President Trump seems to understand effective use of military assets.\u00a0 Apparently, he is leveraging intelligence capabilities, possibly Israeli, to surgically remove key actors that pose the greatest threat to our interests in the Middle East.\u00a0 Qasem Soleimani was known to be the operational brains behind the Iranian proxy strategy that allowed them to sow chaos and control large swaths of Lebanon, Syria and Iraq without the necessity of sending significant numbers of Iranian fighters into those areas.<\/p>\n
Knowing precisely where and when to send a drone weapon requires real time eyes on the target.\u00a0 I would be surprised if it was an American agent that provided this intel.\u00a0 Maybe it was an Iranian or an Iraqi but it is surprising to think we have that network in place there.<\/p>\n
Regardless of the source of the intel.\u00a0 President Trump has demonstrated that, militarily, he is very careful about engaging in military operations but he isn\u2019t averse to using them when the reward is extremely valuable.\u00a0 Killing fifty or even several hundred street fighters in Baghdad or Syria is relatively counterproductive.\u00a0 The reduction in the number of hostile gunmen is negligible and the ill will it produces significant.\u00a0 But killing Soleimani represents a force multiplier of several orders of magnitude above killing even a few hundred gunmen.\u00a0 His strategic and tactical value is hard to overemphasize.\u00a0 Soleimani\u2019s network of personal connections and his power within the Iranian regime will not be quickly replaced.\u00a0 While some other agent will be placed in his spot it is not likely that the same level of effectiveness will be realized soon or even over the long haul.\u00a0 Good generals are relatively rare and ones who can work cooperatively with far-flung and dissimilar groups even less common.\u00a0 Good.<\/p>\n
This willingness to use military capability is surprising to me.\u00a0 There are so many possibilities for disaster that I am surprised that President Trump has ventured to perform these missions.\u00a0 But maybe I underestimate just how critical was the need to eliminate Soleimani.\u00a0 We still have untold thousands of servicemen in the Mid-East.\u00a0 It\u2019s possible that the Iranians have been ramping up the violence of their proxies in order to embarrass President Trump who has proven to be much tougher on them than the groveling Obama.\u00a0 Or maybe I have underestimated President Trump\u2019s military abilities.\u00a0 I won\u2019t anymore.<\/p>\n
It is painful to think that if someone like President Trump had been in the White House after 9\/11 that the United States might have achieved all the strategic aims called for by that tragedy without the disastrous cost in American lives and the other unanticipated consequences of George W. Bush\u2019s inept wartime command.\u00a0 Handled differently, all the weapons programs of Iraq and Iran might have been confiscated and all the middle eastern immigrants that now clog Europe and America might still be where the belonged at home.\u00a0 And all of this could have been achieved without any significant cost in military lives.\u00a0 Well, that\u2019s in the past now.<\/p>\n
There is a certain amount of doubt about the fallout from an action such as this.\u00a0 It may be that the Iranians will do something large and disturbing.\u00a0 There is always that outside possibility.\u00a0 But based on the shaky domestic situation in Iran itself, with the population openly hostile to the regime, I don\u2019t think there will be much downside.\u00a0 In fact, maybe this will give the Iranians pause and bring them to the negotiating table.\u00a0 Time will tell.\u00a0 My guess is that this elimination will end up improving the overall middle eastern condition both for us and our allies.\u00a0 Good work, President Trump.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Trump seems to understand effective use of military assets.\u00a0 Apparently, he is leveraging intelligence capabilities, possibly Israeli, to surgically remove key actors that pose<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[1354,2260,2259,1943,16],"class_list":["post-9552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-trump","tag-current-events","tag-iran","tag-middle-east","tag-president-trumps-accomplishments","tag-trump"],"yoast_head":"\n