The Daily - The Killing of General Qassim Suleimani

Episode Date: January 6, 2020

Iran has promised “severe revenge” against the United States for the killing of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani. But what made the high-ranking military leader an American target in the first place? Guest: Helene Cooper, who covers the Pentagon for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Background reading:Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani was known as the instigator behind proxy wars that fueled instability in the Middle East. His death further disturbed the region’s delicate power balances — and effectively ended a landmark nuclear deal.Some Iranian officials called the American strike on General Suleimani an act of war. As the consequences of the killing ripple outward, our columnist asks: Was the strike a good idea?Catching up after a weekend offline? Here’s what else you need to know about the death of General Suleimani.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Bavaro. This is The Daily. Today. From Iraq to Washington, consequences are mounting after the United States assassinated Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, Helene Cooper, on why President Trump chose to do it. It's Monday, January 6th.

Helene, what do we know about what led up to this extraordinary decision by the U.S. to take out General Soleimani? Well, from what we've been able to piece together over the past few days is all of this started on December 27th. And Justin DeFox, an American contractor, was just killed in northern Iraq in a rocket attack, and several U.S. troops were also injured. When an Iranian-backed Shiite militia group launched an attack in Iraq that ended up killing an American contractor. This is just the latest in a spate of similar rocket attacks, but it's the first time that we're actually seeing U.S. casualties. Right after this happened, the Pentagon drew up the perennial list of options

that the Defense Department is always keeping for the president to respond and decide what he's going to do in order to respond to the attack. General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Defense Secretary Mark Esper both flew to Mar-a-Lago, where President Trump was spending the holidays, and met with him, presenting him this list of how do you respond to what the administration immediately determined was an Iranian-backed attack? One option included striking Iranian ships. Another option was striking perhaps a missile site or two, or looking for a way to launch airstrikes against the Iranian-backed Shiite militias in Iraq that had started this.

back Shiite militias in Iraq that had started this. Also on the list was one extreme option, which was to launch an attack, which will really be a targeted assassination, actually, of General Qasem Soleimani, who is the head of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force. And it's basically Iran's very muscular yet covert arm of the Iranian military. He's in essence, the most senior military commander in Iran. This is something that the Defense Department often does is they will put an extreme option on the table because they will always give all options to the president, but it's almost sort of their way of nudging the president toward an option that they prefer. If you put something that's viewed as a little bit give all options to the president, but it's almost sort of their way of nudging the president toward an option that they prefer. If you put something that's viewed as a little bit crazy

out there, then you get him to do what you want. President Trump at the time did not choose the nuclear option. What we did was take a decisive response that makes clear what President Trump has said for months and months and months, which is that we will not stand for the Islamic Republic of Iran to take actions that put American men and women in jeopardy. He went for, let's launch an attack on the Shiite militia group that launched the attack that killed the American contractor. The Pentagon says it carried out military strikes in Iraq and Syria, targeting a militia group. A spokesman for the group says U.S. airstrikes killed at least 25 of their fighters

and hurt more than 50 others. This happened in Iraq and Syria yesterday. So the president in the end chooses a pretty measured kind of tit-for-tat response. We were attacked by missiles, so we will attack with missiles. Exactly. And we will attack who attacked us. Got it. I would add that in our discussion today with the president, we discussed with him other options that are available. And I would note also that we will take additional actions as necessary to ensure that we act in our own self-defense and we deter further bad behavior from militia groups or from Iran. So then a couple of days later, President Trump is still at Mar-a-Lago and he's watching TV. He's still angry about the initial Shiite militia attack that killed the

American contractor. But now he's seeing on TV all of these video images of Iranian-backed protesters attacking the American embassy in Baghdad. A chaotic scene as protesters stormed the U.S. embassy in Baghdad today, scaling the walls, forcing the gates, and setting fires inside the heavily guarded compound while diplomats were trapped inside. Some protesters were chanting death to America. And one of the first things that come to his mind is Benghazi and the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi in 2011 that led to the death of four Americans, including the ambassador to Libya. Which was an attack of protesters.

Yes. On an American, essentially, embassy-like building. Yes. How would you have handled that if you were watching in real time Americans under fire at the American consul and an ambassador under fire? Well, it would have never taken place because I think... President Trump, during his campaign and for years after the initial attack in Benghazi, really went after Hillary Clinton, who was Secretary of State at the time,

for not doing enough to prevent that. And this had been a rallying cry during his 2016 campaign. So this was a pretty big deal for him. Horribly handled, a horrible leadership. She's a horrible leader. So he's watching now these attacks that are happening under his own watch. And he's thinking about Benghazi, according to his aides that we talked to. He's also thinking about the 1979 attack on the American embassy in Iran that led to the hostage crisis.

