Late Thursday night in the U.S., the Defense Department accepted responsibility for the air strike that killed key Iranian military figure and Quds Force head Qassim Soleimani, less than a week after U.S. airstrikes on the Iranian-backed Kataib Hezbollah and just over two months after the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakar al-Baghdadi. But for some CNNers, it was a rough night.
Much like their friends at The Washington Post, one might as well have kidnaped their pets or stole their lunches. And not surprisingly, CNN global affairs analyst and cartoonishly bad Post columnist Max Boot was the hardest hit.
Boot appeared on AC360 and predictably deployed an argument that could be boiled down to a series of what our friend David Rutz broadly coined as “‘Sure Soleimani was bad BUT’ takes.”
He argued that were “was no question” about whether his death was justified, but then pivoted on two occasions to bashing the Trump administration for having been the ones to do it. In other words, it’s because, in his mind, they lack the same IQ as Max Boot (click “expand”):
But the question is was this a wise move and what are going to be repercussions and is the Trump administration ready for this escalating crisis with Iran. And so, leaving aside the justice of the issue, the question is was it a wise thing to do? We'll find out in the next few days, you know, but given how haphazard the national security policy making is in this administration, you have to wonder have they actually thought through all the repercussions of what is a very major move.
(....)
Right and I think this crisis is reflecting the contradictions of the foreign policy which can be described as bellicose isolationism and you know, he keeps talking about wanting to pull out of the Middle East but also wanting to strike back and be a counterpuncher and he's making threats and issuing ultimatums and now you’re seeing this all come to a head right now where this is a crisis President Trump has created between the U.S. and Iran because while the U.S. and Iran have a long history of animosity dating back to 1979, relations that actually came down quite a bit since President Obama concluded the Iranian nuclear deal in 2015 and last year even though the Iranians were complying with the Iranian nuclear deal, President Trump decided to blow up the deal and then he imposed unilateral economic sanctions on Iran this year which have been a lot more effective than a lot of people including me expected. The Iranians view it as the U.S. waging economic warfare on them and they need to strike back and so that's why you're seeing attacks on tankers, the attack on Saudi facilities, attacks on various targets throughout the region and now, of course, Trump is escalating further and again, perfectly justified morally to kill General Qassim Soleimani, but you really have to ask: does Trump have an end game here? Does he know what the next step is going to be? And if the Iranians retaliate, what are we going to do next?
Thoughts and prayers to Max, everyone.
Reacting in the previous hour, senior foreign correspondent Arwa Damon chastised the strike as “fairly brazen, fairly audacious to a certain degree, to be taking out someone of such significance at a time when there is such tension in the region.”
Damon stayed through CNN Tonight and, at the 10:12 p.m. Eastern mark, even sought to cast doubt on whether Soleimani’s death will make America safer, arguing instead that the U.S. will “find itself in potentially a very vulnerable position.” Later, she compared the strike to the removal of Saddam Hussein, predicting that it could lead to an equally bloody (or worse) result.
Also appearing on both shows, serial plaigarist and Sunday host Fareed Zakaria blamed the U.S. not kowtowing to the Iranians (like the Obama administration did) as the reason for Iran’s numerous provocations over the last year, deeming Iran to have “fe[lt] trapped in a box.”
Zakaria later placed further blame on the U.S. for a supposed inability to leave well enough alone and instead decided to not let Iran do as it pleased (click “expand”):
[The Iraqis have] been — they’ve kept the Iranians happy while keeping the Americans — this blows the lid off that. I mean, I think that probably the greatest single vulnerability here is that Iraq could explode into a civil war because the Iraqi politicians have been handling exactly the dilemma you described....Now you're going to be forced to choose and it's going to reignite the Iraqi civil war and again back to Max’s point, I think the question we all have is the administration seems to be going down a path of, you know, assassinating this crucial figure, you know, who again entirely justified in terms of the morality, but we are essentially entering into a war, a proxy — you know, a shadowy war with Iran, sacrificing the stability of Iraq in a very volatile place.
(....)
