Don't Look for Trump to Appease Iran

General Qasem Soleimani was the manifestation of a totalitarian terrorist regime that exists to foment death, destruction, and chaos abroad while preying on their own people at home.

His death will save lives everywhere.

Here are a few highlights from his blood-soaked resume:  

• Commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps Qods Force for over twenty years. They spread terrorism, death, and bloodshed throughout the Middle East and elsewhere. By the way, the name "Qods" translates as "Jerusalem," which speaks volumes about their ultimate goal.

• Trained and equipped enemy forces in Iraq and Afghanistan with deadly Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), which were directly responsible for killing over 600 American soldiers;

• Waged Iran’s proxy campaign in Syria, a kill-everyone scorched-earth approach that razed entire villages and murdered thousands of innocent civilians;

• Trained, equipped, and funded Hezbollah and Hamas, terrorist organizations dedicated to the total destruction of Israel;

• Attempted to assassinate former Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the U.S. Adel Al-Jubeir. Soleimani’s plan was to blow him up while he was dining at a restaurant in Washington, DC. Had we not stopped it, the bomb would’ve likely murdered hundreds of innocent bystanders. Dead Americans, killed on American soil.

• When Soleimani was killed in Baghdad, he had just landed in the wake of the attack on the U.S. embassy that he had helped orchestrate. The Trump Administration confirmed that he was there to execute additional attacks on American targets.

Soleimani’s terrorist bona fides go on, but it’s crystal clear that this man was a monster who, for decades, has been murdering and maiming with complete impunity.

Or, as The Washington Post describes him, "Iran’s most revered military leader."

If anyone deserved a warhead to the forehead, it was this guy. It is part and parcel of the Trump administration’s maximum pressure policy vis a vis Iran, employing our diplomatic, economic and military instruments of national power against the world’s biggest purveyor of terrorism.

It's a strong and necessary approach that's working.

By now it comes as zero surprise that the left’s Trump Derangement Syndrome burns so hot that they are essentially siding with our enemies. They didn’t really like Soleimani, but they hate that Trump took him out and are now accusing the president of the United States of being a warmonger. Hollywood is pleading with Iran not to hurt us, Democratic Party politicians are fundraising off of Soleimani’s death, and a gaggle of liberals are tromping around Washington D.C. with premade signage lecturing "No War with Iran!"

Useful idiocy only empowers one’s enemy.

Sure, Trump could’ve ignored actionable intelligence and let Soleimani go about trying to kill more Americans. Imagine the (legitimate) outcry if that had happened.

Killing Soleimani was a no-brainer.

Here’s the reality: the Iranian regime is never going to stop hating us. They’ve been chanting "Death to America" on a weekly basis since 1979 when they stormed our embassy in Tehran and held fifty-two Americans hostage for 444 days. They’ve been targeting us and our allies since then, up to and including the recent attack on our embassy in Baghdad.

All while attempting to acquire nuclear weapons.  

Speaking of which, Democrats remain piqued over Trump’s decision to pull out of Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, aka the Joint Compressive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The Left promised us that, all evidence to the contrary, Iran was going to play nice. Oh, and just to make sure, Obama showered the world’s biggest State Sponsor of Terrorism with $1.7 billion dollars. Your hard-earned tax dollars at work.

How did that work out?

Well, a few months later Iranian forces seized a U.S. Naval vessel in the Persian Gulf. They took American sailors hostage at gunpoint and strip searched our vessel. 

Appeasing evil only gets you more evil. Dumping the JCPOA was the right thing to do.

It lacked viable means of verification and rewarded Iran by removing crippling economic and military sanctions. The JCPOA even allowed for the removal of all sanctions on none other than General Qasem Soleimani himself. When the Obama administration was reluctantly forced to confirm this, the mainstream media dutifully buried it.

Apparently, Soleimani’s murderous lifestyle amounted to no-harm, no-foul for the left. Just let the guy go about his business. Which is a level of appeasement that makes Chamberlain look like Churchill. An unfettered General Soleimani only brings more death and dismemberment. A Soleimani armed with nukes gets you a mushroom cloud over Tel Aviv.

Trump’s forceful policy of maximum pressure on Iran, including his decision to remove Soleimani from the battlefield serves U.S. national interests, including any long-term potential for peace. Yes, Iran will attempt to retaliate in the near-term, but that's no reason to sit on our hands. Because weakness, appeasement, and turning the proverbial cheek doesn’t work with unhinged terrorists.

Patrick Murray (colonel, U.S. Army, retired) was part of a military-diplomatic exchange program between the Pentagon and Department of State, where he served in the Bureau of Political Military Affairs in Washington, D.C. In 2005, Murray became the U.S. representative to the Military Staff Committee at the United Nations in New York under Ambassador John Bolton. After retiring from the Army in 2009, Patrick became the Republican nominee for U.S. Congress in Northern Virginia. He is the author of "Government is the Problem." For more of his reports, Go Here Now.