He's getting more and more angry, according to his aides. And then he calls for his menu of options again. And this time he picks the extreme option. And so this is the moment when the president calls for the strike on Suleimani, this top general. That's right. Pentagon officials and administration officials

were very surprised because it's one thing to give an option to a president. It's another thing for him to actually do it. They had put that option on the menu for President Trump, not thinking that he would take it. And now he has taken it. So the Defense Department went into action. This is something that the American Defense Department, quite tragically almost, is very good at doing. We know how to kill people.

And we have been tracking for more than a decade, almost two decades, Qasem Soleimani. So intelligence-wise, we had intelligence reports that he would be flying into Baghdad International Airport that night. There was some question now as the military is setting up just sort of the mechanics of how this strike is going to be conducted. The Pentagon had determined that if he was met, for instance, by Iraqi officials who were friendly towards the United States, they would not go ahead with the strike. If he was not, they would. When General Soleimani's plane landed, he was met by the head of one of Iraq's Iranian-backed Shia militias, who was viewed by the United States as somebody who, I think the phrase they used was a clean party, meaning it's okay to kill him. It's kind of a weird way of saying it. So a clean party means somebody we don't mind killing. Exactly, exactly.

And so they authorized the strike and blew up the two-car convoy as it was leaving Baghdad International Airport. In a dramatic escalation of tensions in the Middle East, a U.S. airstrike has killed Iran's most important military commander. This was a swift, precise military strike that has huge, unpredictable, and possibly long-term consequences. So help us to understand the significance of this decision by the president. Why was this ever an option given to him,

even if it was the most extreme option? And why do we think he chose it? It's hard to explain why President Trump chose to take this option. I think many of us don't understand it ourselves. The administration will tell you that he's a very bad guy, and there's no denying that. The administration will also tell you that he's responsible for the death of hundreds of American troops. That is true as well. The issue, though,

that has been true for years and years as American troops have battled some Iranian-backed Shia militias in Iraq. And both Presidents Bush and Obama made the decision not to kill Soleimani because he was a general with the Iranian military. And the United States traditionally does not go around assassinating military generals. The last time we did this was in 1943 during World War II when we took out a Japanese admiral. Iran is a sovereign state. Assassinating one of their officials is pretty much almost the same thing as assassinating the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or, you know, a high-ranking American official, and then own up to it and take credit for it. It's just not something that is normally often done in broad daylight.

But we should also remember that just a month ago, President Trump authorized the killing of Baghdadi, the ISIS head, and he got a lot of very good and deserved credit for that. The administration now today will try to make the equivalent that General Soleimani is the same as Baghdadi, that he's a terrorist. And he has certainly been behind many proxy terrorist acts by Iranian-backed groups in Yemen, in Lebanon, in Iraq, and in Syria. So that has been increasing in recent months as the United States has choked off Iran economically.

We're following multiple breaking stories, including Iran's seizure of at least one oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz today. And there are now conflicting reports about whether a second tanker was seized. Iran is clearly messaging that they hold cards here. But as this continues to go on, what will Iran continue to do? Well, you know, Brianna, I think it's important that we understand what's motivating Iran right now. Look, since the United States pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal

and the administration imposed new sanctions on Iran, those sanctions have absolutely crippled Iran's economy. That led the Iranian regime to start, as a lot of people at the Pentagon say, acting out. And you saw an increase in attacks from Iran, which has been sort of punching out because it was being punched. And that is one of the reasons that the administration is now given for why this strike was taken. The other big reason, though, leads back to this, which is that the administration is saying that Soleimani was planning additional, even more high-profile attacks on the United States and on American interests and assets in the region and that this was imminent. We could see that he was continuing down this path, that there were, in fact, plots that he was working on that were aimed directly at significant harm to American interests throughout the region, not just in Iraq. You know, you're hearing that from General Milley, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

