Trump Risks Middle East War

After the assassination of Iranian General Ghassem Solejmani in Baghdad by an unexpected attack on the US fears all signs speak of a further escalation. The situation is very dangerous. The pledges of revenge of Tehran's regime and allies have already been articulated; the violence shares are expected. The situation can soon be out of control.

US allies, such as Israel and Saudi Arabia, but Lebanon and in the first place Iraq will feel serious consequences. From bloody attacks on persons, squares or institutions to attacks on tankers or gas lines, and there is also no exception to missile attacks on US allies, because Tehran killed Solejman can only be considered as humiliating and a fact-finding war. Tehran cannot afford it for internal politics to let it go.

Iran can, but not necessarily should activate itself militarily. He owns not only through the military activities and the secret services of Soleman over the past few years, a functioning network among the good armed groups in the region: from pro-Mirania militias in Iraq and Syria to the Lieth rebel Hisbolah in Yemen, which has long been in direct confrontation with Iran's rival, Saudi Arabia, and also the declared enemy of Israel as well as the United States.

The leading head of Iranian power and expansion policy in the region was removed from Soleiman. And to say neutrally, it's more than just surprising that the regime in Tehran its most important general for the outside world could not protect him from such an attack. But even in the Near and Middle East, no one is irreplaceable, nor Ghassem Solejmani as Chief of the Al-Ques Brigades: his network built by Iran of loyal militias in the region may remain capable of action and dangerous even without it, a successor of the general has already been appointed.

Solejmani has military credit in the fight against “the Islamic State” (IS) in Iraq and Syria. But it was the regime's protracted hand, supporting terror and brutal violence. There is no reason to feel sorry for this man, but killing him politically was a mistake. Donald Trump as president of the US and chief commander of the US Armed Forces with this not only risks war throughout the region, from him allegedly to withdraw his country's troops. But it also risks creating an anti-Western and anti-American solidarity effect in the region. This now jeopardises democratic protest movements in Iraq, Lebanon and Iran, where political protests could be eliminated, directly or indirectly directed against the government in Tehran. If so, it is Trump that served Tehran's interests directly. / DW/