I talked to Iraqi officials a couple months ago and they were — they said we just want the Americans to get on a little better with the Iranians. We're otherwise caught in the middle, we’re hostages in this process....But [the U.S. has] now ratcheted it all up. You know, we have decided we're going to escalate against Iran, and they have been — you know, they're in a box. So, they started lashing out....[E]veryone had been trying to dial this down. Think about it. The Middle East is volatile enough. I mean, you've got Syria in total chaos, civil war, five million refugees, half a million people at least killed. You have Yemen which is the world's worst humanitarian crisis. You have Iraq fragile and in the midst of this, we’ve now added this.
In the 10:00 p.m. Eastern hour, Zakaria channeled Boot: “It’s not clear what the objective here. Soleimani is a bad guy. There’s no question, but we appear to be without, by the way, I’d say without congressional authorization, entering into another Middle East war.”
Along with CNN senior diplomatic editor Nic Robertson, former Obama official Juliette Kayyem grossly speculated on types of places that could be attacked by Iran and their proxies.
In her case, she had this tee-up from fill-in host Victor Blackwell: “No doubt Soleimani was a brutal killer, but talk to us, if you will, about what Nick introduced there is that this potentially making Americans less safe.”
And last but not least, fellow former Obama flack Samantha Vinograd was incensed, half-heartedly stating that she’s “glad that Soleimani is dead,” but then angrily trashed the move without knowing, well, anything about the process that led up to the strike.
Why? Well, she deemed this strike ill-advised because it likely didn’t result from “months if not years” of planning. Vinograd then surmised that she’s “deeply worried that [President Trump] did not incorporate intelligence into planning this attack and thinking about the repercussions.”
To see the relevant transcript from AC360 and CNN Tonight on January 2, click “expand.”
CNN’s AC360
January 2, 2020
8:44 p.m. Eastern
ARWA DAMON: This strike is fairly brazen, fairly audacious to a certain degree, to be taking out someone of such significance at a time when there is such tension in the region. Add to that the fact that reportedly also the commander of Kataib Hezbollah was also killed in this very same strike, those two vehicles hit just on the outskirts as they were leaving Baghdad International Airport. It would seem, Anderson, the repercussions of this, we cannot even begin to imagine right now at this stage.
(....)
8:47 p.m. Eastern
FAREED ZAKARIA: It's inconceivable to me that the Iraqi government would have done this, so — but to step back, what's been going on is the United States, the Trump administration has decided it is going to pursue a policy of maximum pressure on Iran, getting out of the Iran deal, calling the Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, essentially make it impossible for Iran to sell oil anywhere. The Iranians therefore feel trapped in a box and have been lashing out in various ways. They've shot down drones. They've attacked Saudi oil facilities. Now this. The Iranians have been, as you know, attacking American contractors and killed some. So right now, we are in a situation where the Trump administration has ratcheted up the pressure. It's not clear what they want, you know, what the goal of this is, because the demands they have made of Iran are so extravagant, they’re sort of essentially that Iran surrender, you know, its role in the region and perhaps even essentially engage in a regime change. That's not going to happen, so the problem with the administration's strategy right now is where does it go? Because the Iranians won't stop. They have many levers. They have militias in Lebanon, in Syria, in Iraq. They could destabilize the Iraqi government in a way that would make the United States even more vulnerable.
(....)
9:23 p.m. Eastern
MAX BOOT: Well, Dexter obviously gives a very good overview of who General Soleimani was, and I think based on his track record, Anderson, I would say there was no question about the justice of killing him. He was a very, very bad guy who as Dexter just said, has the blood of thousands — if not hundreds of thousands of people on his hands, especially in Syria where he's masterminded the genocidal strategy of the Assad regime but he’s also been responsible for the death of American soldiers. He's perpetrated great misery in Lebanon and Yemen as well. But the question is was this a wise move and what are going to be repercussions and is the Trump administration ready for this escalating crisis with Iran. And so, leaving aside the justice of the issue, the question is was it a wise thing to do? We'll find out in the next few days, you know, but given how haphazard the national security policy making is in this administration, you have to wonder have they actually thought through all the repercussions of what is a very major move.
(....)
