Qasem Soleimani never saw it coming. After he disembarked from a plane landing at Baghdad International Airport, he and his convoy were blown to bits last Friday by missiles launched from a U.S. Air Force MQ-9 Reaper drone. As U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper warned the day before the fatal attack, “The game has changed.”
The head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)-Quds Force, a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, had come to believe in his own invincibility. In the Iranian regime’s hierarchy, Soleimani was second only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Two prior U.S. presidents had been too afraid to take Soleimani down. Soleimani thought President Trump was no different and little more than a bluffer.
The Iranians became too cocky after President Trump called off an attack on Iranian facilities, which was minutes away from being launched in reprisal for the shooting down of an American drone by the Iranian regime. Because the downing of the drone had not resulted in any American casualties, President Trump decided that it would be a disproportionate response to authorize a strike that might have resulted in Iranian casualties. Iranian leaders also took notice that President Trump did not use military force in response to Iranian terrorist proxy attacks on maritime shipping and a Saudi oil facility. They calculated that there would not be a significant price to pay if they stepped up their attacks directly on American facilities and personnel. They calculated wrong.
The Iranian regime failed to grasp the America First president’s underlying message – kill or harm any Americans and there will be a harsh military response. Soleimani miscalculated President Trump’s resolve to protect American lives and assets from the prospect of non-ending attacks by Iranian thugs and their militant terrorist proxies, which have been escalating in recent weeks.
Soleimani’s arrogance had gotten the better of his judgment when it came to dealing with President Trump. Indeed, he taunted President Trump during a 2018 speech. Soleimani said that "not a night goes by when we don't think about you in our sleep. Let me tell you, Mr. Trump the gambler... Let me tell you... Know that we are near you, in places that don't come to your mind. We are near you in places that you can't even imagine."
Soleimani lost his own gamble. He found himself in a place where he could not “imagine” there would be a U.S. drone waiting upon President Trump’s orders to take him out. Now, Soleimani has an eternity to think about what went wrong during his “sleep” in hell.
According to U.S. intelligence services, Soleimani was in the midst of planning for the execution of imminent major attacks on U.S. military and diplomatic personnel in Iraq and other countries in the region that could have cost hundreds of American lives.
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