RUSH: Folks, I’m gonna go back and do some just quick hits on some flashbacks here because remember a lot of – it’s not the sole explanation, but much of the reason for the Democrats and the left just jumping all over Trump for doing this and making it look like they feel bad for Iran. They’re literally siding with a genuine enemy of the United States, all because they hate Trump. But don’t forget, one of the driving reasons here is protection of the Obama legacy. Do not discount this.
You know, much like a lot of conservatives will come to Reagan’s defense every time he’s assaulted, maligned, impugned, it’s the same thing with Democrats and Obama. One of Obama’s signature policies was this deal with Iran which, remember, one of Obama’s purposes here was to make Iran an even bigger power in the Middle East because Obama and his type believe that Israel, as the dominant power in the Middle East, is a destabilizing force because, once again, the United States is not the good guys, our allies are not the good guys, Israel’s not the good guys.
As a superpower, what are we? We are discriminating bigots. We’re discriminating racists. We’re discriminating homophobes or whatever the cliches are. As the gigantic superpower, we cannot be good. We cannot be benevolent. Everybody smaller than we is a victim. So the Iranians are victims, and Obama wanted to build ’em back up in his convoluted view of stabilizing the region.
Victor Davis Hanson as a great piece that came out, it’s either today or over the break, that because we have become oil independent, we’ve become energy independent, the Middle East is no longer this giant necessity that it once was, at least to us in a strategic sense. It remains so in an allied sense. But we don’t need to play nice, and we don’t need to bend over, grab the ankles because we need their oil anymore is the point. It’s a big point.
So just a couple of things here. First off from a website called Arab News: “Soleimani’s Death Leaves Iran’s Strategy in Tatters.” Now, this goes back to the last hour, Snerdley asked me, “Hey, this guy that’s replacing the dead guy, do we need to be worried about him?” No, this guy is who’s worried about us. This guy knows he’s being tracked by every tracking device our government has. This guy knows he is under constant surveillance. He knows that any act he takes that causes any harm to Americans puts a mark on him. This guy knows that he cannot run around in secret, in private like Qassem Soleimani could not. Let me give you a couple of pull quotes from the story.
“The killing of Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi paramilitary leader Abu-Mahdi Al-Muhandis changes everything. With one fell blow Trump has taken out the two dominant figures exporting Iranian militancy across the region.”
What about the mullahs, Rush? Of course, the mullahs are the figureheads here, they give the ultimate orders, but the mullahs remain hidden, protected, shielded. These guys were out actually leading and formulating strategery and all this. It’s a big, big deal. And look at any team. Take out the head of the team, the rest of the snake dies. It’s true here.
Another pull quote. “It was Soleimani who forcefully advocated and spearheaded the policy of bogging the US down in the bloody Iraqi quagmire by building a new generation of paramilitary forces which staged thousands of attacks against coalition troops, killing around 600.
Yeah, that’s right, we wanted to arrest him. Following that we were gonna indict him. Like we had an arrest warrant out for Osama. It’s not the way you deal with these people.
Another pull quote. “As arguably the second-most powerful Iranian after Khamenei -” that’s one of the mullahs “– nobody can fit into Soleimani’s outsized shoes. His designated successor as commander of the Quds Force, Esmael Ghani, is a much lower-profile figure who will lack his late boss’ encyclopedic network of personal contacts and knowledge of a generation of Iranian militancy.”
This is like the practice squad quarterback being thrown into the game, folks. “Should we be afraid of the guy, Mr. Limbaugh?” No. I don’t mean you ignore, but there’s no reason to be on defense here. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God. We’re feeling so — We attacked, we attacked. Oh, my God. We’re gonna get wiped out.” It’s not the attitude that we have.
Final pull quote. “By killing Soleimani, the US has decapitated the principal agent of Tehran’s strategy for regional hegemony, bringing an end to a long phase of Tehran-branded militancy dominated by the Quds Force commander personally. No other global terrorist boasts Soleimani’s longevity in overseeing thousands of paramilitary and terrorist attacks over at least four decades.
“He lived by the sword and died a fitting death. His passing should not be mourned. We are in uncharted territory. How Tehran’s regime chooses to respond in the coming days … will have reverberations in the region for years to come.” That’s Arab News.
Now let’s do some flashbacks, shall we? I have here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers a story from the Hudson Institute, Hudson.org. July 14, 2015. It’s by Lee Smith. Do you know who Lee Smith is? Lee Smith wrote one of the definitive books that broke down the coup run against Donald Trump — Steele dossier, the Trump-Russia coup, all of it. Lee Smith is one of the… He worked very closely with Devin Nunes. There’s a bunch of people — Chuck Ross, a bunch of people — who did a lot of great work.
Lee Smith was among the top of the tier here in discovering what had happened with the FBI informants, the tricks they had played against Papadopoulos and so forth, the way they had spied on the Trump administration. That’s the author of this piece. Headline: “Obama Strikes a Deal with Qassem Soleimani — According to the terms of the Iran deal announced in Vienna on Tuesday, U.N. Security Council sanctions regarding nuclear-related issues will be lifted on a number of entities and individuals — from Iranian banks to Lebanese assassins…
“Obama made his preference for Iran and its allies clear — in Lebanon, Syria, and most obviously in Iraq where the White House ordered air strikes on ISIS positions that allowed various Iranian-backed outfits, under the leadership of Qassem Suleimani, to take Tikrit,” which is the hometown of Saddam Hussein, by the way. His name was Saddam Hussein al-Tikrit. It’s “from Tikrit.”
“The [Iran] deal is with the hard men of the regime, the extremists — the deal is with Qassem Suleimani. … [T]here can be no similar argument about buying and selling and smuggling arms since ending the embargo can only help the hardliners.” In other words, Lee Smith’s piece here from July 14, 2015, spells out the Obama nuclear deal was with this guy, that he was one of the leading Iranian officials in the deal who benefited both personally and professionally.
From the UK Telegraph. The date of this story is July 15, 2015. “Obama’s Iran Deal Has Just Granted an Amnesty to the World’s Leading Terrorist Mastermind,” Qassem Soleimani. The Obama administration and this guy were thick. They were associates. He was the central figure in the Iran deal. “As head of the Quds Force in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Qassem Suleimani is widely regarded as one of the world’s leading terrorists. Now Barack Obama has effectively granted him an amnesty,” by doing the Iran deal.
Look, folks, you can doubt me all you want, but it was Obama himself that began talking about how the United States was in a necessary era of decline, economically and otherwise. It was time to pay the piper, time to pay dues. We had benefited, become a superpower — maybe in some unjust ways. And that’s what the Democrats and the American left of today have now decided they have to protect.
If they let the Obama legacy get properly defined and if it ends up in tatters, what have they got? They’ve got very little as it is now because the Obama legacy as far as average Americans are concerned is blowing up and destroying health care, a putrid economy, and a promise that it was not gonna get better.
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