9:25 p.m. Eastern
ZAKARIA: The two sponsors of the new Iraqi government have been the United States and Iran and every Iraqi diplomat, every politician has had to juggle this reality, so, they've been — they’ve kept the Iranians happy while keeping the Americans — this blows the lid off that. I mean, I think that probably the greatest single vulnerability here is that Iraq could explode into a civil war because the Iraqi politicians have been handling exactly the dilemma you described. You know, they've got to be nice to the Iranians because they're next door and have all these Shia ties. They've got to be nice to the Americans because the Americans have provided them with a lot of support and a lot of military assistance. Now you're going to be forced to choose and it's going to reignite the Iraqi civil war and again back to Max’s point, I think the question we all have is the administration seems to be going down a path of, you know, assassinating this crucial figure, you know, who again entirely justified in terms of the morality, but we are essentially entering into a war, a proxy — you know, a shadowy war with Iran, sacrificing the stability of Iraq in a very volatile place. Yemen is already in a civil war. Syria is already in already in a civil war. Do we know what we're doing? Why are we doing this? This was a President who wanted to get us out of the middle East.
(....)
9:35 p.m. Eastern
ZAKARIA: You know, and things had been seeming to be moving a few months ago toward a more kind of towards some kind of a rapprochement. I talked to Iraqi officials a couple months ago and they were — they said we just want the Americans to get on a little better with the Iranians. We're otherwise caught in the middle, we’re hostages in this process. I was talking to Saudi officials who were talking about how the Yemen civil war might be, you know, there might be a negotiated settlement here. So, there were signs that Syria sadly after enormous and barbaric killing, but there is an element of stability there. But we have now ratcheted it all up. You know, we have decided we're going to escalate against Iran, and they have been — you know, they're in a box. So, they started lashing out. They — they shot down an American drone. They attacked Saudi oil facilities. They, you know, harassed — harassed tankers, and now this. So, we're clearly seeing things ratchet up. So, the Iraqi government is going to have to try to figure out what to do, but every country in the region is going to have to figure out. The Saudis, for example, while the arch enemy of Iran were very careful after the Iranian strikes on oil facilities, they didn't make a big deal about it. They didn't retaliate. They tossed it over to the UN.
COOPER: They blamed Yemen.
ZARAKIA: They didn't even formally accuse Saudi Arabia in the UN. So, everyone had been trying to dial this down. Think about it. The Middle East is volatile enough. I mean, you've got Syria in total chaos, civil war, five million refugees, half a million people at least killed. You have Yemen which is the world's worst humanitarian crisis. You have Iraq fragile and in the midst of this, we’ve now added this.
(....)
9:37 p.m. Eastern
BOOT:Right and I think this crisis is reflecting the contradictions of the foreign policy which can be described as bellicose isolationism and you know, he keeps talking about wanting to pull out of the Middle East but also wanting to strike back and be a counterpuncher and he's making threats and issuing ultimatums and now you’re seeing this all come to a head right now where this is a crisis President Trump has created between the U.S. and Iran because while the U.S. and Iran have a long history of animosity dating back to 1979, relations that actually came down quite a bit since President Obama concluded the Iranian nuclear deal in 2015 and last year even though the Iranians were complying with the Iranian nuclear deal, President Trump decided to blow up the deal and then he imposed unilateral economic sanctions on Iran this year which have been a lot more effective than a lot of people including me expected. The Iranians view it as the U.S. waging economic warfare on them and they need to strike back and so that's why you're seeing attacks on tankers, the attack on Saudi facilities, attacks on various targets throughout the region and now, of course, Trump is escalating further and again, perfectly justified morally to kill General Qassim Soleimani, but you really have to ask: does Trump have an end game here? Does he know what the next step is going to be? And if the Iranians retaliate, what are we going to do next?
(....)
CNN Tonight
January 2, 2020
10:12 p.m. EasternARWA DAMON: Baghdad has very often found itself in a very tenuous position especially as it ends up being stuck between Washington and Tehran. This situation that the Iraqi government is going to find itself in right now as it tries to figure out how it's going to navigate all of this, they've never been here before. Iraq has never been here before. The Iranians, yes. The reaction to this is going to be in their court and there is very little doubt in anyone's mind that there is going to be some sort of a reaction and the question now is, where is this reaction going to really unfold? They do have a number of options on the table. They do have a number of very, very powerful proxies, not just here in Iraq but also in countries like Lebanon and elsewhere, and the U.S. right now, even though the President is saying this was meant to keep America safer, is going to find itself in potentially a very vulnerable position. Not to mention, of course, the effect that this is going to have on the relationship between Washington and Baghdad.
