It's not exactly comforting to remember that the carnage of World War I began with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who was next in line for the Austria-Hungary throne. Last week's assassination of General Qassim Soleimani — widely assumed to be an Iranian heir presumptive — is even worse, because it wasn't committed by a single deranged person, but by a nation-state.
OTOH, maybe it was by a single deranged person: Donald Trump.
We cats can hardly believe that a reality TV show host, who failed at real estate, casinos, wine, steaks, airlines, magazines, universities, etc., etc. has gotten the United States to this point. We knew Benedict Donald would be terrible, but this bad? Goodness gracious. (Of course, we assume that all the Trump boys and the chickenhawk neocons and FOX "News" warmongers will rush to enlist now — right?)
But whatever happens these next few days and weeks, please don't doubt that this killing was an assassination. Soleimani was one of the biggest pooh-bahs in the Iranian government, comparable to a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or, to aptly compare bad guy to bad guy, Dick Cheney. And even now, the US is not at war with the country of Iran. So let's have none of this semantic hand-wringing. This is an assassination — potentially the most consequential one in the Middle East since Yizhak Rabin's in 1995.
It has been reported that both George W. Bush and Barack Obama weighed the idea of taking out Soleimani but rejected it as too risky. One or both of them needs to speak up now, because in the words of Eleanor Roosevelt, this is no ordinary time. We cats HISS.
P.S. While Trump is killing people and starting wars, Australia is still on fire and needs help. Here's another organization that's working hard to save the koalas. Thanks for your support!
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