Posted on 10/05/2011 6:27:09 PM PDT by AfricanChristian
There's a story that the new CIA director, David Petraeus, likes to tell which harks back to his days as a four-star general in Iraq.
Early in 2008, during a series of battles between the US and Iraqi army on one side and the Shia militias on the other, Petraeus was handed a phone with a text message from the Iranian general who had by then become his nemesis.
The message came from the head of Iran's elite al-Quds Force, Qassem Suleimani, and was conveyed by a senior Iraqi leader. It read: "General Petraeus, you should know that I, Qassem Suleimani, control the policy for Iran with respect to Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza, and Afghanistan. And indeed, the ambassador in Baghdad is a Quds Force member. The individual who's going to replace him is a Quds Force member."
Petraeus hardly needed to be told. Much of the US military's work with Iraq's Shia Muslims had been undermined by Suleimani and the client militias of the Iranian general's al-Quds force. So too had US government diplomatic efforts elsewhere in the Middle East, especially in Lebanon.
Petraeus last year told a thinktank, the Institute for the Study of War, about the problem Suleimani created for him: "Now, that makes diplomacy difficult if you think that you're going to do the traditional means of diplomacy by dealing with another country's ministry of foreign affairs because in this case, it is not the ministry. It is a security apparatus."
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Qassem Suleimani is an enemy of the United States, and his actions are directly responsible for the deaths and injuries of thousands of American troops.
Kill him.
Petraeus was handed a phone with a text message from the Iranian general who had by then become his nemesis... It read: "General Petraeus, you should know that I, Qassem Suleimani, control the policy for Iran with respect to Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza, and Afghanistan. And indeed, the ambassador in Baghdad is a Quds Force member. The individual who's going to replace him is a Quds Force member."
That’s what predator drones were made for..
I like how you think.
for whatever reason, the US set up a situation in Iraq which is likely to continue being to the long-term benefit of Iran. This isn’t just obama either, unfortunately.
Be careful about your use of Predator drones. It is one thing to target a terrorist hunkering down in squalor in Pakistan and another thing to target an Al Quds force commander when:
a. The Iraqi Government is controlled by Al Quds.
b. You have 40,000 American soldiers in Iraq.
Von Clausewitz said that war is a continuation of politics by other means. Unfortunately, America does the kinetics better than anyone else, but it is a novice in the politics. Nowhere is this truer than in Iraq.
The Iranians have even better IED capabilities than Al Qaeda, so it will be better to wait until American troops have withdrawn before targeting your man.
Suffice to say it's been a month and he ain't back yet. Usually these "trips" take a week or two. I have a feeling he got the memo a couple years ago as he's told me that it's Iran that is secretly smuggling arms throughout Iraq and Afghanistan. I didn't ask how he knew, it's not my place and to be honest I don't want to know. But he did give me a few magazine articles on Iran's usage of all the refugees, using family members or in times of crisis the Iranians would just shove the refugees back over the Afghania or Iraqi border forcing those governments to deal with the problem for awhile wilst an operation was going on elsewhere. I am sure the US "soup" companies know about this. Certainly it was on Saddam's lips cursing away at Iran just before he was hanged. I do wonder if anyone kept a copy of Saddam's last curse words to Iran.
I think I'll search for Sadddam's last words. It was an eye/ear opener to me because I thought certainly he'd be cursing American's but again it was he and America selling to both sides during the Iran/Iraq war.
Doubt you can just mist this Sulimani guy outright. Al Quds brigade is the baddest of the bad for Iran and some of those guys are very highly trained. The general was confident enough to call ours so he's well hidden and well protected. An air strike is one thing but finding the guy is quite another.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.