You heard that on Sunday from Secretary of State Pompeo. We would have been culpably negligent had we not taken this action. The American people would have said that we weren't doing the right thing to protect and defend American lives. Which is the argument that Soleimani was about to launch another imminent attack

on American interests. Helene, of all the rationales that we've heard from the Trump administration, this seems to be the most important in terms of explaining why we would do this now, take out Soleimani. But, of course, the U.S. has a very complicated history of using potential threats to American interests as a rationale for actions overseas, especially in the Middle East. So what does your reporting show about how we should be thinking about this explanation of an imminent attack? That's such an interesting and key question, how we should be thinking about the administration

rationale for this attack. Do we believe them or do we not? Our reporting shows that it depends on where you stand. There is no question that General Soleimani has planned and was continuing to plan attacks against the United States through these groups, but that's been going on for more than 15 years. So the question then becomes, why now? The administration says there was something imminent and big that was about to happen. And they appear to be basing that on intelligence reports that they've received about General Soleimani's travels in the last few days leading up to the attack that took his life. But these same intel sources also say that he had been asked by Ayatollah Khamenei,

who's the supreme leader of Iran, to come back to Iran, that Khamenei had not authorized anything. He had requested permission and he was not given it and he was told to come back to Iran. So that then belies the whole question of imminent. Does it become something that's happening in two days or something that hasn't even been approved yet? So what the administration then will have to answer to the American people if this leads to war, which it might, is whether or not this assassination was worth it. We'll be right back. Helene, what has been the response in the Middle East in the days since the U.S. killed Soleimani?

The response since the U.S. killed Soleimani in the Middle East has been huge. In Iran, where protesters had two weeks ago been protesting against the regime. They have now united apparently behind the regime and turned their ire on the United States. You're seeing these familiar views of American flags being burned in the streets. This massive outpouring of mourners. It's certainly ramped up the anti-American sentiment in Iran. Wallah!

Meanwhile, in Baghdad, you're seeing similar outpourings of griefs, but that's been accompanied by the Iraqi parliament voting unanimously this morning to expel the United States from Iraq. They didn't put forth a timeline for withdrawal, so there's still some wiggle room there. But particularly the Shiites in the Iraqi government are very, very angry at the United States right now. We have to understand that Iraq is made up of three very distinct groups, Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds, but it is predominantly Shiite. Iran is Shiite as well, and the Iraqi government is very

close to Iran. The Shiites in Iraq are particularly close to General Soleimani and view him in many ways as one of their own. They're also upset, though, because this was a targeted killing in their country. Right. So it's in much the same way that if something like this happened in the United States, the United States government would be upset. That's another reason why the Iraqi government is so angry. Helene, can Iraq and its legislature do that? Can they kick the U.S. troops out of the country? They can. Iraq can say you are no longer welcome there. Remember, we are there at the invitation of the Iraqi government ostensibly to fight the Islamic State. That battle is largely over. to fight the Islamic State. That battle is largely over. So yes, the Iraqi government can kick the United States military out of Iraq. Whether they do or not, whether this is posturing,

I don't know yet. Every couple of hours, you see something else. Right after the Iraqi parliament voted, we saw the Pentagon announced that it was suspending the anti-ISIS coalition effort in Iraq. There are 4,000 American troops who've been there and that the troops who are in Iraq will be focused on protecting the American citizens who are still in the country, but who are being advised to leave as soon as possible. It's like 2013 all over again when the Obama administration ended combat and pulled troops out of Iraq and you saw the rise of ISIS. Because once the United States is gone and out of the country, these other factions are given more room to maneuver and more room to thrive. And so you can sort of see how these events could lead to a resurgence of ISIS if the ground becomes clear for them to move around more freely. And wasn't Soleimani also leading an Iranian militia that was an enemy of ISIS?

Yes, there was a de facto cooperation between Soleimani and the United States in the fight against ISIS. They were both opposed to ISIS, and they were both fighting ISIS on the same turf. Right, which would have made, in a very narrow and complicated way, Soleimani an ally in our fight against ISIS, even though he's our enemy in many other respects. He was an ally in our fight against ISIS.

That is correct. That is correct. Helene, the ripple effects of all this are very complicated. But I wonder if there's a simple way of thinking about this, which is that after all these months of provocation and response between the U.S. and Iran, that President Trump felt it was time for the U.S. to remind Iran that at the end of the day, we are the military superpower and our advantages over them are extraordinary and represent the kind of deterrent that means whatever Iran's ultimate response to this is, it will not be all that severe. That in a sense, we just called Iran's bluff.

