The Martyr's Revenge

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi delivers a speech during a ceremony in the capital Tehran, on January 3, 2022, commemorating the second anniversary of the US drone strike in Iraq that killed Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. (Atta Kenare/AFP)

"If Trump and [former Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo are not tried in a fair court for the criminal act of assassinating General Soleimani, Muslims will take our martyr's revenge."

"The aggressor, murderer and main culprit -- the then-president of the United States -- must be tried and judged under the [Islamic] law of retribution, and God's ruling must be carried out against him."

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi

 

 Revolutionary Guard General Qassem Soleimani AP

The death of General Qassem Soleimani by missile strike in 2020 relieved the world of yet another psychopathic monster entitled to slaughter those whom the Islamic Republic of Iran viewed as an enemy of its theocratic rule and its plans to subject the Middle East, its Arab Muslim Sunni majority countries to the inevitable conquest that the Shiite Persian state was carefully crafting in its annexation of Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen as independent countries becoming vassals of Iran, under the stewardship of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

 

As head of the al-Quds branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Soleimani was the influential mastermind of all the activities of  his segment of the corps assigned to perform the training and supply of weaponry for terrorist groups loyal to Iran, including Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, as well as tribal Shiite militias under Iran's thumb. Their commander's death was a tragedy for their cohesive purpose in spreading violence and terror in the region and abroad, but a relief for those countries and governments his command targeted.

At the second-year anniversary of Soleimani's assassination by order of then-U.S.President Donald Trump, the Iranian Republic and its allies in other countries have held memorial events in honour of the late commander of the Quds Force representing the overseas arm of the elite Revolutionary Guards. In the immediate aftermath of Soleimani's death, Iran ordered its IRGC command to avenge his death, and rockets were dispatched into Iraq to hit two U.S. bases there. Anticipating a U.S. response, Iran was on high alert.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guards shot down a Ukraine International Airlines plane near Tehran, evidently mistaking it for a possible U.S. rocket attack. All aboard the airliner, 175 people, died, on Flight 752. Many of those who died were Iranian Canadians, many more Iranian students heading to Canadian universities on study visas. At first denying it shot down the plane, when evidence indicated otherwise, Iran finally admitted the airliner was shot down through a "disastrous mistake" by forces on high alert during confrontation with the U.S.

 

Iranians lift national flags during a ceremony in the capital Tehran, on January 3, 2022, commemorating the second anniversary of the killing in Iraq of top Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani (portrait) and Iraqi commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in a US raid. (Atta Kenare/AFP)

 

Now, while negotiating in Geneva with the United States over the resumption of the 2015 Nuclear Agreement, Iran threatens repercussions against the U.S. unless it brings the former president to trial as an assassin. In that case, a clear-eyed assessment of a man in military authority of a country guilty of terrorism on its own account who authorized the obliteration of a state assassin. Under the new U.S. administration, Iran has become bolder and more arrogant, prepared to risk another encounter with the U.S. which it doesn't believe will materialize.

But it does believe that in issuing a threat of this magnitude that it has given fair warning that it has the will, the intention and the capacity to launch strikes against the U.S., likely  by one of its proxies to avenge the death of its elite commander, depriving the country of a merciless, brilliant tactician whose thirst for provoking fear in the nation's adversaries, and in ordering death and destruction to those same adversaries could be slaked only by incapacitating him permanently.

 

As a warm up to vengeance implied, Monday saw an opening salvo: two armed drones targeted a Baghdad airport site used by the US-led coalition against the Islamic State group. "Two fixed-wing suicide drones, or improvised cruise missiles, attempted to attack Baghdad Airport this morning at approximately 4:30 a.m." A counter-rocket, artillery and mortar, or C-RAM, system “engaged them and they were shot down without incident", stated a coalition official. 

Israel, of course, is held by Iran to be equally guilty in the death of Soleimani, against whom the Ayatollahs have issued threats of annihilation as the 'little Satan' to the U.S.'s 'big Satan'. Iran has been dabbling in cyber warfare, just as China and Russia have been. It frequently issues threats to Israel, to wipe it from the face of the Middle East. Monday came another threat proposing to destroy its Dimona nuclear reactor. The Jerusalem Post website was hacked with a contrived photograph of the reactor being hit by a stylized missile, with a very special message of destruction.

An image showing a missile being fired from the ring of Qassem Soleimani toward Israel's nuclear reactor in Dimona is used to hack the Jerusalem Post website on January 3, 2022, the 2nd anniversary of Soleimani's killing (Screenshot/ The Jerusalem Post)