The holidays have passed and we are into 2020. All of the days off from work for the holidays, coupled with the bad weather, disrupted our routines. It was a great time to reconnect with family and attend to those tasks that we have let slide.
I don’t find the end of the year solely celebratory. My mind wanders off in consideration of what has been good and lucky in my life, the blessings of family, friends and work, and what I could do better in the future. My reaction to this time of year is very much the same as the Judaic tradition demands surrounding the high holy days of the Jewish new year of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, when habitual behaviors are suspended to be replaced by introspection and reflection.
And so, this column won’t be a review of the highs and lows of 2019, I won’t be picking winners and losers of the last year, and predictions for 2020 are well beyond me, though I can say with certainty that the Patriots will not be winning the Super Bowl this year.
With shocking abruptness, we have been confronted by the American military’s killing by drone of the Iranian General Qassem Soleimani. The new year is suddenly tainted with uncertainty and apprehension. I find it hard to put this in perspective, no matter how much punditry I read.
He was the leader of the Iranian Quds Force, Iran’s special forces in charge of international covert operations that has operated throughout the Middle East and Afghanistan. It is listed by the U.S. Department of Treasury as a terrorist organization. Soleimani and his unit are held responsible for thousands of deaths throughout the region, and it is estimated that this branch of the Iranian military is responsible for almost 17% of the fatalities among American troops in Iraq, or over 600 Americans killed.
Most recently, the death of the American contractor in Iraq by rocket attack was attributed to a proxy group of the Quds Force, as was the subsequent ransacking of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. The Pentagon asserts that Soleimani’s assassination was triggered by intelligence that he was “actively developing plans to attack US diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region.”
I hope that this intelligence was credible.
Soleimani led a trail of lethal subversion against Americans and American interests. Nonetheless, the assassination of a high-level Iranian official who reported directly to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei pushes up on an act of war with a sovereign state. A differing perspective on this is that perhaps we should call a spade a spade, and that the attacks on American military personnel and our embassy by this branch of the Iranian government indicate that we were already at war.
Now we wait for the other shoe to drop; what will be the response of the Iranian government? We could see attacks on our military assets in the region, attacks on diplomatic personnel, action against naval or commercial shipping, or possible cyber assaults on American interests. There is the worry of subsequent escalation.
There could be Iranian restraint comparable to the aftermath Ronald Reagan’s bombing of Libya in 1986. At that time, the CIA determined that several bombings at European airports and a bombing at a nightclub in Germany that killed an American serviceman were traced to Libyan agents working out of the Libyan embassy in East Germany.
President Reagan directed bombing attacks against Libya in response, and one of the targets was the home of the Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi. The subversive activities of the Libyan government subsequently ceased.
All of this begs the bigger question, which is why is our military still in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan? There are bad actors in the region, such as the Taliban, Iran and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but there are bad actors in other parts of the world as well.
Our country seems to have this instinct to intervene militarily when regional instability threatens even nonessential American interests. The Chinese have not yet acted in a similar manner, and yet have growing diplomatic influence around the globe. The Russians do engage in some international military adventurism, but they seem to have learned a lesson from their failure in Afghanistan that we seem not to have learned from our experience in Vietnam.
There are alternative lessons to be taken from our military interventions in Korea, Vietnam and Iraq. The Korean people continue to express their appreciation of our involvement in the Korean War as it allowed their country to develop into a vibrant democratic economy. Some historians argue that the Korean War also protected a developing Japan and Taiwan.
In a similar fashion, conversations we had when we were in Thailand informed us that the Thais are grateful that American involvement in Vietnam stemmed the tide of communist aggression in Southeast Asia, which allowed them modern development. The Philippines similarly was given breathing room to suppress a communist insurgency.
It can be argued that our invasion in Iraq and the establishment of a Middle Eastern democracy triggered the Arab Spring with democratic movements in Tunisia, Libya, Syria and Iran. Unfortunately, most of these were not successful.
So I remain deeply ambivalent about our continued involvement in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, and certainly with the act of killing Soleimani. The Korean and Vietnam wars have left us a string of powerful and appreciative allies in Asia. Perhaps our involvement in the Middle East will leave us a similar set of allies such as Israel, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Maybe we will pressure a revolution in Iran. Or perhaps we should get out of there now. Let’s talk about it in 30 years.
Happy New Year.
Jay Fleitman, MD, of Northampton writes a monthly column. He can be reach ed at columnists@gazettenet.com.