach right, but anger only at American actions seems one-sided.)
Soleimani was so central to almost every regional event in the past two decades that even people who hate him can’t believe he could die, a bit like people couldn’t believe that Saddam Hussein was really gone. What happens in his absence? What comes next: war? Chaos? Limited retaliation? Nothing? No one like Soleimani has been assassinated in recent history. As the Lebanese journalist Alia Ibrahim tweeted: Donald Trump made his move; now it’s up to Khamenei, while the rest of us wait to find out whether tomorrow is a better day or a new phase in a seemingly endless cycle of violence. For now, in parts of Syria, some are passing trays of baklava to celebrate Soleimani’s death.
Dexter Filkins/New Yorker:
THE DANGERS POSED BY THE KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
Ever since the Trump Administration walked away from the nuclear deal signed under the Obama Administration, the U.S. and Iran have engaged in a series of provocative acts. By killing Suleimani, the Trump Administration has risked a wider, more unpredictable conflict, which could flare in many places and in many ways. It’s hard to imagine that the Iranian regime won’t respond to the American strike—it will feel that it has to. But where, and how? Maguire told me that the Quds Force has long specialized in two tactics: hostage-taking and truck-bombing. But the Americans are so well fortified in Iraq (and across the Middle East), and the American military presence in Iraq is so robust, that it’s more possible that the Iranians, if they decide to retaliate, will do so elsewhere.
FiveThirtyEight:
Our Poll Finds A Majority Of Americans Think The Evidence Supports Trump’s Removal
Consistent with previous rounds of our survey, we found that about 15 percent of Americans think that there is enough evidence to remove Trump from office on matters related to Ukraine or his attempts to stymie the impeachment inquiry, but also think his fate should be decided by voters in the 2020 election, not Congress.
There might not be a broad consensus about whether Trump should be removed from office, but our survey found that a majority of the public is on the same page about one thing — they want a Senate trial with new witnesses who did not appear during the impeachment process in the House.
Yesterday I commented on how I thought the Iran/Iraq sitch would help Biden and hurt Buttegieg, and here’s some data as to why I said that:
Here’s comments that fit expectations:
Oh and btw:
Catherine Rampell/WaPo:
Here are four suggested New Year’s resolutions for the media
Don’t spend more time analyzing an idea that the president proposes than he spent coming up with it.
This one is hard, I know. Sometimes Trump says things that are just so wrong, in so many ways, that it’s difficult to resist the urge to enumerate all the details of their wrongness.
Spend more time talking about the things the government actually does and less time covering what government officials say or who’s ahead in the horse race.
There is excellent beat reporting being done on how the government is (or isn’t) restructuring health care, immigration, housing, environmental regulations and other issues that affect Americans. But we in the pundit class often instead emphasize palace intrigue, political jockeying, or how a particular development advantages one party or another at the ballot box. We need to remember that the purpose of elections isn’t just to win more elections; it’s to elect a government that actually does stuff.