That would work if we hadn't started this to begin with by pulling out of the Iranian nuclear deal, which was signed in 2015 under the Obama administration and which was hated by President Trump and many Republicans. I have been in business a long time. I know deal-making. And let me tell you, this deal is catastrophic for America, for Israel, and for the whole of the Middle East. They viewed it as too weak and said that it gave Iran rewards,

as it did by lifting sanctions for stopping their uranium enrichment, but did not address Iran's misbehavior, and this is the General Soleimani-type misbehavior, in other areas. The problem here is fundamental. We've rewarded the world's leading state sponsor of terror with $150 billion, and we received absolutely nothing in return. When we pulled out of the nuclear deal, we reimposed sanctions on Iran and put even stiffer sanctions on the country. We started to punish companies and basically told the world, you either do business with Iran or you do business with America. And of course, most of the world chose America. That had the result of completely putting a strangle on the Iranian economy. And that is kind of what has led to the Iranian regime

then starting escalating attacks against the United States, because this is a hardline regime and they clearly believe that if they're hurting, they're going to pull the United States down into the mud with them. But doesn't it still stand to reason that if that is the situation that we are in, in a post-nuclear deal world where Iran decides that the only way that it can operate is with attacks through militias that it organizes against the U.S., that taking out a person like Soleimani is a reasonable option given our superiority over Iran. We have nuclear weapons. They do not. We have superpower military capabilities. They do not. We have superpower military capabilities.

They do not. That doesn't leave them with a whole lot of options, does it? You know, back in the 80s, there was this tanker war where Iran, Iraq, and the U.S. were all going after each other. And, you know, they made the Persian Gulf like an impossible place and the price of oil went way up. And it ended up with the United States by mistake shooting down an Iranian passenger jet. And Iran made a lot of noise after that happened, and then they quieted down. So there's precedent for that. But I think it's easily as much of a chance that they don't quiet. Iran has a whole lot of options to make us hurt. Certainly, the United States is much better equipped, but unless we're actually suggesting

that we're going to drop a nuclear bomb on downtown Tehran, it's never that easy once you get into a conventional war. So we went to war in Iraq, which lasted years and which we're still seeing some of the consequences from. A war with Iran would be so much worse than any kind of war with Iraq. They're way more sophisticated than Iraq ever was. They have the ability to make it hurt. So the question can be phrased as, is the United States willing to give up the blood and treasure it would take to subdue Iran? Which, of course, it could, but it's going to cost us something. So are we willing to pay that fee? Helene, thank you. Thank you for talking to us on a Sunday. thank you.

Thank you for talking to us on a Sunday. Thank you. Thank you, Michael. For everything. We appreciate it. All right. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. On Sunday, Iran's leaders and their allies began to openly discuss plans for retaliation against the United States, saying that they would target America's military bases and its soldiers. In an interview with CNN,

a high-level advisor to Iran's supreme leader said, quote, the only thing that can end this period of war is for the Americans to receive a blow that is equal to the blow that they have inflicted. On Twitter, President Trump warned Iran against such a response, writing, quote, they attacked us and we hit back. If they attack again, which I would strongly advise them not to do, we will hit them harder than they have ever been hit before. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today.

Look, it was a targeted attack on a government official, a high-ranking military official for the government of Iran. And what it's done has moved this country closer to war. We are not safer today than we were before Donald Trump acted. In interviews on Sunday, the leading Democratic candidates for president, including Senator Elizabeth Warren and Mayor Pete Buttigieg on CNN, challenged the Trump administration's rationale for killing General Soleimani and predicted that it could backfire on the U.S. Now, let's be clear. Qasem Soleimani was a bad figure. He has American blood on his hands.

None of us should shed a tear for his death. But just because he deserved it doesn't mean it was the right strategic move. This is about consequences. In a statement, former Vice President Joe Biden said that the president, quote, just tossed a stick of dynamite into a tinderbox. And Senator Bernie Sanders, at a campaign stop, accused the president of violating his campaign pledge. Trump promised to end endless wars. Trump promised to end endless wars.

Tragically, his actions now put us on the path to another war, potentially one that could be even worse than before. And Australia's government said that it would deploy the country's military to fight a set of catastrophic fires that have already burned more than 12 million acres, an area larger than Switzerland, killed at least 24 people, and killed or injured hundreds of millions of animals. The Times reports that the fires are now so large and hot that they are creating their own weather patterns, further fueling the blazes.

That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Bavaro. See you tomorrow. Thank you.