(....)
10:27 p.m. Eastern
ZAKARIA: I think many of these countries are asking why are we going down a path of — to what could be another conflagration? I mean, we've had — we just came out of ten years of a fairly bloody series of civil wars in the Middle East where the United States was deeply involved. As Donald Trump, himself, keeps pointing out, trillions of dollars, thousands of American lives —
VICTOR BLACKWELL: And he ran on getting Americans out of the Middle East.
ZAKARIA: Right.
JIM SCIUTTO: Ending the endless wars.
BLACKWELL: And this potentially will send them in again
ZAKARIA: I don't — and again, it's not clear what the objective here. Soleimani is a bad guy.
BLACKWELL: Yeah.
ZAKARIA: There's no question, but we appear to be without, by the way, I’d say without congressional authorization, entering into another Middle East war.
SCIUTTO: Yeah.
(....)
11:04:51 p.m.
1 minute and 42 secondsDAMON: The last time that the U.S. took significant action in the Middle East the invasion of the Iraq for example, with the removal of Saddam Hussein, that had unforeseen consequences to a certain degree. You then saw the rise of Al Qaeda which then led to the rise of ISIS. This action by the United States this assassination is arguably just as monumental and there are going to be unforeseen consequences to it, no matter how much analysts try to play out the different scenarios. We are right now in unchartered territory. And this war because Iran most certainly is going to be perceiving this as an act of war is not necessarily going to look like something the region has seen in the past. Iran has a number of very, very powerful proxies, not just in Iraq but also in Syria and Lebanon. Qassami Soleimani was often on the front lines of either the war in Iraq against ISIS when it was unfolding. Guiding, advising, often responsible for the training and actually directing the military force. He has been inside Syria, helping to prop up the Syrian regime. He most certainly does have a lot of blood on his hands. But so too, Victor, did Saddam Hussein and I think we all need to be ready for what this next chapter will be and we shouldn't necessarily expect it to look like anything that we have seen in history.
(....)
11:34 p.m. Eastern
BLACKWELL: No doubt Soleimani was a brutal killer, but talk to us, if you will, about what Nick introduced there is that this potentially making Americans less safe.
JULIIETTE KAYYEM: Right and I think that's exactly right. The killing of Suleimani, you know, no one’s going to cry over this. Except it was a tactical action right? Now we're in the face of strategy. What is going to happen next? Killing the bad guy tends to be the easy part and what is about to happen next we don't know, but let me put it in categories for people. There's going to be a conventional, likely conventional Iranian response. That is — you’re going to see that in Iraq and Syria. You may see it in Saudi Arabia and UAE. That will be traditional military drone strikes or whatever else. You may see the proxy issue, like what Nick was talking with Hezbollah and Israel. You maybe see unconventional type of offense by Iran and that would be in the form of cyber attacks in western Europe or United States. They have a sophisticated cyber attack — cyber program. They may try to sort of disrupt in ways that are sort of unconventional.
(....)
11:36 p.m. Eastern
SAMANTHA VINOGRAD: Well, Victor, I am glad that Soleimani is dead, but typically in these situations, the cost-benefit analysis about an operation occurs months if not years before an operation is conducted. This is explicitly not the first time that the U.S. government has considered assassinating a terrorist to deter future attacks. It was something that I saw firsthand while at the White House. But well ahead of the President actually signing the authorization for the operation, there is significant contingency planning that goes into place. President Trump is not a fan of reading intelligence. President Trump we learned just from newly unredacted e-mails today is not a fan of listening to his experts about the repercussions of actions. So I am deeply worried that he did not incorporate intelligence into planning this attack and thinking about the repercussions. We have not seen indications that there were personnel preposition to go to embassies throughout the region and protect diplomats, whether that’s in Lebanon and Israel or elsewhere. We have deployed forces to Iraq and to Kuwait and I understand that the State Department is furiously working over night on embassy security. We do not have an indication that that took place in advance of this attack and let's be clear. Iran has both will and capability to conduct attacks in the Middle East, but in Europe and, as Juliette mentioned, they have tried to conduct attacks in the United States just a few miles from where I'm sitting tonight. So I think the planning is likely happening now, but I don't have any sense that planning happened before the President actually decided to take this action.
