Shortly after the Pentagon announced that U.S. forces conducted an airstrike killing one of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard top general a divided reaction from Capitol Hill flooded the media, with Republicans praising the move, while Democrats warning of unintended consequences.
The Defense Department announced earlier that an airstrike near Baghdad International Airport killed General Qasem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force.
Soleimani was the commander of the elite Quds Force, a special forces brigade within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps responsible for Iran’s extraterritorial military operations.
“Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region” and was “responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more,” the Pentagon stated.
Allies of President Donald Trump quickly praised the operation, saying the killing sent a strong message to Iran and could be a strong deterrent to Iranian proxies in Iraq.
“Wow – the price of killing and injuring Americans has just gone up drastically. Major blow to the Iranian regime that has American blood on its hands. Soleimani was one of the most ruthless and vicious members of the Ayatollah’s regime. He had American blood on his hands,” Republican Senator. Lindsey Graham said in a series of tweets.
“The defensive actions the U.S. has taken against #Iran & its proxies are consistent with clear warnings they have received. They chose to ignore these warnings because they believed @POTUS was constrained from acting by our domestic political divisions. They badly miscalculated,” added Senator. Marco Rubio.
However, according to The Hill, the strike against Soleimani, which also killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of an Iran-backed militia in Iraq, could lead to further escalations in an already deteriorating situation in the Middle East.
Democrats warned that the killing of Tehran’s top general could push Iran to retaliate and destabilize the Middle East even further.
“[Qassem Soleimani] was an enemy of the United States with American blood on his hands. But the question we’ve grappled with for years in Iraq was how to kill more terrorists than we create. That’s an open question tonight as we await Iran’s reaction to Donald Trump’s escalation, which could ignite a regional war, with still no strategy from the Administration,” said Rep. Seth Moulton, who is also an Iraq War veteran.
Other Democrats pointed out that Trump did not have the authority to order the strike without congressional approval.
“Soleimani was an enemy of the United States. That’s not a question,” Senator Chris Murphy tweeted. “The question is this — as reports suggest, did America just assassinate, without any congressional authorization, the second most powerful person in Iran, knowingly setting off a potential massive regional war?”
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