In June, Donald Trump said he had abandoned reprisal strikes on Iran at the last minute after the destruction of an American drone. On Thursday, January 2, the hand of the President of the United States did not shake this time. In a statement issued shortly before 10 p.m. (4 a.m. Friday, Paris time), the Pentagon announced that the bombing that claimed the life of the head of the Al-Quds Forces, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Special Forces, Ghassem Soleimani, had been led "By order of the president".
"The US military has taken decisive defensive measures to protect US personnel abroad by killing Ghassem Soleimani", the statement said, while Donald Trump was happy to publish a flag of the United States on his Twitter account. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif Denounced "An extremely dangerous and reckless escalation".
https://t.co/VXeKiVzpTf
“The rules of the game have therefore changed”
Earlier today, Defense Secretary Mark Esper commented on the escalating tensions in Iraq, which resulted in the brief siege of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad by pro-Iraqi militias. -Iranian, Tuesday and Wednesday, in response to first American strikes. "We've been seeing this for two or three months now He said of the rocket attacks that had targeted American positions.
"So if that happens, then we will act, and by the way, if we receive information about attacks or some type of indication, we will also take preventive measures, to protect American forces, to protect american lives, had assured the secretary of defense. The rules of the game have therefore changed and we are ready to do whatever is necessary to defend our personnel, our interests and our partners in the region. "
Thursday's statement says that "General Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and military in Iraq and throughout the region" and that he was responsible "The deaths of hundreds of members of the American armed forces and of the coalition and thousands of wounded", after the 2003 American invasion.
In spite of four decades of tension, sometimes very strong, the United States had never attacked head-on, before Thursday, an Iranian military official of the stature of Ghassem Soleimani. His authority far exceeded his rank of two-star general. It symbolized for more than a decade the Iranian axis patiently put in place in the region in favor of the troubles of the Middle East, from the collapse of the Iraqi Baathist state to the Syrian civil war, which have each time given the Iranian regime a free hand, much to the chagrin of the Arab powers in the Gulf allied with Washington.
